Media Release: CPSU slams Liberal plan to cut Federal jobs and send work to State Govts
22 August 2012, 11:55am
Tony Abbott's Coalition wants to take Australia back to the 1980s.
The CPSU has raised major concerns about a Coalition plan to outsource the administration of a vast swathe of federal policy to state governments.
Under the plan announced by Opposition Finance spokesperson Andrew Robb, states would administer a range of federal policies and thousands of federal public service jobs would be slashed.
It follows a recent announcement by Opposition Aged Care spokesman Kevin Andrews, suggesting a Liberal Government would cut Federal Government oversight of services such as aged care, child care, employment and family services.
CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood said the policy was 'dangerous' and put jobs, services and hard-won national standards at risk.
“This is ‘back-to-the-future’. It’s completely at odds with the decades of strongly supported progress on crucial national issues such as health reform, national school curriculums, aged care standards, national infrastructure and the standardisation of business regulation.
“Does the Coalition really want to take Australia back to the 1980s where each state did its own thing?
“Do business and citizens really want to work through seven different sets of state regulations?
“It’s also deeply concerning that the Federal Coalition is proposing to cut commonwealth public service jobs at the same time state Coalition governments are slashing their own workforces.
“If positions are cut at both the state and federal level who's going to do the work?” said Ms Flood.
Ms Flood said it was a major concern that the Coalition appeared to be adopting the rhetoric of the UK Government, which is slashing up to 700,000 public service positions as part of its ‘Big Society’ program.
“Last week UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s guru Phillip Blond was out in Australia urging the Coalition to adopt his now discredited ‘Big Society’ initiatives,” said Ms Flood.
“This week we have senior Opposition Ministers lining up to announce big jobs cuts and push the Big Society barrow.
“The Australian community needs to know whether these announcements are just Liberal Party thought bubbles or are they real policies which will damage critical public services?” said Ms Flood.
VIDEO
Watch a short video panel discussion on Big Society, Phillip Blond and Tony Abbott featuring NadineFlood form CPSU Peter Lewis from EMC & Chris Stone from the Centre for Policy Development
For comment
Dermot Browne, CPSU Communications Director on 0408 265 081
