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

I appreciate the kindness, Deputy Speaker! I am delighted to speak on the bill, the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023, before the House of Representatives this evening. It's a bill that makes amendments to the Public Service Act and is a really key part of the Albanese Labor government's reforms to the Australian Public Service and the big reform agenda that we have for the Public Service.

The Australian Public Service is vital to the running of our country. I am especially grateful to all public service sector employees for the work they do. There are literally millions of Australians that rely on the Public Service to ensure their lives are the very best they can be. They are delivering important programs in every city, every town and every region across Australia. It's an enormous task. Thousands of Novocastrians would interact with the APS each and every day, speaking to Centrelink officers on the phone or visiting the office, receiving subsidised medicines through the PBS, applying for passports, going into the Australian Taxation Office, the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the NDIS—each and every one of these agencies are employing exceptional Australian public servants.

The APS is keeping our borders safe. In my port city of Newcastle, the APS officers at Border Force are there being very vigilant in monitoring ships coming in and out of the Port of Newcastle. It is the busiest port on the eastern seaboard of Australia—23 ship movements each and every day, at least. There is a lot to keep an eye on there.

The veteran community in not just my electorate of Newcastle but my neighbouring electorates of Hunter, Shortland and Paterson are relying on the Department of Veterans' Affairs office, which is located next door to my office in Newcastle—as is the veterans counselling service Open Arms. All these people are dedicated to the delivery of really high-quality programs and services to our community. Every single one of the 151 members in this House is, I'm sure, deeply indebted to the service that is provided by Australian public servants.

My electorate knows too well just how important the public sector is. We also know how decimated it became under the former government, who reduced capability and who outsourced billions of dollars of work to consultants and contractors. That was deeply damaging for our Australian Public Service. It left the staff in electorate offices like mine—and I'm sure members opposite would now have to attest to the fact that it left staff in electorate offices everywhere in this country—having to really step up and fill the gaps where services were not being delivered. There was such a high level of unmet need because of the lack of staff in some of the government agencies around the country. Over the course of the last decade, people in Newcastle were really struggling to get the responses that they needed and deserved from a number of government agencies. That put a lot of pressure on staff in electorate offices to try to get the sort of response you need from Centrelink when you're seeking an urgent payment or from Veterans' Affairs as you're trying to progress an important claim through their channels.

At its heart, this bill—and indeed the Albanese Labor government's broader Australian Public Service reform agenda—is about restoring public trust and faith in government and its institutions. We know that that trust and faith have really plummeted. Some might even say they were at record lows. It is vital to the health of democracy, to the operation of parliaments, to have a really strong and robust Public Service. The reforms in the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023 will help strengthen the Australian Public Service's core purpose and values. They will help build the capability and the expertise again within the Australian Public Service and support good governance, accountability and transparency. These are really critical, important pillars that underpin the Australian Public Service. If the Public Service is not about good governance, accountability and transparency, then we have a problem—and indeed there is a problem, which we are trying to fix right now with this bill tonight.

The Albanese Labor government understands acutely the importance of training and upskilling the capacity of the Australian Public Service and ensuring that people feel motivated to stay in the sector so we're not just having a churn-through of public servants who are either burnt out because they're overworked and under-resourced, or they just don't feel valued and don't feel that their work is held in high regard sometimes. It's important that we turn that around right now. Coming from Newcastle, I understand, like any member coming from outside of a capital city understands, the value of keeping jobs in the regions. There are thousands of jobs in my electorate of Newcastle through the Australian Public Service. As I said, it's not just capital cities that get to benefit. Every one of our electorates has got deeply committed public servants operating and keeping the wheels turning in our communities.

That's why we in Newcastle are so excited to be launching a partnership with the University of Newcastle and the Australian Public Service to boost regional jobs and create really important digital opportunities. The University of Newcastle will be one of four locations around Australia to host an Australian Public Service Academy campus, as part of the Australian government's Data and Digital Cadet Programs. Newcastle's campus location will provide opportunities for students to earn as they learn, and we all know that's an important matter for many, many students now. They'll be able to work as an Australian Public Service employee while they are completing their bachelor degree program. Successful candidates will be offered a part-time role in the Public Service while they study, with a remuneration package of up to $60,000 per annum plus 15.4 per cent superannuation. What a wonderful opportunity for young Novacastrians. No longer do you have to leave Newcastle to train to be a quality public servant; you can now do that with this partnership with the University of Newcastle. You can get great on-the-job experience whilst doing so, but also, importantly, be remunerated for that work experience. We're not asking people to do unpaid internships here, and these are important matters for any Labor government.

We know that, like the private sector, the Australian Public Service is struggling to find enough people with those technical skills to fill the data and digital roles. The academy program is a significant partnership that is directly responding to the need to address a national skills shortage while also keeping workers in the Australian Public Service. And it means that Newcastle locals wanting a career change can upskill in data and digital roles within the Australian Public Service at one of the Newcastle university campuses. It allows Novocastrians to stay in Newcastle while taking part in training opportunities, and it will attract aspiring public servants to get the right skills to have the very best chance at jobs in the Australian Public Service while continuing to contribute to the Newcastle community. So, we'll be doing great things for our young and not so young Novocastrians who are looking for job changes. We'll also be attracting people to Newcastle from our region of the Hunter, ensuring they've got a great platform from which to be able to join the Australian Public Service and get skilled in some areas of great skills shortages for Australia.

In total there are 300 flexible data and digital training and entry-level employment opportunities that are going to be offered across Darwin, Newcastle, Launceston and Townsville. These are terrific opportunities for Australians. Some of the potential data and digital careers in the APS include data analysts and scientists, cybersecurity analysts, user researchers, software engineers, web developers, programmers and system designers. The Data Cadet Program will be open to Australian citizens who have completed at least one year of a bachelor's degree program and have at least one year remaining in that course. The Digital Cadetship Program will be open to Australian citizens who have completed at least one year of an ICT or technical bachelor degree and have at least one year of that program remaining.

I know that the University of Newcastle is very keen to welcome the minister when the cadet program does launch, and I will also be very excited to see that day. We all look forward to seeing how this program will be able to benefit workers, benefit the public sector and benefit the region as a whole. It's good for government, good for good governance, great for regional economies and really good for young people looking for a secure, purposeful job where they will be able to exercise influence and help shape what this nation looks like going forward.

The Public Service Amendment Bill that's before us this evening will strengthen the Australian Public Service's core purpose and values and build the capability and expertise of the APS by, as I said, supporting good governance, accountability and transparency. I cannot stress enough how important all of those measures are. It's a bill that will add a new Australian Public Service value of stewardship. It will require an Australian Public Service purpose statement so that nobody can be under any misapprehension as to what their purpose is in the Australian Public Service. It will make clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on employment matters. It will encourage decision-making at the lowest appropriate level, and this is important in distilling skills and confidence in our younger, emerging public servants. It will make regular capability reviews a requirement. It will require annual Australian Public Service employee census results to be published along with an action plan responding to the results, so people will see their feedback being delivered and see what actions are being taken. And this bill will also establish at least one long-term insight briefing each year. Many of the proposed changes align with the recommendations from the 2019 review.

This is an important part of the Albanese Labor government's reform agenda for the Australian Public Service. There is still much work to be done, but I cannot stress how important these jobs are for regions like mine. We will be doing absolutely everything we can to strengthen the APS and their capacity and capability in every town and city across Australia.

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