Source : Perth Now news
Angus Taylor has refused to confirm whether a future Coalition government would slash the public service after vowing to crack down on government largesse.
The Opposition Leader said the Coalition would cut “big government” in a budget reply speech on Thursday marked by attacks on migrants, Labor’s housing investor tax reforms, and the clean energy transition.
However, when pressed on Australia’s public service – which has ballooned by more than 45,000 additional employees since Labor came to power in 2022 – Mr Taylor was less certain.
“I want to see better government, not bigger government,” Mr Taylor told media in Canberra on Friday.
“We’ve laid out where the savings are that will pay to ensure that we don’t have rising income taxes for Australians, to ensure that we don’t have a new tax on savings, a new tax on small businesses.”
Mr Taylor said a future Coalition government would “stop the corporate welfare” sending money offshore and scrap “the climate bureaucracy”.
Pressed on the public service, he shot back: “Well, I’m talking about where the savings are going to come from.”
Asked if he would rule out cutting public servants, a policy taken to the 2025 election by the Coalition, Mr Taylor said only that he would “rule in making sure that government doesn’t grow at a rate that requires rising taxes”.
Then-Opposition Leader Peter Dutton campaigned in the early days of the 2025 election on cuts to the public service and removing many work-from-home opportunities.
A party review into the election, which Mr Taylor had sought to bury, found that while announcements of mass public sackings in the US by Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE department “initially received positive responses, the Australian electorate’s view on them quickly soured”.
“The problem was compounded by Peter Dutton’s creation in January 2025 of a shadow ministry for government efficiency, similar to President Trump’s DOGE,” the review stated.
“The opposition’s decision to abolish working from home for the public service and its decision to cut 40,000 public service jobs were seen as Trump-like by the electorate and were so deeply unpopular they were later reversed or modified.”
On Friday, Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher said the present public service was the “right size”.
