A committee of the Australian Senate has been charged with examining a string of outsourcing and privatisation projects currently under way in the Australian Public Service (APS).
The Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee is to examine outsourcing at the Department of Human Services and National Disability Insurance Agency as well as the privatisation of the country’s visa and citizenship programs
It will also probe the contracting of security vetting services by the Australian Government Security Vetting Agency as well as Centrelink’s welfare debt recovery program nicknamed ‘Robodebt’.
The move was welcomed by the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) which said that outsourcing and privatising service delivery had had a “massive impact” on APS staff and the quality of public services the community depended upon.
National Secretary of the CPSU, Nadine Flood said staff and citizens had a right to know what was happening to their public institutions.
Ms Flood said privatising visas would cause the loss of thousands of jobs and turn visas into a profit-maker for companies; Robodebt had caused untold suffering and hardship for “thousands and thousands” of Australians; and the NDIS was not fulfilling its promise because of under-staffing and under-resourcing.
She said that underlying all those problems were decisions to cut and outsource the Public Service and put arbitrary limits on how many people it could employ to deliver the programs.
The Senate Committee said it would receive submissions from the public relevant to its terms of reference.
It said however it was not in a position to resolve individual cases or personal disputes.
“The Committee may decide not to accept or not to publish material that is not relevant to the inquiry’s terms of reference,” it said.
The deadline for submissions is 23 August and the Committee is to report to the Senate by 16 October.
The Committee’s Terms of Reference can be accessed on its website at this PS News link.
