Nationals leader Matt Canavan has claimed that working-from-home rights in the Australian public service are mostly used by Canberrans, as he pushes for more bureaucrats to be employed in the regions.
Asked by The Canberra Times to explain his new policy, Senator Canavan said that he wanted to see APS jobs go to people "living in a Mildura or an Albury or Rockhampton, where I'm from."
But, he said, to date, "it seems to me that work from home for the public service has largely been about working from home here in this town, in Canberra, not looking further afield and helping our national interest."
Katy Gallagher and Melissa Donnelly have responded to Matt Canavan's claim about Canberra public servants. Pictures by AAP, Keegan Carroll, Gary Ramage
The comments, made after delivering his address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, were dismissed by Finance and Public Service Minister and ACT Labor Senator Katy Gallagher.
"As the seat of government, Canberra should always be the home of the Australian Public Service, with around 35 per cent of APS employees based here in the capital," Senator Gallagher told this masthead.
Senator Canavan said he wanted more professional APS jobs to be in regional towns, where workers could access more affordable housing, to help drive population growth.
"There's a potential and opportunity to help support regional development if we make it easier to live and work away from just one place," he said.
"What I would like to see is more encouragement of it, more integration of allowing this to happen in a way which continues to grow teams."
Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Melissa Donnelly said the Coalition "has zero credibility on these matters" after its former APS policies contributed to a disastrous 2025 federal election result.
These included a policy to cut 41,000 APS jobs, which then opposition leader Peter Dutton struggled to explain - insisting that the roles would be cut from Canberra, a prospect that would mean culling half of the capital's public servants.
Senator Gallagher said APS employees already have the ability to work from home when their role allows it.
"As Senator Canavan should know, flexible work arrangements already exist for public servants in the regions, and they have the same entitlements to work from home," she said.
Working from home is negotiated by APS employees with their managers.
The basis of Senator Canavan's comment was unclear, but there is no comprehensive data collected that would show how many bureaucrats work from home, for how many days, in which agency and location.
In December, there were 23,889 federal public servants based in areas of Australia outside of capital cities, being 12 per cent of the APS workforce of 195,847.
Senator Canavan did not say by how much he would like this to increase.
Some within Labor believe that the Nationals' new policy is designed to boost the Coalition's fortunes in the Farrer byelection, where polling suggests it could lose the seat to One Nation.
Senator Canavan has not explained how the Coalition would achieve the aim of locating more APS roles outside of Canberra, without forcibly moving agencies as it did with the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) in 2021.
That move resulted in a string of redundancies and was followed by workplace scandals including a urination incident at a staff Christmas party.
The agency's chief executive and chair resigned in 2023.
Ms Donnelly said the Coalition "would be best served to remember the CPSU has already achieved industry leading flexibility and working from home rights for federal public servants in regional and rural Australia."
"These rights are already delivering for regional and rural public servants and their communities," she said.
The Parliamentary Budget Office found that Mr Dutton's policy to slash 41,000 APS roles, which included moving jobs to regional areas, would have cost $1.56 billion worth of redundancy and incentive payments over six years .
During the 2025 campaign, the Coalition also announced - then retracted - a policy to force public servants back to the office full time, which the Liberal Party's internal review of its campaign found had caused irreparable damage to the Coalition's electoral prospects.
Deputy Liberal Party leader Jane Hume, who promoted the working-from-home crackdown as opposition finance and public service spokesperson, said in February that it had been "a mistake."
Ms Donnelly said Senator Canavan's comments on working from home were "a significant backflip."
With Ray Athwal
