Dutton to slash APS numbers to pay for his Medicare promise

Peter Dutton has confirmed how he will pay for his $9 billion investment in the health system if he becomes prime minister – gut the public service.

While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hasn’t unveiled where he will find the money for his $8.5 billion boost to Medicare, the Opposition Leader has got his plan all figured out.

“We have looked at how we can fund this and how we can prudently provide this sum of money,” Mr Dutton told reporters on Monday (24 February).

“It’s a lot of money, but we’ve identified, as you know, the scaling back of the public service – which has grown phenomenally under the Labor Party.

“Thirty-six thousand additional public servants, that’s at a cost of $6 billion a year or $24 billion over the forward estimates.

“This program totals $9 billion over that period, so we’ve well and truly identified the savings.”

Pressed further on his costing plans, the Opposition Leader went to great lengths to explain how Labor governments “always put additional public servants on”.

“Not because it provides more efficient processes; it’s because it pleases the unions,” he said.

“But it comes at a huge cost – and these 36,000 public servants who are in Canberra, I’m sure, are good people, well-intentioned – but it brings the number of public servants to over 209,000.

“Now that’s at a rate much quicker – in terms of the growth – than what the Rudd-Gillard years provided, and we have a definite plan to deliver efficiency … As I say, the government’s put on an additional 36,000 public servants. We will reduce that number and the savings there will be about $6 billion a year. That’s the advice that we have, so $24 billion of savings over the four-year forward estimates period.

“This policy is $9 billion over that forward estimate period, so there’s obviously a much bigger save that we’ve identified, and the $9 billion not only is accounted for, but we’ve got a productivity gain because I just don’t think more and more layers of approval and bureaucratic process out of Canberra is helping anyone.”

What the Coalition leader didn’t say, however, is that the bulk of the extra 36,000 public servants employed are not located in Canberra but dispersed around the country.

And Labor hired them in a bid to turn back a decade of outsourcing by the former Coalition government.

In the last few years before Labor took office, outsourcing was costing $20.8 billion a year for a shadow workforce of consultants and labour hire.

The 36,000 jobs Labor has brought on since winning office in 2022 are largely frontline services, which Mr Dutton had previously said he wouldn’t cut.

A breakdown, according to government figures, of some of the new APS employees include 5700 jobs across Defence, Home Affairs, DFAT, AFP, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the Australian Submarine Agency; 4000 jobs in Services Australia; 3600 jobs in NDIA; 3000 jobs in the ATO; 1300 jobs in DAFF; 1000 jobs in DVA; 550 jobs in the Aged Care Quality & Safety Commission; 550 jobs in the NDIS Quality & Safety Commission.

Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher said the Coalition would not be able to slash 36,000 APS jobs without massively reducing frontline services.

“You can’t cut $6 billion from public services every year without cutting the services that Australians rely on, like the aged pension, Centrelink and Medicare,” Senator Gallagher said.

“No matter what Peter Dutton says, it will never change the fact that cutting 20 per cent of the APS will mean a return to worse services, expensive consultants and the era of Robodebt.”

Anthony Albanese has unveiled an $8.5 billion over four years plan to boost Medicare and make sure nine out of 10 visits to a GP will be totally bulk-billed and free from out-of-pocket expenses by 2030.

The Prime Minister promised 18 million extra bulk-billed GP visits per year, 400 nursing scholarships and 2000 new GP trainees a year by 2028.

The Coalition immediately promised to match Labor’s Medicare spend and even rolled out its own $9 billion health commitment in response.

Mr Dutton said he would direct funding towards more access to free GP visits, with another $500 million to mental health services and training.