Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher, and will reference Budget Paper No. 4: Agency resourcing, page 186, department expenses table. The government has been conducting a program of reducing spending on external providers—contractors; consultants—and hiring employees directly instead, to perform those duties, and One Nation supports that. These conversions, from external providers to employees, save taxpayers money, being the difference between paying a public servant to do that work and paying a consultant, partly balanced out by the increased costs of office expenses, travel and so on. Minister, how much has this program saved in 2023-24, and how much will it save over forward estimates? I note that, as I understand, the budget papers have another 2,502 conversions projected.