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If successful in the upcoming federal election, Coalition party leader Peter Dutton has pledged to drag public servants back to the office.
Taking another page out of the Donald Trump Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) playbook, Peter Dutton plans to force public servants back into the office five days a week, ending the fawned-over flexible working arrangements that allow for a vast majority of employees to work from home (WFH).
As first reported by The Australian Financial Review, shadow minister for the public service Jane Hume argued that the current Albanese government gave public servants “a blank cheque” to work from home.
Hume claimed that WFH had severely impacted productivity – claiming the current flexible arrangements were “unsustainable”.
“This government has given public servants a blank cheque to work from home,” said Hume to Liberal-aligned think-tank Menzies Research Centre.
“Led by the Community and Public Sector Union, Labor has made work from home a right for the individual, not an arrangement that works for all.”
Pushing back against this narrative, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) rebutted that “the Coalition is blindly following US President Trump’s lead on workplace priorities”.
“Jane Hume, Peter Dutton and their big business backers can’t wait to start rolling back the clock on workers’ rights, and it wouldn’t end with simply banning work from home in the public sector,” said Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president Michele O’Neil.
It’s no secret that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have taken aim at the public sector, implementing numerous policies uprooting contemporary workplace commitments – by cutting jobs in the public sector, stripping DEI policies, and ordering all public servants back to the office.
Dutton is now promising to enact similar tactics towards the public sector. As previously reported on HR Leader, Dutton has committed to cutting the job roles of 36,000 public servants.
“The government’s put on an additional 36,000 public servants,” said Dutton. “We will reduce that number, and the savings there will be about $6 billion a year. That’s the advice that we have.”
The CPSU highlighted the potential link of influence that billionaire, avid Trump supporter and Liberal party donor Gina Rinehart may be having on the targeting of the public sector. Previously, Rinehart applauded the work of Trump and Musk, calling for Australia to partake in “Trump-style cuts to the public service”.
“Gina Rinehart said: ‘Be like Donald Trump’ … ‘cut out the duplicated federal departments’ is just one of her ideas.
“But ending work-from-home arrangements in this Trump copycat plan is really an attack on flexible work arrangements, and it will hurt working women the most. Flexibility around where you work is helping 36 per cent of Australians balance busy lives and earn more money.
“If this enables a woman working in Services Australia in Goulburn, Townsville, Nowra or Perth to work full-time and provide for her family, then the Coalition should support that instead of mindlessly following whatever Trump is doing,” said O’Neil.
For women especially, flexible working arrangements can have numerous benefits, with an IWG report stating that hybrid working conditions had allowed over half (53 per cent) of women to pursue promotions or apply for more senior roles.
Adding on to that, the report cited that for the overwhelming majority of women (89 per cent), hybrid working helped facilitate a better balance between work responsibilities and family commitments thanks to hybrid working accelerating the creation of more 15-minute cities, allowing them to work closer to home.
Dutton, however, dismissed the notion that this proposed rollback of WFH would disproportionately affect women. “It [the work-from-home ban] doesn’t discriminate against people on the basis of gender. It is for public servants,” Dutton said, according to The Australian Financial Review.
“We are very keen to have an efficient public service, and we did it when we were in government, we had people at work, and we narrowed the gender pay gap, and we will do it again when we get into government.”
Senator Barbara Pocock of the Greens Party completely disagreed with Dutton, stating that the caring responsibilities that often fall upon the shoulders of women workers are a key part of why flexible working arrangements must remain.
“This policy would wind back productivity gains and labour supply in the public service and undermine decades of progress on economic equality for women,” Pocock said.
“Let’s face it, most of the caring responsibilities for families still fall on women, which means that women need access to flexible work arrangements, including working from home, in order to participate in the workforce.
“A large body of evidence tells us that cutting flexibility will cut workforce supply. At a time when the labour market is tight, this goes the wrong way. It’s bad economic policy, and it punishes women and carers.
“Australians care deeply about gender equality, and no amount of tub-thumping from Dutton, Trump and Elon Musk is going to change that. What they are advocating is a return to the 1950s, [when] the public service was run by stale, grey-suited men, and women were confined to secretarial roles.”
Kace O'Neill
Kace O'Neill is a Graduate Journalist for HR Leader. Kace studied Media Communications and Maori studies at the University of Otago, he has a passion for sports and storytelling.
