Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

On that last bit of your question, we might have to take that on notice. I'm not sure officials would have that information here with them today, but I'm happy to do that. We did have the commission before us at estimates, and I'm not sure we touched exactly on their consultant allocation, but this has been an agency that has been heavily reliant on labour hire and consultants in the past. We're trying to rebalance that and make sure that there is adequate resourcing. But I think there's always an acknowledgement that, in this area of work, consultants may need to be brought in to do particular aspects of the work. So I don't think it changes anything or encourages any type of behaviour. Certainly while there's a Labor government, we will resource the public sector properly and in a way that it is able to do its job, which wasn't the case under the former government. We would definitely do that, but there is and is going to be, I think, the need for the legislation to reflect the opportunity to use consultants in particular circumstances. I'll see if there's anything else we can provide, Senator Pocock, about levels of resourcing or anything, but we might have to take that on notice.