Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has claimed the Australian Public Service (APS) has reached an “appropriate size” following the addition of more than 41,000 roles.
The Albanese government has added 41,411 jobs to the public service since taking office in May 2022.
The expansion has come as public sector wages totalled $232 billion during the 2023-2024 financial year across all levels of government.
The government recorded 10 per cent more employee expenses for a total of $37.3 billion in the last financial year.
“I think the public service is around the appropriate size now. We’ve built it up,” Ms Gallagher told Sky News Sunday Agenda.
Asked if Labor would consider making cuts to the swollen public sector amid $179 billion in deficits over budget forward estimates, Ms Gallagher suggested it would not.
“There will be movement across agencies, but really the savings across the public service can happen in a number of ways,” she said.
“They (the Coalition) don’t have to be sacking or shouldn’t be sacking 41,000 public servants in Canberra.”
Ms Gallagher explained that 41,000 public servants had been added through converting 12,000 from labour hire and “the rest” were for “frontline service delivery agencies”.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has committed to cutting the public service in Canberra by 41,000, ruling out job cuts in other cities.
During his budget reply speech, he said said the growth in civil service personnel was “concerning”.
“We want an efficient public service, but growing by 40,000 the number of public servants in Canberra is not going to help families,” he said recently.
The Coalition has not confirmed which departments it would seek to slim if elected, but Mr Dutton has previously flagged there would be no cuts to frontline worker positions.
The 2025 federal budget outlines an increase of 3,400 APS roles in the upcoming year, bringing the total to approximately 213,439 positions.
