Coalition proposes ‘migrating' public servants to regions in last-minute tweak to plan to slash workforce
Voters might expect to have a clear understanding by now of how a Liberal-National government would manage the nation's public service. More than 7.5 million people have already cast a ballot ahead of Saturday's poll, and Peter Dutton's policy costings are public.
But in a final pitch to voters on Friday, the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, revealed a new element of the plan.
He said a Dutton government would 'migrate' workers as he confirmed the Coalition's cuts would be 'focused on Canberra'.
'Natural attrition happens everywhere, but we'll move people around appropriately to meet the needs of regional areas and frontline services,' Taylor said.
'We will migrate people around to make sure that we keep our numbers where they are in regional areas.'
Taylor released a final set of budget numbers on Thursday, including details on the Coalition plan to slash the federal workforce by 41,000 positions over five years.
Designed to achieve budget savings worth $17.2bn, the cuts would come from Canberra-based jobs and be delivered through a hiring freeze and natural attrition, with 5,000 vacant positions left unfilled.
The Coalition has said the cuts would exclude defence and security agencies, as well as 'frontline services'.
Dutton initially promised to immediately reverse 41,000 hirings but was forced to abandon that pledge following a backlash.
Labor and the Coalition do not agree on the starting figure for the size of the bureaucracy. The government cites Australian Public Service Commission figures showing about 70,000 employees nationally.
Taylor and Jane Hume, the opposition's public service spokesperson, use a figure of 110,000, taken from Australian Bureau of Statistics, which includes Defence personnel.
The suggestion of moving jobs out of Canberra is reminiscent of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government's decentralisation agenda, when a National party push saw public service jobs and agencies, including the agricultural and veterinary chemical regulator, relocated to regional areas.
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has suffered from serious cultural and workforce issues since being relocated to former minister Barnaby Joyce's electorate of New England in 2016.
Earlier this month, Joyce said the Coalition should restart decentralisation efforts if it won the election.
Asked about whether attrition from jobs in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide would fit into the Coalition's current plan, Taylor said services would be maintained 'outside of Canberra'.
Analysis by Guardian Australia shows the Coalition would not be able to downsize the public service without cutting frontline, defence and national security-related jobs.
APSC figures show 11,782 staff left the federal bureaucracy in 2024, with 6,665, or 57%, coming from the home affairs and defence departments, the Australian Taxation Office and Services Australia.
The majority of staff leaving each year come from frontline or essential jobs, in part because the four agencies make up 48% of the total workforce.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Friday repeated comparisons to former Queensland premier Campbell Newman's government. About 14,000 public servants were sacked in the state between 2012 and 2015.
Labor believes Newman's tumultuous one term in office remains toxic in the minds of voters.
Taylor on Friday insisted the Coalition's plan had been clear from the start.
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