Dutton plan to cut public service won't save money
Dutton plan to cut public service won't save money | Australian Greens Skip to main content Search Get Involved Join Donate Our plan Tax the 1% Tackle the cost of living Healthcare for all Fix the housing crisis Strong climate action Policy principles & aims Our team Federal MPs State/territory MPs Officeholders Media releases Take action Volunteer Donate Issues & campaigns Events Greens Shop Leave a bequest Our movement About the Greens Become a member Jobs Green Magazine All news Get Involved Join Donate Search Our plan Toggle Tax the 1% Tackle the cost of living Healthcare for all Fix the housing crisis Strong climate action Policy principles & aims Our team Toggle Federal MPs State/territory MPs Officeholders Media releases Take action Toggle Volunteer Donate Issues & campaigns Events Greens Shop Leave a bequest Our movement Toggle About the Greens Become a member Jobs Green Magazine All news Dutton plan to cut public service won't save money 2025-02-17 Dutton clueless on APS cuts Peter Dutton’s determination to undo efforts to rebuild the Australian Public Service (APS) by slashing jobs will end up costing the nation more according to the Greens spokesperson on Finance and the Public Service, Senator Barbara Pocock.
New analysis commissioned by the Greens suggests that money spent on outsourcing work to the private sector costs more than three times as much as having the work done in-house. Lines attributable to Senator Barbara Pocock: “Our analysis shows the government could have hired 179,832 public servants with the $20.8 billion that was spent on external labour in the last year of the Morrison Government.
That massive spend only created 54,000 jobs in the private sector. You don’t need an economics degree to work out where to get the best value for money. It’s clearly in the public sector.
“These figures demonstrate that outsourcing public sector work has cost Australian taxpayers more than three times as much doing that work in-house. If Dutton is on an efficiency drive, he should be hiring more public servants. “Peter Dutton is peddling a myth about a bloated public service.
If you look at the APS headcount as a percentage of the labour force it has actually gone down over the past decade from 1.53% in 2012 to 1.36% in June last year. “The public service has been hollowed out over the Coalition years. What we need now is not further denigration of the APS by a Musk-like razor gang, but to rebuild capacity to allow all of that core work, outsourced at great expense under Morrison, to be done more cheaply, more reliably and with more accountability by a well-resourced public service.
“Dutton has gone out of his way to characterise commonwealth public servants as Canberra-based and also claimed all of the positions added in the past 3 years have been in Canberra. This defies reality as only a third of the current headcount are in the ACT. There are over 60,000 federal public servants in NSW and Victoria alone; 24,000 in Queensland; nearly 13,000 in South Australia and more than 22,000 in regional Australia.
“The APS is far from Canberra centric. However, the Coalition strategy hinges on casting a well-staffed Canberra based bureaucracy as somehow being bad for the business of government. The opposite is actually true.
All those dedicated APS workers in the state and territory capitals and out in the regions, rely on a strong and responsive back-of-house workforce in Canberra. “This demonisation of the Canberra bureaucrats by Dutton, shows a failure to understand how the public service actually works. This is dangerous stuff coming from an alternative Prime Minister.
What’s at stake is the quality of service that all Australians rely on in their dealings with government. “If the leader of the opposition is not willing to name which jobs will go under a Coalition government, which state capitals will lose their workforce, which regional centres will lose more staff, perhaps it’s because he hasn’t got a clue.” Facebook for the Australian Greens YouTube for the Australian Greens X for the Australian Greens Instagram for the Australian Greens Bluesky for the Australian Greens Privacy Members website Your safety Contact us Our plan Tax the 1% Tackle the cost of living Healthcare for all Fix the housing crisis Strong climate action In your language 2025 policy platform Policy principles & aims Our team Federal MPs State/territory MPs Officeholders Federal portfolios Federal media releases Take action Volunteer Donate Issues & campaigns Upcoming events Greens Shop Leave a bequest Green Magazine All news Our movement About the Greens Become a member Jobs Members website State/territory parties Contact us The Greens acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.
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