Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023, which is a really important piece of legislation that will help the Australian Public Service transition to the next era of its functionality and purpose. We all know on this side of the House how essential the role is that public service staff play. It would be remiss, at the outset of my remarks, not to thank our public servants for the excellent work that the vast majority of them undertake.

We are fortunate that we have some of Australia's best and brightest employed with the Australian Public Service, and our country is better for it. Indeed, many employees have chosen a career with the public service because of their deep belief in the value and work of the public service, and I know that we in this place are all beneficiaries of the tremendous contributions our public servants make. The APS will undergo a significant transition because of this vital piece of legislation, ensuring its ability to continue serving the Australian government, the parliament and, importantly, the Australian people.

The Public Service Amendment Bill contains several noteworthy elements, but it's also vital to emphasise the substantial research and consultation that went into its creation. The 2019 independent review of the Australian Public Service, known as the Thodey review, served as a major inspiration for the proposed changes. It was late last year that the Minister for the Public Service, Senator Gallagher, outlined the government's reform ideas in terms of four priority areas—those being: an APS that embodies integrity in everything it does; an APS that puts people and business at the centre of policy and services; an APS that is a model employer; and an APS that has the ability to do its job well. Over 11,000 people and organisations were involved in this extensive evaluation, which held more than 400 meetings, workshops and informational sessions. The provisions of this bill have been profoundly shaped by the knowledge gathered by this comprehensive consultation process.

The bill's consultation process was multifaceted, ensuring that a wide spectrum of viewpoints was considered. Between 3 May and 31 May this year, the proposed revisions were open to public comment. This required the publication of an overview paper, an exposure draft of the legislation and supporting documentation. The response was positive, and the public provided insightful feedback. Engagement with APS agencies, HR departments, academics, employee networks and employee representative organisations were major components of the consultation process. This open-minded strategy made it possible to fully comprehend the requirements, goals and issues of individuals who are directly involved in the APS. The contents of this bill have benefitted greatly from their knowledge and viewpoints.

It's important to mention that the measure implements several of the Thodey review's most important recommendations. For instance, the addition of the APS value of stewardship directly addresses recommendation 5, which advocates for the strengthening of the APS values and guiding principles. The bill affirms the permanent function of APS personnel, in supporting succeeding administrations, the parliament and the entire country. The APS Purpose Statement, as it is outlined in the proposed legislation, is in line with Thodey review recommendation 6, which emphasises the creation and embedding of an inspiring purpose and vision, to bring the APS together in serving the country. All agency leaders and staff will use this purpose statement as a unified framework to guide their decisions and actions. By allowing APS personnel to make decisions that are appropriate to their level of competence and categorisation, this solution reduces needless hierarchy and promotes effective and efficient governance.

Another important part of the bill is the implementation of the regular APS capacity reviews suggested by the Thodey review. This addresses recommendation 2a, which urges evaluations that are future focused to strengthen organisational capability and guarantee responsibility.

The APS will be better able to respond to challenges and provide the Australian people with efficient and effective services because of these reforms. Through this bill, the fundamental goals and principles of the APS will be strengthened, along with its capacities and competencies. Good governance, accountability and openness will be encouraged. The solution to long-lasting change lies in this bill. One of the fundamental objectives of this bill is to enhance the APS's core purpose and values. The new APS value of stewardship, which requires all APS employees to uphold their commitment to the long-term effects of their actions, does help to accomplish this. By integrating stewardship into the APS, we make sure that our Public Service places emphasis on meeting not just our society's current demands but also its long-term needs for capacity-building, institutional knowledge and support of the public interest. This dedication to stewardship will guarantee that public administration is carried out in a sustainable and responsible manner.

This bill also creates an essential foundation to support the APS's mission and ideals. It gives the Secretaries Board the authority to create a single, cohesive APS purpose statement that would act as a standard for all agency leaders and staff. We can make sure that this purpose statement is still applicable and in line with how our society is changing by examining it frequently. As a result, the APS will be able to continuously uphold and promote its values and employment standards, promoting an environment that prioritises excellence and public service.

The bill also emphasises the apolitical nature of the APS, preserving its integrity and independence. By clarifying and reinforcing act provisions, it emphasises the idea that ministers cannot direct agency heads on specific APS employment decisions. The Public Service will work impartially and make choices in the best interests of Australians because of this reaffirmation of the APS's apolitical attitude. This measure also gives priority to enhancing the APS's capacity and knowledge.

The Australian Taxation Office, Services Australia and each department of state will also undergo frequent, public independent reviews of their capabilities. These evaluations will identify the organisation's areas of strength and need for improvement. The result, together with action plans, will be made public. The APS will become more efficient in providing services and addressing the changing demands of the Australian public thanks to this dedication to self-evaluation and development.

The bill also requires the Secretaries Board to commission periodical long-term insights reports. The APS can successfully manage the difficulties of the future by increasing confidence in its knowledge and understanding, which will eventually benefit us all. The measure also encourages accountability, transparency and good governance within the APS. The results of the APS employee census for the agencies must be made public, together with action plans to deal with the findings. This dedication to openness promotes a culture of continual improvement within agencies, motivating staff members and boosting the APS's overall effectiveness. Unnecessary hierarchy is removed, and APS personnel are given the freedom to contribute to the fullest extent possible by being allowed to make decisions that are in line with their knowledge and authority.

It should be noted that the Public Service Amendment Bill is a significant law that opens the door to genuine transformation inside the Public Service. This bill enables the APS to better serve the Australian government, the parliament and Australians by strengthening the core purpose and values, expanding its capabilities and expertise and maintaining good governance, accountability and transparency. This culture is really important, I think, as the parliament has recently seen, for us to foster in our Australian Public Service.

In the context of this amendment being debated, I should also acknowledge the huge toll taken that we've witnessed through the recent robodebt royal commission. The Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten, summed up this situation best when he said:

There was no sugar coating the cost of Robodebt—the financial cost, the reputational cost to government, but most of all, the human cost.

We now know that the former coalition government effectively treated vulnerable Australians as criminals at best or as second-class citizens at worst. We know that robodebt unlawfully raised $1.8 billion of debt against approximately 435,000 vulnerable Australians. Instead of being provided with the great Australian safety net in their time of need—a safety net that many of them contributed to funding over the course of their working lives—they were punished.

It is also important to note that the royal commission was an independent process that was overseen by Commissioner Holmes. Justice Murphy, the judge presiding over the case, approved the largest class action settlement in Australian history. He described the scheme as a 'shameful chapter' and a 'massive failure in public administration'. It was a shameful chapter in a shameful period in the history of this country and a shameful example of governance.

Even more shameful than what we witnessed was that, instead of acknowledging the error of their ways, those opposite, when in government, effectively misled the Australian public and gaslit people: 'Nothing to see here!' Some of the most vulnerable members of our communities were made to feel humiliated, like criminals, and then the pain that they had experienced was denied.

We know that the treatment of the most vulnerable Australians that were targeted by this scheme resulted in some heartbreaking consequences. In the royal commission's final report, Commissioner Holmes stated:

Truly dismaying was the revelation of dishonesty and collusion to prevent the Scheme's lack of legal foundation coming to light.

…   …   …

The ill-effects of the Scheme were varied, extensive, devastating and continuing.

…   …   …

At the least, I am confident that the Commission has served the purpose of bringing into the open an extraordinary saga, illustrating a myriad of ways that things can go wrong through venality, incompetence and cowardice.

We have now seen that the commissioner has referred some individuals to various regulatory agencies. As a government, we have also appointed an independent reviewer to determine whether public servants who are subject to adverse findings have breached the APS Code of Conduct. It is important to our government that these most recent revelations brought about by this botched handling of the scheme do not result in an insular public service. We cannot encourage a public service that shirks the responsibility of providing frank and fearless advice to government due to any potential ramifications, either real or perceived. That's why clarifying section 19 of the act by providing that ministers must not direct agency heads on individual employment matters of the APS is so important.

The former Liberal coalition government's botched handling of this whole moment in our history—the robodebt debacle—highlights the need for comprehensive reforms within the Public Service so that we do have accountability, transparency and fairness in government practices. That's what Australians expect. It should be no surprise that our government, which was elected on a platform of integrity and rebuilding trust in institutions of government, has a reform agenda that is squarely focused on improving integrity.

This bill is an essential step towards regaining public trust in the Australian Public Service and all government operations and institutions by including provisions to address the shortcomings of the robodebt scheme and to make sure it doesn't happen again in the future. We aim to solve these flaws by encouraging greater supervision, better governance and improved procedures for Australians to make complaints about ineffective government.

This bill introduces a new APS value of stewardship, underlining the APS's responsibilities in facilitating institutional learnings, strengthening capacities and promoting the public's interest now and in the future. We are putting forth this bill to make sure that we have an Australian Public Service that is able to act in the best interests of all Australians and so that we do not see the shameful chapter that was presided over by the previous government repeated. Australians deserve so much better, and under our government they're going to get it.

Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023 debate, a bill that will amend the Public Service Act 1999 and form part of the Albanese Labor government's broader Australian Public Service reform agenda. I note that many members before me have explained to the House the detail of this bill and what it means. But I want to take a moment to discuss what the Australian Public Service, the APS, really is and what it means to our communities, including mine in the Illawarra.

Over the past decade, we have seen an intentional and deliberate character assassination of the Australian Public Service. This attack has undermined the good work that our APS undertakes every day. On any given day millions of Australians interact with the APS, such as: a small-business owner contacting business.gov.au to find a business adviser; a university student engaging with the National Archives; new parents trying to sort out their parental leave; a high school student applying for their very first tax file number; a pensioner inquiring about their pension to Services Australia; jobseekers and pensioners reporting income, from their casual work, through Services Australia; a patient accessing Medicare payments for medical assistance through Medicare; a local manufacturer being supported by AusIndustry and Austrade to find new markets for their products.

Interaction with the APS occurs at all points in our lives, from the cradle to the grave, and is as diverse as the people who interact with it. Both businesses and the community want a system that works, that they can have confidence in, regardless of who sits on the Treasury benches. Every Australian wants to be treated with dignity, respect and fairness, especially in dealing with their government and APS.

I have worked closely with the APS for over 30 years in my Illawarra community. In that time together we have had to work closely to deliver outcomes in some really complex cases, cases where you are trying to find solutions that marry up the square peg and the round hole. Supporting me in doing that are the many great public servants I have worked with, people who are the best and brightest at public administration. They are people who care about their fellow Australians. Ultimately, that is why we arrive at work every day. They are people who have the corporate memory to respectfully tell you why something may or may not work or what consequential problem a course of action might result in.

I want to give a special shout-out to one outstanding member of the Public Service who has since retired: Byron Jones from my electorate. Byron was our Parliamentary Liaison Officer with Centrelink, many years ago, during my employment with my predecessor and friend Sharon Bird. He has since retired. There was no problem too complex for Byron to sink his teeth into, and we presented him with a lot of problems—pensions, study assistance, family tax benefits and income support—so many problems that were complex and distressing for our most vulnerable constituents. Byron would contact different sections of the department, all over the country, to hunt down a solution for them. He kept us up to date with the options he was looking at and possible solutions to our constituents' problems. We knew with absolute confidence that if Byron said it couldn't be fixed he had tried everything.

During the time we had Byron as our Parliamentary Liaison Officer we sent very few representations to the minister—solely due to his great work. Byron cared deeply about people and he cared about the Public Service. He epitomised what a public servant should aspire to.

During the last decade the coalition diminished the role of the Public Service, relying excessively on contractors and consultants and outsourcing policy. Any member needs to just open a newspaper or turn on the TV news, over recent weeks, to see what the consequence of this policy approach has been. This action has hollowed out the Australian Public Service, and once sand has been drained out of the bottle it is a very long and slow process to get it back in. Despite that challenge, it is what we must do and it is what this bill seeks to do. The bill strengthens the APS's core purpose values, especially with the establishment of the new APS value of stewardship. 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.

The Albanese government is committed to rebuilding the APS into a trusted, apolitical and highly valued national institution. In any discussion of APS reform, special consideration needs to be made for the administration of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The management and culture of the scheme that was allowed to develop under the previous Liberal government cannot continue. As members of parliament we see on a daily basis what is occurring at the coalface of this scheme, which is so vital to the fabric of society. The numbers speak for themselves: between June 2022 and April 2023 there were 21,826 cases referred to the minister's office by parliamentarians from across the chamber who needed the minister's help to help solve complex problems that were not being resolved by the relevant agencies. These include: 8,416 cases relating to Services Australia; 12,375 cases relating the NDIS; 1,035 cases relating to the NDIS quality and safeguards commission. As I am sure most members in this place would agree, when constituents contact us with matters regarding the NDIS and Services Australia, they are never the quick and easy-fix problems. They are complex and often long-running, where someone has been shunted off into the too-hard basket, and they involve the most vulnerable people in our communities.

Over the past 12 months I have been directly dealing with two of those cases that were put into the too-hard basket. One case sees the family of a former NDIS recipient who passed away having to shower at the homes of families and friends or—even worse—forced to bathe with a bucket and garden hose following a bureaucratic dispute with the NDIS over a bathroom modification for the NDIS recipient which was halted when the recipient passed away. The family has been in limbo ever since. The other case is of an NDIS recipient with high-level disability support needs who has been stripped of appropriate medical care for his seizures for no reason. The medical advice from his doctors and from his support provider has been at worst ignored or at best overlooked, despite many enquiries and representations. His parents are in their 80s. They are terrified about what will happen to their son should anything happen to them. Luckily, we are very fortunate that he is in good care with a great provider.

Both of these cases are complex, and I thank the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister Shorten, and his amazing team for their hours and hours of work and support in trying to achieve a positive outcome. These distressed and vulnerable families should not have to fight so hard. They should not have to seek ministerial intervention to get basic care and support. We need to make sure that the staff in our Public Service actually care about our most vulnerable people, and ensure that they get the care and support that they need. I note that the minister and the government are getting the NDIS back on track by improving outcomes for participants and reforming the agency which delivers the scheme, ensuring every dollar goes to NDIS participants.

Over the past few years I have been very concerned about the culture that the previous Liberal government allowed to develop within the NDIS and its managing agencies. My concerns grew last month when I read a series of articles published in the Saturday Paper by Rick Morton on 3 and 10 June. The articles, titled 'NDIS regulator in chaos' and 'Keeping up appearances', tell the story of screaming matches between senior staff and legal officers in front of other employees, and a wheelchair user being left in an emergency stairwell during a genuine emergency evacuation. Of more concern, Mr Morton goes on to report that the first order of business for the new Commissioner of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Quality and Safeguards Commission was the commissioning of a new executive office in Paramatta—not at the organisation's head office in Penrith. This was followed up by engaging consultants to the tune of $1.7 million to design a strategic future for the authority. It worries me greatly that these decisions are being made while there is such a significant case load demand and the need to be thorough given the complexities of this demand.

In the most recent federal budget, the Albanese Labor government invested over $140 million into the NDIS Commission to get the commission back on track. The government expects the commission to ensure that every single dollar of this precious investment is spent on protecting NDIS participants. I am an advocate for the NDIS. It is a scheme that works well and is in fact life-changing for hundreds and thousands of Australians who have a disability. However, at this time the scheme is facing challenges that threaten the quality of the services offered to NDIS participants in the long term. I know the government is determined to take responsibility for effective reform, fraud, often poor-quality planning, and an agency that is now finding its way under new leadership, including the new CEO, Rebecca Falkingham, and new chair, Kurt Fearnley. However, as part of the Australian Public Service reform agenda, the NDIS and its agencies will need a special path of reform.

I acknowledge the second reading amendment makes reference to the robodebt royal commission report. When talking about reform of the Australian Public Service, we cannot ignore the failure that was the robodebt income compliance program. Justice Murphy, the judge who presided over the class action that preceded the royal commission, described this game as a 'shameful chapter' and a 'massive failure in public administration'. The royal commission's 46 days of public hearings and testimony of more than 100 witnesses was both heartbreaking and infuriating. I am in no doubt that every new APS and university policy and public administration graduate in the future will be extensively educated in what robodebt was; the details of how this cruel and illegal scheme was allowed to target 435,000 Australians who rely on the social safety net but were instead targeted by their own government; and the role all of us need to play, including the APS, in building a fair and egalitarian society, ensuring that the mistakes of robodebt are never made again.

The challenges that face the government and the APS are vast and complex, and they will not be fixed overnight, but giving up is not an option. Too many people are relying on us. I know within the NDIS and the broader APS we have many dedicated people who are ready to embrace the challenges that we are facing and drive the change we need to build the institutional knowledge, the apolitical character, the accountability and the transparency that the Australian Public Service was known for the world over.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

This legislation, the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023, begins the process of rebuilding trust and confidence in public servants and the information, service and advice that they provide. For too long since governments of all persuasions began a process of outsourcing government services to the private sector, there has been a notable decline in the services provided and in the culture and self esteem of our Public Service workforce. Claims that the private sector can provide public services cheaper and better do not always stack up, and that is becoming increasingly apparent. One of the most glaring examples of that comes to mind when almost each day I hear someone say to me, 'Please bring back the CES, the old Commonwealth Employment Service.' There are many other examples, of course, that I can point to, where the projected savings from outsourcing or privatisation are not achieved when all other factors and costs are taken into account.

However, financial savings and inferior service are only part of the problem. A more serious problem with outsourcing is the security of confidential information, as we are seeing now with several examples of data breaches. As we are also seeing right now with the PwC scandal, the risks of corruption or leaking of confidential information are much higher and much more difficult to prevent when the private sector is engaged and in possession of critical information.

The issue of security particularly concerns me. I was recently alerted to the Peever report, commissioned by the Morrison government, into the defence innovation system. It was the latest of several reviews conducted over recent years into the operations and future of the Defence Science and Technology Group, otherwise known as DSTG. The DSTG, throughout its long history, has been one of Australia's most capable and respected research institutions. Working in collaboration with our defence department and similar research centres within Australian defence partners, the DSTG has played a crucial role in defence weaponry development and national security. Over the years, some of our nation's best scientists have worked there. The Peever report, when finally released earlier this year, was so highly redacted as to make its release worthless. Whether it recommended that Australia follow the path of both the US and the UK, where, I understand, similar organisations to the DSTG now outsource much of their research, I don't know. However, I'd be very concerned if that was the case, and I urge the Deputy Prime Minister—who, as the Minister for Defence, has oversight over the DSTG and to whom I wrote about this matter earlier this year—to ensure that the DSTG remains Australia's leading defence research public institution. I also take this opportunity to thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his response to my letter, in which he, too, refers to the DSTG as 'a national jewel contributing countless world-leading innovative defence capabilities'.

The outsourcing of skills training from the public TAFE organisation and into private training providers also saw billions of dollars wasted through rorts and unfinished or worthless training certificates. The reality is that, as the name 'Public Service' itself implies, government-paid workers are there to provide a service. They are public servants who are there to provide public service, unlike within the private sector, where entities are there, essentially, to make a profit. Last week I visited the Modbury Centrelink offices and spoke to Centrelink, Medicare and NDIS staff who work there. Their commitment, professionalism and compassion, particularly for some of our community's most vulnerable people, is indeed commendable. They deal with matters sensitively and always with an objective to resolve any point of difference and to assist people with their needs. I thank and commend the team at the Modbury Centrelink offices for the work they do and for their focus on service.

This legislation essentially responds in large part to the Thodey review, which others have referred to. It may not pick up all the recommendations, but the recommendations that we are pursuing with this legislation essentially arise from that review. They are recommendations that were widely consulted upon. And yes, maybe they don't meet everyone's expectations, but they were widely consulted on and generally were put together after that consultation period. They go directly to ensuring good governance, accountability and transparency. That is, in my view, what the Public Service would like to see and what the public expects of the Public Service: accountability and transparency. Of course reviews will be carried out from time to time to ensure that they meet those very objectives that we talk about. One of the important aspects of all of this is also that government ministers will not have direct influence on some of the decision-making that might have occurred in the past, and that is also a good thing, because public servants are expected to be apolitical.

I close with these remarks. For decades now the Public Service of this country has served this country. Incredible expertise has been built up through the people who work in Australia's Public Service, at both the federal and the state level. One of my disappointments is how often I've been told that the expertise is being lost, that those years of experience, where people know how to deal with issues, has been lost because of outsourcing and the like. It is good to see that this government understands and values our Public Service and is in the process of rebuilding it so that we can all have confidence in the advice it provides to government and in the services it provides to the Australian people.

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | 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.

Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | 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.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Having lived and worked in the Territory my entire life, often working within or adjacent to the public services at the Northern Territory and Commonwealth government levels, I can say that the Public Service and public servants generally contribute a great deal to the functioning of our country. While it falls to the elected government to set the agenda, policy direction and framework for the bureaucracy to move towards, it is up to the Public Service to deliver on such agendas. The day-to-day operation of our government is a huge responsibility. It is the responsibility of tens of thousands of Australians around the nation.

The institution of the Public Service in a Westminster democracy is the essential cog which keeps the machinery of government running. The Public Service assesses our tax forms, delivers our social security payments, processes and assesses visas, and develops and implements policies stretching across a broad range of issues—from national security to Indigenous Australians, from agriculture to the environment. Living and working in the Territory, I can say that when the Public Service is working well and when it is independent, innovative and effective, communities prosper. When the Public Service is weak, when it does not attract the right minds, and when it is under-resourced, communities suffer.

Everyone in this place knows the Liberals and Nationals say they don't like big governments. That sentiment doesn't necessarily fit with the lived experience when it comes to what actually happened under the most recent iterations of the coalition government. But, putting that to one side, what many Australians may be surprised to know is how much the coalition like a weak and buttoned-down Public Service when they were in government—or perhaps less so now that the robodebt royal commission report is in. For almost a decade the coalition undertook a continuous and structural weakening of the Public Service. They contracted out vital policy work, spending billions of dollars in contracts with private companies, taking the public out of the Public Service. They created an environment of fear and subservience, an environment in which public servants clearly didn't feel comfortable giving frank and fearless advice. This was because they didn't want sound policy development or to have to think too hard about outcomes; they wanted a yes minister and they wanted media releases. What the Liberals and Nationals appear not to understand is that a strong and capable public service is the only way in which to deliver real and tangible change on the ground. This is particularly true in areas of market failure, and particularly where economies of scale face challenges.

One of the perfect examples of this policy trainwreck is known as the Community Development Program. I will go to the Northern Territory, and in particular my electorate of Lingiari. The Community Development Program, a Work for the Dole scheme, can be traced back to the deliberate decision by the Howard government as part of the intervention to scrap the robust and effective remote employment program we once had, which was called CDEP. CDEP was an employment program, not a welfare program. It had been developed through decades of experience and input from masterful thinkers like Nugget Coombs. The CDEP model involved funding being allocated directly to local community employers, not through the carpetbagger intermediary agencies which are currently making a fortune out of the existing regime.

The intervention in the Northern Territory delivered an outcome which transitioned Aboriginal people in remote Northern Territory communities from modest employment into total welfare dependency. The local employers under CDEP had flexibility to use other funding sources to top up hours and wages, and people regarded CDEP jobs as real jobs. The rationale declared at the time of the intervention for why CDEP had to be scrapped was that all those workers needed to be income managed. It was an enforcement and compliance measure just like robodebt. The old Community Development Employment Program found the balance of respecting individual communities' cultural and social obligations while also delivering pathways for meaningful employment. Importantly, it was also able to stimulate local economies on the ground in those communities which were providing opportunities for individuals in those communities to generate income outside of government funding. There was a reliance not on government but on creating enterprises and, therefore, sharing that wealth within communities and providing more jobs for younger people in those communities. It was not a perfect program, but it was by and large seen as delivering outcomes for people and communities.

The big winners now are contractors to whom the Commonwealth bureaucracy outsources the task of case-managing individual welfare recipients—something which was not necessary where people were directly employed by a local employer. These lucrative businesses are based in New South Wales, Queensland or wherever—far away from where the program is on the ground in Northern Territory remote communities. One of these contractors was RISE Ventures. They won big at a time when their chair was prominent coalition fellow traveller Warren Mundine. Former Minister for Indigenous Australians Nigel Scullion awarded the company many CDP contracts worth millions, and Mr Mundine had still not resigned when he was preselected as a coalition candidate for the 2019 federal election. The company continues to make millions off the back of Aboriginal unemployment.

In a recent visit around my electorate I've spent the last four weeks going into a lot of the communities, but to one community in central Australia in particular—the community of Mutitjulu. The participants and other community members were scathing, in the meetings that I had with them, about the absence of meaningful employment outcomes for their people. They are sick of the politicisation, because there is nobody working with them to try to get the jobs happening. A lot of the old Anangu, or the old Aboriginal elders out there, want their young people employed. They are really concerned about their young people.

I think CDP and the present program that has been in place for the last 15 years, and the privatisation of public service policy implementation relating to the management of unemployed people out bush, have been disastrous, particularly for the communities in the Northern Territory. The Liberals and the Nationals—and I know that people don't want to hear this—weakened the Public Service by contracting vast swathes of work out to the private sector, particularly in the Northern Territory. Then they ran roughshod over policy thinkers with decades of experience, in favour of ideological and political sugar hits. I have many good friends in the Commonwealth Public Service, people with policy brains who were employed under the previous government, who wanted to advise ministers about different ways of working, and who within 24 hours of telling them that were told to pack up their desks and go to another department, and were shovelled out. There are many people who come into the Indigenous Affairs portfolio in particular—we've got to stop this handballing of the political football and the argy-bargy that often happen in this place.

I think this amendment bill from our government is important in that we do need a strong Public Service. We have to rebuild, particularly in the Northern Territory. CDP is just one example of how the weakening of that Public Service through the elevation of political decision-making over policy-based approaches critically and negatively impacts everyday Australians. It comes from the same set of policy values which delivered robodebt.

Another example of the dangers and consequences of weakening our Public Service is robodebt. The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme has highlighted a number of concerning outcomes which come from the Public Service losing its ability to provide frank and fearless advice, but it also showed what can happen when the Public Service is not empowered, when its values and principles, the very bedrock of government, are not respected. Justice Murphy has labelled the robodebt scheme as a massive failure in public administration. It is a failure which has cost many Australians dearly. This is not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars spent reaching settlements and legal challenges against the Commonwealth as a result of robodebt. When we weaken the Public Service we create an environment in which maladministration is more likely to take place and we weaken the tools needed for effective government, and that is not good for anyone. So, after a decade of neglect and damage, the Albanese government is setting about the unenviable job of cleaning up after the Morrison government. A task taken with vigour is the strengthening and rebuilding of our Public Service. We are putting the 'public' back into the Public Service. We are investing in our people and in their ability to create, deliver and evaluate good policy, policy which will change people's lives.

The Albanese government is also helping to put the values and principles back into the Public Service. We all chose to come into this place to serve the greater good, and that is true of those who work in government departments. This work should be framed by values and principles and prioritise long-term change over political imperatives. To facilitate this, the Public Service Amendment Bill will be adding the value of 'stewardship'. This is not a mere change in words; it is the ingraining of a deeper purpose back into the APS. It will require the Public Service to build and maintain institutional knowledge and to monitor and reflect upon long-term trends in the government's decision-making process. This legislation will seek to coordinate and set goalposts for a myriad of government priorities and agendas. It will require the Secretaries Board, the chief executives of government agencies and departments, to map out a unifying APS purpose statement. Not only will it require this, but it will require the board to review it every five years in order to ensure the APS is fit-for-purpose in meeting key targets. The legislation also strengthens the apolitical nature of the Public Service, making it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on matters relating to individual staffing.

Labor has come into government committed to transparency and accountability in government, and we are well on our way to doing this. It will take much more work to rebuild and strengthen the APS, but with concrete measures like this piece of legislation, we are making headway.

I thank our Minister for the Public Service, Senator Gallagher, for her work on this. Senator Gallagher is someone who intricately understands the vital role of the APS. Her leadership on this issue will lead to improved governance and, in turn, better outcomes for people on the ground. I know that my electorate of Lingiari will certainly be grateful for a robust and strong Public Service.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Robodebt: Tudge, Robert, Porter—these three names—

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for McEwen has a very, very solid understanding of the standing orders, and I'd just ask—actually, you don't have to refer to them; none of them are here.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

No, they're all gone—fortunately. We went through that one once before—page 526 of Practice, I think it is.

Tudge, Porter and Robert: these three names are the ones responsible for the legacy that is the last government's incompetence and its contempt and indifference towards Australian people and towards a strong and compassionate Public Service. Of course, we still have one more to go: the architect, the cheerleader and the chief proponent, the member for Cook, who still has the nerve to sit in this House. To ensure that I do maintain parliamentary standards, I do my best not to bring him up too much. I also do my best to help people, unlike the member for Cook. When the multiple reports of a failing system rolled in, he doubled down to attack the most vulnerable in our society, and he denied the pain and hurt caused to regular Australian families when he was held to account. If he'd done his best, he would have listened and acted. He wouldn't have put pressure on the Australian Public Service, which led to one of this nation's greatest failings in a government program. It not only negatively impacted Australians' lives but took them in the most unfair and egregious manner possible.

The robodebt scandal was the crowning spectacle of the last government and really encapsulated the then government's relationship with the Public Service—one where public servants couldn't speak out and where they had to act in the interests not of the Australian public but of the private vendettas of politicians. That is why I rise today to speak on the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023 and why I'm so passionate about promoting a frank and fearless Public Service that is empowered to hold ministerial decisions up to scrutiny and to create policy that is effective in helping Australians thrive in their everyday lives.

The Public Service Amendment Bill is an important part of the Albanese government's commitment to implementing the Australian Public Service reform agenda. It is part of the election platform we ran on. It recentres the Australian Public Service on serving the people of Australia. A Labor government will always recognise the important work that our Public Service does and we'll always do our best to facilitate the important work of servicing Australians within our local communities. That is something those opposite failed to do for the nearly 10 years that they were in power.

When Labor left office we had been successful in increasing the number of employees in the Public Service. We knew the importance of that, as we'd just set up the NDIS and could see our nation's population increasing rapidly. Labor had the vision of sustainable growth, of building a system that would help Australians. When the coalition came into government they had a vision of cheap cuts and reductionist measures. They led their fear campaign with former Prime Minister Tony Abbott cutting 15,000 Public Service jobs. While we'd sought to make sure government programs and systems were appropriately supported and funded, the other side cut them by 25 per cent, thus sending billions of dollars into the hands of Liberal donors and consultants. These decisions made so many Australian professionals redundant and made the system overwhelmed and overworked. It was the first domino in a series of blunders that led to situations like the PwC scandal and the disastrous robodebt.

Through the lack of resourcing of the Public Service and outsourcing to the private sector, we saw an exponential increase in waiting times in Veterans' Affairs, something that our government moved quickly to fix. We saw understaffing and a lack of experience in the NDIA. The staffing caps put on the Public Service meant that the government outsourced government services to a private third party rather than relying on the professionals in the Public Service to ensure that programs were running smoothly. These short-term solutions only ever set up the government to become over-reliant on consultancies. Agencies that used to provide a third perspective now did the grunt work of the Public Service. It meant millions of taxpayer dollars were given to private third parties. With the former coalition government's PwC scandal, which has had far-reaching effects across our entire system, we saw what that got the Australian public. Only the Public Service, not private consultants, are bound by the values of impartiality, accountability, and ethical advice and decision-making.

This bill will bolster the government's commitment to good governance, accountability and transparency by building a Public Service that is fit to serve modern Australia—one that is capable of handling the issues facing Australians, proactively responding to Australians' needs, and increasing its own expertise and experience. This government knows that individuals that work in the APS do so because they want to serve the Australian public. If they were in it for money, they'd go to one of the private companies or firms.

We know that under the previous government the workers of the APS couldn't do the work that they wanted to do—the work that they valued. In the robodebt scandal, we saw Centrelink employees coming out and saying that what was happening was wrong. In an open letter in January 2017, Centrelink staff, through the CPSU, spoke out, saying that they knew what they were doing was wrong and had tried to report it but weren't able to get anywhere with their concerns. That's a very damning response by Centrelink workers—to come out, stand up and say that they knew that the government was doing the wrong thing—but the government refused to fix it.

So this bill makes sure that they are actually able to speak up and speak out and hold the secretarial positions, the public service and the ministers accountable for their actions. It will do this by adding a new value of APS stewardship, which all APS employees must uphold and which, by definition, means that the APS will build capacity and institutional knowledge and support the public interest now and into the future by understanding the long-term impacts of what it does. It will have a commitment to regular and independent reviews that will be released publicly and long-term insight reports that explore trends, risks and opportunities facing Australia, allowing for long-term planning and building on expertise within the service to prepare and gain the best outcome for Australia.

Further, to support good governance, this bill will require publication of the agency's APS census results and an action plan that responds to those results. This will foster a culture of transparency and accountability for continuous improvement within agencies. This government knows that to continuously build on and support a robust public service we need to protect the systems that allow them to do their job, which is servicing the people of Australia, speaking up when they can see something wrong and using their expertise to create the best outcomes for our people.

The Australian government knows that, for society to flourish and for a government to act effectively, you need a robust, experienced and independent public service—a public service that retains talent and fosters passion to give back to the Australian community—and you need a government that will support it. This government is committed to giving the support, which the coalition didn't give, to the public service. Instead of being generous—they could have given that support—they pursued their personal agendas, based on no evidence, to win a culture war against big government.

They pursued an agenda that meant Australian professionals lost their jobs. They pursued an agenda that cut an entire sector by 25 per cent. In an open letter to the Australian public through Centrelink staff—again, in 2017—they highlighted that 5,000 people had been cut from the Department of Human Services. Decisions like these mean things for our veterans. We often hear our people, as they stand here and wrap themselves in a flag, say how they love our veterans. I don't doubt that everybody genuinely does, but we've got to do something about it. When veterans are waiting for a thousand days just to have a claim heard—not paid out but heard—something is wrong. That something was that we cut the guts out of the APS.

Instead of having a service that acted with the integrity that Australians expected, the public service was forced to be at the beck and call of the ministers who oversaw programs. As La Trobe University's Darren O'Donovan, who was a senior lecturer in administrative law, illustrated on the 7am podcast: 'They purposefully tested a program that played on people's shame of receiving debt notices and similar communications from Centrelink.'

From this program, the Income Compliance Program, which later became known as robodebt, was born—a program that was built on guilting Australians with shame, that actively sought to hurt Australians to get money for the government and that ultimately succeeded in generating shame, which ended Australian lives. Justice Murphy, who was the judge presiding over this case, described the scheme as a 'shameful chapter' and a 'massive failure' of public administration. I've never heard an apology from those that were responsible. I bet a few of them still sit there and think that it was successful due to the raising of $1.8 billion, that it was a shame it was completely unlawful and put 435,000 vulnerable Australians in a difficult position. In fact, we saw the current Leader of the Opposition calling the royal commission into robodebt 'nothing more than a political witch-hunt'. But it had gone some way to giving 435,000 Australians their voice back after being hounded by a government that supposedly represented them over that 4½ years. As a sitting member during this period, I worked with many constituents who were targeted by this unlawful scheme that was overseen by the previous government.

I saw the mental toll that this incorrect and impersonal hounding did to everyday Australians. When we reached out and tried to advocate for them, we were stonewalled. The department had their hands tied behind their backs, and the former minister, the disgraced Alan Tudge, got up on A Current Affair, threatening to jail anyone who owed the government money. One day I would like to see people like that jailed for their decisions that caused so much pain and suffering, and that, in fact, ended people's lives. There should be accountability for those people who made those bad decisions and then tried to be tough about it. I watched as full-time students were, due to administrative errors, told they owed thousands of dollars, despite providing evidence and proof of their studies; and regular people who had been overpaid by the system but had already been proactive and settled debts. I still have mountains of correspondence in my office that we went through, detailing the stress and mental damage that the government refused to take responsibility for. They went into details about their feelings of hopelessness and distress that affected not only them but their families. And of course we remember those who took their lives due to the persistent pressure from a system that lacked integrity and compassion.

In particular, my office worked with a constituent called Debbie. She had left her job after an experience of sexual assault while working as a prison officer. She worked hard to rebuild herself and to heal, to go back to study for a Diploma of Community Services, and she was working to get herself a home. She was, at the time, fostering a 13-year-old child when the letters came. She detailed to me the extra stress and the triggering nature of the letters and how the cold and cruel nature of the way the government treated her left her vulnerable. She explicitly said that if our office hadn't stepped in to advocate for her she would have been one of the victims who took their own lives.

This Public Service amendment in front of the House today is the start to making sure something like robodebt never happens again. We want to make sure that the Public Service is built for the Australian people and that public servants are enabled to do the work they have expertise in, in bringing quality policy to protect Australians and help them thrive. Quite often we hear people saying that they're just cardigan-wearing fat cats, but if you have a look across the Public Service and see the people involved—whether they're nurses or our staff that we deal with here in the parliament—they are, most importantly, the people that are doing the policy and doing the work for the Australian public each and every day. They don't deserve to be hounded. They don't deserve to be browbeaten. They deserve to be supported and given the opportunity to do what they do best: stand up, deliver good policy and make sure that they work in the best interests of all Australians. That is why it's so important that this bill has a speedy passage.

Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023 to amend the Public Service Act 1999. The Australian Public Service plays an essential role in assisting the government of the day and in supporting our communities. The Public Service is the policy engine which drives Australia forward. From education to health, social services and economics, our communities rely on the Public Service, and we are grateful to them for the work that they do. There is almost no institution more important in our democracy than our Public Service. They are the ballast in policymaking. They are the people who formulate new ideas, who give frank and fearless advice to the government and who are responsible for policy development and implementation. If you look around the world, Mr Deputy Speaker, you see that those countries that have a successful and strong public service are those countries that are themselves successful. It is an essential ingredient in a modern and successful democracy, the engine of reform and delivery for the people that every government in the world serves.

This government has shown its support for the Public Service. Unfortunately, the support and gratitude that is provided on this side of the House is not shared by the former government and those on that side of the House. It's indeed unfortunate that this legislation is even needed today. For nearly a decade the Australian Public Service was gutted and its employees neglected by those opposite. Mr Deputy Speaker, let me give you some of the startling facts, the extent to which the Public Service was gutted and neglected over the course of the last terms of government. Between 2013 and 2019, the number of public servants per 10,000 Australians fell from 69.78 to 56.7. That's a massive decline in the size of the Public Service in Australia, a gutting of the Public Service in many different departments and sections of our government. In many cases it was a hollowing out of capability and a replacing of that capability with consultants and labour hire.

This began right back in 2013 with the Abbott government. The Abbott government embarked upon a war on the Australian Public Service. In his brief two years in office, Mr Abbott took out 15,000 APS jobs. There were 15,000 fewer APS jobs after just two years of the Abbott government, with valuable public servants shed in so many areas. There is nothing wrong with efficiency. There is nothing wrong with ensuring that the Public Service is doing its job with the fewest people possible. But that is not what happened under the Abbott government. Under the Abbott government, the Public Service was systematically targeted and gutted to the tune of 15,000 APS jobs. It came at the cost of services and it came at the cost of policy development and delivery.

The Morrison government also showed contempt for the Public Service. They spent 70 per cent of a $20 billion fund on outsourced service providers—a shadow workforce of 54,000 people, which they kept secret from the Australian people. A quarter of this fund was used for outsourced contractors and consultants. In a desperate attempt at budget repair, they attempted to cut $3.3 billion from the Public Service. This was a government which attempted to sideline and neglect the Public Service. The former prime minister, the member for Cook, would berate the Public Service, telling them that they lived in the Canberra bubble and existed in silos. He referred to the bacon-and-eggs principle, saying that public servants didn't really have a stake in good policy design. He said that the Public Service should focus on implementation, not on policy development—that policy development was the job of politicians, and public servants should be responsible merely for implementation. What disrespect for this institution, which over centuries has provided frank and fearless advice. That is what they are there for—to provide advice, to develop policy solutions and to propose them to governments. And it shows an incredible lack of self-knowledge to have the former government tell the Public Service that they would take care of policy development and that the Public Service should focus only on implementation. For a government that was focused on slogans, memes and polling to suggest that they were the source of all wisdom in policy development was an outrage and an insult to the Australian Public Service and to the people that they so loyally and capably serve.

Another area where the former government showed contempt for the Public Service was in appointments. They consistently filled Public Service roles with former staffers, mates and cronies. For the role of the Secretary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the top bureaucrat in the land, they appointed the former chief of staff to the Prime Minister. From there, down into the Public Service, they made appointment after appointment on political grounds rather than merit grounds. What could be more destructive to the Public Service? What could be more demoralising to public servants than having those senior roles filled by mates of the Liberal Party rather than capable colleagues from across the Public Service who have worked their whole lives for the betterment of Australia?

Tony Abbott waged a war on the Public Service, seeking to root out people who he deemed to be political people—people who he thought had served the Labor government or were too close to the Labor government. He put an axe through the senior ranks of the Public Service to purge it of people who he thought were insufficiently loyal to him. Again, it was a disastrous act, a disrespectful act, a loss of capability for the Australian Public Service and a terrible message to give to loyal people who work hard for our community every day.

All of this, of course, brings us to the robodebt scandal. Australians will never forget robodebt. In 2020, the member for Cook said of the Public Service that he wanted a laser-sharp focus on serving the quiet Australians. Yet, throughout his prime ministership, there were Australians crying out for help. They were not Australians who were served; they were Australians who were harmed. There were over 400,000 victims—over 400,000 Australians—with $1.8 billion taken from them.

Two thousand people died after receiving their robodebt advice from Centrelink. How many of these were the so-called quiet Australians? How many cries for help did the former government choose to hear and choose not to hear? How many people did they choose to ignore? Robodebt will forever remain a shameful chapter in our nation's story—a time when the government of the day targeted its most vulnerable citizens and wrecked the lives of thousands of people and their families.

That's why the robodebt royal commission has been so important. The robodebt royal commission heard from over 100 witnesses, from victims to public sector workers. We heard from Centrelink employees who tried raising concerns about the program but were ultimately ignored. They were ignored by the philosophy of the former government that the Public Service was there merely to implement, not to develop policy or to advise. The outcome of that dictum was very directly the robodebt disaster. Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes described the scheme as both a 'crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal'. It was a shameful chapter and, in her words, a 'costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms'.

The royal commission has been dismissed by those opposite as a witch-hunt, and they have accused the Minister for Government Services and the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme of politicising the issue. They could not be more wrong. The robodebt royal commission goes to the heart of our democracy and its hallowed institutions. The robodebt royal commission shows what can happen when the Public Service is sidelined, ignored and denuded of its capability. The robodebt royal commission shows us what we must never do again, and it motivates us to rebuild the Public Service and to support the Public Service. The royal commission will go down in history as having exposed the sheer scale of neglect and apathy from the former government.

That's why this bill today is so important. One of the key lessons of the five-year robodebt saga was the importance of integrity in government and ensuring a robust public service. The bill in front of us today presents an opportunity to renew the role of the Australian Public Service. Amending the Public Service Act 1999 is an important part of the Albanese government's agenda in reforming the Australian Public Service. This bill has four fundamental areas of focus: first, to ensure that the APS embodies integrity; second, to put people and businesses at the heart of the Public Service's work; third, to ensure that the Australian Public Service is a model employer; and fourth, to ensure that the Australian Public Service has the capability to perform its work well.

Currently, the Public Service operates under five core values: impartiality, commitment to service, accountability, respect and ethical operations. This bill introduces a sixth value: the value of stewardship. Stewardship is about more than supervision; it's about building capability and institutional knowledge. It is about supporting the public interest and ensuring that the APS is future fit for its important work. Stewardship aims to strengthen the APS's core values and principles and encourage a culture of transparency and accountability. Time and again, the former government betrayed this principle. Whether it was the billions of dollars cut from hospitals in 2014, the neglect of Public Service advice over many years or the use of contractors—labour hire firms running rampant in the public service: the shadow workforce being built from contractors. All of that was exactly the opposite of stewardship. It was the antithesis of building capability and custodianship. What we're suggesting is that we should reduce unnecessary hierarchy to create greater efficiency within the APS and give our respected employees a greater voice.

This bill will also require departments to conduct capability reviews every five years. This would an involve an assessment of an organisation's strength, areas for further development and medium- and long-term risk analysis. Importantly, all these findings would be made public, consistent with the principle of transparency and accountability. We need to ensure that we restore public trust in the Public Service—trust which has eroded over the last decade of apathy and neglect. The amendment would reduce unnecessary hierarchy to empower our Public Service employees. To instruct each agency to develop an action plan to continue to improve its capability and expertise into the future, the release of the agency's APS census results would also be made public. Again, this is a key lesson from the Morrison government that this Albanese government is learning from and rising above: the importance of transparency and accountability.

On top of stewardship, this bill strengthens the APS's core values. Amending the Public Service Act would require the APS to promote a new purpose statement—one which agency heads would be required to uphold in the long term. This is a bill that recognises the importance of the Public Service in our democracy. It values them. It values the contribution they make to policy development and policy implementation. I commend it to the House.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023 and I acknowledge the contributions of my colleague the member of Parramatta and others who have spoken on this side of the House. Our government was elected on a broad platform of reform—reform to our healthcare system and our aged-care system, reform to our universities and our schools, and, importantly, reform of our Public Service. The Public Service is crucial to what we do as a government and what we want to do in the future. That includes supporting the most vulnerable Australians, improving health care and aged care and pushing down cost-of-living pressures.

In order to do that, if we want to do all of those things, we need a Public Service that doesn't just work well; it needs to be world class, the best of the best. But, unfortunately, during the last decade, the coalition diminished the role of the Public Service, relying excessively on contractors and consultants and outsourcing policy. The coalition was deliberate in its dismantling of a robust Public Service that should provide frank and fearless advice to the government of the day.

These legislative changes that we debate today are part of our agenda not just to rebuild but to renew the Australian Public Service. Importantly, the proposed changes have also been informed by consultation with employees, representative groups, agencies, experts, the public and interested parties, including the Community and Public Sector Union. That's because the Public Service is not some collection of buildings in Canberra but dedicated people who commit their working lives to supporting our country.

The bill will strengthen the Public Service's purpose and core values, build the capability and expertise of the Public Service and support good governance, accountability and transparency. This is something we desperately need to do. Take robodebt. It showed us that public administration can fail and, when it does, can result in real human tragedy. It shows us the impact of political expedience and indifference for those most in need, the most vulnerable Australians. It showed us what happens when government does not listen to our experts.

Our Public Service reform is about making sure that schemes like robodebt don't happen, that they can't happen, that they never happen again. The amendments put in place clear, practical steps to support and improve the work of Public Service agencies. They create mechanisms for peer review and for external scrutiny and for guarding against political interference and intimidation, which were clearly so dominant in the robodebt scheme.

The royal commission uncovered a systemic approach to sweeping tragedy under the rug, by the most senior members of the former cabinet, in favour of an inflated budget bottom line. When I look at the royal commission, what stands out to me, in my role as Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, are the tragic stories of two young men who died by suicide as a direct result of this failed scheme. In one case, of a young man, his mother found in his apartment debt letters hanging on the fridge. In the other, prior to his death by suicide, he said, 'I will never get out of debt.'

The final report talks of many others who felt they had no way out, including one victim who recalls thinking, while driving home one night, 'I could just drive my car into a tree and make it stop.' While the illegal and unethical scheme alleged debts against some 526,000 Australians directly, these suicides and suicidal ideation display the true nature of robodebt. We are determined to make sure that that does not happen again. Our government understands that suicide is individual and complex and not exclusively the heartbreaking result of severe mental ill-health. Suicide is the result of multiple contributing factors, drivers of distress, drivers such as childhood abuse, domestic and family violence, relationship breakdown and, importantly, financial distress.

This royal commission is a stark reminder that our policy decisions matter. They have a real human impact, and policies introduced with little regard for the most vulnerable can lead to heightened distress that results in tragic consequences. To quote from page iii of the royal commission:

It is remarkable how little interest there seems to have been in ensuring the Scheme's legality, how rushed its implementation was, how little thought was given to how it would affect welfare recipients and the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers on a quest for savings.

It is clear we need this bill, that the Australian public need this bill and that the most vulnerable in our community need this bill. At its heart this bill and the Albanese government's broader APS reform agenda are about restoring the public's trust and faith in government and its institutions. We are cleaning up the mess left behind by the coalition. They gutted the Public Service, reduced capability and outsourced billions of dollars of work to consultants and contractors. These reforms will strengthen the Public Service's core purpose and values; build capability and expertise; and support good governance, accountability and transparency. The challenges we face as a country are immense. We must be prepared for the next decade and the future ahead, and to face those challenges we need a strong, fearless public service.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023. We know the Public Service plays an important role in the lives of all Australians, so a bill to improve the Public Service is critical to the delivery of better outcomes for Australians who use and depend on their services. The need for such improvements and reforms has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic and cost-of-living pressures. This bill emphasises integrity in the Public Service, an issue that has come under scrutiny recently through the appalling findings of the robodebt royal commission and the ongoing revelations about the role and conduct of external consultancies. Australians deserve better. Taxpayer money must be put to best use in the public interest and with integrity and accountability. The government needs to stem the increasing politicisation of the Public Service and prevent future conflicts of interest.

This bill presents an opportunity for the government to restore the public's trust and confidence in government and its institutions. The recently released wellbeing framework shows that the public's trust in institutions and the Public Service continues to decline, now at less than 50 per cent. So this bill is a key element of the government's Australian Public Service reform agenda, which gives effect to a number of the recommendations of the Thodey review. The APS reform agenda has four priority areas to create an Australian Public Service that, firstly, embodies integrity in everything it does; secondly, puts people and business at the centre of policy and services; thirdly, is a model employer; and, fourthly, has the capability to do its job well.

There is no doubt that we have seen more and more the influence and impact of the politicisation of the Public Service. The Public Service must be able to withstand changes of government. It must be able to be frank and fearless in its advice and in how it refers back to the executive. Its job is in the public interest, and it must be there for the Australian people. This bill proposes to address this by adding a new Australian Public Service value of stewardship and adding an APS purpose statement to address the issue that the APS is currently thought to be too internally focused.

It also adds the value of impartiality to reaffirm the apolitical role of the Australian Public Service by making it explicit that ministers cannot direct agency heads on employment matters. While this will help enforce impartiality, I don't believe it goes far enough. Research from the Grattan Institute found that nearly one in 10 of all federal government board appointees have a direct political connection. This figure rises to 21 per cent among those positions that are well paid, prestigious and/or powerful. It becomes the conveyor belt of opportunity for those that have been in politics. There must be a non-partisan scrutiny of senior public service appointments. I commend the member for Mackellar for her efforts to make the appointment process more transparent and accountable through her private member's bill to end jobs for mates. I urge the government to consider amending this legislation to take into account the gold standard of accountability framework for board appointments.

The Public Service Amendment Bill will build the capability of its staff to create a skilled and confident workforce with five yearly capability reviews. The Thodey review points out that the capabilities of the APS have eroded over time with successive governments deciding to cut funding to various agencies. Then, the only people that ultimately pay the price is the public, because the service they receive from the APS is no longer what it should be. So the recommendation from the Thodey review was hiring talented people and offering a quality employee experience in a dynamic workplace.

There must also be accountability around that public service. The bill adds long-term insights reporting and good governance, ensuring the APS is a rewarding place to work.

The bill also includes an accountability and transparency measure through the publishing of annual employee census results. That is very much welcome.

The bill will also enable decision-making to occur at the lowest appropriate classification, which will improve decision-making, empowering staff and reducing bottlenecks. I commend this amendment, as we saw firsthand in our Warringah electoral office the result of bottlenecking in the APS with the post COVID backlog of, for example, visa approvals, where it was clear insufficient workforce had resulted in a process which was really not serving the Australian people well. We saw that as well with passports and so many other areas of public service. The suggested amendment to allow approvals lower down the line will help with this.

Still there is much that could be done better. The bill would be improved by a provision that the merit appointment provision of the Public Service Act should not be evaded by placing external contractors in APS positions, which is hiring talented APS staff to reduce the need for hiring external consultants. Of course, the public has been horrified by the revelations in relation to PwC and the other big four in relation to consulting and ensuring that the Australian public is getting value for money.

The Morrison government spent some $20.8 billion on contractors and outsourcing public service in one financial year alone. An audit found that the equivalent of nearly 54,000 full-time staff were employed as consultants or service providers during the 2021-22 financial year. Those figures are staggering and really shocking to most in the Australian public. While consultants undoubtedly have their place in providing external advice and independent opinion, the practice of shifting cost, risk and responsibility to the private sector is unsustainable and does not represent value for money. It also doesn't ensure that the Australian people have policies and advice to government that survive changes of government. We have to get to policy making that goes beyond the short-term of each parliament.

Also, the practice of only paying for what you want to hear is one of the most corrupting and wasteful practices in this relationship and requires urgent action. The government must look to include the findings from the robodebt royal commission, in particular the recommendations in chapter 23 of the report, which were about improving the APS. That includes an immediate review to determine if the existing structure of the Social Services portfolio and the status of Services Australia as an entity are optimal and whether the agency heads must be held accountable. The report recommends an enhanced ability to investigate departmental secretaries and that former staff be able to be disciplined. At present, secretaries are not covered by the APS Code of Conduct, nor are officials who have left. The APS Commission should develop standards for the documenting of important decisions and discussions and the delivery of training on those standards. We should never have a situation where—for example, under robodebt—the answer that is coming from an external consultant or from a department is not the answer the government of the day wants to hear so the money is paid but no report is made. The lack of integrity in that process is just astounding. The Public Service needs real independence and to be able to be speak truth to power without risking losing their jobs. Robodebt is the very real proof that this needs to happen. Nonetheless, the Public Service must also be held to clear KPIs. It must be held to standards and accountability. There must be delivery of service. Things must be held to budget.

Section 34 of the Freedom of Information Act should be repealed. This section makes it too easy for the government to avoid scrutiny by claiming a document is a cabinet document and can't be released. This blocks journalists from revealing more, for example, about robodebt and so many other issues. Also the government should tighten the regulation of community development grants so that they serve the public interest rather than the interests of those in marginal and government held electorates.

Finally I would like to thank the staff and the team at Services Australia in my electorate, at the centre in Warringah Mall in Brookvale. I had the opportunity to visit them on Friday last week and discuss up close with them the incredible service they do to help the more vulnerable in our community around a number of services. I really thank them for their hospitality and for sharing with me their experience and their concerns—the very real concerns they have from time to time for their safety and how they are viewed. One of the very direct messages I have from them for government—and I think this applies to both sides—is that when politicians in this place decide to play politics and reveal, for example, issues around policy positions and put them out into the public arena, such as an announcement on JobSeeker or something like that, those frontline staff have to deal with people coming to centres like Services Australia and handle their queries and concerns when they have not even received the detail or the brief or anything that might be intended by government. It's really important that we in the bubble of this place do not forget the public servants that are out there doing the work on the ground, on the frontline, helping so many in our communities.

So I support this bill, but I urge the government to take further measures as I have outlined. The government must take learnings from the past 10 years—robodebt, COVID, the PwC conflict-of-interest debacle. The government needs to proceed with reforms to create a public service with integrity, accountability, expertise and good governance at its core. The royal commission's call for systemic change must be acted upon so that robodebt can never happen again.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Public Service Amendment Bill, an important bill which goes to the legislative core and commitment of the Albanese Labor government's Australian Public Service reform agenda. This is a reform agenda that seeks to rebuild the Australian Public Service, to restore integrity and transparency, and to ensure the principle of that renowned term 'frank and fearless advice'. Its purpose is to address the undermining of the Public Service during the 10 years of the coalition government—10 years in which those opposite actively diminished the role of the Public Service. Instead of preferring a dynamic public service, they depended on private profiteers through an excessive reliance on contractors and consultants through a policy of outsourcing right across the Public Service, thus outsourcing their responsibility to govern.

We have seen recently what happens when we outsource government policy and decision-making advice and analysis to contractors and consultants. It generally gets leaked to the media, and it's influenced and exploited in a secretive way, driven by one sole purpose: to appeal to the highest bidder at the expense of Australian taxpayers and at the expense of our national economy. It is done at the expense of reform and progress designed to benefit the Australian people and the safety nets that Australians rely on across all stages of their life.

There's a real difference between us on this side of the House and those opposite. Their standard operating procedure is to deal and govern in secrecy deliberately and on account of their incompetence, which they sought to hide from the Australian people. Ours is one of trust and accountability, and this bill is a clear reflection of this, because most of its amendments are recommendations of the 2019 Independent Review of the Australian Public Service and go to its intent. It's a reflection of this trust and accountability because the proposed changes have also been informed by a broad and transparent consultation with employees, representative groups, agencies, experts, the public and other interested parties, including the Community and Public Sector Union, the CPSU. State based public service commissions also support this bill, and they noted connections with their own reform agenda. We also saw public sector research bodies being largely supportive of the bill for continuing implementation of the review. It's a reflection of this government's commitment to restoring the Australian public's trust in our institutions and agencies, as this bill will strengthen the APS's core purpose and values, which are to build the capability and expertise of the APS and support good governance, accountability and transparency.

The people in my electorate of Calwell understand the importance of a trusted and properly functioning public sector, and in recent times they have felt this all too clearly through policies presided over by those opposite. My community knows what it's like and has seen what happens when the Public Service doesn't function correctly, openly and transparently, when there isn't good governance and when there is no accountability. What could be more damning of this reality than the so-called Income Compliance Program, what is now known as robodebt? This program was more than mere incompetence, although that would be damning enough. Robodebt was a disaster driven by a contempt for the Australian people, a contempt for the role and function of our public sector and a contempt for our most vulnerable citizens. In a remarkable and extreme display of audacity, the Leader of the Opposition called the royal commission 'nothing more than a political witch hunt', not robodebt itself a witch hunt against the most vulnerable. The opposition leader has stated that the independent inquiry into robodebt itself is the witch hunt, one in which Justice Murphy, the judge presiding over the case, approved the largest class action settlement in Australian history. He described the scheme as a 'shameful chapter' and a 'massive failure in public administration'. It was a shameful chapter which saw $1.8 billion of debt unlawfully raised 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 that day, ministers and senior public servants were going to have to give evidence in the trial of the class action. The Commonwealth was finally admitting it had no legal basis on which to raise the debts.

The royal commission into robodebt was an election commitment of the Albanese government. It was a commitment to introduce justice to a process stained by cruelty as government policy by those opposite. What we saw in those 46 days of public hearings and what we heard from more than 100 witnesses was equally heartbreaking and enraging. What we witnessed was stories of people who relied on the safety net being hounded by their government with no means of fighting back. That is counter to what we, as Australians, subscribe to as part of our belief in a fair and egalitarian society.

I also note the role of the former coalition cabinet in ticking off on major decisions in relation to the scheme, the cabinet of which the current Leader of the Opposition was a member. Between July of 2015, when what became robodebt was ticked off by cabinet, and November of 2019, when it was finally paused, approximately 435,000 Australians who relied on the social safety net were targeted by their own government in a cruel and unlawful scheme. The royal commission has gone some way to bringing a voice, visibility and justice to those who were hounded by their own government for 4½ years.

I spoke earlier about the real difference between this side of the House and those opposite, which is why I want to draw the attention of the House to the words directly from the royal commission's final report. I quote:

There are different mindsets one can adopt in relation to social welfare policy. One is to recognise that many citizens will at different times in their lives need income support—on a temporary basis for some as they study or look for work; longer-term for others, for reasons of age, disadvantage or disability—and to provide that support willingly, adequately and with respect. An alternative approach is to regard those in receipt of social security benefits as a drag on the national economy, an entry on the debit side of the Budget to be reduced by any means available: by casting recipients as a burden on the taxpayer, by making onerous requirements of those who are claiming or have claimed benefit, by minimising the availability of assistance from departmental staff, by clawing back benefits whether justly or not, and by generally making the condition of the social security recipient unpleasant and undesirable. The Robodebt scheme exemplifies the latter.

Those opposite weaponised the agencies of government against our most vulnerable in a way that was neither fair nor legal. And there was a deliberate attempt at a cover-up, with revelations of dishonesty and collusion, to hide the fact that there was no legal foundation to the scheme. The words 'illegal' and 'cruel' are a damning indictment of the role those opposite played in this devastating affair that was 'varied, extensive, devastating and continuing'. How relentless and how ruthless and how cruel. I could use more words to describe it, but I think the report speaks for itself. It is worth repeating those words here today, because of this awful deadly saga—and I use the word purposely—and I quote:

Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals. In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms.

And I further quote:

The ill effects of the scheme were varied, extensive, devastating and continuing …

The report went on to say:

The impacts of (Robodebt) on the people embroiled in it were vividly illustrated in the evidence before the Commission from the witnesses who spoke of the distress and damage they had suffered and, of course, the evidence of the mothers of the two young men who took their own lives, at least in part because of it …

Again, I quote Commissioner Holmes:

I am confident that the commission has served the purpose of bringing into the open an extraordinary saga, illustrating a myriad of ways that things can go wrong through venality, incompetence and cowardice," commissioner Catherine Holmes wrote in the report released Friday.

I want to say 'deadly' cowardice in this case. A real mark of shame is that those opposite, those responsible for this scheme, have taken no responsibility, no accountability—no justice. It's remarkable how little interest has been shown in the legality of their scheme.

Ours is a government committed to justice. We are committed to restoring trust in government, especially for those who rely most on government. Australians from all walks of life should know that government in Australia is there to deliver a social safety net and that government will now take time to consider the 57 recommendations in the final report of the royal commission, an independent process that has been overseen by Commissioner Holmes. The evidence that was given throughout the commission was incredibly disturbing, especially with regard to the former Liberal ministers that implemented and oversaw the scheme over 4½ years.

This bill would introduce amendments requiring all agency heads to uphold and promote the new APS purpose statement in addition to the APS values and principles to strengthen the Australian Public Service's core purpose and values. Importantly, it would clarify and strengthen the provisions in the act to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on individual APS staffing decisions. This will reaffirm the APS's apolitical nature. This bill also supports good governance, accountability and transparency. The bill will introduce amendments to require agency heads to implement measures to enable decisions to be made by employees at the lowest appropriate classification for those decisions. This will ensure decision-making is not raised to a higher level than is necessary, reducing unnecessary hierarchy and empowering Australian Public Service employees. That's the basis for the frank and fearless advice that we need and that the Australian public demand and deserve from our agencies.

As members of parliament, we have constituents who come to us for help in navigating what can often be complex service delivery processes relating to government agencies. When we assist, our offices assume that government agencies are acting in good faith in trying to get the best outcome in delivering to our constituents their rights. What the robodebt scheme did served to attack the public's trust in the integrity of our government agencies. Here is the real witch-hunt, if every there were one, in the public sector—a witch-hunt against people accessing a system designed to address the social safety net that this country's social fabric is reliant on. That is why I find it astonishing that the Leader of the Opposition speaks of witch-hunts—not against the victims of the scheme, but crying poor for those responsible for its design and implementation.

Recent estimates relating to unemployment data have shown my electorate to have among the highest rates of unemployment across all Australia. As economic headwinds change, access to entitlements and services is a right afforded to every single one of my constituents that meet the basic requirements. That's the value of residency and citizenship, the value of being an Australian and the value of a social safety net designed to benefit those accessing it as well as those contributing to it.

Those who broke the law through robodebt, cheated Australians and drove down our public institutions and the trust in and integrity of our Public Service were not those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Some we know of, but there are many whose scars and trauma we may never know of. Those who carried the burden were victims of those who, without shame, continue to this day to defend the circumstances behind this tragic and shameful chapter. That's why we need to restore trust in public administration and a serious and structural reform agenda that will restore integrity to the Australian Public Service. I commend this bill to the House.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) | Link to this | 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.

Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023. This bill amends the Public Service Act 1999. It's yet another contribution to the Albanese Labor government's strengthening of the Australian Public Service, reforms that are long overdue.

I cannot overstate the importance of a Public Service that is empowered to properly do its job. A core part of this job is the ability to provide frank and fearless advice, and with all the revelations we continue to learn of the previous coalition government's decade of wreckage this only becomes more evident—what happens when the Public Service is outsourced to private consultancies and what happens when the Public Service is not empowered to provide advice, not given the leeway to be frank and fearless or, when it does provide advice, to be ignored.

We need an Australian Public Service that is responsive, responsible, valued and trusted, trusted by the government and the people of Australia. This bill is important because it will strengthen the APS' core purpose and values. It will build the capability and expertise of the APS and support good governance, accountability and transparency.

I have enormous respect for our public servants, and since becoming an assistant minister, particularly, I have had the privilege to work with and receive advice from many talented and capable people in the department. Fostering those relationships is important so we can not only support those employees to perform their roles but, above all, get better outcomes on the ground for the people in our communities.

In my previous role as ACTU president, through the mighty CPSU, I had the privilege of meeting and interacting with many wonderful public servants at all levels of government, people who care deeply about their roles and the people they serve. In 2019, the independent Thodey review of the APS made a number of recommendations. It called on bold action to ensure that the APS could become a high-performing institution. It called for deep cultural change. Clearly, it all fell on deaf ears. It's now nearly 4½ years later and the pattern is clear. The coalition let another important report gather dust. They ignored the advice and failed to deal with the consequences.

This Labor government is absolutely committed to strengthening the Australian Public Service, because after a decade of coalition destruction and distraction we know that it sorely needs it. Just a few months ago, an audit of the Australian Public Service found that the Morrison government spent $20.8 billion on outsourcing Public Service provision and external consultants during the 2021-22 financial year alone. In one year, $20.8 billion! The audit found that the equivalent of around 54,000 full-time staff were employed as consultants or service providers. All the while, they maintained a cap on public servant staff numbers, aptly described by our Minister for the Public Service, Senator Katy Gallagher, as a 'mirage of efficiency'.

Labor has long been committed to addressing this inconsistency for the betterment of the Public Service as well as the economy and the Australian community that the Public Service serves. And we have already taken action. In the last budget we converted around 3,300 external labour arrangements into permanent public sector jobs. These are full-time roles that should have been just that, all the while, but the former government was more than happy to outsource them at a cost. Converting just these jobs into full-time positions has saved $800 million in the budget, not to mention regarnishing some of that skill and knowledge that is so important for our Public Service. And now, unfortunately, we know exactly what happens when the capability of the Public Service is systematically undermined. We know what it looks like when ministers such as the member for Cook or the former members for Sturt and Aston either do not seek or simply refuse to listen to advice from their departments. And we know the pain and tragedy this can cause the Australian people.

I am of course referring to the findings from the royal commission into the coalition's illegal robodebt scheme. From its inception in early 2015 and through various iterations, until it was paused and later scrapped in 2019, robodebt unlawfully raised $1.8 billion of debt against approximately 435,000 vulnerable Australians. In November 2019 Services Australia stopped the use of averaging Australian Taxation Office income data as the sole basis for raising debt. On that day, ministers and senior public servants would have to have given evidence in the trial of 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. He described the scheme as a 'shameful chapter' and a 'massive failure in public administration'.

I remember, when I was first elected, the stories from constituents who would come to my office and tell me what they were experiencing as a consequence of this illegal and shameful scheme. It was distressing. One poor woman had folders and folders of payslips, affidavits, letters of support and other evidence. She literally fell over my office doorstep laden by the reams of paper and burdened by anxiety and depression. She literally screamed for help. Desperation was driving despair. She felt hounded and dehumanised. She was ultimately exonerated, but the scars remained.

Now, nearly four years later, the royal commission has delivered its report, and it was crystal clear in its assessment of the former government and their failures. It repeated the sentiment Justice Murphy made in 2019, stating:

Robo-debt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.

In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms.

This is what happens when the Public Service is completely disempowered. It is what happens when you do not support a Public Service to provide fearless, independent advice. The Australian people do not need an army of yes-men. They do not need policy dictated down from ministers to public servants, who fear that they cannot say no or provide advice to the contrary. Indeed, the robodebt report says:

It is remarkable how little interest there seems to have been in ensuring the scheme's legality, how rushed its implementation was, how little thought was given to how it would affect welfare recipients and the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers on a quest for savings.

I thank and applaud the Prime Minister and the Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten, for pursuing justice for the robodebt victims, for giving them a voice in this House. The robodebt royal commission report stands as a stark reminder of what happens when the APS is stripped of its core functions, devalued and undermined. This bill is just another facet of our reform agenda for the APS, a beginning of restoration, of trust, of capability and of culture. We've seen a decade of the coalition's diminishing of the Public Service and an excessive reliance on outsourcing, on consultants and contractors, for anything and everything that should be core business of a strong Public Service.

The report was extremely comprehensive, and it's right that we take our time to consider its recommendations. Given the findings of the robodebt royal commission report, it is clearer than ever that we need our Public Service not only to be an effective and trusted institution but to have a clear, common purpose. This bill delivers a number of reforms that will strengthen the apolitical role of the Public Service, reaffirm its impartiality and foster a culture of integrity. We must never let a situation like robodebt happen again, and it is clear that significant reform to the Public Service is a critical part of this. It must be done and it must be done right.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll start this summing-up speech by thanking all members who've contributed to this discussion. What has been very heartening to hear in all of the contributions has been a reflection on the real value that the institution that is the Australian Public Service provides not just to all of us in this place but to all Australians in ensuring that we have the quality services and quality policy on which we all rely.

This bill, the Public Service Amendment Bill, amends the Public Service Act 1999 as a key element of the Albanese government's ambitious APS reform agenda. The case for ambitious and enduring reform of the APS is clear, and it has become only clearer in recent months. At its heart, this bill and the government's broader APS reform agenda are about restoring the public's trust and faith in government and its institutions. The Independent Review of the Australian Public Service, led by Mr David Thodey, is a key input into this bill. The bill is designed to address the challenges facing the APS now and into the future, and the Albanese government's amendments to the Public Service Act will embed in legislation reform that guides and governs the Public Service.

Our reform agenda has four clear priorities. The first is an APS that embodies integrity in everything that it does. The second is an APS that puts people and business at the centre of policy and services. The third is an APS that is a model employer. And the fourth is an Australian Public Service that has the capability to do its job well. This bill supports each of these priorities. This bill will strengthen the Australian Public Service's core values and purpose, build the capability and expertise of the Australian Public Service and support good governance, accountability and transparency. I say to all members: this bill is the start of an ambitious legislative reform agenda for the APS, not the end.

What we had in the recommendations of the Thodey review in 2019 were recommendations for strengthening the purpose of the Public Service and its values and promoting a shared understanding of its role. I have been encouraged in the conversations we've had here about more appreciation of that shared role that the APS plays for all of our work and, indeed, a number of comments where people were telling their stories. I noted this from both government ministers and former ministers on the opposition front bench who were sharing stories about how much they valued that work that they do in developing policy to improve the lives of all Australians by working with our Public Service.

The core vision that comes out of Thodey and is in part delivered through this legislation is about having a Public Service that is integrated as one organisation, as one APS. This amendment bill delivers on this intent and supports the government's APS reform priorities, creating an APS that acts with integrity in everything that it does. The bill will add a new value of 'stewardship', requiring that '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'. By requiring all APS employees to uphold stewardship, the bill will strengthen the important and enduring role that all Public Servants play as stewards.

This bill will require the Secretaries Board to oversee the development of a single, unifying purpose statement for the Australian Public Service to complement the addition of stewardship as an APS value. The member for Bradfield raised a concern that the opportunity had not been taken to outline the core purpose of the Australian Public Service and provide an articulation of the accountability relationship in servicing the Australian people and the elected government. I report to the House that the Australian Public Service Act 1999 already sets out this relationship. In its objective it sets out to:

… establish an apolitical public service that is efficient and effective in serving the Government, the Parliament and the Australian public ….

It's also in the existing APS values. The value of accountable establishes that:

The APS is open and accountable to the Australian community under the law and within the framework of Ministerial responsibility.

So, again, we have addressed that point.

The purpose statement will indeed create that unification of the APS by uniting the APS and developing, embedding and inspiring purpose and vision. The statement will be one that resonates with all public servants wherever they might find their contribution to the great Australian Public Service and one where there is a five-yearly review mechanism. I note that, of course, like any institution, the Public Service does need to evolve over time, including in their mission statement. Ensuring that that purpose statement remains contemporary is important, because it is also about ensuring that we continue to listen to our public servants. I have been really impressed with the commitment to getting out there and listening, which has been led by a range of officials in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to make sure that when we end up with that statement it will be something that speaks to all public servants. This is consistent with recommendation 9 of the Thodey review, and it will guide that ongoing transformation of the Australian Public Service.

The other piece that I draw members' attention to is the limitations on ministerial directions to agency heads. There are many matters where ministers can rightly administer their department and direct their agency heads. But we're strengthening the relevant provision in the Public Service Act to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on individual APS staffing decisions. We had a very fine contribution from the member for Curtin where she raised that the bill should seek to re-establish the correct relationship between government and the APS. She also noted that the Public Service must be considered as a significant institution in its own right as part of responsible government under the Constitution. This bill seeks to deliver on that by reaffirming the apolitical role of the Australian Public Service and by providing confidence to agency heads to act with integrity in the exercise of their duties and powers. Indeed, the first APS value is to be impartial. This value, which has been there and is remaining there, is critical to the successful operation of the service and to maintaining public trust. It's key to maintaining an impartial Public Service, where we have an apolitical and merit based approach to APS employment matters, devoid of political interference.

This bill also has a strong commitment to embedding ongoing measures to build the capability and expertise in the Public Service. Talented, committed people are the foundation of our Public Service, and this bill will help to strengthen that foundation. It will help to build expertise by requiring the secretary's board to commission regular, evidence based, long-term insights reports. These reports will be developed through a process of public consultation. Long-term insights reports will explore some of the medium-term and long-term trends, risks and opportunities that Australia faces. This amendment bill will embed an expectation that the APS continually assesses its strengths and its weaknesses and takes action to uplift its capability, including by engaging with the Australian public. When we look at what we're going to do, department by department, this bill will deliver on regular, independent, transparent capability reviews as a five-yearly requirement. This will extend to each department of state, to Services Australia and to the Australian Taxation Office.

During the debate, the honourable member for Bradfield raised the issue that the bill does not account for consultation with the relevant minister. This bill does not seek to provide those detailed operational details. However, such consultation would, of course, be an inherent part of testing the future readiness of departments. I don't think anyone could credibly come in here and suggest that you would not consult with the relevant minister when you are doing a capability review of the department which they administer. By ensuring those ongoing, regular, independent capability reviews we'll also ensure that we have embedded, at the highest levels within those departments and all the way down, a culture of continuous improvement to deliver both for the government of the day, for this parliament and for the Australian community.

There's been a lot of commentary and discussion around shared commitments for transparency, good governance and accountability in this debate—values which most in this place hold very, very dear. We know that transparency can shine a light on the culture and the make-up of the Australian Public Service. It can prompt change to ensure that it remains both a great place to work and a great place to work for people from all walks of life. We want to ensure best practice governance arrangements, ensure that employees are empowered and supported in their roles and that they are given opportunities to apply and extend their skills and experience. Again, amendments in this bill address these objectives.

These amendments deliver on the APS reform priority to create an APS that is a model employer. We've spoken a lot in this place about our need to set the standard and for people to look at this parliament as a leading example, but we also want to make sure that the Australian Public Service across Australia is a model employer. One of the things we will do to help deliver on that is that agencies will be required to publish their aggregate APS Employee Census results. They will also be required to publish an action plan responding to those results. By doing this, the government aims to foster a culture of transparency and accountability, again, for continuous improvement within agencies. It also aims to improve the APS's position as a model employer.

As a model employer, we want the Australian Public Service to be one that not only listens to but addresses the thoughts, concerns and ideas of its employees. One of the ways that we are doing that through this bill is to enable decision-making to occur at the lowest appropriate classification. Being a model employer means that you create a culture of trust. Being a model employer means you support your employees. This recommendation was prompted by findings that decisions involving risk tended to be increasingly escalated upwards within the Public Service. This bill gives a counterweight to that tendency, requiring agency heads to implement measures that enable decisions to be made by APS employees at the lowest appropriate classification.

We have had a range of matters, which I think we'll speak to in a moment. I know the member for Curtin was the first but, particularly over the last 24 hours, was definitely not the last to raise questions about what else should be in this bill. We both had suggestions that there should be more in this bill, and we had suggestions that this should be postponed until after we have the report of the robodebt royal commission, because we do need to learn from past mistakes and prioritise our reform for the future. I just note that the Australian Public Service is a complex organisation. It's made up of tens of thousands of people working across dozens of departments and agencies. Reform of the scale and complexity that we need will take time and sustained effort. This is one part of the commencement of the APS reform agenda where we've sought, as best possible, to sequence and drive cultural and behavioural change in the APS over time, ultimately to ensure that we deliver better outcomes for government, for this parliament and for the Australian people.

The government believes that this bill delivers strong foundations for enduring change, locks in reforms that will stick, locks in reforms that will last and supports that enduring transformational change that the Australian public want to see when it comes to our public service. What we know is the challenges facing Australia over the coming decades are immense. The Public Service will continue to play an integral role in meeting the changing needs of government and the community with professionalism and integrity. The government's reform agenda is ambitious and will require sustained and structured effort over time. By amending the Public Service Act, this bill advances that agenda significantly and locks in important reforms which we hope will last for many years to come.

In my final moment, can I thank, appropriate for this bill in particular, all of the public servants who have been working on the government's APS reform agenda. This is complex. This is working across a range of different departments. It is taking in very complex inputs in terms of the Thodey review, the government's agenda, and some of the challenges that have come to light out of recent investigations and commissions. They have acquitted themselves incredibly well of that task.

I also thank those who have engaged in public service reform consultation. We've seen a lot of consultation and a lot of enthusiasm in terms of people who want to both share their insights as public servants and make sure that this can continue to be a fantastic career not just for people in our service today but also for people that we hope to choose to join the Public Service into the future. Our public servants are national assets. Our Public Service is a fantastic institution—an institution which we back through this legislative change and through our ongoing APS reform agenda. I commend the bill to the House.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The immediate question is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Goldstein to the amendment moved by the honourable member for Curtin be disagreed to. There being more than one voice calling for a division, in accordance with standing order 133 the division is deferred until the first opportunity on the next sitting day.

Debate adjourned.