TRANSCRIPT
29 January 2025
2GB Afternoons with Michael McLaren
E&OE
Topics: Government waste, government efficiency.
Michael McLaren
Alright, we're not going to let this issue go. That's the issue of wasted inefficiency. Nor is the coalition and fair enough, look, a lot of the impetus and catalyst here is what President Trump has done in America with this Doge thing, the Department of government efficiency. Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, coming to that from outside? Well, in the case of Elon, anywhere outside of government, looking in on the behemoth, which is the American government, public sector, and seeing where they can cut now, we need to do the same sort of thing here. But as we said yesterday, just going for the low hanging fruit. That's not going to cut it, so to speak. We've got to look at the entire, I believe, the entire Commonwealth, federal, state structure. We've got to look at the Federation, and we might need a rework. We might need to go back to first principles here, because I believe the main fact is found in the duplication between federal and state jurisdictions, rather than individual things that they do or don't do in and of themselves? Well, the coalition are going to take it seriously, which was discussed yesterday. Senator just sent an app and chipper price. She's been named the Shadow Minister for government efficiency, but and almost ironically, she's not doing it alone, because we also have James Stevens, the shadow Assistant Minister for government waste reduction. Some have said, Well, isn't that duplication 101? But James Stevens is with us, and he can explain that he's on the line. James, good to speak. Thank you very much for your time.
James Stevens
Good to be with you, Michael and all of your listeners.
Michael McLaren
Now let's bat that one away first, if we can. Your job, and it seems Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's job is to look for inefficiencies, duplications and waste. Is there more than a rich vein of irony that it's taking two people or seemingly similar job titles to do that?
James Stevens
Well, Michael, unfortunately, there's a lot of waste, and Jacinta and I actually have different roles, and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify this. So I was appointed by Peter Dutton last year to look at what the Albanese government is wasting our taxpayers dollars on. And there have been a lot of examples. I appreciated the chance to be on your program in the past to talk about that, and that continues to be my role, highlighting the wasted expenditure that the Albanese government is undertaking, and particularly, you know, on the wrong priorities. But what Peter Dutton has now done, very sensibly, with less than a few months to go towards the next election, is now brought Jacinta in to develop what our positive plans are, to create efficient government, to reduce the duplication and the waste that you've talked about, and put our money, if you like, where our mouth is. So not just complain about Labor, which I happily do, and will continue to do, because that's important, and that's the role of an Opposition. But we've also got to outline to the people of this country how are we going to do it differently. And you've just touched on some very important, significant areas, and that's exactly what Jacinta is going to be taking on in her new role.
Michael McLaren
I don't want to labour the point, but there are people asking about this, so let me just put one more to you on this. Some would say, well you know, this is about duplication and efficiencies, and yet, there's two of you doing it. Couldn't you have just done it on your own? Or couldn't Jacinta have just done it on her own? Does it send a bit of a confused message to have two doing the job of probably what one could do, if indeed, one of your recommendations will be to go to the public sector and say, look, there's too many examples here of two of you doing what one could do?
James Stevens
Well, that's a fair question, although you talked about President Trump's announcement and he had two people in mind for the role himself. It's a big government, and we've got different streams to work in. And look, it'll be more than just the two of us focused on this topic. Of course, a lot of these big decisions need to be made at the Cabinet level, and all ministers have to be involved in identifying efficiencies in their departments. But what Peter Dutton has done is said, I want Jacinta Price around the Cabinet table, and with her portfolio being in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to take the lead on finding ways to strip out wasteful expenditure and create efficient government and put some of that money back into the pockets of you and the other taxpayers that are much better off at spending their money than the government is. So we've got different roles that complement each other. That's not uncommon. In fact, government needs to work together, not against each other, and I promise you, we'll, we'll be achieving what people expect of us if we're lucky enough to get these opportunities in government in a few months time.
Michael McLaren
Okay, now you've been looking at this for a while, Jacinta's appointments more recent. So put a bit of meat on the bone here for me, if you can, James, where have you already found examples of waste, inefficiency and duplication that you can say, right, if we win, we're going to look at this and we're going to do something about it.
James Stevens
Well, I think we'd start with the 36,000 extra public servants that have been hired by Labor since they came to government. I mean, this is absolutely staggering, and you'd think or hope that if they were putting on all these extra people, we'd suddenly see better quality of service delivery from the government, but they're going backwards on metrics around processing claims through Centrelink, you name it, this government is getting less efficient with more people.
Michael McLaren
Except they James, to be fair, with the Department of Veterans Affairs, they have hired a lot of people, and that seems to have significantly cleared the backlog that the Coalition had left previously. So yeah. I mean, I understand there's been a lot of hiring, but there's also been a reduction in consultants, which seems to be the Liberals' favored way of getting manpower.
James Stevens
Well, I don't look I think that Labor use a claim that they've replaced some consultants. It's not 36,000 though, Michael. Look, we welcome increases in efficiency on processing veteran claims, etc. There are other parts of government that have been ballooning, like the Prime Minister's own department, where there's very questionable examples of any improvements in efficiency, but more importantly, this extra cost just puts the burden further on the taxpayers. So certainly, the size of the public service needs to be gotten under control, and we've got to look very closely at why and where this these 36,000 people have been employed, and that's a big opportunity for Jacinta's new role. We've seen a lot of indulgent expenditure under this government. The referendum that they had into the voice cost nearly half a billion dollars. They've got these interesting ambassadors that are flying around the world representing, you know, First Nations, people, or climate change authorities, etc, they're spending a lot of money and emitting a lot of carbon dioxide, flying around the world talking about cutting carbon dioxide. There's a lot of hypocrisy in that, and it's pretty questionable. I mean, just a few weeks ago, we saw that the government spent nearly half a million dollars on Welcome to Country ceremonies. Now, it's not very welcoming to charge someone for it, and we think that the government departments are engaging in this sort of indulgent expenditure instead of focusing on the front line and deciding whether or not they've actually got too much money that's yours and other taxpayers that should be returned to them in tax cuts, rather than just being spent on a bloated bureaucracy.
Michael McLaren
Okay I mean, all of that, I think, is very valid, but I might also say some of it is the low hanging fruit. Okay, so the Voice, well, we've had that and we're not going to have another one, that was a failure, right? Ballooning public sector government since the 80s have done this 2% efficiency dividends, and it still continues to grow. I mean, I think for what it's worth, you need to call a constitutional convention. If you win, you get the bright minds the states and the federal all around the old Parliament House, green benches and say right, this was what was envisaged at Federation. Since 1901, the Commonwealth has been busy gobbling up the powers and the financing capabilities of the states, whilst the states have not given away the bureaucracies that used to run those departments, or vice versa. And so we've got duplication and only something as significant, I think, James as that is really going to make a dent of any note, and I'm talking here multi billion dollars a year if we can iron it out now, sure, some people will lose their job, but they can go into more productive work in a tight labor market anyway. So you know, are you prepared to put that on the table, that we'll have a constitutional convention and iron out the duplication and thus the waste between the Commonwealth and the state governments.
James Stevens
Well, I think clearly we have to look at the way in which our federation works now in 2025 and I know that Peter Dutton is very interested in looking at whether or not there are things that you know just don't make sense between the way in which the federal and state governments interact with each other...
Michael McLaren
But let's not look. Let's just do, you know, I mean, we've been looking since the 1950s let's do, let's get them all in Canberra, and let's nut this out.
James Stevens
Well, I couldn't agree more. I think the most important thing is that we've got an open mind and a willingness of all participants, that would be state premiers and the federal government, other people that participate in the service delivery of government, because the duplication is there. No one could sensibly dispute that. You've identified a number of huge portfolios that add up to hundreds of billions of dollars a year between state and federal government...
Michael McLaren
I mean, why do we have a federal education department? They don't run a school. We've got a Federal Department of Health. I don't think they run too many hospitals, last time I checked. I mean, these are responsibilities for the state, and yet the federal government, because they dole out a lot of the revenue, have these behemoth departments. Now look, the people do some I'm not saying they're all just sitting there looking out the window, but it seems to me ridiculous having two bureaucracies paid for effectively by the same taxpayer.
James Stevens
Well, you've hit the nail on the head and outlined the history. We've had a situation where the Commonwealth's revenue raising capability is very significant. We've then engaged in relationships with state governments around providing them funding with certain conditions. Upon them, some of which, I might add, though, are important, because we're not always very happy with the way in which some state governments like to run certain elements of their service delivery, and we like to put some standards in place and some rules that are in the interest of the people that they're serving and the taxpayers that are funding it.
Michael McLaren
But that's the back door for the duplication, though, because obviously that's how the duplication starts. You want to have a bit of oversight, because you're handing out the money, but then you need the department, and then even when they're doing the right thing, the department's still there, right? So at some point you got to let them cut loose, and let the competition between the different states, as it was prior to Federation, exist as competition, and let people move between jurisdictions if they want to get better services. I mean, that's healthy for productivity, isn't it?
James Stevens
No question about it. And I think what's clear in the decision that Peter Dutton has made to create this new responsibility for Jacinta Price is exactly the topic that you're raising. Government efficiency means all of these things that we're discussing right now. Where's the duplication? Why is government doing all the various things that we're doing? Let's justify it or make some, make some strong decisions around it. And yes, that involves cooperation, like you say one, one way is, is bringing all the levels of government together and saying, Surely we can all agree we're not happy about tripping over each other's shoelaces all the time on some of these areas. Surely, you know, state governments would want to participate in that process. Now, I don't know what the view is of each individual premier around the place, something you're probably in a strong position to put to certainly, Chris Minns, when you have him on the program, Michael. I'd like to think that there's a warmth towards identifying how we can do things better, and Peter Dutton sent a very clear message through Jacinta appointment that that's what he wants to see a federal government that he leads doing.
Michael McLaren
That's what everyone wants to see happen. It's in everyone's interest. Good to speak, James. We'll speak before the election, whenever it is. Thank you for your time.
James Stevens
Look forward to it. Thanks so much, Michael.