Josh Butler
Spending plans remain murky with the Coalition leader having suggested at least three different ways that the ‘savings’ could be used
Peter Dutton’s murky and contradictory plans to slash the public service got a little clearer this week, as he appeared to suggest he wanted to cut essentially all the new public servants Labor has employed since coming to office, and use the savings to pay for Medicare boosts.
But this is at least the third way Dutton has pledged to redirect “savings” from the public service, raising questions about how he would pay for various promises.
The opposition leader has also not confirmed whether his plan would mean mass redundancies, or whether a Coalition government would simply wait for “natural attrition” as staff gradually quit, as one of his senior ministers has previously said. Nor has he said whether he would plug holes in key portfolios, such as veterans affairs and the NDIS, with more expensive labour hire or consultants, as previous Coalition governments have done.
Let’s unpack it.
Dutton’s Coalition has long pledged to take some action on the new public servants Labor has added to the Australian Public Service (APS). Labor has maintained its growth in the public service is largely in positions previously outsourced to higher-paid outside consultants or labour hire by former governments.
As Guardian Australia has extensively reported, there have been weeks of contradictory statements from senior shadow ministers about how many positions the Coalition would cut if it won government.
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, last year said all 36,000 “will go”, but then this month said: “We’re not gonna have to cut hardly any of them.”
The shadow finance minister, Jane Hume, suggested “natural attrition” would be a primary driver of reductions. The shadow minister for government efficiency, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, told The Australian the Coalition “won’t be cutting” the public service workforce but would “halt” new growth, then later claimed there would be “sensible reductions” to the APS.
Dutton has suggested a focus on axing diversity and inclusion positions along with “change managers” and “internal communication specialists”, but those positions represent only small numbers of APS workers.
The shadow minister Bridget McKenzie told Sky News on Tuesday “there is a lot of fat” in the APS, but declined to say where it would be trimmed.
In a press conference earlier this month, Dutton would not say whether the cuts would come via redundancy, natural attrition or a hiring freeze.
Despite the confusion and coyness on exactly how the Coalition would reduce the APS and which workers would be targeted, Dutton suggested on Monday his plan would raise $24bn over four years. The opposition leader said those savings would finance his promise to match the government’s $8.5bn Medicare policy.
The government minister Murray Watt said on Tuesday “that amounts to pretty much every job that we have put on in the last three years in the public service – 36,000 of those jobs”.
Dutton has said the Coalition would not cut “frontline” positions, suggesting newly employed workers in critical areas such as veterans’ support may be safe, but that the Coalition could cut less essential workers in administrative roles.
Anthony Albanese on Tuesday claimed the plan would lead to “less people providing support for our veterans, less people providing the support that Australians need, perhaps more robodebt being brought back as well”.
Dutton said he would use the “savings” from slashing the APS to pay for his pledge to match Labor’s $8.5bn boost to bulk billing incentives.
“[The Medicare announcement] is a lot of money, but we’ve identified as you know the scaling back of the public service … we’ve well and truly identified the savings.”
But this is at least the third idea Dutton has committed his APS savings to fund.
In his 2024 budget reply speech, Dutton noted the 36,000 public servants and the $24bn cost over four years, saying: “The Coalition sees areas like Defence as much more of a priority than office staff in Canberra … We will reprioritise Canberra-centric funding and make an additional investment in Defence to rapidly enhance the capability of our men and women in uniform.”
In a Sky News interview last week, Dutton was asked about his plans to cut the public service, and responded: “[The savings] could be used for paying off debt. It can be used to reduce inflationary pressure in the economy. There are different uses for it and we would weigh all of that up and we’ll be very honest about where we see those priorities.”
Of the anticipated $24bn saving from APS job cuts, only $9bn was committed to his health promises, theoretically leaving $15bn to play with … but Dutton has not outlined exactly how he would split up the savings.
The “savings” from the policy would also be affected if a Coalition government returned to previous strategies of paying for more expensive labour hire workers or consultants to do jobs previously done by public servants.
Albanese claimed the APS would be replaced by consultants “working for one of the big four accounting firms, earning two or three times as much, working half as hard and putting the bill to taxpayers”.
The Community and Public Sector Union has previously accused Dutton of a “lack of understanding of modern workplaces” with his plan to slash the APS.
The Australian Council of Social Service called it “grave cause for concern”, raising alarm at potential cuts to support for people on income support, the NDIS or aged care through Services Australia and Centrelink.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions warned it risked “growing claim backlogs at Services Australia, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the ATO which could delay essential payments and weaken tax avoidance efforts”.
Dutton has said repeatedly that he would outline his planned cuts and changes at an appropriate time. But in an Insiders interview earlier this month, he suggested that much of the Coalition’s plans may only be finalised “through an ERC [expenditure review committee] process … We’ll do that in government.”
In the course of the coming election campaign period, Dutton will be repeatedly asked where and how he will cut 36,000 jobs around the country, and how it would affect the provision of vital public services. So far, he has barely offered even a hint of an answer.