Alison Barrett writes:
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to cut 41,000 Canberra-based public servants has been slammed over concerns it will have a detrimental impact on health and equity in Australia, as well as on the development and implementation of future policies.
Dr Connie Musolino, Research Fellow at Stretton Health Equity at The University of Adelaide, told Croakey that the cuts are concerning for their “potential impacts on the social, economic, and commercial determinants of health and equity in a number of ways”.
She said that one of the central themes to come from the Stretton Institute’s research into the growth in social and health equities in Australia since the 1980s/1990s is that federal, state and territory cuts to the public service have reduced Australia’s capacity to respond to economic and social challenges.
The influence of neoliberalism and managerialism on government policy and governance has resulted in work being outsourced to private consultancy, which has “resulted in a deskilling of public servants”, including on policy making, the giving of frank and fearless advice to Ministers, and the undermining of expertise, according to their research.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull echoed concerns about deskilling the public sector at the National Press Club this week. “We need to ensure that the APS [Australian Public Service] is efficient, that…competent people are retained, and incompetent ones are…eased out… you cannot afford to deskill the public service,” he said.
The concerns come following Dutton’s announcement in his budget reply last week that if elected in this year’s election, the Coalition “will reverse Labor’s increase of 41,000 Canberra-based public servants – saving $7 billion a year”.
Dutton guaranteed frontline service delivery roles will not be cut, adding “we will continue to invest in essential services and critical areas of the economy – like health, aged care, veterans’ support, the NDIS, Indigenous affairs, childcare and defence”.
He and other members of the Coalition have not been forthcoming with any more details on the cuts to the public sector.
When pressed on the matter at a National Press Club address this week, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor said the focus of the job cuts will be on Canberra-based public servant jobs in non-frontline services, and on attrition.
“The important point about this is the public service has got so big under Labor that the attrition numbers are high now,” Taylor said.
Musolino told Croakey they have also spoken to long-term public servants in Canberra in the Health Department who have said that following the election of the Albanese Government, in 2022, they were given more resources and support to begin to rebuild the capacity of the public sector.
“It is very disappointing to hear that this is now under threat,” Musolino said.
Broader funding cuts
Karl Briscoe, CEO of the National Association of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners and Chair of the National Indigenous Health Leadership Alliance (NIHLA), told Croakey that for NIHLA members and the broader health sector, the main concern [from the public service job cuts] is whether these cuts signal a broader reduction in funding or support.
“The fight to be heard and fully included in policy development and workforce planning has always been challenging – and this move risks making that even harder,” he said.
Briscoe said the implications of a cut of 41,000 public servants will depend heavily on where those cuts land.
“If frontline staff in service delivery agencies like Centrelink or Services Australia are affected, it would be disastrous for communities relying on timely and accessible support,” he said.
“On the other hand, if the cuts target policy areas, the impact is harder to judge – though it’s worth noting that many in the sector view the bureaucracy itself as a barrier to genuine reform, particularly in achieving the Closing the Gap targets.”
Croakey notes that the planned cuts are particularly concerning given the Coalition’s plan to audit all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs, which implies specific job cuts.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, opposition spokesperson for Indigenous affairs and Shadow Minister for Government Efficiency, told NITV Radio this week that because “nothing seems to be changing year in, year out” on Closing the Gap, the Opposition “called for an audit of the funds that are being spent in the Indigenous Affairs space to determine where the outcomes actually exist and where they’re failing”.
Disruptive
Charles Maskell-Knight, Croakey Health Media member and a former senior public servant in the Commonwealth Department of Health for more than 25 years, said that while cutting Australian Public Sector numbers back to 2022-23 levels will be “disruptive and incredibly damaging for morale”, he doubts that it will have “any real impact on future health policy”.
He said the increase in average staffing levels since 2022-23 “has not been associated with an increase in the delivery and implementation of new policies”. He pointed to the long, and growing, list of policy recommendations from various reviews and committees that have yet to be actioned.
“The only significant new health delivery initiative of the last three years has been Urgent Care Clinics,” he told Croakey. “Other major policy initiatives have involved tweaking existing program parameters or expanding grant programs, which should not be labour intensive as far as the Department is concerned.”
He added that many consultation processes in the Department of Health are outsourced.
However, Maskell-Knight said that reducing the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission’s to staffing levels of three years ago “will greatly affect its ability to perform its functions effectively”.
The Commission “has been struggling to exercise strong regulatory oversight and it now faces the challenge of a new regulatory framework”.
Supporting those in need
Alison Verhoeven, health policy expert and a director of Croakey Health Media, said that “41,000 fewer public servants mean fewer frontline staff to process Centrelink and Veterans’ Affairs claims”.
It will also result in less support for communities in need of urgent financial assistance during emergencies such as the recent floods in Queensland and New South Wales, resulting in “unreasonably long wait times”, Verhoeven said.
Similar concerns on the impacts to emergency response were raised recently by Greg Mullins AO AFSM at a La Trobe Ideas and Society public lecture.
According to Verhoeven, the public service cuts will also mean fewer people to undertake the necessary policy development and implementation work that is the core business of government.
She added that the work will continue, but by “more expensive consultants”.
“It’s a glib political catchcry designed to appeal to voters who distrust government to suggest that the Australian economy will somehow magically be better off by removing 41,000 public servants. We deserve more considered thinking and better policy from those seeking the highest political office,” Verhoeven said.
Professor Sharon Friel, ARC Laureate Fellow and Professor of Health Equity at the Australian National University, told Croakey that “an empowered public service is vital to the long-term sustainability of effective and efficient policy”.
“These are the people who live and breathe the making and doing of public policy, and of giving free and frank political advice,” she said.
Without a fully functioning bureaucracy, which is based on principles of inclusion, fairness and in pursuit of the public interests, and with the necessary technical knowledge and expertise, the backbone of a sustainable, healthy and equitable society will have been removed, Friel said.
People with Disability Australia said in a statement the plans to cut 41,000 jobs from the public sector will threaten implementation of reforms to the NDIS.
“Weakening the administrative state means weakening the systems people with disability depend on,” they wrote.
PWDA President Trinity Ford added the organisation remain concerned that cuts to the NDIS remain on the table under the Coalition.
“The NDIS needs guaranteed, long-term funding and must be recognised as an essential service. The constant political uncertainty undermines its ability to deliver the outcomes people with disability and our friends and family deserve,” Ford said.
Trump effect
Dr Lesley Russell, Croakey Health Media member and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney, said: “Dutton’s proposal to cut some 40,000 people from the APS workforce is channelling either Donald Trump or Scott Morrison – and neither approach bodes well for efficient and effective government.”
In a doorstop interview yesterday, Dutton said: “I want to make sure that we are spending money on frontline services, not on back-office operations and we’ve been very clear about that.”
But he would not comment on exactly what cuts he would make to the public service.
Russell said this suggests he may have learned the lessons from the Robodebt scandal that Morrison failed to heed. “Australians rely on frontline government services and when these fail, it is the most vulnerable that suffer most.”
But, she added, it also indicates that he has given little thought to how and where cuts would be made.
“He seems doomed to repeat the slash with an axe approach of DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency, in the US] and Trump rather than any analytical and surgical approach to government workforce numbers and ‘waste’”, Russell said.
In his dismissal of the value of back-office operations, Dutton is downgrading the importance and value of in-house government expertise in policy making and program development and management, according to Russell.
“Presumably he would emulate the Morrison Government where such important work was handed out – at huge economic cost – to private sector consultancies.”
In the 2021-2022 financial year, the previous Coalition Government spent $20.8 billion outsourcing more than a third of public service operations; in this time frame the equivalent of nearly 54,000 full-time staff were employed as consultants or service providers for the federal government, according to Russell.
“I worry that a Dutton-led Coalition Government would undermine the integrity of the APS and the good work done by the current government on APS reforms,” Russell said.
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