Canberra is set to feel the pain from Tuesday's mid-year economic and fiscal outlook amid more cuts and mergers for the public service and the turning of the funding screw on the city's cultural institutions.
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The capital's cultural fixtures, including the National Gallery, Portrait Gallery, National Museum, National Library and Archives, will face a 3 per cent "efficiency dividend" hit to their budgets as the arts portfolio aims to trim $52 million over four years.
Another $192 million will be stripped from Australian Public Service spending and ACT operations look set to bear the brunt.
Canberra-based bureaucrats in the Department of Communications and the Arts will feel the pinch, which is expected to chop $6 million from their budget on top of the 2.5 per cent efficiency dividend being enforced across the federal bureaucracy.
Treasurer Scott Morrison has been praised for not imposing deep, across the board spending cuts as he grapples with a budget deficit that has blown out to $37.4 billion.
Nationwide, close to $2 billion is to be saved in a welfare crackdown, $930 million from changes to family day care, $650 million from discouraging bulk billing for diagnostics, $317 million from environmental projects and $472 million in savings from aged care.
While the Treasurer said he was careful to steer clear of "extreme responses" as he unveiled the mid-year outlook on Tuesday, Canberra looked set to feel much of the pain from cuts to government operations and programs.
In Canberra, $40 million worth of Australian Public Service "back room" operations are to be shifted from their departments and into the growing Shared Services Centre while six agencies in the health portfolio will be "merged and rationalised, saving another $70 million.
The operations of the Australian Federal Police's overseas deployment hub in Majura are expected to be cut back as the government aims to save $30 million without reducing the scale of overseas policing and support operations.
Elsewhere, CrimTrac and the Australian Institute of Criminology will be swallowed up by the Australian Crime Commission, and other agencies in the Attorney-General's portfolio will have to come up with savings of nearly $70 million.
The heads of Canberra's federally funded galleries, museums and libraries will have been dismayed to read that $36.8 million will be saved by imposing a 3 per cent efficiency dividend on "cultural and collecting entities within the arts portfolio".
Local MP and Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh was unimpressed by the MYEFO cuts, accusing the Turnbull government of "twisting the knife" on the public service.
"The Liberals just keep twisting the knife when it comes to public service cuts," Dr Leigh said.
"They promised no more than 12,000 job cuts at the last election, and yet, Tony Abbott slashed 15,000 jobs.
"Now Malcolm Turnbull wants to rip almost $200 million more from agencies like health and the Attorney-General's Department."
"Less than one month ago, Malcolm Turnbull pledged to stop 'panning' public servants and help them do their jobs better.
"This was a cruel promise to make when [we] now discover his real agenda is to cut many millions more from APS agencies that are already under intense pressure."
