ACT Independent Senator David Pocock said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton should immediately walk back his commitment to crash the ACT economy by cutting 41,000 public service jobs in Canberra.
Mr Dutton confirmed to reporters at a press conference this morning that all 41,000 of the Coalition’s proposed public service job cuts would come from Canberra.
Senator Pocock said the Coalition’s plan would cripple the Australian Public Service (APS) and tip the ACT economy into a deep recession.
“The Coalition’s Canberra-bashing and ideological attack on public servants who can’t even speak up in their own defence has to stop,” Senator Pocock said.
“The numbers don’t even stack up, you can’t cut 41,000 public servants from Canberra without touching defence, intelligence and frontline services, and still run the country effectively, it simply isn’t possible.
“Using previous modelling undertaken by the ACT Government, cutting that many public servants would also mean a fall in the ACT’s gross state product of some $5.6 billion, a 10% fall from current levels, plunging the ACT into a deep recession.
“The Coalition is being completely reckless not just with the livelihoods of 41,000 public servants but also the economic wellbeing of more than 450,000 people who call Canberra home.”
According to the APSC, 68,435 public servants are currently based in Canberra, meaning the Coalition would be cutting 60 per cent of jobs.
As at 30 June last year there were some 4,352 in Services Australia, 654 in Veterans Affairs, 386 in the NDIA, 8,906 in Defence, 3,014 in the ASD, 5,305 in Home Affairs as well as an unspecified number in other Intelligence Agencies (including ASIS, ASIO etc). This totals more than 22,617 people. The Coalition's cut of 41,000 would leave 27,435 public servants in - so excluding these “frontline” services would leave less than 5,000 public servants in every other department and agency based in Canberra.