Hundreds of jobs could be lost at the government agency responsible for investigating allegations of serious wrongdoing and mistreatment in aged care homes if the Coalition wins the election, the public sector union has warned.
The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has hired more than 500 public servants since the 2022 election to deal with a backlog of complaints from residents and to resolve a “staggering” number of real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest involving consultants paid millions of dollars to conduct audits in homes.
Peter Dutton has vowed to reduce the size of the public service by 41,000 jobs over the next five years through “natural attrition” – which involves not renewing the contracts of non-ongoing staff – in order to generate billions of dollars in savings.
“We need to make sure we have an efficient public service, which we will do,” Dutton told reporters on Thursday.
So far, the opposition leader has ruled out reductions in frontline staff and critical agencies, including those that contribute to national security, but has not specified which of the 41,000 roles would not be replaced once they are vacant.
The latest budget papers showed the average staffing level at the commission would increase from 1,598 to 1,918 next financial year, which the Albanese government said would help “ensure the safety and wellbeing of older Australians”.
The Community and Public Sector Union has warned any hiring freeze, which may be required to ensure staff numbers fall by natural attrition, would have a significant impact on the commission, where many staff are on non-ongoing contracts.
“The commission had a 2024 calendar attrition rate of 6.0%,” a CPSU spokesperson said. “Our modelling suggests that a five-year staffing freeze would result in the loss of 508 [jobs] or 26.5% of the 2025-26 workforce.”
The commission said the figures underpinning the CPSU figures appeared to be based on government data, but did not comment on the conclusions the union reached or its headline figure.
Data published by the Australian Public Service Commission in December said none of the jobs at the commission were considered service delivery roles. The commission does however have staff who respond to phone inquiries and visit facilities.
Guardian Australia contacted the Coalition campaign for clarity on whether the commission would be exempt from a hiring freeze. No response was received before deadline.
“This is the agency responsible for ensuring aged care is safe and accountable – slashing its staffing will leave it unable to do that critical job,” said Melissa Donnelly, the national secretary of the CPSU.
“It also highlights how chaotic and poorly thought through Peter Dutton’s public service cuts are. Cuts by attrition are by nature, uncontrolled and uneven reductions in staffing that primarily impact frontline services.”
At a Senate estimates hearing in February, the aged care quality and safety commissioner Liz Hefren-Webb said her workforce had grown from an average staffing level of 1070 in 2022-23.
Hefren-Webb said the additional staff were needed to respond to the more than 10,000 complaints its receives every year within 60 days of lodgement.
“It also enables us to undertake a sufficient number of audits of residential aged-care facilities and home based services,” Hefren-Webb said. “It enables us to undertake investigations or follow up on issues that seem to be arising. It enables us to be proactive.”
Last year, Guardian Australia confirmed the federal government rejected some quality and safety audits conducted by four consultancy firms as they did not meet the standard required. The firms were paid more than $40m for the work.
The same firms reported 520 real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest.
In response, the commission established a specialist unit to improve the work of consultants and hired more public servants to slowly phase out their use.
On Thursday, Coalition frontbencher and shadow minister for government efficiency, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, was asked which departments the federal government would source the 41,000 jobs from.
“We are not sure as yet,” Jacinta Nampijinpa Price told the ABC. “We need to consider what happens after we have taken an audit of the situation.”
Anthony Albanese said “you can’t cut 41,000 public servants without having a severe impact on what is delivered”.
