Tony Abbott risks breaking his promise to the Australian Capital Territory by flagging further job cuts in the public service, the ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, said.
On Monday the finance minister announced that eight public service departments would join the departments of health and education in undertaking “functional reviews” to identify efficiency savings.
Mathias Cormann side-stepped the question of how many jobs would be lost by the measures, which are expected to be announced in Tuesday’s federal budget.
More than 16,500 jobs have been shed since the Coalition came to power, 8,500 of them from Canberra.
In March, when asked about whether the worst of the job cuts was over, Abbott said: “I don’t think anyone should expect major changes, because there have been some significant downsizings already.”
Barr sought an assurance from Abbott at the Council of Australian Governments (Coag) meeting last month that no more public sector jobs would go.
“Like every Australian, I expect the prime minister to keep his word,” Barr said. “Canberra has been through enough. Thousands and thousands of jobs have been lost or transferred elsewhere. The city has done more than our fair share.”
The Community and Public Sector union (CPSU) said that the public sector had suffered its third straight year of funding cuts, and negotiations over wages and conditions had caused workers to take industrial action at an unprecedented level.
“The Abbott government’s position is more draconian than any major private sector employer in Australia,” said the secretary of the CPSU, Nadine Flood. “They are gutting the public service and the community will pay the price.”
The Labor member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, said Monday’s announcement amounted to a broken promise.
“Coalition governments have a shameful track record of using the public service as political pawns,” Brodtmann said in a statement with fellow ACT MP Andrew Leigh and ACT senator Katy Gallagher.
“The Abbott government has complete contempt for the public service and Canberra.”
The new Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, said his party was “hugely concerned” to hear reports that more cuts would be made to the sector.
“We actually have a very efficient public service in this country and there’s hardly any fat left in the system,” he said.
