Get used to tighter budgets

All government agencies, even our most important ones, will need to learn to live on a tight budget as the government moves to reduce costs associated with the public sector.

Tony Abbott promised to cut 12,000 public sector workers (through attrition) prior to the election. His government has taken its first steps in this direction, recently issuing a briefing on a hiring freeze.

In a move that could cut an estimated $5.2 billion off the commonwealth public service budget, agencies have been ordered to withdraw unfilled job advertisements and not renew temporary contracts when they expire. The briefing does not require all temporary workers to be cut. Instead it asks agencies to control engagements very tightly.

At Australia's premier science and industry research centre, the CSIRO, there are 6,500 employees, of which 1,400 are temporary employees. Up to 600 of these temporary positions could be scrapped, a prospect that has provoked predictable outrage and hyperbole, and cries that all 1,400 temporary positions will be cut.

But some concern over the CSIRO's research capability is justified.

CSIRO is an important engine for medical and scientific research and a key source of innovation in the Australian economy.

Its role is important because it conducts research that often has no foreseeable commercial benefit. If private firms cannot reasonably expect a profit from a new innovation there is little incentive to invest. Since much of this research has widespread public benefit, such as medical benefits from vaccinations, there is a case for public funding.

But that does not mean CSIRO's budget ought to avoid scrutiny. Even important agencies can, and often do, accumulate waste.

That is why Australians should not panic over the CSIRO's job cuts.

In the words of Craig Roy, CSIRO's deputy chief executive, 'some of the back office roles will get far greater scrutiny than some of the frontline scientific roles because we're a scientific organisation.' CSIRO will be forced to look more closely at the composition of its staff, and ask which positions are necessary to the primary functions of the organisation, and which they can do without.

The mature approach the CSIRO has taken to budget scarcity is the sort of approach many departments in the state and commonwealth governments should apply to their own workforces, particularly as the government looks to rein in spending and pay down debt.

Should this attitude be heeded, Australians will get a more efficient government, and far better value for their taxes.

Alexander Philipatos is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.