PM and Gallagher ramp up defence of APS jobs as election looms

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has raised fears the Coalition will slash public service numbers and return to an over-reliance on external contractors if it wins government this year.

The Prime Minister suggested it was a proven false economy, which cost taxpayers far more than it would by paying the salaries of employees of the Australian Public Service.

He said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan to do the same if he became prime minister was bad news for the country.

“Billions of dollars … was spent on consultancies by the Coalition,” Mr Albanese said.

“They seem to want to go back to consultancies rather than actually employ people who have that area of expertise.

“I tell you what – the people who put in the bills from those companies, they’re a lot higher than a permanent public servant.”

Since his Budget reply speech in May last year, Mr Dutton has attacked the government’s plan for 36,000 new public sector jobs over the forward estimates, saying he will cut them.

Many of Mr Dutton’s front bench have been repeating the threat to slash the public service if the Liberals win office.

Joining the PM on Monday (13 January), Finance and Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher said the Opposition was deliberately ignoring the fact that the public service “touches every Australian’s life one way or another”.

“Peter Dutton and his team want to go back to the era of Robodebt,” she said.

“Let’s not forget the public service that they had reduced to was going around hunting down Australian citizens for money that they didn’t owe the country.

“That’s the public service that we had under Peter Dutton when he was a senior minister.”

Senator Gallagher described Mr Dutton’s view of the public service as a “fairytale” and said Labor would campaign on it.

“We had 52,000 people on the books as a shadow workforce that weren’t reported through the normal channels, and that’s exactly what they will do again,” Senator Gallagher said.

“They have learnt nothing about how expensive it was, how services were reduced, how people waited too long, how some veterans died waiting for their applications to be considered.

“They don’t care about any of that because they just want to wander around pretending that they can sack public servants and deliver services. It’s ridiculous.”

Senator Gallagher is using this week to kickstart a national tour to make the case against the Coalition’s commitment to cut at least 36,000 jobs from the public service.

Tasmania is the first stop. Over the coming days and weeks, the Minister will visit a number of cities and regional centres around the nation that rely on the APS as an important local employer and for essential government services.

She will be making the point that when Mr Dutton says he’s going after public servants’ jobs, he’s not just talking about jobs in Canberra.

In the ACT, however, Labor claims the Coalition’s promise to slash the service would see about one-third of all Canberra-based APS employees go – that’s about 13,300 jobs.

“A strong, independent and capable APS is worth fighting for,” Senator Gallagher said.

“Regardless of whether it’s a city like Canberra – where over 13,000 local jobs will be on the chopping block – or regional communities that rely on strong frontline services, all Australians will suffer under Dutton’s plan to gut the APS.

“Here in Canberra, not only will it have directly devastating impacts on those who lose their job and their families, but cuts will also have a significant negative impact on the local economy and for the ACT businesses that rely on a strong public service.

“Rather than the lazy conservative cutting, we should be investing in a strong public service to deliver the services Australians need and deserve.”