Government does a 'slash and burn' on the Opposition over APS jobs

The Coalition has handed the Federal Government a free kick by questioning the value of extra public servants detailed in the last budget.

The government said about a third of the 10,000 new Australian Public Service jobs highlighted in the May budget were to replace contractors.

But this week, the Opposition’s newly appointed assistant shadow minister with responsibility for government waste reduction, James Stevens, dared to raise the issue.

Despite saying he wanted to ask questions of the government about the 10,000 jobs – not to get rid of them – the comment allowed Labor to remind everyone of the Coalition’s track record in attacking the public service.

Government ministers have lined up this week to label Mr Stevens as the shadow minister for “slash and burn”.

“If we’re talking about the public service … it’s always the area where, particularly the Liberal Party, think they can slash and burn,” Public Service Minster Katy Gallagher told ABC radio.

“I’ve just spent nearly two years trying to deal with the decimated public service that we inherited and putting it on a much more sustainable footing.

“And I think… the former government, the Coalition, haven’t learned anything about why you need a public service and why you need to make sure it’s adequately resourced.”

Senator Gallagher said the Coalition was “being ideological” and “lazy” by immediately linking waste to the public service.

And she pointed to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton having referred to “wasteful” public service jobs.

“What you need is a public service that can deliver the services the Australian community expects, and accept that it is an important institution in our democratic system,” she said.

“When you look at the jobs where there has been jobs growth… it’s in departments like Vets’ Affairs, the NDIA, Centrelink, Home Affairs, Defence. All those front-facing, big areas where there is a level of frontline service delivery.

“And we inherited quite a mess in all of those areas, and we’ve been trying to rebalance that and move away from expensive consultants and external labour hire.

“We converted 3000, or just over 3000, labour hire positions in the last budget to permanent public servant roles and we saved nearly a billion dollars.

“It was $810 million that was saved by that simple conversion. So yes, we need to look at efficiencies, but we need to make sure and we need to be realistic about the resourcing and the important role the APS plays and the value we place on those jobs.

“And certainly here in Canberra, it’s important for our local economy.”

When asked if it wasn’t a reasonable expectation for the Coalition to ask about the extra 10,000 public service jobs, the minister seized the opportunity for a further swipe.

“All of that information is published in public documents. So, I don’t see there’s any reason why an Opposition that’s doing their work wouldn’t be able to understand that,” she said.

On Thursday (21 March), Assistant Minister for the Public Service Patrick Gorman also delighted in throwing the Opposition’s words back at them.

“We’ve seen the new frontbench from the Coalition and I was very interested to see the comments yesterday from, who I would say is the ‘shadow minister for slash and burn the public service’ who is now saying they want to axe 10,000 public servants,” Mr Gorman said.

“That’s the only actual policy idea we’ve seen put forward by the Coalition this week … a plan to axe 10,000 public servants.

“Making the pension queues longer, going back to the bad old days of huge delays in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which was what we inherited when we came to office.

“Going back to the bad old days of Robodebt, where you’ve got machines – not people – deciding on important things for the Australian public when they’re applying for payments from Centrelink.

“And I think it is very concerning that we saw this week, Peter Dutton’s new frontbench, putting out plans to slash 10,000 public servants.

“People who are our family, friends and neighbours, people who serve the Australian people. But at least we’ve actually seen some detail from them.”