Opposition Claims There Is an $11 Billion Hole in Budget

Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume during a doorstop in the media gallery at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on March 18, 2021. Sam Mooy/Getty Images

Coalition Shadow Minister for Finance Jane Hume has accused Labor of a $11 billion (US$6.9 billion) shortfall in the budget from an assumption that public servants will be cut.

An independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) analysis reveals the public service will decline by more than 20,000 over four years from July 1, 2025.

However, Hume said it doesn’t make sense because Labor promised not to cut public servants and has increased numbers by 20 percent, with 36,000 more people.

Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher, however, claims she has no idea what figures the Coalition has obtained and said the federal budget is extremely clear on public sector wages.

Currently, there are 209,150 federal public servants, according to Hume.

In a statement, she said every single Australian taxpayer would have to pay the price for Labor’s “bloated bureaucracy.”

“The Albanese government has never been honest about their budgets. But now they’ve been caught red handed, they must come clean on how they are going to pay for the bureaucrat binge they claim is a necessity,” Hume said.

She said Labor had been adamant that they were not going to cut the public service and questioned how they would pay for this “$11 billion black hole.”

“Will they tax Australians even more to pay for this, or are they going to take money out of front line services to pay for these wages?” she asked.

“First, we discovered an unfunded 11 percent increase in public sector wages, and now we have independent analysis showing Labor hasn’t accounted for 20,000 public servants that it says it will keep.”

Hume promised the Coalition would be committed to curbing the rapid increase in government staffing costs and shift the focus to ordinary Australians.

“Only the Coalition will stop the exponential growth in the public service which is costing taxpayers billions, and refocus it on delivering services that make a difference to everyday Australians,” she said.

Gallagher Defends Labor Budget

Gallagher dismissed the Opposition’s claims and defended the Labor budget during an interview with reporters on Feb. 10.

“I haven’t seen the costing and I don’t know what they asked the PBO to cost. But it’s not my fault if the Opposition can’t read the budget papers,” she said.

“The budget papers are clear about where the extra investment in the public service has gone and for how long, and all public service wages, along with indexation and all the rest of it, are accounted for in the budget papers.”

Gallagher also revealed she had been working on the upcoming budget with Treasurer Jim Chalmers over the summer.

“We’re in the thick of it now. It’s like it didn’t end from Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2024–25 (MYEFO). So, Jim and I worked over the summer,” she said.

The senator noted the Expenditure Review Committee (ERC) is meeting regularly and working through all the portfolios and with all relevant ministers.

“So yeah, it’s a pretty intense period right now,” Gallagher said.

In a separate interview with the ABC, Gallagher reflected on the state of the public service in Australia and claimed it was under staffed when she came into office.

“I think the public service is well resourced now to do its job. It’s taken us about two and a half years to get it to that point. But Peter Dutton’s saying he wants to sack 36,000 staff from the public service, and that would have us return to Robodebt, it would have us return to contractors and consultants running the show, and it would mean poorer services for people” she said.

“I’ve come into a public service that was weak, under-resourced, and had a lot of problems and it wasn’t delivering services for people, which is the whole purpose of having a public service,” she said.

The Epoch Times has contacted Gallagher’s office for comment.

How Many Public Servants are in Australia?

Australian Bureau of Statistic (ABS) figures show there are more than 2.5 million public servants in Australia across all levels of government.

The data reveals the total taxpayer bill for public servants was more than $232 billion in the 2024 financial year.

The statistics reveal a $37 billion bill for federal public servants, $178 billion for state government, and $16 billion for local government in the 2024 financial year.

New South Wales hired the most public servants across all levels of government at 707,600 employees, followed by Victoria 606,200, Queensland 506,900, and Western Australia 264,300.