Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) | Hansard source

I too rise to speak to the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023. I note and acknowledge the previous speaker and other speakers from this side, particularly in terms of reflecting on the capacity and independence of our Public Service. I certainly am very pleased to be supporting this important bill that is before the House.

This bill will amend the Public Service Act 1999, and it contributes to the Albanese government's Australian Public Service reform agenda—a reform agenda that's vitally important. This bill forms part of our government's intent to support and rebuild the Australian Public Service because we value the worth and the work of our public servants.

This bill is fundamentally about restoring faith and trust in the Australian Public Service. In fact, that is what Labor governments do, because we do support a strong and independent Public Service, one that provides frank and fearless advice to government, as it should do. We support a Public Service that provides effective policy development, that is reforming, that has a delivery function, that provides important advice to governments, and, very importantly, is transparent and independent. We absolutely value that and value those who work in our Public Service right across the nation.

Our government's Public Service reform agenda has four key priority areas: firstly, an Australian Public Service that embodies integrity in everything that it does; secondly, an Australian Public Service that puts people and business at the centre of policy and services, because we are delivering for the Australian people and they have to be at the centre of all decision-making; thirdly, an Australian Public Service that is in fact a model employer; and, fourthly, an Australian Public Service that has the capability to do its job well, is properly resourced and regarded and functions effectively and efficiently in providing that independent, frank and fearless advice. These legislative changes are part of our agenda to rebuild the Public Service, which has indeed suffered under a decade of the previous government. Many of the amendments were recommendations of the 2019 Independent Review of the Australian Public Service, the Thodey review, or goes to its intent. The proposed changes have also been informed by consultation—a whole range of consultation—with employees, representative groups, agencies, experts, the public and interested parties, including the Community and Public Sector Union.

The bill will, very importantly, strengthen the Australian Public Service's core purpose and values, build the capability and expertise of the APS, and support good governance, accountability, and transparency. All of these issues are at the heart of a good, thriving, strong democracy. Our institutions are vitally important and our Public Service is vitally important. In terms of strengthening the Public Service's core purpose and values, the bill will introduce amendments to add a new APS value of stewardship that all APS 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.

It requires the Secretaries Board to oversee the development of a single unifying APS purpose statement and review it once every five years. This requires all agency heads to uphold and promote the new APS purpose statement in addition to the APS values and employment principles. The bill also clarifies and strengthens this provision in the act to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on individual APS staffing decisions. This, importantly, reaffirms that the Public Service's apolitical nature, which is exactly what it should be—completely apolitical.

When it comes to building up the capability and expertise of the APS, the bill introduces amendments to make regular independent and transparent capability reviews, a five-yearly requirement for each department, Services Australia and the Australian Taxation Office. Capability reviews will assess organisational strength and areas for development with reports and action plans responding to findings required to be publicly released. It requires the Secretaries Board to commission regular long-term insight reports to explore medium-term and long-term trends, risks and opportunities facing Australia. These reports will ensure the APS can build trust, expertise and understanding of cross-cutting issues that matter to all Australians.

With this bill the government intends to support good governance, accountability and 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. It will require agency heads to implement measures to enable decisions to be made by employees at the lowest appropriate classification for those specific decisions. This will ensure decision-making is not raised to a higher level than necessary, reducing unnecessary hierarchy and also empowering APS employees.

This bill is at its heart about restoring faith and trust in our great Public Service. It's about rebuilding the confidence that the Public Service has within itself and valuing that confidence. When the Albanese government was elected, we came in here with a clear purpose to restore confidence in our institutions, to ensure faith in government, and to enshrine accountability and transparency in everything we do. For those reasons we took action to introduce the National Anti-Corruption Commission, an issue that for the community had called for, for a long time. We are proud to have introduced that because people need to have that transparency and that accountability. We all need to have that and we are all very proud of the steps we are taking.

A strong and independent Public Service is central to the well-functioning and healthy democracy we have here in Australia. Of course, during the last decade under the Liberals and Nationals, the role of the Public Service was extremely diminished and politicised at times. They also relied excessively on contractors and consultants, and frequently outsourced policy. What that showed is that, by engaging in such massive outsourcing, they had no respect for the insights and care of the Public Service, its objective and its important role. It really showed they didn't appreciate or have concern for that.

That's why the Liberals and Nationals always seek to diminish the Public Service—to cut and underfund it. In fact, they do this at all levels of government, whether it's local, state or here in our federal parliament. This cut-and-criticise agenda has led to policy failure after policy failure. Indeed, with a stronger and properly resourced Public Service, we would perhaps not have seen the bungles and failures that the previous government presided over. We wouldn't have seen the outsourcing—the equivalent of nearly 54,000 full-time staff employed, over a lengthy period of time, as consultants or service providers for the federal government. It is the equivalent of 37 per cent of the more than 144,000 employee-strong Public Service. That's a huge number that were outsourced.

Far from how the opposition like to paint our Public Service as an over-bloated organisation, that criticism they put forward is fundamentally wrong because our Public Service is fundamental to so many daily interactions that members of the public have with government. It is absolutely vital. The outsourcing agenda, combined with the gross lack of oversight by the previous government, undoubtedly led to disasters like PwC and robodebt.

The Income Compliance Program, known as robodebt, began operating as a pilot program in early 2015 and progressed through various iterations until it was paused in November 2019 and, ultimately, later scrapped. We know it unlawfully raised $1.8 billion of debt against approximately 435,000 vulnerable Australians. Indeed, under the scheme, some Centrelink debts were calculated using averaged Australian Taxation Office income information. Averaging was applied where discrepancies between recipient-reported income to Services Australia and income data from the ATO were unexplained.

In November 2019, Services Australia stopped the use of the averaging of the ATO income data as the sole basis for raising debts. On that day, ministers and senior public servants would have to have given evidence in the trial on the class action. The Commonwealth finally admitted it had no legal basis to raise those debts. Justice Murphy, the judge presiding over the case, approved the largest class action settlement in Australian history because of what had happened. He described the scheme as 'a shameful chapter' and 'a massive failure in public administration'. Indeed, it was a huge failure of public administration, with devastating consequences.

The lack of oversight of this scheme, rather than the former government properly utilising the resources of the APS, is one of the many reasons why this government established the royal commission into robodebt. The government will now take time to consider those 57 recommendations in the final report.

We all know and note that at times the evidence that was given throughout the royal commission was incredibly disturbing and distressing—especially with the regard to former coalition ministers who implemented and oversaw the scheme for over 4½ years, when they had been alerted to many of its problems. What we saw in those 46 days of public hearings, and what we heard from more than 100 witnesses, was equal parts heartbreaking, infuriating and devastating. The scheme cost lives. We know that. We know the devastating impact of it.

I also note the role of the former coalition cabinet in ticking off major decisions in relation to the scheme—of which the current Leader of the Opposition was a member at the time. After we announced the royal commission, the opposition leader said it was nothing more than a political witch-hunt—an appalling statement to make. The royal commission has gone some way to bring a voice, visibility and some justice to those who were hounded by their own government for 4½ years—hounded with devastating impacts. People should have faith in their governments and institutions, not be so cruelly hounded as they were in the case of robodebt.

We are a government that believes strongly in building up our Public Service so that they can provide that appropriate service to the public. I am very proud of this bill and I'm proud of the many institutions in this nation. Indeed, on this side of the House, we'll always support the Public Service and the very, very fine people that make up its ranks, and the absolute dedication they have to providing the services and policies that the Australian people do need. In fact, the Public Service is core to our way of life and our democratic system, and they suffered a lot under that last decade of the Liberals and Nationals. Many public servants had their job security in limbo. Far too many jobs were outsourced. It is now time for all of that to stop, to end that waste and restore that confidence in the Australian Public Service. That's what those of us in the Albanese Labor government are absolutely committed to doing. I commend the bill to the House.

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