Address to the House of Representatives, Adjournment

Thursday 6 February 2025

Services Australia employees deliver a raft of vital services to Australians, including so many across the communities in my electorate of Bean. Services Australia currently employs over 4,000 people in the ACT, with several workplaces in the electorate of Bean, including the Reed Street offices, the Caroline Chisholm Centre, the Louisa Lawson Building and the Bowes Street and Anketell Street service centres. All my Labor colleagues and I understand and value the contribution they are making to this nation every day.

For these reasons, I pay close attention to what those opposite have to say about this vital service delivery agency and the source of thousands of jobs in my community. We all know that during the coalition era of office, the staff resources of Services Australia were depleted, and under the Liberals it simply did not have the staff numbers to do its important role. It was left to Labor in office to provide Services Australia with the resources to do its job and for people across Australia to benefit from appropriate staff numbers and the enhanced outcomes that they deliver.

Needless to say, rebuilding the staff numbers to what they needed to be could not be done overnight. First, staff needed to be recruited and training undertaken. I am pleased that this Labor government has done this and that Australians are now in a position to reap the benefits of properly staffed Services Australia offices here and around the country. But the opposition leader has a plan to axe 36,000 Public Service jobs if he wins the next election. So far, the LNP has refused to identify which jobs they would target. But yesterday in the House of Representatives the member for Bradfield and the former Minister for Families and Social Services made it very clear that Services Australia jobs are at the top of the Liberals' hit list. In his speech to the House of Representatives, the member made a host of false claims about Services Australia and made it very clear the Liberals believe it's overstaffed and numbers need to be axed, harking back to the headcount that was in place when the Liberals were last in office.

In his speech, the member for Bradfield, of the staff increases this government has put in place, said:

Productivity has collapsed. Services Australia has more staff doing less work, processing fewer … claims. Service delivery outcomes have become worse.

Throughout his speech, the member for Bradfield condemns the increase in staffing numbers that have been put in place by the government and suggests that the extra hands have not only not improved Services Australia but, in the Liberals' view, have made things worse. The Liberal view is:

Services Australia has more staff doing less work.

This is from the party of Robodebt. This is from the party that puts algorithms before people. The motivation behind the Liberals' baseless political attack on Services Australia, its staff and the increases in the staff numbers this government has put in place is clear. By demonising Services Australia's increase in staff numbers, the Liberals are setting the scene to wield the axe on the jobs that Labor has put back into Services Australia.

This is bad news for all the Australians who rely on Services Australia—everyday Australians right across the nation and across my electorate of Bean and those Australians who count on those services being delivered in a professional and timely way. They will lose out when the Liberals axe jobs if they get their dream granted. The Liberals targeting Services Australia jobs is also bad for the Services Australia staff throughout Australia and for the 4,300 workers who are based in the electorate of Bean. Who will be next—employees in the Department of Veterans' Affairs, employees in the Department of Health and Aged Care and employees in Defence? Who will be next in the queue?

Come later this year, the choice is clear. Australians can either support a conga line of Sir Lunchalots that will rip billions from critical public services, or they can support a Labor government that values public sector workers and the services they deliver that support communities right across the nation—and so much of that work is led from my electorate of Bean.