The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has warned that Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s revised plan to cut public services would have a “devastating and uneven impact across the public sector”.
Dutton said if he wins on May 3 he will cut the public sector 3.5 times more than former Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott did in 2013.
After being criticised for its promises to cut 36,000 public service jobs, the Coalition rephrased, saying it would shrink the public service by 41,000 jobs within five years by “natural attrition”.
“A freeze on filling public service roles for five years is likely to exceed the 41,000 already on the chopping block,” the on April 7. It described this as a “reckless” decision that would "hollow out essential services" and leave millions worse off.
Based on agency attrition rates, the CPSU said: Services Australia would lose 12,500 jobs (42% of staff over 5 years); the Department of Veterans Affairs would lose almost 1000 jobs (27% of staff over 5 years); and the National Disability Insurance Authority would lose 2070 jobs (21% over 5 years).
Australian Public Service Commission figures show 11,782 staff left the service last year: 6665 (57%) came from the home affairs and defence departments, the Australian Taxation Office and Services Australia.
CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly said: “Cutting public services by attrition … are uncontrolled, uneven cuts that will hurt the public sector and have a disproportionate impact on frontline services.”
She said it “could lead to public sector cuts that are significantly higher than 41,000”.
Should the Coalition win, Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price will lead Australia’s version of the United States Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is slashing government jobs. She recently revealed that Australia’s DOGE would sit in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and investigate cuts for the wider public service.
Price is known to support US President Donald Trump, telling a media conference that the Coalition wants to “make Australia great again”.
Meanwhile, a new report by the Menzies Research Centre, a Liberal-aligned think tank, is urging the on public sector cuts. It wants a Coalition government to audit the 200,000+ federal workforce “to determine the efficient level of resourcing required to deliver services and programs of similar scale and complexity”.
claims that there is “considerable support” from the public to “lower costs” and cites Trump and British Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer as drivers of “efficiency”.
It calls for a minimum six-month hiring freeze, with limited exemptions and the Department of Defence to be made immune. Natural attrition in the workforce would continue, it said, with about 5500 expected to exit the public service in that period.
Socialist Alliance NSW Senate candidate Peter Boyle told 91̳ that, regardless of the Coalition’s final job cut figures, a Peter Dutton-led government would be a “disaster for the public sector and services as a whole”.
He said Australia needs a “radical expansion of the public sector”, including social welfare, public housing, health and education and protection of the natural environment. “This would be the only way to plan the urgent transition to a job-rich, sustainable public energy plan, with a well-educated community.”
Boyle said a vote for Socialist Alliance is “a vote in favour of the public sector”.