PS exodus costs NT $2.6bn

A GRADUAL federal public servant exodus from the Northern Territory has cost the NT $2.6 billion in nine years.

Economic modelling by consultancy firm Remplan for NT Treasury shows there are 2412 fewer federal public servants – 1697 defence personnel and 715 in administrative roles – in the NT today than there were in 2010. The Commonwealth withdrawal has also caused a further 2760 full-time jobs to disappear.

That includes supply chain jobs and positions which would have been filled by the spouses of those absent public servants.

A number of federal agencies have wound back their footprints in the Territory in recent years, including the 2017 closure of Darwin’s Australian Electoral Commission bureau which led to 13 positions relocating to Brisbane.

Also in 2017, 300 defence personnel and their families moved to Adelaide.

Other agencies to have lost positions in the Territory include the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian Taxation Office. Chief Minister Michael Gunner said Territorians were entitled to receive Commonwealth services equal to those living down south.

“It makes no sense that when Territorians’ electoral participation is the lowest in the country, that Electoral Commission staff are moved to Brisbane,” he said. “The Top End has seen more wartime than any other place in the country, so why are we losing troops to down south?”

According to the CPSU, there were 1927 federal administrative public servants in the NT at the end of June, meaning the total workforce has fallen by almost a third since 2010.

“If this Australian Government is serious about developing the north and closing the gap, more frontline federal staff should be based here,” Mr Gunner said. “There should be more Aboriginal Affairs staff based in Alice Springs, not Canberra. There should be more Biosecurity staff based in Darwin, not Geelong.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was contacted.