Doorstop, Mural Hall Parliament House

10 February 2025

JANE HUME: Labor has been caught out in a budget lie. Time and time again, Katy Gallagher has said that there will be no cuts to the public service. Yet, on her own figures, in her own Budget, we can see that there is going to be either a 20,000 cut to the public service over the next four years or there's an $11 billion black hole. This isn't data that the Coalition is making up. This is independent costings by the Parliamentary Budget Office. So what we want to understand is, which one is it? Have they fudged the numbers of public service and not holding true to that commitment of maintaining the public service at current levels? Or are they going to charge the tax payer an additional $11 billion? Because one must be true. Katy Gallagher has for months now said that the public service is right sized. She repeated that yesterday. But if that is the case, why does the MYEFO, why do her own budget figures show a 20,000 public service reduction. Only that can be true, or an $11 billion black hole. The Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher has for a long time now, spoken about budget honesty, but she has been caught out in a deception, and it's a deception that all Australians are going to pay for.

JOURNALIST: I take it this is a budget saving you will get in grace?

JANE HUME: Well, we've said that the 36,000 new public service that the government have appointed already is a bloat of the public service. That's a 20% rise in the size of public service. It's about 40 new public service every single day. But at the same time, we've seen standards, service standards go down. So now if you apply for a pension, for instance, it takes around 48 days to get a pension. It was 35 under the Coalition, to get a low income part, it takes about five times as long as it used to. If you call the parenting and families line, you spend about an hour on hold. So with these 36,000 new public servants, service standards have gone backwards, and that's up to the government that will explain why the public service at 209,000 is now right sized. And if it is right sized, well why haven't they included that in their own Budget figures?

JOURNALIST: But the PBO has done your homework, what will you do with $11 billion dollars?

JANE HUME: Well, that's a very good question. We want to understand exactly whether that $11 billion is something that the Government intends to charge to the taxpayers. So what taxes are they going to raise to pay for this $11 billion black hole? Or have they actually planned to reduce the size of the public service, and in fact, Minister Gallagher has been misleading you all along.

JOURNALIST: Senator, among those 36,000 new jobs are more than 5000 in defense, Home Affairs and national security agencies. Are you saying those were bad (inaudible)?

JANE HUME: We’ve said all along that we will maintain frontline services, essential services within the public service. You can't tell me...

JOURNALIST (interrupts): What does frontline mean? What does frontline mean?

JANE HUME: The ones that are actually going to deliver on the expectations of the taxpayer, because that's not what's happening now. So clearly, there are a lot of those new public servants that are not there to deliver the taxpayer, on taxpayer expectations. We want to know exactly what it is that they’re doing.

JOURNALIST: Senator, if you are planning to cut thousands of public servant jobs, how are you going to avoid spending billions on outsourced labour? The last time it was 20 billion under the Morrison Government in one year. How do you avoid that again?

JANE HUME: So this is an accusation of Labor. That's the Labor talking point you've got there. You understand that during COVID Of course, we wanted to see surge capacity because there was an expectation that governments would respond quickly in very difficult circumstances. But now those public servants have been added to the mix, and they are permanent. They're permanent public service. This is a real concern, because, let's face it, a bigger public service isn't always a better public service, and we've seen that in the lowering of standards that Australia is expected to serve. We will not be cutting front line services. We will not be cutting essential services. We've said that time and time again, and anything else is a Labor lie. What we will do is deliver an effective and an efficient public service, because that's what Australians expect and deserve.

JOURNALIST: So you're happy to rule out, sorry, you're happy to rule out hiring contractors or replacing those public service contracts at this stage.

JANE HUME: Oh for goodness sakes, do you know there has been consultants as part of the public service, since day one and there still are. In fact, we learned over the weekend that DFAT have employed a consultant in Darlinghurst to deliver, at the cost of around $260,000 a First Nations approach to Foreign Affairs and Trade. Now, whether you believe that's a good idea, and a good use of taxpayer money well, that's one thing. But we also have, at the same time, a First Nations Ambassador whose mandate is to do exactly the same, and he earns $380,000 per year. So if you don't think that there is fat in the public service, you're not looking very hard. Can I suggest that you have a look at the website underlabor.com.au, www.underlabor.com.au, a website put together by my colleague Jane Stevens that goes into just the extent of government waste.

JOURNALIST: Senator, I'm sorry, on the Budget, what effect is Donald Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs? Likely to have an Australia budget and on business here.

JANE HUME: Yes, look, Australia is a proud free trade nation. We expect, we don't believe that the tariffs are useful. But most important thing here is that, just like the last time the tariffs were imposed, that there are the right people in government, the right people that are our emissaries, that can negotiate directly with the Trump administration to ensure an exemption. We did that when we were part of the Coalition, when the Coalition where in government. We expect the same of a Labor government, because, let's face it, aluminum and steel is around $550 million or so in trade, in export trade every year. Now, the US is our biggest economic partner. They're our largest source of foreign investment. We would hope that the right people are in place to be able to make those decisions, to make those entreaties to the Trump administration, because it's been done before and it's been done before successfully, if they haven't got the right people there then they should consider who is.

JOURNALIST: Senator, are you optimistic about a deal on electoral reform with Labor? And has the Coalition moved towards Labor in the negotiations?

JANE HUME: Yeah look, discussions in good faith have been ongoing and will continue to be. So this is a very complicated piece of legislation that has implications for MPs and senators, has implications for political parties and has implications for the entire electoral process. We'll continue those conversations in good faith, but it's really in the hands of the government.

JOURNALIST: On that issue, can you just please explain why you think it would be fair if Independents can only spend up to their $800,000 cap for state and territory and parties such as yours, would be able to be able to spend the 90 million across Australia?

JANE HUME: Dom, these are questions that are better directed to the government. This is their legislation…

JOURNALIST (talks over): You have to agree…

JANE HUME: We’re negotiating with them. It's their legislation, they're the ones that have set these limits. Most important thing now is that we make sure, because there are a lot of moving parts to this that we negotiate in good faith.

JOURNALIST: Do you agree with that element of it?

JOURNALIST: Yeah, so you don't have a stance on that on thresholds?

JANE HUME: I'm not getting into the private negotiations or private conversations that we've had with government…

JOURNALIST: It’s a public figure.

JANE HUME: This is too important. And I know I've said this to you privately as well as publicly, this is too important legislation, but most importantly, it is the government's legislation, and we need to make sure that we respect the governments right to negotiate with all parties.

JOURNALIST: A follow up on two of the questions that were asked in relation to the consultants, will we expect under the Coalition to see expanding on the Big Four, return to the peaks that we saw towards the end of the Morrison government? Is that the kind of thing we would expect to see? Obviously, it's been a thing that Labor has tried to drive down. And to the question, I think of someone behind me is Kevin Right, the right person to be making those entreaties you referred to earlier?

JANE HUME: Well, that's on the second question. I think that's probably a question better directed to government. We would hope that there are the right people that can make those entreaties to the Trump administration, as has been done before. I can’t understand why the Prime Minister doesn't pick up the phone himself. He seems to have a good relationship, he tells us that he has a good relationship with the Trump Administration. On your former question on consultants, consultants have been using the public sector for forever in a day, and there's a reason for that, and that's because you can't expect the public sectors to be experts at everything all the time. Now you're talking about some peak levels of consultant school. I think that that's, I think that that's probably an issue that is of its era. That's a COVID era response, and that was really important at that surge capacity to do the job to do at the time. But right now, what we want to do is make sure we have an efficient and effective public service. And is it right sized at 209,000 there's 36,000 new public servants, 40 a day since this government came to office. I don't personally believe that that is the right size for government. In fact, we can actually have a detrimental effect on Australia's prosperity. More importantly, if you're not budgeting for those new public servants properly, well, then we’re in real trouble. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go to question time, just one more question.

JOURNALIST: Just on your comment on not budgeting correctly, the APSC has a new value of stewardship. One of those elements that the respondents to the APSC survey has said, was critical. Was keeping good records. Is this an example of the government failing to live, failing its standard of stewardship if you can’t even keep good records?

JANE HUME: That’s a very good question Tom, and it’s one we will direct to Senate Estimates to the APS Commissioner.

JOURNALIST: Two second answer to this one I reckon, has the Opposition actually landed on a figure that it wants to cut out of that 36,000? Is it 20,000, is it 15?

JANE HUME: We want to understand exactly what those 36,000 are doing, are they delivering those frontline services, because if they are, they're failing their duty services have actually been going backwards, not forwards. Despite the fact that we have 40 new public servants every single day. I’m really sorry, I do have to go to question time.