Australian conservatives withdraw campaign pledge to stop remote work for public employees

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s opposition party Monday withdrew election promises to prevent public servants from working from home and to slash more than one-in-five federal public sector jobs.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton announced his conservative Liberal Party had dropped its pledge that public servants would be required to work in their offices five days a week except in exceptional circumstances.

“I think we made a mistake in relation to this policy,” Dutton told Nine Network television. “I think it’s important that we say that and recognize it and our intention was to make sure that where taxpayers are working hard and their money is being spent to pay wages that it's being spent efficiently."

The opposition also withdrew a promise to use forced redundancy payments to slash 41,000 jobs from the 185,000 positions in the Australian Public Service. The reductions would instead be achieved through natural attrition and an employment freeze, he said.

Dutton’s announcements were the first significant policy shifts since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the May 3 election last month.

Albanese urged voters not to believe that Dutton now supported flexible work arrangements for public servants.

“He’s now pretending that that program won’t proceed,” Albanese told reporters.

Members of the center-left Labor Party government have accused their conservative opponents of mimicking U.S. President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk who has spearheaded the so-called Department of Government Efficiency efforts to downsize and overhaul the U.S. government.

“This is DOGE-y Dutton taking his cues and policies straight from the U.S.,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said last week.

The government had argued that the opposition’s policy to reduce workplace flexibility would disproportionately disadvantage women because they often had greater child care responsibilities.