Nationals chief executive David Littleproud has argued that cutting public sector spending to save $ 3.3 billion to pay for Morrison’s campaign commitments will not lead to job losses.
First, Littleproud mistakenly told ABC on Wednesday morning that “governments don’t hire people, they hire businesses.”
ABC Breakfast presenter Michael Rowland drew the minister’s attention to the fact that governments employ many thousands of people who are “called civil servants.”
Rowland then asked Littleproud if the new efficiency dividend that the Morrison government set out on Tuesday would lead to the loss of thousands of jobs for civil servants.
Littleproud replied, “No, because it’s the efficiency dividends that even business is looking at.”
“The civil service should not be exempt from managing the head of how they spend money … that’s what businesses do,” he said. “This is what the Australian Civil Service should do.”
Littleprud described the arguments to the contrary as “scary.”
Treasurer Josh Friedenberg and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham announced the cost of the coalition election in Melbourne on Tuesday and said that increasing public sector efficiency dividends and changes in super-deposits offset $ 2.3 billion in new promises of spending made by the coalition since the campaign began.
