Anthony Albanese’s public service army swells amid Labor push for productivity gains
As Albo’s public servant army swells, there are more staff at the Bureau of Meteorology than the Federal Court, and the number of people identifying as Gender X has soared | SEE THE DIVERSITY NUMBERS
Anthony Albanese’s bureaucracy has been stacked with almost 115,000 compliance, regulation, admin, project management, marketing, human resources, policy and service delivery staff, as Labor seeks to cut red tape and lift productivity and economic growth.
Since Australian Public Service levels hit a 14-year low of 144,704 employees at the end of 2019, an explosion in federal bureaucrats under the Albanese government is set to expand the APS to a record 213,000 staff in 2025-26.
Ahead of the government’s three-day economic reform roundtable in August bringing together business and union chiefs to discuss how to lift weak productivity and economic growth, the APS continues to face external criticism over bureaucratic processes delaying major projects and key decisions.
As the second-term Albanese government moves to limit public sector growth, Australian Bureau of Statistics data released last week showed almost 1 million workers at the end of May were employed in federal, state, territory and local government jobs.
While Labor has overseen large increases in female and culturally diverse public servants since the 2022 election, APS data reveals the percentage of Indigenous Australians in the government workforce has fallen. APS staff identifying as Gender X rather than male or female have increased from 106 to 974 since the gender category was first counted in 2017.
The number of Indigenous Australian public servants as a percentage of the APS workforce has decreased every year since the 2022 election, dropping to a nine-year low of 3.4 per cent last year, which is well below the government’s target of 5 per cent for First Nations employment in the public service by 2030.
APS data shows that over five years to December 2024, the number of service delivery, administration, compliance and regulation, program and project management, policy, HR, communications and marketing jobs have jumped by almost 41,000.
Ahead of the May 3 election, Mr Albanese defended the government’s record public service staffing levels and successfully attacked Peter Dutton’s policy pledge to cut 41,000 bureaucrats.
The Coalition policy, which Labor linked to Donald Trump’s DOGE cuts in the US and potential impacts on frontline services, promised to reduce APS jobs in Canberra without ever specifying what jobs would be axed.
After beating Scott Morrison in 2022, the Prime Minister and Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher committed to rebuilding frontline APS services, slashing consultants and labour hire firms and creating an in-house consulting capability.
Following damning findings of the royal commission into the Coalition’s Robodebt scheme debacle, delays on processing veterans’ entitlements and criticism of understaffing at Services Australia under the Morrison government, the Albanese government has increased service delivery jobs by 8610 compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Breaking down APS diversity group data, as of December last year, there were 38,930 staff with cultural and linguistic backgrounds, 6643 Indigenous Australians, 10,664 people with disabilities and 117,197 women. There are 974 APS employees who identify as Gender X, classified by the Australian Public Service Commission as indeterminate, unspecified or intersex.
The APSC 2023-24 State of the Service report released last November said: “Barriers to advancement and high attrition are key drivers of lower retention rates for First Nations employees. At 30 June 2024, the average (median) tenure of First Nations employees was 4.7 years, compared with 6.2 years for non-Indigenous employees.”
The 2024 APS employee census also found “8.8 per cent of respondents considered themselves to be neurodivergent, another 9.3 per cent of respondents considered that they may be neurodivergent, and 9.5 per cent of respondents said they were unsure what neurodivergent means”.
After public service numbers rose under the Gillard government to 166,593 in 2011, the bureaucracy headcount fell to 144,529 in 2019 before surging following the 2022 election.
As of December 31 last year, there were 193,503 ongoing and non-ongoing APS employees across Australia with about 70,000 in Canberra, 34,091 in Victoria, 32,621 in NSW, 25,573 in Queensland, 13,615 in South Australia and 9600 in Western Australia.
There has been significant growth in the number of public servants with fewer than two years of service.
APS headcount data shows there are more staff at the Bureau of Meteorology (1858) than the Federal Court of Australia (1680), Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (1597), National Indigenous Australians Agency (1464), Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman (1013) and Administrative Review Tribunal (824). Services Australia has more than 35,000 employees, well ahead of the Australian Taxation Office (21,450), National Disability Insurance Agency (9129), Australian Electoral Commission (4538) and Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (1870).
Jim Chalmers will next month hold an economic roundtable seeking to win consensus from business and unions on new measures aimed at cutting red tape, driving tax reform and boosting economic growth.
Ahead of the March 25 budget, the Treasurer said it was time for the private sector and not the public sector to drive the economy and jobs. Business leaders and economists have previously criticised the government for crowding out the private sector amid a post-pandemic public spending frenzy.
Dr Chalmers said last year public spending had played a key role in bolstering frontline services, defence and cost-of-living supports but stressed that “we don’t expect that to be a permanent feature of the Australian economy going forward”. He previously told The Australian: “Our economy is at its best when it’s the private sector powering growth and propelling us forward”.
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