James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to start by commending my coalition colleagues for some of the important issues they've raised in their contributions in the consideration in detail here, so I won't re-prosecute those important points that have already been made, but I certainly endorse them. I want to ask the minister a few questions about the increase in the size of the Public Service. I was quite surprised to see the dramatic growth in the number of public servants in the budget. It's a 36,000 increase to, I think, 209,000 public servants that are expected to be employed across the APS in the 2024-25 year. I'll clarify that absolutely does not include uniformed defence personnel. This, to my brief looking at the history of the Public Service, is the first time we've ever had more than 200,000 bureaucrats employed. I'm a strong supporter of a well-resourced Public Service that's independent, frank and fair, but I'm quite surprised that an increase of that size since we left office, more than 15 per cent, is justifiable or necessary.

I'd ask the minister to give us a breakdown of the justification for 36,000 additional public servants. Some lines have been used publicly that don't come anywhere near stacking up the justification for 36,000. There's this claim of re-internalisation. The finance minister has publicly indicated there are about 3½ thousand people in the category of re-internalisation. I don't know if there's an updated figure that the minister can confirm to the chamber, because 3½ thousand is about 10 per cent of that growth, of those 36,000, and, whilst there might have been some examples given of where we need more public servants, there's been nothing to justify 36,000. I'd really like to hear what that explanation is, because it's a lot of money—it's towards $24 billion, over the forward estimates, that we'd be spending on an extra 36,000 public servants. That's an enormous amount of money.

It's our responsibility to make sure that we expend taxpayer funds judiciously. Every dollar that's spent on any growth in government is coming out of the pockets of everyday Australians, and they don't need to be paying any more tax than is absolute necessary right now. For government to be growing at that rate—15 per cent growth in the Public Service within a couple of years of this Labor government—does certainly concern me. So I'm keen for the minister to give us an in-depth explanation of that.

The other thing that's quite astounding in this budget is the amount of government advertising that's been financed. There's some tricky wording in the budget papers around 'public awareness' and this and that. I've tallied up nearly $200 million of government advertising that's either happening now or will happen into the next financial year—the next financial year, of course, being an election year. If it's been advertising the stage 3 tax cuts, on what basis would someone need that? Which Australian out there has to speak to their employer and say, 'Hey, I just want you to make sure that you've adjusted my tax rate from this to this'? The obligation is on the person paying to do so.

The fact that Australians are getting a tax cut is all well and good, but spending $40 million advertising something which occurs automatically is just blatantly the government trying to improve their dismal electoral fortunes; it is not achieving any valuable outcome from that expenditure. There's $54 million for the made in Australia policy suite. Again, if you're watching the footie or the nightly news, on what basis do you need to be told that the government is doing all these new things for tax incentives for billionaires? I mean, you could send a letter to all the people who might actually access this policy, and that might cost $54, not $54 million. It's completely unnecessary, but of course it smacks of the fact that a pollster has said to the government, 'You need to dramatically improve your government's reputation on some of these issues, so put a lot of money into government advertising, in an election year, in the budget.' So I'd ask the minister to explain on what basis there's any justification—other than for the personal political benefit of the government—for the sorts of expenditure that have been outlined.

We strongly support important public messaging, on things like health and domestic violence. There's some very important government advertising that should absolutely occur. But some of this political advertising should be justified by the minister.

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