ROSS SOLLY, HOST: You are with me, Ross Solly, and I'm very happy to welcome to the Breakfast Studio – it's been very busy in here. I tell you what, if we could charge a toll on people coming into the studio, we could fund the ABC for at least another couple of days. Patrick Gorman, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Assistant Minister for the Public Service, welcome.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, Ross. And I think we can find better ways to fund the ABC, but I appreciate the innovation.
SOLLY: Can I ask you straight off the bat, it's obviously been a fascinating 24 hours in the United States.
GORMAN: It sure has.
SOLLY: What do you think are the ramifications here for Australia in terms of our relationship with the States and what this might mean? We've had a rambunctious relationship up till now with Donald Trump. It's a bit hot and cold. What do you think the ramifications are?
GORMAN: Well, I think firstly, we've got to celebrate that the United States is now sort of 250 years strong as a democracy. They have been able to hold their midterm elections peacefully and we should welcome that. And congratulations to all of those who found themselves elected to the Congress. Our relationship with the President of the United States is enduring and it stretches well and truly beyond any one president or any one election. So, in this sense, I don't see any change to that relationship.
SOLLY: Is it enduring, though? I mean, he seems, when he feels like it, seems to like to slug us with an extra tariff here or there or talk us down?
GORMAN: Look, I would say that overall, on the long arc of history, the strength of that relationship has only gotten stronger over time. I am a proud Western Australian Member of Parliament. It was John Curtin, the Member for Fremantle and Prime Minister during World War II, who really developed what became the ANZUS Alliance.
We have strengthened our relationship on a whole range of things, from trade agreements all the way through to the work that we now do in terms of strengthening our defence cooperation through AUKUS. We will continue to look at ways to strengthen that relationship. And there is good open dialogue, as we saw from the Prime Minister's engagement with the United States President when he was in the States recently.
SOLLY: Do you think it strengthens our hand in our negotiations with America now that he's got, you know, he's got to answer to the Democrats who have got the power in both houses there. Does it strengthen our hand?
GORMAN: My approach when it comes to how we engage with other nations where, you know, like us, they have a democracy that ebbs and flows in terms of who has power – and I'll note that just as the President of the United States now no longer has control of the US Senate, I'll note that I'm part of a government who does not have control of the Australian Senate. What I'd say –
SOLLY: I think your Prime Minister here has been more upfront about negotiating with the Senate, though, than what Donald Trump made. Although I did hear overnight that he said he's happy to sit down and talk with the Democrats, which I guess is a good first step.
GORMAN: Which I think is entirely what the United States system is built to encourage. But we'll continue to engage. I would just note that often we have US Congressional delegations here. They are bipartisan, we always welcome them and we engage across both sides of the aisle, both with our Embassy in Washington D.C. but also in terms of the engagement that our parliamentarians have on a regular basis.
SOLLY: Alright, it's 10 to 8 on the Breakfast Show. We are chatting with Patrick Gorman. The ACT Government at the moment is going through a stage where just this morning we've been talking to the acting head of the Justice Community Safety Directorate. A lot of public service directorates now are going out there asking for voluntary redundancies. They are trying to get their budgets in order. We don't have a lot of money here in the ACT. Inflation is rampant here in Australia. Katy Gallagher said on this program that every department has to look at their budgets and try and find cuts. As the Assistant Minister for the Public Service, do you think that the level of public service at the moment, the numbers we have is about right or do you think we could lose a few public servants here and there to get things under that line?
GORMAN: Ross, I appreciate the invitation to – through a little bit of an indirect route –
SOLLY: Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought I'd try and confuse you.
GORMAN: Reveal future decisions of the Government through the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook process –
SOLLY: But no look. That aside –
GORMAN: In terms of values, I think that we had a public service – when we came to office over four years ago – I think we had a public service who couldn't deliver on the requests that the democratically elected parliament had made of the service to deliver on those things. And the example I use is we've talked a few times about veterans' entitlements and the inability of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to get those packages out the door.
Now you'd have the Parliament legislate a range of entitlements that veterans rightly deserve for their service. But because of decisions of previous governments, there wasn't enough resource in the department to make sure that those decisions of the democratically elected parliament were implemented. So, we did expand the number of public servants in that department quite significantly. And so, I'll always want to make sure that we can deliver on the things that the parliament –
SOLLY: So, how can you save money then if – how can you say every department has to look at their budgets? Is there other waste there that can be trimmed?
GORMAN: Well, sometimes, and many of your listeners will have been through this in their own working lives. Sometimes there are times when you are building up a new initiative or a new policy area and that requires some additional resources. And then once you've got the agreement, maybe of the states and territories, you no longer need all of those resources that went into –
SOLLY: Some of those departments could be shut down or at least trimmed back.
GORMAN: Let me be really clear. I am not in the business of talking about shutting down departments. Other politicians sometimes take that quite aggressive language. What I want to do is make sure that we have a public service who can deliver the services that Australians rely on every single day. And make sure they get them in a timely fashion. That is my focus. And making sure that we resource appropriately but also use the new technologies that are available to make sure that we're giving world class services from a world class public service to the Australian people.
SOLLY: We have a lot of public servants listening this morning, but we also have a lot of consultants listening, who are in this town who do rely on the government for a lot of money. One of the promises that was made was that you would cut back on the use of consultants and rely more on the public service. Now those with knowledge of this, are saying that there hasn't been a lot of cutback in the terms of consultants. Do you think you still rely too much on consultants, Patrick Gorman?
GORMAN: I would say there is more work to do there. We see significant contracts and you get that reported on a regular basis, where there are departments using consultants and contractors that – really to do core work of the public service – that is an ongoing piece of work that I'm really happy to be doing alongside Katy Gallagher.
SOLLY: So, why are they doing it? Is this just laziness or why are they offloading to consultants when you're telling me that the public service could quite easily do it themselves?
GORMAN: Well, there are new options available, and I'd say this to any of the public servants that you just referred to, or maybe less fortunately for some of those consultants. We have got Australian Government Consulting that sits within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and that is there as an alternative, which means that we have public servants already vetted, with good, deep understanding of how the public service works and public service values who can assist different agencies to do that work.
SOLLY: But do you feel the message hasn't got through to some departments that they need to actually look internally to do some of the work, rather than offloading it to consultants?
GORMAN: We will continue to deliver –
SOLLY: So, they are not listening to you, Patrick Gorman. They're not.
GORMAN: Look, I recognise that when you're making a big shift away from, you know, billions and billions of core government work being contracted out to major and minor consultancies, it is a big shift. But it's one that we're really determined to continue to deliver on. Because I truly believe this is how we get the best value for money for Australian taxpayers and the best services.
SOLLY: What about work from home policy? Because obviously, it's a shifting environment there. Do you think that the balance is right at the moment, or would you like to see more public servants getting back into the office?
GORMAN: Well, what I want is, where there are work from home arrangements, for them to be of benefit to the employer, that is the Australian public, and of benefit to the employee. It has to benefit both. And any time that we've got work from home arrangements that don't meet that test, they need to be looked at.
SOLLY: Do you think a department head has the right to – if somebody has come to an arrangement where they're working two days a week from home and all of a sudden, the head of department goes, ‘oh, that's not working’. Do they have a right to then say to that person, ‘I'm sorry, this is not working, we need you to come back in at least one of those days. Do they have the right to do that?’
GORMAN: Look, these are ongoing conversations that you have with all employees. There are a range of different arrangements. I think, on the hypothetical, which I'm risking here because you've now invited me to go into a hypothetical and generally, as a point of principle, we don't do that –
SOLLY: No.
GORMAN: But generally –
SOLLY: We don't have any rules on the Breakfast show here in Canberra.
GORMAN: No rules. Okay, we'll see what the Managing Director of the ABC says about that. No, but what I'd say is that I think people can work this out in the workplace. That is where we see where work from home has been successful. It has been because people have taken mature, responsible approaches and they've been able to show benefit to their workplace where they are working from home.
There are jobs, I acknowledge, in the public service, there are a lot of jobs that cannot be done from home. I also want to make sure that we recognise that in these conversations. People who do frontline work at Services Australia, helping people get their pension. People who work for Border Force, who are there on the front line every day. There are a lot of people who cannot do their job from home. And I think it's important we recognise the burden that places on them as well.
SOLLY: You're in town for a couple of – besides shaking a few trees and seeing what falls out of them, you're also here for the Spirit of Service Awards. Now, what's all this about Patrick Gorman, who's up for this? And as a public servant, can I win one?
GORMAN: It is the Institute of Public Administration of Australia. I don't nominate anyone myself, Ross, but I'm sure that – I'm sure some of your listeners have probably now been inspired because of that suggestion. What it's about is celebrating the best of the public service and sometimes recognising really tough work that the public service does, that doesn't always go recognised.
Now, if you look at the work the Department of Education have done in terms of rolling out the child safety training after some of the awful revelations that we've seen about what's been happening in isolated, but far too many cases, in early childhood, they're up for one of those awards. So, is the Department of Resources for the work they're doing in helping with decommissioning of offshore gas platforms that have been left, frankly, to rot at sea. And so, these are things that people maybe don't know are happening in the public service but are making a real difference either to our environment or to the safety of the next generation.
SOLLY: That's good. It's good that their work has been recognised. Patrick Gorman, I really do appreciate you coming this morning. And you're always welcome to pop into the studio for a chat.
GORMAN: Thank you, Ross. Will do.