Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that:

(a) an effective public service relies on skilled public servants who have fair and equitable conditions of employment and job security;

(b) the Government's arbitrary average staffing level (ASL) policy is:

(i) driving privatisation as it forces agencies to outsource their core functions;

(ii) causing a blowout in spending on contractors, consultants and labour hire; and

(iii) leading to a hollowing out of the public service; and

(c) evidence to the Australian Public Service (APS) Review indicates that contractors cost 40 per cent more than permanent APS employees;

(2) notes that:

(a) the Australian National Audit Office Information Report No. 19 of 2017-18, Australian Government Procurement Contract Reporting, indicates that in 2016-17:

(i) Government spending on consultants was close to $700 million, up from around $380 million in 2013; and

(ii) "the big four" had 1,617 consultancy contracts worth $502.1 million since 2012-13;

(b) more than $400 million has been spent on privatising Department of Human Services call centres, including a $135 million contract for Stellar Asia Pacific, $132 million to Concentrix Services, $120 million to Datacom Connect and $36 million to Serco Citizen Services;

(c) the National Disability Insurance Agency:

(i) recorded a 600 per cent increase in consultants and contractors over two years—from $70 million in 2016 to $430 million in 2018; and

(ii) has previously stated its staffing levels would be 10,595 staff in 2018-2019—this is now capped at 3,230 in the 2019-20 budget with core functions such as local area coordinators outsourced; and

(d) the Government's billion dollar plan to privatise Australia's visa system will lead to increased visa costs, data and national security risks and job losses; and

(3) calls on the Government to:

(a) abolish the arbitrary and damaging ASL policy;

(b) ensure that workers doing the same job get the same pay to stop the use of labour hire from undermining the pay and conditions of existing workers; and

(c) end the secrecy on government spending on contractors, consultants and labour hire firms.

I am very pleased to be able to raise in the parliament this evening this important issue about the Australian Public Service, particularly at a time when we are starting to put our minds towards what sort of country it is that we want to build for the future in our nation in this post-COVID-19 world. COVID-19 has demonstrated that, when the will is there, big changes can in fact be made, and that this can happen very quickly. It's also demonstrated the importance of a strong, responsive public service.

Let's be clear, the Australian Public Service, or the APS, is a world-class body, staffed by professional men and women that have delivered unparalleled quality, expertise and value for money to Australians for decades. But, rather than recognising the value of this accumulated expertise and experience, this government has set about tearing it down, piece by piece, through a sneaky campaign of privatisation by stealth. A plan to shrink the size and capacity of the Public Service and to transfer work to the private sector has been underway for some time. Just think about the ill-fated attempt to privatise the visa system, which saw Liberal Party donor Scott Briggs lead a bid to run a $1 billion system. If this had proceeded, it would have imposed an immense risk to our national security and undermine sovereignty around our borders.

But there are other less obvious things that this government does every day to undermine and fundamentally weaken the APS. They are things like driving down pay and conditions, slashing permanent contracts and replacing them with casual ones, and forcing public servants to go without pay rises for years. All of this demonstrates the grave lack of respect the government holds for APS workers. It makes people think twice about taking up or indeed staying in APS jobs.

Another severely damaging practice has been staffing caps—unrealistic and arbitrary limits that the government has placed on how many public servants can be hired, regardless of actual need. Of course, this hasn't reduced spending, because the work still needs to be done. Now agencies are just being forced to outsource their core functions to the private sector instead of building in-house experience. This has seen government spending on consultants climb at a breathtaking rate. For example, the NDIS alone registered a 600 per cent increase in consultants and contractors in only two years. This is staggering. With spending on the big four consultancy firms nearly tripling under the Liberals, it is no wonder that the Australian Financial Review ran a story in May last year titled, 'Consultants breathe a sigh of relief over coalition victory.'

We've seen a similarly damaging explosion in the number of labour hire workers employed, as agencies have had to go to the private sector for staff to fulfil their basic responsibilities to the Australian people. Indeed, the Auditor-General has revealed that the Liberals have spent over $2 billion on outside contractors since they came to power. Just let that sink in for a moment: $2 billion on outside contractors. Again, far from saving money, this puts a heavy impost on the budget, with evidence to the APS review indicating that contractors actually cost 40 per cent more than permanent employees, despite being paid less. The difference, of course, goes directly to the bottom lines of private labour hire companies. We have also seen great swathes of the public service carved off and handed over to private companies to run, companies like the multinational Serco, which is best known as an operator of prisons and detention centres. What is less known is that they are the official employer of more than 10,000 APS workers.

If there is anything we've learned after the years of failed neo-liberalism experiment, it's that privatisation almost never works. All it delivers to the APS is buckling, conflicted services, ballooning deficits, a rapidly shrinking base of in-house knowledge and experience, and a country that is increasingly beholden to private companies.

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