Dozens of Australian agencies and hundreds of public service jobs face the axe in today’s budget, with Australian Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann saying government was too big, wasteful, and needed streamlining.
Cormann refused to confirm specifics of the conservative administration’s first budget since taking office in September last year, which comes as a mining boom fades and growth remains sluggish.
However, the minister agreed there was room to scrap or merge some government agencies, a move which could reportedly save A$470 million (US$440 million).
“Government has become way too big and way too wasteful under the previous government,” Cormann told the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) yesterday. “When we came into government we were told by [the department of ] Finance that there were nearly 1,000 different individual government bodies. There was a lot of waste, a lot of duplication.”
ABC said the bodies to be abolished included the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the National Water Commission and the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Business Policy Advisory Group.
Others will be merged, with Customs becoming part of the Immigration Department under changes announced last week.
Cormann said that there would be more public service job losses than the 12,000 targeted by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and asset sales.
“This is about making sure that government is as efficient and as effective as possible,” he said, adding that “There will be a further reduction in the size of the public service over the forward estimates, which comes on top of some of the efficiencies which were imposed by the previous government in their dying days before the last election.”
In terms of asset sales, the government has already announced the sale of private health insurer Medibank Private, and Cormann said “asset recycling” would continue.
The Australian Financial Review said the Royal Australian Mint would be privatized along with the registry function of corporate regulator the Australian Securities Investments Commission, but Australia Post would be spared.
Bracing for a backlash against the cuts, the government has also flagged a pay freeze for politicians and top public servants.
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