The Canberra Liberals want to repair the party's standing with public servants, but there's no sign of Angus Taylor getting on board.
ACT opposition leader Mark Parton this week vowed to "stand up" for public sector workers and urged colleagues to take a more positive stance, after the Liberal Party's federal council passed his motion backing the APS.
"I know it seems a bit weird for the Liberals to be doing this, but this is what we're doing," Mr Parton said in a video posted to social media after probing the ACT government in the Legislative Assembly over its public sector job cuts.
"I just wanted to point out that, yeah, I'm with the Liberals, but I'm here to represent the people who vote for me, and that includes a bucket load of public servants."
Mr Parton's policy motion calling for the Liberal Party to "encourage the public service to pursue excellence, integrity, and focus on its noble mission of serving the Australian people" was passed at the federal council meeting in late May.
'It's very easy to demonise Canberra," he said.
Moving the motion, Mr Parton said the Liberal Party needed to decide whether to pursue "some One Nation-style cheap political point scoring" or to be "a sensible, constructive party of government."
"It's very easy to demonise the public service ... Elections are not just about slogans, they're not just about winning government, they're about then governing [and] an effective government needs an effective public service."
Liberal ACT Senate candidate Nick Tyrrell also addressed the federal council, saying former opposition leader Peter Dutton's attacks on Canberra public servants "wasn't just unhelpful to us," pointing out that almost two-third of federal bureaucrats live outside of Canberra.
The "anti-public service mantra of the last election cost us votes [in] marginal seats that have high proportions of public servants," he said, noting the former Coalition government had "decentralised" the APS, moving jobs to other cities and regions.
"This is not a defence of a bloated public service," Mr Tyrrell said.
"We need an effective, sensible approach to the public service in Australia if we want to win government."
Mr Parton cited Mr Dutton's policy to cut 41,000 public servants, which the Liberal Party's review of its failed 2025 campaign found had contributed to its electoral wipe-out.
"I know a lot of them, and I can tell you that most of them are hard working individuals who live in houses with backyards and Hills hoists and dogs and kids with lots of friends," he said.
The Canberra Liberals' sentiment was not shared by members of Mr Taylor's shadow ministry, where the Coalition's policies are being formulated.
Deputy Liberal Party leader Jane Hume, who was the spokesperson for the Dutton campaign's APS policy, declined to comment when asked about Mr Parton's motion.
In her speech to the Liberal Party's federal council in Melbourne, the Victorian senator criticised her state's Labor government for presiding over "a bloated public sector but corroded public services."
Opposition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie hinted at further APS targets on the weekend, when she took aim at "woke" federal agencies - which she called an "embedded silent nemesis" in Australia's democracy.
"That's really the power behind the throne, shall we say, in our public service," Senator McKenzie, the Nationals leader in the Senate, told Sky News' Outsiders.
"We need to be clear-eyed about the problem and have a hundred-day plan coming to government to deal with it."
When asked if the Coalition would reduce the size of government to pre-COVID levels, she said: "We'll have more to say on that."
"There is a whole lot of work to do if we get the great privilege to be in government again when it comes to looking at the purpose of the public service."
Mr Taylor has declined to say what size the APS should be, sticking to the line that it must be "fit for purpose" and saying he wants "good government, not big government."
His budget reply speech vowed to abolish the Net Zero Agency and "scrap Labor's housing bureaucracy."
Opposition finance and public service spokesperson Claire Chandler said the APS "should be appropriately resourced and supported to do its job - which is serving the public."
But, Senator Chandler said, she did not want to see "the hands-off approach of the Albanese Labor government, which continually states that staffing levels are a matter for individual departments to manage, showing just how little responsibility they're willing to take for the APS."
Finance and Public Service Minister and ACT Labor Senator Katy Gallagher referenced Senator McKenzie's comments while dismissing Mr Parton's message.
"I reckon that senator might have more say over Coalition policy than the leader of the Canberra Liberals," Senator Gallagher said.
"One social media post doesn't change decades of Canberra and public service bashing. The Coalition always promises to cut public service jobs in Canberra. It's what they always do."
