Australia election 2025 live: ‘We made a mistake’ – Dutton apologises as Coalition backflips on work from home policy and public sector cuts
Dutton: ‘we made a mistake’ on work from home policy
Peter Dutton has apologised over the Coalition’s policy to force more public servants to return to the office.
The Opposition leader is on the Today Show and says he’s “listening to what people have to say”, and like Hume, has also blamed Labor for implying that the policy would also apply to the private sector.
Sarah Abo grills him, starting off by asking: “will you be asking for forgiveness from female voters?”
Dutton replies: “I think I am today”:
We never had any intention for work from home changes that we were proposing in Canberra to apply across the private sector, but the Prime minister was out there saying that, it was just a lie …
We’ve made a mistake in relation to the policy. We apologise for that. And we’ve dealt with it.
There’s been a fair bit of confusion over how exactly the party would axe 41,000 public service jobs. The Coalition’s policy on that has also taken a big step back, with the promise of no redundancies. But Dutton claims that was always the policy.
That was always the plan, that there would be natural attrition and a hiring freeze and that achieved.
Key events
The history of a backflip: what has the Coalition been saying about job cuts up until now?
There’d been a fair bit of back and forth on the details of the Coalition’s public service cuts – and that was before we even got to today’s backflip. Different shadow ministers have been saying somewhat different things about how those roles would be cut or where the freezes would be placed.
My colleague Sarah Basford-Canales took a look through the evolution of the policy a little earlier:
It’s also important to note that one of the other big new details we’ve got this morning is that the staff numbers will be brought down by 41,000 over five years.
Albanese reiterates that ‘social media companies have a social responsibility’, but details on ban not forthcoming
Last week a Time magazine article about Albanese’s social media reforms and the ban on social media for under 16s described the PM as having “undeniable everyman charisma”.
The Nova hosts – Michael “Wippa” Wipfli among them – ask Albanese about those reforms, who gives kudos to Wippa for his advocacy on the issue and says the crackdown on the “social harm” that these platforms cause is necessary.
The mums and dads who have turned what are personal tragedies into not wanting that to happen to any other parent to lose a young one, they’ve shown courage and dignity, and it’s been quite extraordinary.
And I want kids off their phones and out [on] the sports field. Social media companies have a social responsibility, and we need to just recognise that this is causing social harm, and I’m really proud of what my government has done.
The changes are due to come into effect in December this year, but we don’t have a design or plan on how exactly it will work. An age assurance trial is currently underway, but details on its success or otherwise will come after the election.
You can read more details on where we’re at on the policy from my colleague Josh Taylor:
PM gets stuck into Coalition WFH policy reversal
Anthony Albanese is joining Nova Sydney, and first question is how he’s holding up after falling off a stage in Newcastle on Thursday.
The PM laughs it off and repeats (as our loyal blog legends will remember) the “I fell for Newcastle a long time ago” line.
He’s then asked about why school kids get 12 weeks of holidays a year while their parents only get four. Albanese takes the opportunity to take a stab at the Coalition’s work from home backflip.
That’s one of the reasons why we’ve [Labor] done issues like working from home, put that in the industrial relations legislation.
And I’m not quite sure where they are at the moment, but the Coalition certainly said they’d stop working from home. They didn’t want to support it. Today, they’ve gone from defending to pretending that they weren’t.
NSW doctors to strike in breach of court orders
Stepping away from the election campaign for a moment…
Doctors in NSW will go ahead with their planned strike action on Tuesday and Thursday this week, the NSW government says, in breach of the orders of the Industrial Relations Commission.
The state health minister, Ryan Park,, says action by the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (ASMOF) will disrupt hospitals and health facilities including emergency departments and surgeries. Park says preparations are urgently underway to manage the impact on patients, and those with surgeries postponed will be contacted:
We do not want this. We reinstated the independent IRC for this very reason. The IRC allows workers to advance their claims without the limits of the wages cap the previous government imposed, without endangering the welfare and safety of the community …
I share the community’s desire to see our healthcare workers paid more – it’s why we’ve offered a 10.5% multi-year wage increases (on top of the 4.5% already in pockets) and sat down with unions over many years to deliver those pay increases.
Doctors are seeking pay rises of up to 30% and the state government has struggled to talk down demands from unions after agreeing to an up to 40% pay rise for police in November.
Watt promotes Labor battery policy as good for the outer regions
Watt is also spruiking the government’s battery policy announced over the weekend.
He says solar panels have seen a higher uptake in outer suburbs over the inner city, and the policy will help those areas (areas that Labor needs to hold, or gain on the Coalition).
He told ABC News Breakfast there are also low and no cost financing options available for those on lower incomes, to deal with the higher upfront cost of the technology.
Peter Dutton and his colleagues like to describe solar panels as some inner-city latte thing, but people in the outer regions are taking up solar because they know it’s a great way to save on their bills. This is the next example of our focus on cost of living.
Labor begins attacks on Coalition policy backflip
The employment minister, Murray Watt, has jumped on the bandwagon to clobber the Coalition over their policy change, saying Dutton is in the “process of giving himself the worst facelift in Australian history” by saying he’s now a work from home supporter.
Watt tells ABC News Breakfast it would take “so many years” to cut 41,000 workers out of the public service through natural attrition and hiring freezes. He also says Dutton won’t be able to make the billions of dollars in savings required to pay for his nuclear policy:
Over the last few weeks, Peter Dutton and his colleagues have called working from home a holiday, they have accused people working from home of being unproductive …
It would take so many years to cut the jobs in the way he’s talking about, he won’t be able to achieve it and achieve the savings he’s relying on to pay for his nuclear reactors and all the other policies. Peter Dutton can’t be believed on any of the policies.
Dutton insists planned job cuts were ‘always’ going to be done through hiring freezes and natural attrition
Back to Peter Dutton, Sarah Abo is certainly making it awkward for the opposition leader – testing him on whether natural attrition was always the plan as he’s just claimed.
Have a little look at the exchange:
Abo: [You were] initially targeting 41,000 jobs. Now you’re walking back from that. How will you find the billions you need for your Medicare plan?
Dutton: Well, Sarah, that was always the plan, that there would be natural attrition and a hiring freeze, and that achieved over…
Abo: But it wasn’t the plan. You wanted to cut back 41,000 jobs. You wanted to introduce working from home. You’ve walked back from both of those. How can they have both always been the plan? It doesn’t make sense.
Dutton: Sarah, you asked, you asked a question about the costing. There’s no change to the costing at all, because the original plan of the natural attrition and the freezing was what we’d always had. It’s the way in which Labor’s contorted that into something else.
Dutton had claimed in his budget reply speech that the policy to cut 41,000 public service workers would save about $7bn.
He says there’s no change to the costings but now the policy will take place over five years and through natural attrition and hiring freezes.
Research finds up to 60,000 teenagers under 18 are gambling
New research has found up to 60,000 teenagers aged under 18 are gambling, and spending more than $18m a year.
The shocking findings by the Australia Institute show 30% of 12-17 year olds gamble, and almost half (46%) of 18-19 year olds are betting. In other words, Australians are starting to gamble before they are legally old enough to do so.
The Alliance for Gambling Reforms’s CEO, Martin Thomas, says the findings are a result of gambling companies targeting children at a young age:
There is evidence that the gambling industry targets kids as young as 14 years old through social media, urging them to download gambling ads and the saturation of gambling ads around our major football codes is also luring children to gamble.
It is both alarming and tragic to understand that the number of teenagers gambling under the legal age would fill the MCG six times over.
Dutton: ‘we made a mistake’ on work from home policy
Peter Dutton has apologised over the Coalition’s policy to force more public servants to return to the office.
The Opposition leader is on the Today Show and says he’s “listening to what people have to say”, and like Hume, has also blamed Labor for implying that the policy would also apply to the private sector.
Sarah Abo grills him, starting off by asking: “will you be asking for forgiveness from female voters?”
Dutton replies: “I think I am today”:
We never had any intention for work from home changes that we were proposing in Canberra to apply across the private sector, but the Prime minister was out there saying that, it was just a lie …
We’ve made a mistake in relation to the policy. We apologise for that. And we’ve dealt with it.
There’s been a fair bit of confusion over how exactly the party would axe 41,000 public service jobs. The Coalition’s policy on that has also taken a big step back, with the promise of no redundancies. But Dutton claims that was always the policy.
That was always the plan, that there would be natural attrition and a hiring freeze and that achieved.
Hume announces ‘enshrining’ of workplace flexibility and ditches forced redundancies in major policy backflip
The shadow finance minister, Jane Hume, says the Coalition will “enshrine” workplace flexibility as the party backflips on its previous demand to get public sector workers back into the office.
Hume told Sky News Labor has pursued an “unfair scare campaign” over the policy and said the change was due feedback showing the public wanted flexible work to be enshrined:
We’ve listened to feedback from right around the country, not just Canberra based public servants … who are telling us that flexible work is something that they would like to see enshrined.
Now, let’s face it, it always was going to be enshrined. Flexible work was always here to stay. But what our concern now is that part of that flexible work should also be an ability to work from home where it’s appropriate to do so, and that hasn’t changed.
Hume says the Labor scare campaign implied the policy would also apply to the private sector but she promises that was never the case.
The other side of the public service policy was to cut 41,000 public servants. Hume says that will now be done over the space of five years, with no forced redundancies.
We’ll also ensure that the size of the public service is reduced by 41,000 over a period of five years. That will be done through natural attrition, and it will be done through a hiring freeze. There will be no forced redundancies.
Good morning
Krishani Dhanji
Krishani Dhanji here with you on week two of the federal election campaign.
We’ve seen quite the backflip this morning from the Coalition on their previous policy to get public service workers back into the office. The demand for “all” public servants to return is being abandoned and the promise to slash 41,000 public servants is being wound back with confirmation there will be no forced redundancies if the Liberals win the election.
There’ll be plenty of reaction to that this morning.
On the Labor side, the party has announced over the weekend a $2.3bn battery promise for households and they’ll no doubt be out promoting that again this morning.
So buckle in – it’s going to be a big one!
