Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I want to thank my colleague the member for Makin for so eloquently outlining the important role the Public Service has in our society. Any strong democracy has a strong public service, and unfortunately our Public Service has been undermined by successive years of cuts and devaluation of their expertise.

However, during the last federal election there was an announcement by the Labor Party. It got little traction—it didn't get the front page of the papers or make the news bulletins—but that announcement was critical. It was fundamental to ensuring that our democracy, our parliament and our ministers continue to do the good work they do and that they are accountable to the public. That announcement was about reform to our Australian Public Service. I would like to take a moment to read that announcement because many parts of it are important for us all to take note of. It was made in March 2022, long before the scandals that we now know of. The announcement reads:

Eight long years of cuts and outsourcing by the Coalition has undermined the capacity and capability of the Australian Public Service (APS).

APS employees have had their wages, conditions and job security attacked by a government that doesn't value or respect the role that the APS and its employees play in delivering public services to the Australian people.

At the same time the Coalition has wasted precious public money on contractors, consultants and labour hire firms for work that could have been done more effectively and cost-efficiently by public servants.

I want to break down that announcement because, whilst at the time it was made there was little attention paid to it, I think it was a prescient announcement that we all appreciate now given everything that is unfolding. Between 2013 and 2021—basically the entirety of the coalition government's time in power—the number of Public Service jobs decreased by more than 7,200, which is a 4.4 per cent reduction in the workforce. Given the increasing complexity of their work and the fact we are demanding more from our Public Service, and given what they were able to do during COVID when they rapidly turned to support our society and implement really difficult changes like JobKeeper and a mass vaccine and immunisation program—given all that was thrown at the Public Service during that time and the dramatic cuts, it is no wonder that we then saw very real outcomes consequences. What were the impacts? I want to name just three, but there were many more. Let's go through them: immigration, visa processing and passports.

When we got into government there was such a delay in visa processing, a backlog of one million visas. These are student visas key to our economy—it is the third-largest export. There are visa delays thanks to the cuts from those opposite. These are visas for skilled workers, and we saw the consequences of that—I felt them acutely in my electorate of Reid—where many businesses were complaining to me about their inability to get skilled workers into Australia in areas of critical shortage because the visas they had put through months previously were still being looked through and had not been processed yet. They're the consequences of cuts to our immigration system.

Many Australians were surprised to find out about the delay in the issuing of passports, which should be, by all accounts, a tick-and-flick, rubberstamp, easy-peasy exercise—we've got your info; all we need to do is print your passport for you. Australians were facing delays of months and months to get passports—critical documents—in order for them to travel overseas to see sick family members or to attend to key employment opportunities. Passports! Who would have thought that there would be a delay in the issuing of passports? But there was. Last year alone, in my office, we received more than 110 inquiries about delayed passports—and that's just in one electorate. These were people who were desperate to get overseas to see loved ones. We had really sad situations where people had to rush home to see dying parents or had to bring a sick child into the country, and yet there were delays in processing their passports. Again, it was because of the failure of those opposite to make sure that the Public Service had adequate staffing.

Another key area where they failed was the rollout of the NDIS. This is an area that needs highly skilled and highly trained experts to understand the situation of the person with the disability. From so many families in my electorate, I heard time and time again that every time their disability package with NDIS came up for renewal, they had to speak to someone different, someone who didn't have an understanding of their child's disability, someone who didn't have an understanding of the system, and, time and time again, they had to go through the onerous process of having to justify the disability and explain the situation to the person on the phone. They told me about the inhumane way that they were being treated. This is because of cuts and outsourcing of this department. Currently, over a quarter of the NDIA's workforce is from labour hire. That means that they are not permanent staff. They are staff who are there on a temporary basis without the expertise and the understanding to be able to support these families and these people with a disability. Again, it is another failure from those opposite.

I want to take us to another community that I would think those opposite would be incredibly supportive of. I would think that those opposite who wrap themselves in the Australian flag and want to always be paying tribute to our defence forces would want to make sure that our veterans are looked after. But, again, it was their failure to staff the Department of Veterans' Affairs that has resulted in a backlog of 60,000 veterans still waiting for compensation claims to be reviewed. Something that the former Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Andrew Gee, admitted to—and I give him a lot of respect for this—were the challenges within that department. He said that the department was struggling under limited staffing and a system that was 'crying out for reform'. So, whilst you loved to make announcements about our defence forces and you loved standing next to our men and women in uniform, why were you refusing to adequately staff the Department of Veterans' Affairs so that those claims could be processed and those veterans and families could receive the money that they desperately needed? It is a shame that they've had to go through this; it's a shame that they've had to go through a royal commission into veteran suicide. This could have been fixed if those opposite had ensured adequate staffing in that department—and they refused.

We announced an investment of $64.1 million in the 2023-24 budget to retain over 480 Department of Veterans' Affairs staff to ensure we deliver frontline services to veterans and families. We don't just stand next to our men and women in uniform to make press announcements; we actually care about them. We are committed to supporting them. That is why are making sure that staff will be at the other end of that line when our veterans call through to the department needing urgent help.

In a speech to the Public Service last year, Katy Gallagher, the Minister for the Public Service, said:

… the public service is one of the critical pillars of political integrity. It must be empowered to be honest and truly independent. To defend legality and due process. And to deliver advice that the government of the day might not want to hear just as loudly as the advice that we do.

That is a very important paragraph for all of us to think about, because the other key challenge that has occurred under the watch of those opposite is the politicisation of our Public Service, such that they are not providing frank and fearless advice, that they are not stepping up to ministers and saying that that policy is illegal and immoral. We saw that most acutely with robodebt. The robodebt scandal is a shameful, shameful chapter in our country's history. I hope it is something that we in this House all learn from. It is shameful that it occurred, it is shameful that it took so long for people to step up and speak out, and it is shameful to the individuals whose lives were impacted by this. That is what happens when you cut the Public Service, devalue their expertise and politicise the Public Service. What does that all combine to do? It undermines our democracy. What are we doing to change that?

This bill is a very important bill. It is about public sector reform. It is about ensuring that we strengthen the Public Service so that it doesn't have to suffer deaths by a thousand cuts like it didn't under the former coalition government. This is a bill that responds to the 2019 Thodey review, the independent review of the Public Service, and he has a few key priority areas. Firstly, it works to strengthen the core purpose and values of the APS to make an APS that acts with integrity in everything that it does in a unified way across the entire Public Service. Secondly, it works to support good governance, accountability and transparency. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it works to build the capability and expertise of the Australian Public Service. This is core business for our government.

I want to take a moment to thank my Senate colleague Deb O'Neill for the extraordinary work that she has done, along with other senators, to uncover the scandal that unfolded from PwC. Again, this is something that happens when you outsource much of your policy work. Last year alone, we spent $3.6 billion on consultants and contractors. What an incredible waste given what we could have done, which was lift up the Public Service. I want to note that we have good public servants in this country. Robodebt was a scandal. Lots of people failed to step up and speak up but not Colleen Taylor. She was a Centrelink frontline worker who took her concerns to the very top. We all owe her a debt of gratitude.

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