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Public Sector Issues

28 Aug 2012

Q. Do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

 

Total agree

Total disagree

Strongly agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly disagree

Don’t know

The Commonwealth public sector cannot take 12,000 job cuts and still maintain service quality

57%

28%

24%

33%

21%

7%

15%

Regardless of what they say before elections, Liberal Governments always cut public services.

52%

22%

20%

32%

19%

3%

26%

Many of the Commonwealth public sector functions should be outsourced to private companies

30%

48%

5%

25%

29%

19%

22%

Many of the Commonwealth public sector functions should be outsourced to charities and not for profit organisations

32%

42%

5%

27%

29%

13%

25%

Cutting the public service will most hurt regional and rural areas

57%

22%

22%

35%

17%

5%

21%

Cutting support and admin staff will affect the quality of service provided by frontline staff

60%

24%

24%

36%

20%

4%

15%

A majority of respondents agreed that – cutting support and admin staff will affect the quality of service provided by frontline staff (60%), cutting the public service will most hurt regional and rural areas (57%), the Commonwealth public sector cannot take 12,000 job cuts and still maintain service quality (57%) and regardless of what they say before elections, Liberal Governments always cut public services (52%).

They were more likely to oppose outsourcing public sector functions to private companies (48% disagree) or charities and not-for-profits (42%).

Liberal/National voters were evenly split over whether cutting the public service will most hurt regional and rural areas (42% agree/38% disagree) and cutting support and admin staff will affect the quality of service provided by frontline staff (43% agree/43% disagree).

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