Bureaucrats face Rudd's axe 3 All-round Metro Edition

• Published in: The Australian (Canberra, A.C.T.)
• Main Author: Matthew Franklin, John Lyons
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Canberra, A.C.T Nationwide News Pty Ltd 22.11.2007
• ISSN: 1038-8761

Mr [Stephen Jones] said savings could be found within the public service but "if they're serious about finding savings they should sit down with the employee representatives". "If Labor is successful, they will find if they want to implement their policy they are going to need qualified and experienced staff on deck," Mr Jones said. "There is a tight labour market. The commonwealth is not immune from that. I think one of the bigger challenges of a Labor government would be finding staff, not getting rid of them." Liberal senator for the ACT, Gary Humphries, said he was appalled by Mr [KEVIN Rudd]'s comments. "The city has grown tremendously in the last seven or eight years and has the lowest unemployment in the country," Senator Humphries said. "He has signalled that he is prepared to bring that to an end." "I am confident that the program we've put forward is a substantive reformist program," Mr Rudd said. "I am confident that members of our party, in all their diversity, will be in there behind the implementation of that program. For all our faults the Labor Party is about decency."