More than one in four Home Affairs public servants works from home three or more days a week

More than one in four public servants at the Home Affairs Department go into the office just one or two days a week, amid eight-figure annual taxpayer spends on office rent for some departments.

Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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More than one in four public servants at the Home Affairs Department go into the office just one or two days a week, with the ­Coalition accusing the Albanese government of giving public servants a “blank cheque not to be in the office”.

Figures compiled by The Australian show that as the country approaches five years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic – which ushered in the working from home revolution – parts of the public service still suffer from low office attendance rates.

By the end of October 2024, 4475 of Home Affairs’ 16,359 employees – or 27.4 per cent – had ­arrangements to work from home three or more days a week, the department said in response to a question on notice from the last round of Senate estimates.

In Services Australia, 22 per cent – or 7248 of its 32,947 employees – had arrangements to work from home three or more days a week. That figure was 20.3 per cent in the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

In answers, some of the departments also listed the annual rent spend for their offices: $19m for the Department of Education and $16m for the Department of ­Finance.

This comes amid a push in the US by the Trump administration to get its civil servants back into the office. On Tuesday, the White House gave federal workers an ultimatum to either return to the office full-time or resign and get paid for the next eight months.

The Coalition is also escalating rhetoric about the public service in the lead-up to the election, with Peter Dutton frequently citing “36,000 new public servants in Canberra at a cost of about $6bn a year” as a key failing of the Albanese government.

The public service data also show that 14.6 per cent of public servants at the Department of Education worked three or more days a week from home, 8.7 per cent in Treasury, 8.2 per cent in the Attorney-General’s Department, and 4.2 per cent in the Finance ­Department.

The dataset is incomplete because some departments did not explicitly answer the question, including the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Defence Department, and Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Figures released by the departments also revealed the share of Canberra-based public servants who had some formalised working from home arrangement: 52.4 per cent in the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, 50.1 per cent of Home Affairs, 38.3 per cent of the Department of Education, 22 per cent of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and 16 per cent of the Attorney-­General’s Department.

Opposition public service spokeswoman Jane Hume, who asked the questions to the public service departments, told The Australian the Albanese government had given public servants a “blank cheque not to be in the office … Australians should expect to maintain a world-class, efficient public service”.

“Taxpayers don’t want to see bloated and excessive spending on bureaucrats doing busy work,” she said. “Under Labor, the public service has grown by 36,000 – a 20 per cent increase – along with an over 11 per cent wage increase, and they have been given a blank cheque to not be in the office.

“Australian taxpayers have invested millions of dollars in providing office space for the public service to safely and securely develop public policy in the national interest. While we agree flexible working arrangements have a modern workplace, the gov­ernment needs to consider the ­balance between providing flexibility, productivity, and ensuring value for the taxpayer.”

Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher accused the Coalition of “bash(ing) the public service for their own gain”.

“Like many private sector organisations, workplace flexibility is a standard part of our operational requirements and is included in APS enterprise agreements,” she told The Australian.

“To suggest that public servants simply aren’t showing up for work is offensive to the thousands of men and women who work hard every day to provide services that the Australian community rely on.

“It’s easy for the Coalition and other interests to bash the public service for their own gain, but we will continue to make decisions based on the facts. I have commissioned a report from the APS Commissioner on the operations of flexible work arrangements, which will consider the benefits and any other feedback from agencies.”

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox told The Australian there was “increasing evidence” this was having a negative impact on national productivity and pointed his finger at the federal government for the enterprise agreement it signed with the public service union in 2023.

“That one in five public servants in key government departments can’t be bothered turning up to their office at least three days a week three years after we emerged from the Covid pandemic simply reinforces long-held concerns that the sector is bloated, inefficient and not fully productive,” he said.

“The reality is that under the last enterprise agreement, signed off by the federal government with virtually no negotiation, public service managers lost the ability to direct workforces into the office.

“Since that time, we have seen the public service grow but with no evidence of an increase in output or an improvement in services.

“There is increasing evidence that prolonged and sustained work from home arrangements are dragging on national productivity. Public servants are employed to serve the public, not walk the dog, do the shopping or hang out the washing on the taxpayers’ dime. While they are at home, taxpayers of course continue to pay for the lights and services in their offices.”