The Minister for Finance, Senator Mathias Cormann (pictured) has expressed his pride and impression of the performance of the Australian Public Service in recent months, responding as it did to the coronavirus pandemic.
“In my role as the Minister for Finance, I am proud of the Australian public sector’s (APS’s) response to the unprecedented demands that bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic have placed on the Australian community this year,” Senator Cormann said.
“The public sector had the flexible technology and the skills it needed to respond dynamically to the community’s needs and in keeping with the Government’s physical distancing requirements,” he said.
“This has arguably been one of the most productive periods in modern public service history with staff working all hours to deliver very significant policy measures in response to the health and economic impacts of a once in a hundred years global pandemic across Australia.”
He said that despite APS agencies “amongst the most complex organisations in the country,” they were able to deploy most of their workforces remotely within days, “while managing significant increases in work volumes to provide support to Australians”.
The Minister also praised the public sector for its role in last summer’s bushfires.
“The ‘Black Summer’ bushfires were enormous in their scale: 3.8 million hectares of land was burnt across Australia, an area five times the size of Tasmania. Thirty-three lives were lost, more than 3,000 homes and 7,000 facilities were destroyed and there was a devastating impact on wildlife and the environment,” Senator Cormann said.
“The Government quickly committed resources to respond to the fires, through the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the APS, and by bringing in equipment and personnel from overseas,” he said.
He said both the Government and public sector had been called on over the past 12 months to respond to crises that have challenged the economy and the community.
Senator Cormann’s comments can be accessed in full in the Preface of Budget Paper No. 4 tabled in Parliament this week.
