Liberal senator Zed Seselja is warning that a Labor plan to cut $3 billion from APS contractors would represent a "massive risk" and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of Canberrans.
It was "disgraceful" to announce a decision that impacted so many local jobs just three weeks before the election, he said.
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This week Labor spokeswoman Katy Gallagher revealed the party would aim to restore more than a thousand outsourced jobs in the government's service delivery agencies, including Services Australia, Veterans Affairs' and the National Disability Insurance Agency.
A purge of contractors and consultants used to perform the work that would otherwise be done by public servants could reap as much as $3 billion in budget savings over four years, the party claimed.
However only $500 million would be reinvested in the APS and not necessarily in the national capital.
Senator Seselja said those $2.5 billion in cuts represented "real jobs and real people".
"They will be replaced by only $500 million worth of jobs, probably in departments outside of Canberra," he said.
"This is a massive risk to any government contractor or consultant in Canberra, and is a threat to thousands of people working for government in our city right now.
"This is an outrageous announcement and it is disgraceful that they waited until three weeks before the election before exposing this massive threat to local jobs."
The CPSU's submissions to the long-running APS capability inquiry in the Senate, which appear to be a major foundation to the policy announced this week, argued that every public sector job outsourced to consultants or contractors was a "missed opportunity to build capacity and capability" in the public service.
"In a tightening labour market if staff are constantly overlooked for consultants, they'll simply go elsewhere," the union warned this week.
The Liberals have also cast doubt on the potential for savings by axing contractors and consultants while uncapping public service numbers. Finance Minister Simon Birmingham suggested it was "fanciful" thinking the policy would result in savings: "Once staffing caps are removed by Labor we can be sure that departmental costs across government will simply balloon," he said.
The Coalition cut more than 12,000 jobs from the APS prior to the COVID-19 pandemic according to the government's official figures.
The APS consultancy bill averages around $2 million every day, having doubled since the Coalition came to power.
Harley Dennett
I'm the federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to journalism, where I've covered seven federal budgets, four national elections, Defence, public service and international governance.
I'm the federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to journalism, where I've covered seven federal budgets, four national elections, Defence, public service and international governance.
