Election 2025: Peter Dutton threatens to wield the axe in health, education and ABC

The health and education departments, alongside the ABC, are in Peter Dutton’s sights as the opposition attempts to identify ‘wasteful’ spending.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in Melbourne. Picture: Thomas Lisson / NewsWire

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The health and education departments, alongside the ABC, are in Peter Dutton’s sights as the opposition attempts to identify “wasteful” spending, prompting Labor to liken the Coalition’s proposed cuts to a “chainsaw massacre”.

While the Opposition Leader on Tuesday promised to ensure essential services would not be slashed if the Coalition won office, Mr Dutton said he would consider reallocating taxpayer funds within departments if there was evidence that frontline services were not being delivered. “Does it help to employ additional public servants in Canberra with classroom sizes, or with additional support for kids with disabilities and learning difficulties?” he told Sky News.

Mr Dutton also suggested the funding allotted to the national broadcaster would come under increased scrutiny, demanding it demonstrate “excellence” to continue receiving upwards of $1bn a year. “I think there’s very good work that the ABC does, and if it’s being run efficiently then [we will] keep funding in place,” he later told ABC Radio Melbourne. “Taxpayers pay for it, who work harder than ever just to get ahead, [they] would expect us to not … support the waste.”

Reacting to Mr Dutton’s comments, Public Service Minister and ACT senator Katy Gallagher said the cuts proposed by the ­Coalition would “decimate” Canberra and the provision of federal government services across the country.

“When he talks about cutting 41,000 Canberra-based public servants, that would be 60 per cent of the entire [Australian Public Service] in this town,” Senator Gallagher said.

“You would not have a government if you sack 41,000 public ­servants.”

Senator Gallagher warned that the Coalition’s proposed cuts would have grave consequences for the ACT economy more broadly, which has benefited from the ballooning growth in the public sector.

“It would impact house prices if you cut 41,000 jobs,” she said. “The local economy would go into recession, businesses would close, schools would be challenged because people would move.”

Canberra Liberals are increasingly concerned that Mr Dutton’s rhetoric targeting the commonwealth public service will hurt the party in the ACT.

Leanne Castley, the ACT’s Liberal Opposition Leader, has previously raised concerns with Mr Dutton regarding the Coalition’s public service policy, but has said the plan to aggressively slash the federal bureaucracy was ultimately a matter for the federal government.

In its attempts to curtail government spending, Mr Dutton on Tuesday also said a future ­Coalition government would examine the growth of the $48.8bn National Disability Insurance Scheme, which Labor claims is on track to grow at 8 per cent a year from July 2026.

“I’m committed to the NDIS and I’m committed to equity for people with disabilities, but against waste and rorts and rackets,” Mr Dutton told Sky News.

“I want to see the money go to frontline services and help those most in need.”