Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I firstly want to start by acknowledging our hardworking public servants in the Australian Public Service, as did the member for Reid and so many other member of this parliament here today when speaking about the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023. Today we are reforming the Australian Public Service and today we are strengthening the Australian Public Service. This is something the Albanese Labor government committed to during the 2022 federal election. Not only that, it's something we are now delivering on. It's not only during the election that this has occurred. Our office, the office of Robertson, continues to talk with constituents right across the electorate, from Niagara Park to the Hawkesbury River bridge all the way out to Gunderman and Spencer in our rural areas, to people who want their Public Service, the Australian Public Service, to be strong, to be dependable, to be reliable, to be there for them when they need them and to provide that fearless and frank advice, that apolitical advice, to the government of the day so that informed decisions can be made that not just will benefit the Central Coast but will benefit the wider community right across this country.

This bill will amend the Public Service Act 1999 to contribute to the Albanese Labor government's agenda of reforming the Australian Public Service. What Australians experienced in particular over the last decade, the last 10 long years under that tired old coalition government, is that the Liberal Party ripped the guts out of the Australian Public Service, and that is shameful. The Liberal Party weakened and they diminished the role of the Australian Public Service, and therefore they relied heavily on private contractors and private consultants, outsourcing the policy and legislation people rely on in this country, people depend on in this country, for the services we all know and we all enjoy. They created a shadow public service costing billions to hardworking decent Australians.

I know the member for Reid just went through a few examples of that failure, and I too will go through some examples of what happens when you devalue and you diminish the Public Service in its entirety—when you rip the guts out of it, as I said before. If we look at our department of immigration, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the provision of passports, where people were desperate to go overseas not just for holidays but to see family and to see friends after a long period in lockdown and in isolation, we saw significant blowouts in wait times all because the former government failed to invest in the Public Service.

Let's now look at the NDIS. We can see, and I see today in my clinical practice, that when you again devalue a public service and the public servants that work within a department, patients come into the emergency department because they can't get the care they need and there's nowhere else for them to go. That's not on. That's not what happens in Australia. That's one of the reasons we need to be strengthening the Australian Public Service.

Then there are our veterans. Many in this chamber would know the electorate of Robertson on the Central Coast has one of the highest proportions of veterans right across the country, from all conflicts and all policing actions. I pay tribute to those Defence Force personnel and veterans here today. But the fact of the matter is that, because the Public Service was, again, devalued and diminished by the former Liberal government, we saw our men and women in uniform and we saw our veteran community suffer and we saw primary claims blow out all because of a previous government that did not value its Public Service.

Finally, we had robodebt, the income compliance program under the former coalition government. This, out of the entire list that I've just given, I believe is one of the most shameful pieces of history in this country. It began operating as a pilot program in early 2015 and progressed through various iterations until it was paused in November 2019 and ultimately scrapped. It unlawfully raised $1.8 billion of debt against approximately 435,000 vulnerable Australians. Under the scheme, some Centrelink debts were calculated using averaged Australian Taxation Office income information. Averaging was applied where discrepancies between income that recipients had reported to Services Australia and income data from the ATO were not explained. In November 2019 Services Australia stopped the use of averaging Australian Taxation Office income data as the sole basis for raising debts. On the day that ministers and senior public servants would have had to have given evidence in the trial of the class action, the Commonwealth finally admitted it had no legal basis to raise the debts. Justice Murphy, the judge presiding over the case, approved the largest class action settlement in Australian history, and he described the scheme as a shameful chapter and a massive failure of public administration.

The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme was an election commitment of the Albanese Labor government, and the Albanese government established the royal commission on 25 August 2022. Commissioner Holmes delivered the final report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme to the Governor-General on 7 July 2023. After receiving the report, the Governor-General then presented it to the Attorney-General, and the report was then tabled to facilitate its public release. The royal commission was an independent process that was overseen by Commissioner Holmes, and now we will take time to consider those recommendations in the final report. But I do note that at times the evidence given throughout the royal commission was incredibly disturbing, especially with regard to former ministers that implemented and oversaw the scheme over 4½ years. This is one of the failures that occur when you do not value your Public Service.

Moving on with this bill, the legislative changes that are part of the journey and part of the pathway to rebuild the Australian Public Service, the majority of the amendments were recommendations of the 2019 Independent Review of the Australian Public Service or go to its intent. Furthermore, the Labor Party is the party of consultation. We are the party that listens to people to create better policy that will have the most benefit for the most people. I know people on this side of the chamber wholeheartedly agree with that statement, and that's what we're doing here. The Albanese government has consulted employees, representative groups, agencies, experts, the public and interested parties.

Let's look at what this bill actually does. It will not only strengthen the Australian Public Service's core purpose and values but build the capability and expertise of the APS and, most importantly, support good governance, good accountability and transparency. So let's dive in a bit deeper as to how we are going to strengthen the Public Service's core purpose and values. This bill will introduce amendments to add a new APS value of stewardship that all Public Service employees must uphold. Stewardship will be defined as:

The APS builds its capability and institutional knowledge, and supports the public interest now and into the future, by understanding the long-term impacts of what it does.

Moreover, it will require the secretaries board to oversee the development of a single unifying APS purpose statement and review it once every five years. In addition, it will require all agency heads to uphold and promote the new APS Purpose Statement in addition to the APS Values and APS Employment Principles. It will also clarify and strengthen provisions in the act to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on individual APS staffing decisions, and this will reaffirm the public service's apolitical nature.

Earlier I was saying that this bill will build the capacity and expertise of the APS. Specifically, this bill will introduce amendments to make regular independent and transparent capability reviews, a five yearly requirement for each department of state, Services Australia and the Australian Taxation Office. Capability reviews will assess organisational strengths. They will assess areas for development with reports and action plans, responding to findings required to be publicly released.

Moreover, the bill will introduce amendments to require a secretaries board to commission regular long-term insights reports to explore mid-term and long-term trends, risks and opportunities facing Australia. These reports will ensure that the APS can build trust in its expertise and understanding of crosscutting issues that matter to all Australians.

Let's move on to how this bill will support good governance, how it will support accountability and, importantly, how it will support transparency. The bill will introduce amendments to require publication of agencies' APS census results and an action plan that responds to results. This will foster a culture of transparency and accountability for continuous improvement within agencies.

Additionally, it will require agency heads to implement measures to enable decisions to be made by employees at the lowest appropriate classification for those decisions. What this will do and what this will ensure is that decision-making is not raised to a higher level than is necessary, and that will reduce unnecessary hierarchy, empowering the Public Service employees.

What this bill does is really begin and strengthen the journey to rebuild the Australian Public Service after all those years of Liberal Party and National Party neglect. I have gone through countless examples of what happens when you devalue your public service.

I want to take a moment, as I did at the start of this speech, to thank all the public servants who are here with us in Parliament House in the nation's capital today but also in my home electorate of Robertson. The work that you do for our community is valued, and we thank you every day for that work.

The list of those failures that I mentioned before, alongside this bill, is to not only strengthen the APS but to make sure that we've got the NDIS on the right track, strengthening that disability support for some of our most vulnerable Australians; making sure that we are committing funding to support the staff in our immigration services to process visas and passports; and, in our veterans' affairs space with Minister Keogh—which, as you all know, is close to my heart—making sure that we are supporting the public servants in the Department of Veterans' Affairs so that we continue to process those primary claims that our veterans so heavily rely on, because they have made the choice often, or as part of national service, to protect our most vulnerable and to protect Australian society. For that, we will be forever grateful. So, once again, this bill begins the journey to rebuild the Australian Public Service after many years of neglect.

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