The wave of cost cutting sweeping the federal government is about to hit the agency that writes the nation's laws, with the Office of Parliamentary Counsel in Canberra preparing for job cuts.
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The office says it will begin cutting its 120 Canberra staff after successive budget cuts by the former Labor government left it unable to pay them all and redundancies are probable.
But the First Parliamentary Counsel Peter Quiggin says his agency will be able to continue to meet the demands of the Abbott government's legislative agenda.
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The first counsel was unable to say how many jobs would go until after talks with staff representatives, but he said he thought the numbers would be small.
Mr Quiggin emailed his workers on Thursday, saying that job losses could no longer be avoided.
"The previous government announced a range of reductions to the funding of all agencies ," he wrote. "Some have taken effect already and more will take effect in the next financial year. There seems to be very little scope for obtaining additional funding in the short term through the New Policy Proposal system which is the main way of obtaining additional funding … .
"There is very little scope to make substantial savings other than through reduction in our staffing costs.''
