Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Further to my last statement, I would like to highlight the human cost of the decision to integrate AusAID and DFAT. I know from my own experience, after losing my job in 1996 after the Howard Public Service cuts, what the human cost is actually like. Many of the graduates have moved to Canberra with their partners, husbands, wives and families, at great cost. Many of the graduates have knocked back graduate positions in other government agencies. Many of the graduates and their partners have resigned from their jobs to move to Canberra, and many of the graduates have no jobs as they turn the corner of 2013 into 2014.

I accept, as do most Canberrans, that machinery-of-government changes are part of living in Canberra, that they are the prerogative of a new government. What I do not accept is that these changes are being carried out under a cloak of secrecy. Public servants have lost their job security. The least this government could do is provide them with clarity and detail.

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