The main union representing federal public servants hopes the change of minister responsible for the Australian Public Service will result in a re-think of government policy.
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Senator Michaelia Cash enters cabinet as Minister for Employment, Minister for Women and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service as part of Malcolm Turnbull's ministerial reshuffle.
Senator Eric Abetz had been in charge of the public service, when Tony Abbott was prime minister.
Senator Cash, from Western Australia, was a senior associate with legal firm Freehills before entering parliament in July 2008.
Nadine Flood, Community and Public Service Union national secretary, said the significant challenges facing Australia meant the government needed a highly capable public service.
"Minister Cash, as the Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service, inherits a portfolio where the loss of over 17,000 jobs, resulting pressures on services and the erosion of policy capability, are real threats to public service capacity," she said.
"Minister Cash's employment portfolio and industrial relations background provides an opportunity for rethinking the government's failed bargaining policy and taking a modern, productive approach to public sector workplace relations.
"The ill-considered experiment of an unfair and unrealistic policy, making agencies attempt to remove workplace rights, existing conditions and, for many workers, cut current take home pay, has evidently failed.
"We have called on Prime Minister Turnbull to make resolving the ongoing Commonwealth bargaining dispute a public service and industrial relations priority for the incoming minister and will seek a dialogue with Minister Cash."
Last year, as minister assisting the Prime Minister Tony Abbott on women's issues, Senator Cash said it was "ridiculous" that identifying as a feminist should be a prerequisite for her job.
She explained that while she believed in gender equality, she would not necessarily call herself a feminist.
"I have never been someone who labels herself," she said then. "In terms of feminism, I've never been someone who really associates with that movement. That movement was a set of ideologies from many, many decades ago now."
Peter Hendy becomes Assistant Minister for Productivity. Dr Hendy represents the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, based on Queanbeyan.
