Coalition channels Trump with work-from-home ban: PM

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Coalition channels Trump with work-from-home ban: PM

Coalition plans to ban public servants working from home is straight out of the playbook of Donald Trump, the prime minister says.

Public servants would be forced to work in the office five days per week should the coalition win the next election.

The opposition’s finance spokeswoman Jane Hume, who outlined the coalition’s proposal in a speech on Monday night, said work-from-home arrangements had made parts of the public sector ineffective.

“While work-from-home arrangements can work, in the case of the *********** public service, it has become a right that is creating inefficiency,” she said in the speech.

“Work-from-home arrangements for public servants should only be in place when the arrangements work for the employee’s department, their team, and the individual. This isn’t controversial.”

The latest employee census of federal public servants found 61 per cent work from home at least part of the week.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hit out at the proposal, saying the approach to public servants from the coalition was copying that by the Trump administration in the US.

“We don’t have to adopt all of America’s policies. What we have here from Peter Dutton is he’s so policy lazy, him and his team,” the PM told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday.

Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher said the work-from-home ban would put women at a greater disadvantage due to the lack of flexible employment arrangements.

“I would see this announcement, if you can call it that from the opposition, as certainly a step in the wrong direction for working women,” she told ABC Radio.

“They clearly have no idea about how working families manage modern life. I mean, across the economy working-from-home arrangements are in place.”

But Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said people not wanting to go back to the office in the public sector was unacceptable.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable that people like in many other workplaces are asked to go back to work for face-to-face contact and that’s exactly what will happen if there is a change of government after the election,” he told reporters in Brisbane.

“We need an efficient delivery of government services.”

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