The Coalition spectacularly reversed its policy to restrict work from home arrangements and sack 41,000 government employees, walking away from plans to make major changes to the public service.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has admitted he “made a mistake” and “got it wrong” with the unpopular plan, backing down on the signature policy and raising questions about how the Coalition will pay for major election promises it said it would fund with savings from cutting the public service.
Instead of removing 41,000 workers, the Coalition says it will now rely on natural attrition – or workers quitting their jobs – to reduce the public service.
“We’re listening to what people have to say. We’ve made a mistake in relation to the policy. We apologise for that,” Dutton told Channel Nine.
But Anthony Albanese rubbished the Coalition announcement, claiming “nobody believes Peter Dutton has changed his mind on work from home”.
“He will rip up flexible work and slash the services you rely on the minute he gets the chance,” the prime minister said.
The Coalition had long promised to cull extra public service positions added by Labor since the 2022 election; Dutton had referred to those new positions as “wasteful spending”, repeatedly calling the extra public servants “Canberra-based” even though three-quarters were outside the nation’s capital. The opposition had provided conflicting and contradictory messages on how many would be cut, and Dutton had refused to say whether the reductions would come via redundancies or natural attrition.
Labor had warned that major reductions to the public service could see welfare recipients and veterans forced to wait weeks or months for payments to be processed; Dutton had promised “frontline” positions would be spared, but hinted education and health department staff could be in the firing line.
At the same time, the shadow public service minister, Jane Hume, said just four weeks ago that the Coalition would seek to pare back work-from-home arrangements for the public service, saying in a major speech that it would be “an expectation of a Dutton Liberal government that all members of the APS work from the office five days a week”. Hume’s speech said only work-from-home arrangements that “work for the employee’s department, their team, and the individual” would be permitted.
But in a major backdown, the Coalition announced on Monday that it would not change current flexible working arrangements, that there would be no mandated minimum number of days in the office, and that the policies would be enshrined in future workplace agreements.
The Coalition also clarified that it would “sensibly reduce” the APS by 41,000 positions over five years, through a hiring freeze and natural attrition, with a commitment to no forced redundancies.
“We have listened, and understand that flexible work, including working from home, is part of getting the best out of any workforce,” Hume said on Monday.
The backdown comes after Labor had raised concerns that the Coalition stance, though limited to government workers, may affect working from home arrangements for all workers, as the private sector could take influence from the public sector in setting future workplace policies. Polling and political research found the work from home changes were also unpopular among women and working families who have come to rely on flexible work arrangements.
Dutton accused Labor of a “scare campaign” in raising concerns about the work from home changes.
The opposition leader had previously suggested his plan to cut the public service would raise $24bn over four years, and committed part of those savings to finance his promise to match the government’s Medicare $8.5bn policy.
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It is unclear how much money the Coalition would save by ruling out redundancies to reduce the APS. Data from the Australian Public Service Commission shows about 11,000 employees servants annually leaving the public service in each of the last three years.
Dutton claimed the Coalition had modelling from the parliamentary budget office on his public service cuts, which he would not release on Monday. He denied Monday’s announcement would change the costings, saying “it was always the plan”.
The public service minister, Katy Gallagher, said she was “cynical” about the announcement.
“They’ve been campaigning against additional investment in the public service for the last term. They’ve argued every investment we’ve put. They’ve called it wasteful, rebuilding the public service, they’ve said it’s wasteful. And working from home, they said they wanted to abolish it and frog march everyone back to the office,” she told ABC radio.
“So, two weeks into an election campaign after years of campaigning against it, I just don’t believe them.”