SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER
MINISTER FINANCE
MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE
CANBERRA TIMES
Remember the last time a liberal PM gutted the APS? The job cuts were just the beginning
Canberra-bashing is page one of the Coalition campaign playbook for Australian elections.
That's not a new concept, but Peter Dutton's promise to slash the size of government by 36,000 people and reduce workplace entitlements like the flexibility to work from home and the "right to disconnect" is taking this approach to a whole new level.
On a local level, make no mistake, cutting 36,000 APS jobs would devastate Canberra and our local economy, but it would impact every community across Australia.
We know they plan to cut deep here, and our city faces the real prospect of another recession like we saw in the 1990s when John Howard slashed public service jobs.
As many Canberrans will remember, it wasn't just job losses that our city faced; businesses closed, and property values crashed.
Rather than stand up for our town, though, Peter Dutton's local candidates have gone out to peddle a fantasy that cutting 36,000 public service positions could be achieved through "natural attrition". Let's be clear that for a number that big, no amount of natural attrition is going to cut it. People will be sacked.
If you need any further convincing of this fact just last week as communities across south-east Queensland and northern NSW stared down the face of a cyclone, the opposition's emergency management spokesperson wouldn't rule out job cuts from the National Emergency Management Agency - even in the middle of an emergency.
But job cuts are just the beginning.
Last week the Liberal spokeswoman for the APS, Jane Hume, belled the cat on what the opposition will do to flexible working arrangements and the right to disconnect if elected.
In an opinion piece, she confirmed that the Coalition would force public servants back to the office five days a week.
This is even though we know that flexible work arrangements have been transformative for Australian families and 36 per cent of workers across the economy regularly work from home.
As Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood recently pointed out, "We have seen, in the last two years, the increase in women working full-time is bigger than the 40 years prior."
Women's workforce participation has risen from 60 per cent pre-COVID to 63 per cent today, with hybrid work arrangements providing a sweet spot for productivity.
And when confronted with the fact that his back-to-office mandate would disproportionately harm women, Mr Dutton's response was shockingly out of touch.
"There are plenty of opportunities around job sharing," he declared - on the same day that the Workplace Gender Equality Agency released data showing that women still earn, on average, $28,000 a year less than men.
With eight dismissive words, the man who wants to be our next prime minister revealed his 1950s vision for working women: reduce your hours, scale back your ambitions, and accept a smaller paycheque.
And then there's the Coalition's plan to scrap the right to disconnect - an important protection that allows people to balance their work and personal lives.
Something that we in the Albanese government is proud of. But the Coalition want that gone too - for the public servants they don't sack, the rest will be on call, effectively all hours of the day and night.
The opposition wants you to believe that these job cuts are about getting rid of "waste" - but their record exposes this claim for what it truly is. The architects of robodebt, with their obsession for a "small" public service, have never actually saved money - they simply shifted costs to a shadow workforce of expensive contractors and consultants, costing taxpayers billions.
Our approach, in stark contrast, is to invest in permanent public service positions which have delivered $4 billion in savings whilst, at the same time, strengthening national security and improving all the services all Australians rely on.
There is a choice this election, between a government that values the public service and understands its essential role in our society, or an opposition with a reckless agenda that threatens to gut essential services, sack staff and force outdated workplace practices on Australian families.
The Albanese government will continue to ensure that public servants are valued, respected and that the Australian Public Service is resourced properly to deliver the quality services all Australians deserve - including right here in Canberra.
