Federal election 2025: Coalition jettisons plan to stop public servants working from home

The Coalition has back-flipped on its plan to force public servants into the office full-time amid a backlash from female voters and suburban families worried it would hurt their post-pandemic working lives.

The shift comes after a bumpy first week of the election campaign for Peter Dutton and a scare campaign from Labor on the Opposition Leader’s “secret” cuts to the public service.

Shadow finance minister Jane Hume said the new guarantee not to touch any work-from-home rules showed the Coalition had listened to these fears.

The Opposition is still planning to slash the public service by 41,000 but said it would not force any redundancies, instead aiming to “methodically” reduce the workforce through a hiring freeze and natural attrition.

This would be country-wide but focused on the nearly 70,000 public servants in Canberra.

Senator Hume used a speech to a Liberal Party think tank in early March to announce a Dutton government would expect all public servants to work from the office five days a week.

The next day, asked about the disproportionate impact on women from ending work-from-home arrangements, Mr Dutton said there were “plenty of opportunities around job sharing”.

Liberal MPs have told The West this message was misunderstood by voters as Mr Dutton seeking to force everyone back into the office or scale back their hours, which hurt the Coalition’s standing, particularly among women and families with young children.

Hard numbers were put to the policy’s unpopularity in a Redbridge poll released on Saturday, with a net favorability rating of -5 overall and -19 among female voters.

Senator Hume said this lack of support prompted the back-down.

“We have listened and understand that flexible work, including working from home, is part of getting the best out of any workforce,” she said upon releasing the party’s public service policy.

“A Coalition Government will not change current flexible working arrangements, including work from home policies. There will be no mandated minimum number of days for public servants to work in the office.”

She accused Labor of running a scare campaign on the issue that didn’t reflect reality.

“We know the importance of flexible work for many Australians and have always supported the private sector making its own decisions on flexible work arrangements,” she said.

The party had already started walking back its stance on public servants working from home, with Mr Dutton saying on Friday it would only affect bureaucrats working in Canberra.

Just 36 per cent of all Commonwealth public servants are based in the nation’s capital.

Women’s workforce participation has soared since the pandemic changed norms around working from home, with the rate of women working remotely increasing faster than for men.

The number of women in full-time work has also lifted from 54 per cent before the pandemic to 58 per cent now.

Families where women were forced to cut their hours back to three days a week because they couldn’t get to the office full time would lose $740 a week on average from their take-home pay, according to a new Labor analysis released independently of the Coalition’s change in policy.

“Many parents work full-time, while making time for family. And with cost-of-living pressures, many families can’t afford it any other way,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.