Australia’s Public Service is set to lay off employees as redundancies begin in several departments
The Albanian government is facing criticism from Liberals after several federal departments made workforce cuts, despite Labor campaigning vigorously against public sector job losses just a year ago.
During the 2025 election, Labor repeatedly targeted then-opposition leader Peter Dutton over the Coalition’s plans to reduce the number of civil servants, warning that the cuts would come at the expense of jobs and frontline services.
Public Services and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher was among the most vocal critics, warning during the campaign that coalition cuts would mean “jobs will disappear and so will the services sector.”
Now a growing number of departments are offering voluntary redundancy as financial pressures increase within the Australian Public Service.
The Ministry of Interior is one of the largest agencies to have started layoffs, offering voluntary departures to staff and managers of its 16,000 employees.
Employees at APS and Executive level are eligible to apply, along with members of the Australian Border Force, although the department’s 187 senior executives are excluded.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has also frozen recruitment as a growing number of departments offer voluntary redundancy.
These agencies include the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Department of Climate Change and Energy, the Department of Social Services and the Department of Education, as well as the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher (pictured) said the redundancies were caused by departments and not the government
Opposition finance and public services spokeswoman Claire Chandler (pictured) said Labor was deflecting blame and taking ‘little responsibility’.
Gallagher on Monday rejected claims that the government was overseeing cuts to public services.
“Our job is to provide agencies with the budgets they need to do the work that we ask them to do and that they need to do, and then the secretaries manage those budgets, but we handle the allocation,” she said.
“There is no decision by the government to enforce layoffs… We do expect the agencies to stay within the budgets provided to them by the government.”
Opposition finance and public services spokeswoman Claire Chandler said the government was trying to shift blame to the department.
“We constantly hear statements from the Labor government that staffing levels are something that departments manage at operational level, but that just shows how little responsibility they are willing to take for the billions of taxpayers’ money they spend,” Chandler said.