Peter Dutton has got his media cheerleaders, and even determined gallery fence-sitters, excited by the idea he will go to the next election with a tax reform plan. Perhaps it’s a sign of the sheer desperation brought about by the most recent bout of taxreformitis, but a few vague words by the opposition leader have been sufficient to elevate him as the new champion of fiscal change — without, of course, too many questions about what his plans will involve or cost.
One can imagine a similar mid-term commitment by a Labor opposition to come up with a tax reform package would already have been seen as a concerted campaign for it to rule out death duties, tax the family home, double the GST, make boomers pay even a slightly more equitable tax contribution and other outrages. That’s just the usual double standards of political coverage though.
The only actual thing that Dutton has said he’ll be doing is keeping Labor’s amendments to the stage three tax cuts — the amendments the Coalition was promising to roll back when Labor announced them — and give high earners back the tax cuts that have been taken from them.
So in the spirit of demanding how such a commitment would be paid for if Labor had made a similar promise, how will Dutton afford this? What other taxes will rise, or spending will be cut, to fund tax cuts for high-income earners — or will it just go on the budget deficit, like previous Coalition-era tax cuts were put on the national credit card?
To Dutton’s credit, he’s already said where the money will be coming from, kinda. At a media conference on Tuesday — and not in response to a direct question about how he’ll fund his tax cuts — Dutton offered:
You need to find about $9 billion a year, which is no easy task. There are savings that we can identify from government waste. In administered programs, for example, leaving the program funding intact to one side, the government’s spending about $92 billion a year. They’ve increased by 10,000 the number of public servants here in Canberra. There are ways in which you can provide some savings, and that’s work that we need to continue.
Now, every politician promises to find public service savings. There are ancient Greek inscriptions in which Athenian rulers promise to fund wars against Sparta by cutting their predecessors’ waste and mismanagement. But Dutton is correct that the Australian Public Service payroll has increased by around 10,000 under Labor. According to the most recent “State of the Service” report, between June 2022 and June 2023, the APS payroll increased from just under 141,000 people to 151,000 people — plus an increase of about 800 non-ongoing staff as well. The Coalition had gotten public service numbers down to just above 130,000 during the pandemic.
Plenty of room for savings from such bloating, eh?
Except, Labor has bulked up the APS to slash the Coalition’s truly remarkable consultancy bill. According to the auditor-general, the Coalition doubled spending on consultants from $444 million in 2014 to $888 million in 2022. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher says the Coalition had a “shadow workforce” of 53,000 people. The government “is saving $810 million over four years” by converting contractor jobs to permanent jobs, she told Crikey.
But let’s give Dutton the benefit of the doubt and accept he’ll find the bulk of his $9 billion a year by cutting back the public service again and doing so without doubling consultancy spending. Where will the jobs come from?
From Defence and Home Affairs, it turns out.
According to the Public Service Commission, the two departments responsible for the biggest increases in APS headcount since Labor was elected are Defence, which added 1,431 permanent staff in 2022-23, and Home Affairs, which added 1,086 staff, plus nearly 300 non-ongoing staff. That’s 2,800 of the 10,000 right there. Throw in Veterans’ Affairs, where the government has been trying to rectify some of the disastrous treatment of our veterans that has marked that portfolio, and it’s another 700.
So Dutton is really saying he’ll be targeting his two former departments for massive job cuts. One of them is now in charge of the biggest single defence boondoggle in our history in AUKUS — one vigorously supported by Dutton — and the other needs fundamental reform and better resourcing because of spectacular failures of visa processing and border control on Dutton’s watch when he was minister there.
Rarely have clichéd promises to find savings come dripping with so much irony.
It’s Dutton himself who’s said he’ll do this. He knows he has to find savings. He says they’ll come from reducing the APS headcount. The APS headcount has expanded most in Defence and Home Affairs. Let’s see if the mainstream media probe him on it.
No. To assume that cuts will be made to to areas which have grown the most is to ascribe far too much logic to Liberal mental capacity.
If cuts are made, they will be made to those areas that Liberal cowardice always targets: those areas of government that support the weak and vulnerable in our society, such as Centrelink and health services.
The Liberals are servile bootlickers to the nation’s wealthy, nothing more.
Unfortunately, to a growing extent, so is Labor.
If nobody voted for them they would all disappear.
No, conservatives and RWNJs would encourage the same, then get out in force to vote; another form of voter suppression aka Steve Bannon strategy Trump vs Clinton.
No, seriously. Stop voting for the duopoly.
Indeed. With preferences, the two majors shouldn’t be anywhere else on your ballot except the bottom.
Find someone to put first you actually support, even if they’re never going to win.
Especially many older &/or regional ALP voters still echo white Oz sentiments; Howard and/or pollsters CT knew how to press buttons.
Not this regional 85 year old ALP voter.My first vote at 21 was for Bill Hayden and since then I have always voted Labor,federal,state and local.My reason for this is simple,study history and all you get from the Tories is hard knocks.
Agree, especially Home Affairs like UK and US, throttle funding and processing to leave applicants in long term limbo; if not creating a ‘hostile environment’, it can be very stressful as another ‘border control’ issue.
I’m still laughing at Dutton’s apparent fantasy that the ABC is ‘left wing’. And that the media is dominated by The Guardian.
Well, I suppose it is left wing when you are a rwnj.
Anything is rated left wing while the Oz media is dominated by News Corp, Nein & Stokes.
It was at the end of the interview when a tax summit was mention and Spud said of course he was always willing to work with the government that my foot went through the tv.
Last week he was on about Katharine Murphy leaving the Guardian and moving to Albo’s office. Poor David Crowe was missing out – or something.
The Guardian and the ABC are left wing? I wondered if it was really the impertinence of Murpharoo and Sarah Ferguson in daring to question the LOTO that was really irking him. Uppity pair – they should learn their place – at home in the kitchen with children.
Yeh. And I hate that the ABC has to put on blatant untreated right wing propaganda to give “balance” because there are no actual rational arguments available to balance “woke” arguments.
We could slash MPs. Most do poorly representing their constituencies or are overpaid for their intellectual prowess. Given how much Dutton and Littleproud are paid, we’re getting very little bang for the buck. My dog is smarter than these dudes.
How many votes does Dutton imagine he can garner by cutting taxes to the well-off? Many of those in the higher tax bracket are likely in safe Liberal seats anyway. So what’s to gain at an election?
Or possibly he’s hoping to lure sufficient punters away from independents in well-heeled seats (eg: Wentworth, Warringah, Kooyong etc). Either way he needs to polish up his act significantly judging by last night’s interview on ABC’s 7.30. It’s always worth reminding the public how Liberal male MPs are inclined to intimidate women. Ferguson stood her ground & didn’t flinch.
Now safe teal seats?
In the May ’22 election, the Teals stood, and won, primarily on the issues of action on climate change, integrity in government, and respect for women. The Liberals policies and attitudes on these issues is no better now than then. In Kooyong, pollster Kos Samaras put down some of the Teal win to changing demographics: Old rusted-on Liberals dying off and being replaced by a younger and less conservative contingent. Josh Frydenberg had a 9.3 percent swing against him to lose by just over 6,000 votes. To take back Kooyong, the Liberals not only need at least 3,000 of their former supporters to hold their noses and vote Liberal again – based on 2022 election figures -they also have to find votes to cover the demographic change between the 2022 election and the next election. Even with a tax bribe, I can’t see it happening. I doubt it will work in other Teal seats either.
Dutton needs 19 seats to win government. His new strategy appears to be to appeal to the outer suburban voters of Sydney and Melbourne. I just can’t see it working.
because he was always a young fogy in progressive clothing anyway, and his electorate finally realised that.
The guy’s a fruit loop and a thoroughly nasty man. Also a bear of little brain.
The famous Lib outsourcing has proven a total disaster in both cost and performance.
Well the good thing is with this sort of rubbish he’s not likely to garner any further support . . .