The Coalition's costings confirm what the CPSU has been warning for weeks: Peter Dutton's plan to cut 41,000 public service jobs simply doesn't stack up.
The only way to hit that target is to cut far beyond Canberra, and that's exactly what the Coalition is preparing to do.
Peter Dutton has a plan to broaden his job cuts to regional areas with public sector workforces, with places like Tasmania, the NSW South Coast, the Hunter Valley and Cairns set to lose local jobs and services.
Communities across the country are at risk of losing the local jobs and services they rely on.
Applying the current attrition rate of 7.02%* to Canberra based jobs only, would result in a reduction of 23,300 Canberra APS staff. This would be disastrous for Canberra and communities relying on public services around the country, but it also wouldn't deliver the Coalition's policy of 41,000 job cuts. It wouldn't be until 2036-37 that the Coalition would reduce job numbers by 41,000 in Canberra.
Quotes attributable to Melissa Donnelly, CPSU National Secretary:
"We are 48 hours away from this election being over, and Peter Dutton still hasn't been upfront about where his public service cuts are going to come from.
"The truth is these cuts can't just come from Canberra, the numbers just don't stack up.
"What Peter Dutton doesn't want you to know is that communities across the country are set to lose vital jobs and services.
"And as soon as the backlogs start to build up in Veterans Affairs and the Passport office, and wait times blow out in Services Australia, they'll bring in their mates from PwC and KPMG to plug gaps at twice the price.
"This is an incoherent, dishonest plan from a party that has never understood the value of public services and never cared about the people who rely on them, and Australians deserve so much better."
1 May 2025
