Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand up in this place today as a former federal prosecutor, and I want to speak about the travesty that is being visited upon the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Office by this government. The independence and proper functioning of the Commonwealth DPP is vital for our criminal justice system, but now the Commonwealth DPP are proposing to outsource not just their administrative staff but also the actual prosecuting lawyers in their office. They want to use agency lawyers in the Commonwealth DPP. But wait for it: this isn't to save money; it's just to reduce headcount. It's to comply with a target that has been applied by this government just to save on headcount, but it won't actually change the headcount; they'll bring in the lawyers from agency firms. It won't save any money. It's going to cost the agency more, it's going to cost the government more and, after decades of efficiency dividends gutting the Commonwealth DPP and insufficient funds being allocated to it at a time when we're allocating—rightly—more and more funds to law enforcement, where's the money going to the people who have to prosecute these cases? There isn't any. All there is is cuts, and now we're seeing those cuts having the stupid effect of cutting a headcount by outsourcing the prosecutors and outsourcing admin staff within the Commonwealth DPP—and not to save money; it's actually going to cost them more. This is just another example of this how this government is trying to gut the Commonwealth Public Service and how it is not standing up for public servants—and I will.