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

As predicted, Canberra and the ACT region are bearing the brunt of the government's harsh and sweeping Public Service job cuts. The Abbott government has overseen 272 redundancies at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to date, three-quarters of which have been Canberra based. Half of the Department of Human Services' 254 post-election retrenchments have been from Canberra. Meanwhile the tax department is feeling the full force of the Abbott government's axe. It has been reported that up to 8,000 jobs may go in total. There have already been 1,140 redundancies in the last financial year and that figure is expected to be closer to 3,000 by October.

And what of the Abbott government's pre-election promise that every single Public Service job loss would be made through natural attrition—a promise that ACT Liberal Senator Seselja spouted on an almost daily basis in the lead-up to the election? Like most of this government's pre-election promises, it is not worth the paper it was written on. We know that there have been at least 70 forced redundancies at the Australian Valuation Office and many more at tax, which has opted for a 'spill and fill' method of shedding jobs.

Mr Taylor interjecting—

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