The coalition has announced plans to mandate public servants to work from the office five days a week.
In a speech to the Menzies Research Centre in Sydney on Monday night, opposition finance and public service spokeswoman senator Jane Hume said public servants had been given a “blank cheque to work from home” and that the Albanese government was to blame.
The Liberal senator from Victoria said that under the leadership of the Community and Public Sector Union, Labor had made work from home “a right for the individual, not an arrangement that works for all. This is unsustainable.”
“We know some departments and agencies are telling stakeholders not to schedule meetings on Mondays or Fridays as there will likely be no one in the office,” she told audiences at the Liberal-aligned think–tank .
“In one instance, a stakeholder travelled to Canberra only to be shown into a meeting room where they were greeted by all departmental participants dialling in from home.”
Hume added that exceptions to the new proposed rule would be given only “where they work for everyone rather than be enforced on teams by an individual.”
“This is common sense policy that will instil a culture that focuses on the dignity of serving the public, a service that relies on the public to fund it, and a service that respects that funding by ensuring they are as productive as possible,” she said.
Hume quoted the most recent census of public service workers, which showed 61 per cent of them worked from home some of the time. During the pandemic, just over half worked from home some of the time.
Under a pay deal negotiated with the Commonwealth Public Sector Union (CPSU) in July 2023, federal employees have ‘unlimited’ work from home days, with WFH requests only to be refused after “genuinely trying to reach agreement” between a manager and its employee.
Currently, public servants are permitted to make flexible work requests, such as the ability to work from home. Agencies are not allowed to force limits on the number of days an employee can work from home per week. They are also encouraged to “lean towards” approving employee requests.
The pay deal runs until 2027, but a government led by Peter Dutton could circumvent the deal and pressure Australian Public Service (APS) workers back into the office five days a week, according to Hume.
Around the time the CPSU deal was made in 2023, Australian public servants also received a 11.2 per cent pay offer over three years, though an exclusive report by the AFR in January this year reported that the Albanese government has put aside “almost no money for rising public sector wages.”
During her speech last night, Hume claimed that remote work had become more popular across the public service that was leading to “inefficiency.”
She recounted the story of one public servant who had told her office of a colleague who worked full time from home and was often out of contact because they were travelling around Australia with their family in a camper-van.
“While work from home arrangements can work, in the case of the APS, it has become a right that is creating inefficiency,” Hume said.
“A bigger public service does not necessarily mean a better service to the public,” she added, claiming that the growth in public servant numbers was “both inefficient and ineffective”.
“Too often, departments and agencies, or their civil society stakeholders, provide political leaders with a one dimensional solution to every problem – more money.”
“If we spent another $100 million, or had an additional 100 bureaucrats working on a problem – from education and health to defence and foreign affairs – that problem will be solved.”
“But of course, it’s not their money. It’s taxpayer’s money.”
Last month, opposition leader Peter Dutton said he would cut up to 36,000 public service workers in order to save about $6 billion annually — which, he claimed, would equate to “$24bn of savings over the four-year forward estimates period”.
Last week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded to Dutton’s announcement, warning the cuts would see “queues of veterans who’ve served us in uniform, served our nation in the Australian Defence Force, not getting the support that they’re entitled to.”
“That was what was going on under the former government, as well as waiting lists in so many areas, not being able to get the services that they require,” he said.
On January 20, US President Donald Trump announced a five-day-a-week return-to-office mandate for all federal employees. As he continues to cut the size of the federal workforce and order agencies to lay off employees, hundreds of thousands are being made to return to offices — without adequate workspace for everyone to actually work.
Hume’s latest claims about the coalition’s plans to reduce “inefficiencies” in the public service has been seen by some commentators in Australia to resemble the rhetoric espoused by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has vowed to curb government inefficiencies. Meanwhile, reports have emerged that the branch has been struggling with errors and inflating its success.
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