The finance minister has vowed to continue slashing the government’s use of consultants and rebuilding the public service if re-elected, while accusing the Coalition of importing a Doge-style agenda from the US.
In an effort to highlight the public service as a key campaign issue, Katy Gallagher said Labor had inherited an agriculture department that was “going broke”, a “bin fire” at home affairs, a social services department with no internal policy unit and “total disasters” in aged care and veterans’ affairs agencies.
The Coalition has vowed to reduce the public service by 41,000 roles if elected, via a hiring freeze, attrition and voluntary redundancies. So far, Peter Dutton has ruled out reductions in frontline staff and critical agencies – including those that contribute to national security – but has side-stepped questions about how many voluntary redundancies may be required.
Gallagher said the 41,000 jobs created during Labor’s first term were necessary to “stop the failures” in certain departments and ensure they delivered for Australians. Simultaneous cuts to consultants – particularly from the so-called big four firms – increased in response to scandals including PwC Australia’s misuse of confidential Treasury information.
“We think there is more opportunity to reduce reliance on consultants and contractors,” Gallagher told Guardian Australia. “As we’ve built up capacity internally, we expect to see a commensurate decline in reliance on external expertise.
“The next phase has to be rebuilding departments. I really think that in the next term of government, the focus will be on driving cultural change.”
Gallagher said that over the past decade, the public service had been too often reliant on external consultants to deal with challenging policy problems or difficult questions.
“I think there is greater opportunity to make departments rely on themselves,” Gallagher said. “On big, important questions, we should be building a workforce that answers those itself.”
Guardian Australia has reported on consultancy firms with established links to fossil fuel companies being paid $1.6m to “inform” and “guide” energy and climate policy. Similar firms have been paid to shape health policy.
Gallagher would not put a figure on how many more consultants would be cut from departments if Labor is re-elected, but said there was an intention to do so when appropriate.
“We’ll be receiving the Australian public service audit of employment … that is going to give us the best assessment of what has happened in departments since we turned the tap off and started reinvesting,” Gallagher said.
Labor has generated almost $5bn in savings across its first term by slashing its use of consultants. Some of that work has gone toward a new government-owned consultancy firm that can assist departments in need of specialist advice.
Gallagher said she would push for the internal unit to be expanded if Labor is re-elected.
“I’ve got a strong belief in it,” Gallagher said. “But I have to argue that case. The early indication is it’s actually been well utilised by other departments including in determining whether or not they actually need to use external labour.”
Gallagher also said recent comments made by the Coalition’s shadow minister for government efficiency, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, indicated she would “run Doge through the whole public service” if elected.
On Saturday, Price told supporters she wanted to “make Australia great again” – a political war cry popularised by Donald Trump – while standing alongside Dutton.
Price was appointed to lead a government efficiency unit if the Coalition is elected after 3 May. The unit, which would sit within the prime minister’s department, has been compared to one led by the tech billionaire Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, is taking a razor to US government departments.
When asked about her comments, Price accused the media of being obsessed with Trump and repeated her intention to hold an audit of government departments to identify where the 41,000 jobs should be reduced.
“I think that sends a pretty strong and chilling message to anyone working in a department about what’s coming their way,” Gallagher said.
Previous audits of employment, which examine the hiring practices of more than 100 government agencies, revealed the previous Coalition government spent $20.8bn outsourcing more than a third of public service operations.
