Jim Chalmers comes in here too:

Very briefly, is a very important difference. The savings we are making build on the progress that Katy and the team have made over the first three years saving billions of dollars investing in the capacity of the Australian public service but winding back some of these outrageous levels of spending on contractors and consultants.

We showed an ability to do this. We’ll make the savings without coming up to people or wages or programs and here’s another important difference here. Peter Dutton wants to sack 41,000 people with all the consequence that will mean for veterans and people on pensions and payments. That’s the difference. The reason he has this policy is because he implements his policies directly from the United States. He wants the Americanisation of health, public service and education. He draws his inspiration from the policies and politics and slogans of the United States.

We believe in the capacity of the Australian public service, that’s why we are investing in their capacity and one of the reasons we’ve been able to do that in a budget which has improved substantially since we came to office is because we’ve been winding back things like expensive contractors and consultants but also travel and hospitality in some of those areas.