Labor hits back at Coalition threat to public service
2 December 2024 |
PSnews.com.au

Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher says Peter Dutton will slash the APS and diminish services for the community.

The public service is set to become a hot election issue, with the Opposition ramping up its rhetoric over the size of the service – and the Federal Government being quick to call it out.

Opposition frontbenchers are increasingly using speeches and media opportunities to suggest a Coalition government will slash public service numbers, with a sharp escalation of such commentary notices in recent weeks.   :(

Since the Federal Budget was delivered in May, the Coalition has attacked Labor’s spend on public servants, noting the budget provided for 36,000 new public sector jobs over the forward estimates.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton used his budget in reply to label public sector jobs as a misplaced priority.

Since then, his shadow ministers have been on the attack, making no secret of their plan to cut the public service.

“You’ve got to ask yourself, do we need 36,000 more public servants?” Mr Dutton told the recent Minerals Council gala dinner.

Nationals leader David Littleproud has also been pushing the cause.

“That is our first step. The Nationals have made it clear that we will get rid of those in Canberra,” he said in a media interview.

“There will be 36,000 public servants that will go. We don’t need more public servants.”   :(

And in a separate interview: “The first thing we’ll do is sack those 36,000 public servants in Canberra, that’s $24 billion worth.”



When Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction, James Stevens, was asked during a radio interview last month if the Coalition had the “mettle to follow through” in sacking public servants, he replied: “Well, that’s part of my job.”

Shadow for the Public Service, Jane Hume, also has some words of warning for the public service.

“Of course, there’s going to be a reassessment of the size of the public service,” she said in a recent media interview.

And previously, in an address to the Sydney Institute: “My concern, I think, with the 36,000 public servants is, well, there’s lots of concerns … Canberra has enough bureaucrats as it is.”

Cutting 36,000 public service jobs amounts to roughly 20 per cent of the workforce.   :(

And despite it being an easy Canberra-bash for the Coalition, the fact is that a majority of the workforce is located outside of the capital.

Of the new public service jobs being created, almost three-quarters are in other states and territories across the country.

Labor is now using the threat of public service job losses to break down what the Coalition’s agenda could mean at an agency level – and what impact job losses would have on the public.

The government’s list insists the Opposition’s plan for the public service will mean 4000 jobs cut in Services Australia – delaying payments call wait times – and 1000 jobs cut in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, leaving veterans with less support. 

Additionally, there would be 3000 jobs cut in the Australian Tax Office; 3600 jobs cut in the National Disability Insurance Agency; 2700 jobs cut in Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water; 1300 jobs cut in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; and 4000 jobs cut in Defence, the Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Federal Police.

In a concerted effort over the weekend, government ministers have ramped up their campaign to highlight the Coalition’s plans for the public service.



Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher said: “All Australians should be worried about what Peter Dutton will do to the public service if he gets into office.

“He’ll cut 20 per cent of the workforce that is responsible for delivering the essential services that Australians rely on every day.

“Despite what the Liberals will say, these are not just jobs in Canberra. These are staff in Services Australia, ATO and NDIA in places like Geelong, Townsville and the Central Coast that will face the axe.

“This is all part of Dutton’s plan for $315 billion in cuts to vital services such as Medicare, pensions and housing at a time when people are already feeling the pinch.

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

She was backed up by Assistant Minister for the Public Service Patrick Gorman, who claimed “Peter Dutton’s cuts” to the APS will hit every community in Australia. 

“The Liberals and Nationals want longer wait times in Services Australia centres in regional communities, and they will send 36,000 people in cities across Australia into unemployment queues,” he said.

“You only need to watch their behaviour in Senate Estimates to know that they do not respect the Australian Public Service and have failed to acknowledge what a mess they left behind after 10 years in power.

“Public servants are our neighbours, family and friends, and their jobs should not be collateral damage in Peter Dutton’s quest for power.”   :(

Quote:

Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service

People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that.

Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests.

Well said Dnarever, then they wonder why people join unions, go figure.   :(

Same old story -
Labor employs huge numbers of public servants and the Liberals sack huge numbers.

Dnarever wrote on Jan 18^th, 2025 at 2:03pm:

Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests.

I too think that’s a very good post.

I often have the opportunity via my own work to view the public service at work. I have been absolutely astonished to find office blocks of workers diligently responding to each other’s emails ( even on the same floor ) for 8 hours a day.

Achieving absolutely nothing more than a email trail they can show to justify their positions.

The public service is a self spawning beast.
Employ 1 and the manager will need to employ 1 to handle the correspondence from the initial 1 employed asking for more staff as they cannot cope with the workload of writing emails asking for more staff as well as writing pointless emails as the job demands.

It just grows and grows.

They need to cut this  evil beast head off.

Daves2017 wrote on Jan 19^th, 2025 at 6:29pm:

Dnarever wrote on Jan 18th, 2025 at 2:03pm: Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests. I too think that’s a very good post. I often have the opportunity via my own work to view the public service at work. I have been absolutely astonished to find office blocks of workers diligently responding to each other’s emails ( even on the same floor ) for 8 hours a day. Achieving absolutely nothing more than a email trail they can show to justify their positions. The public service is a self spawning beast. Employ 1 and the manager will need to employ 1 to handle the correspondence from the initial 1 employed asking for more staff as they cannot cope with the workload of writing emails asking for more staff as well as writing pointless emails as the job demands. It just grows and grows. They need to cut this  evil beast head off.

yes - an old story -

In India - the Govt found a way to create more public service jobs -

to get a driver's license you had to apply for a form to fill out to apply for a drivers license.
That extra step created 10s of 1000s of new public service jobs
and increased the fee that the public had to pay.

Dnarever wrote on Jan 18^th, 2025 at 2:03pm:

Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests.

You don't seriously believe that garbage, do you?

Armchair_Politician wrote on Jan 21^st, 2025 at 9:19am:

Dnarever wrote on Jan 18th, 2025 at 2:03pm: Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests. You don't seriously believe that garbage, do you?

It's true. Libs have proven it time and time again. They say otherwise, but their actions ALWAYS end up proving this correct.

Daves2017 wrote on Jan 19^th, 2025 at 6:29pm:

Dnarever wrote on Jan 18th, 2025 at 2:03pm: Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests. I too think that’s a very good post. I often have the opportunity via my own work to view the public service at work. I have been absolutely astonished to find office blocks of workers diligently responding to each other’s emails ( even on the same floor ) for 8 hours a day. Achieving absolutely nothing more than a email trail they can show to justify their positions. The public service is a self spawning beast. Employ 1 and the manager will need to employ 1 to handle the correspondence from the initial 1 employed asking for more staff as they cannot cope with the workload of writing emails asking for more staff as well as writing pointless emails as the job demands. It just grows and grows. They need to cut this  evil beast head off.

I have worked about 25% public and 75% private. I found the Public employment to be more productive harder working and less corrupt on the whole.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Jan 21^st, 2025 at 9:19am:

Dnarever wrote on Jan 18th, 2025 at 2:03pm: Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests. You don't seriously believe that garbage, do you?

The current Liberal platform has a whole section on what they will do for business.

There is no section on what they will do for people or workers.

In fact most of what they want to do for business is what they are doing to workers.They don't hide it very well.

This part of their current platform:

Tax cuts for business (unfunded) - is mostly paid for by workers.

Strong anti union rules - targeted against workers

Industrial relations reform - (remember workchoices).

Reintroduce the disgraceful Australian Building and Construction Commission. (Anti worker)

Deliver cheaper, cleaner and consistent energy, through - and zero-emissions nuclear. (2050?)

Reduce the tax burden on business expenditure .... (Who do you think will pay for this) ?

competition policy for small businesses...... (nothing says more competitive than lower wages and worse working conditions).

This is who the Liberals are - its in their DNA. The Liberals are the party for Big Business, all the initiatives that support business the most harm workers and the community.

Backlogs and waiting lists are already at streaching point in the Public Service....The Coalition will gut services that are ulready under stress....Privatization and contractors will be how Dutton sells out Australian's!!!

>:( >:( >:(

The front line public servants, those dealing directly with the public, in the main do a good job. However they are often hamstrung by the Byzantine processes put in place by the excessively heavy levels of management above them.  The people in these positions are often reluctant to make decisions and so try to avoid this at all costs. These are the ones that spawn like cane toads and should be culled.

Dnarever wrote on Jan 21^st, 2025 at 10:47am:

Daves2017 wrote on Jan 19th, 2025 at 6:29pm: Dnarever wrote on Jan 18th, 2025 at 2:03pm: Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests. I too think that’s a very good post. I often have the opportunity via my own work to view the public service at work. I have been absolutely astonished to find office blocks of workers diligently responding to each other’s emails ( even on the same floor ) for 8 hours a day. Achieving absolutely nothing more than a email trail they can show to justify their positions. The public service is a self spawning beast. Employ 1 and the manager will need to employ 1 to handle the correspondence from the initial 1 employed asking for more staff as they cannot cope with the workload of writing emails asking for more staff as well as writing pointless emails as the job demands. It just grows and grows. They need to cut this  evil beast head off. I have worked about 25% public and 75% private. I found the Public employment to be more productive harder working and less corrupt on the whole.

I find the people who actually deal with clients or answer the phones are without doubt
Working well.
It’s once you see the middle managers and upper management you will find a high rise block of people again working very hard and attending meetings and involve in committees that are completely out of there control or scope of practice but filling their day in without doing anything vaguely useful!

And they are on six figure wages!?!

TBH I know exactly what your talking about in the private sector.
Far from once I have been encouraged by the a private sector manager to inflate a quote and be guaranteed the job if I split the scam with him.

This happens almost every time it’s a government paid privatised task.

I know people who retired simply from making their workforce do nothing when building the infrastructure for the Gold Coast commonwealth games.

When pushed by government why it wouldn’t be ready in time they just named their price and government paid.

Good old Peter Beattie.

A sucker born every minute!

Elon Musk fired 80% of Twitter staff after he bought it.

X runs well i wonder what the 80% he fired actually did.

We could fire 80% of our public servants and the country would still run just fine.

We could start with abolishing the esafety Karen and her department who have lost every court case against Elon Musk. This would save us millions every year.

Dnarever wrote on Jan 18^th, 2025 at 2:03pm:

Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests.

Sadly for this Poor Fellow - My Country - that also applies to Labor and the rest these days.  They are all Champagne Neo-Fascist Neo-feudal Neo-Conservative Socialists these days paying lip service to service to people and country.

Having worked in the CPS I had a team of three.   Above me was someone who handled four including my three... above him someone who handled not much since those lower did it all ... above him was another who did the sitzkrieg all day just observing the room, then again and again.... the Boss of the enclosure was in an office all of his own - behind the infamous glass wall - and I can only wonder what he actually did to fill in his days.... two ranks above me the money was excellent... and I was just short of AWE at the time.....

As a man of action in from the cold - I never want to be that cold again, I promised myself, coming to the office in a really warm hooded jacket, Arctic Mk I - I found it near impossible to handle the slow pace... champed at the bit - and bit a few of them..... still do ....  lot of people get paid in the PS to 'co-ordinate' stuff that just happens anyway..... it's called 'empire building' ...

Dnarever wrote on Jan 21^st, 2025 at 11:16am:

Armchair_Politician wrote on Jan 21st, 2025 at 9:19am: Dnarever wrote on Jan 18th, 2025 at 2:03pm: Quote: Worried What Dutton Will Do To The Public Service People voting for any coalition government don't care about what happens to workers, any workers. Makes the concern a moot point. Vote Liberal this is what you get, simple as that. Any worker voting liberal is voting against their own best interests, their family's best interests and especially their children's best interests. You don't seriously believe that garbage, do you? The current Liberal platform has a whole section on what they will do for business. There is no section on what they will do for people or workers. In fact most of what they want to do for business is what they are doing to workers.They don't hide it very well. This part of their current platform: Tax cuts for business (unfunded) - is mostly paid for by workers. Strong anti union rules - targeted against workers Industrial relations reform - (remember workchoices). Reintroduce the disgraceful Australian Building and Construction Commission. (Anti worker) Deliver cheaper, cleaner and consistent energy, through - and zero-emissions nuclear. (2050?) Reduce the tax burden on business expenditure .... (Who do you think will pay for this) ? competition policy for small businesses...... (nothing says more competitive than lower wages and worse working conditions). This is who the Liberals are - its in their DNA. The Liberals are the party for Big Business, all the initiatives that support business the most harm workers and the community.

So much wrong with what you said, but regarding the highlighted part, who do you think employs people? If businesses aren't strong, do you think people will have a job for long?