Australia runs many of the same administrative systems several times over. S38 argues that national standards with regional delivery could free capacity for frontline services. It does not claim that this is proven, and it does not report a net saving that no one has verified.
Duplicated procurement, ICT, registration, back-office and regulatory systems across nine governments carry real cost. A single national framework could reduce that duplication over time.
Only 11 of 38 systems carry an inherited illustrative gross figure. Transition, dual-running, workforce, legal and new operating costs are not yet costed, so the net effect is unknown.
Before any benefit is booked or reinvested, it must be independently costed, audited and reported to Parliament, with service outcomes published alongside it.
The S38 scenario
Ten per cent of expenditure in 11 systems is assumed addressable, and 15% of that is assumed saved. On the staged ramp the illustrative gross totals are $38.514375bn over 10 years, $101.139375bn over 20 years, $163.764375bn over 30 years. These are gross scenario values before any costs, not a promised fiscal dividend.
Gross scenario, not a net or guaranteed benefit. Figures are inherited modelling assumptions in constant dollars. Transition costs, new operating responsibilities, National Service costs, inflation and discounting are excluded. No government-wide net saving is established.
| Year | Annual gross | Cumulative gross |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $0.000bn | $0.000bn |
| 2 | $0.626bn | $0.626bn |
| 3 | $1.566bn | $2.192bn |
| 4 | $2.818bn | $5.010bn |
| 5 | $4.071bn | $9.081bn |
| 6 | $5.010bn | $14.091bn |
| 7 | $5.636bn | $19.727bn |
| 8 | $6.263bn | $25.989bn |
| 9 | $6.263bn | $32.252bn |
| 10 | $6.263bn | $38.514bn |
| 11 | $6.263bn | $44.777bn |
| 12 | $6.263bn | $51.039bn |
| 13 | $6.263bn | $57.302bn |
| 14 | $6.263bn | $63.564bn |
| 15 | $6.263bn | $69.827bn |
| 16 | $6.263bn | $76.089bn |
| 17 | $6.263bn | $82.352bn |
| 18 | $6.263bn | $88.614bn |
| 19 | $6.263bn | $94.877bn |
| 20 | $6.263bn | $101.139bn |
| 21 | $6.263bn | $107.402bn |
| 22 | $6.263bn | $113.664bn |
| 23 | $6.263bn | $119.927bn |
| 24 | $6.263bn | $126.189bn |
| 25 | $6.263bn | $132.452bn |
| 26 | $6.263bn | $138.714bn |
| 27 | $6.263bn | $144.977bn |
| 28 | $6.263bn | $151.239bn |
| 29 | $6.263bn | $157.502bn |
| 30 | $6.263bn | $163.764bn |
Illustrative gross by system, mature annual
The machine-readable CSV links page totals to row IDs and records the source URL, release date, reference period, accounting basis, transformation, limitation and reviewer status for every record.
Illustrative inputs cannot be promoted to an official baseline without a named independent reviewer and review date.
The ABS reports approximately 2.597m public-sector employee jobs in June 2025 and $249.5b in cash wages and salaries for 2024–25. Around 2.211m employee jobs and $208.7b sit at state and local level.
These figures are a scale baseline for verification, not a claim that all jobs or wages are duplicated, removable or available as savings. The independent evidence phase must reconcile definitions, contractors, entities, occupations, regions and frontline versus administrative roles before any percentage is applied.
2.597m
public-sector employee jobs
$249.5b
public-sector wages
2.211m
state + local employee jobs
$208.7b
state + local wages
Official statistics establish scale. The earlier v1 illustrative inputs ($412b base, 8% reduction and related placeholders) are no longer the party's scenario. They remain listed so readers can see what changed; the current scenario is the S38 11-system gross model.
2.597m jobs; $249.5b wages; 2.211m state/local jobs; $208.7b state/local wages
Source / method: ABS, Public Sector Employment and Earnings, 2024–25
Date: Reference period: June 2025 / 2024–25; released 6 November 2025
Limitation: Headcount and cash wages are scale measures, not full-time-equivalent staffing, total employment cost, or a measure of duplicated roles.
Open official source$412b default
Source / method: Model allocation to be reconciled against ABS Government Finance Statistics, AIHW health and welfare spending, and the Productivity Commission Report on Government Services
Date: Model default prepared June 2025; source series should be refreshed to a common financial year
Limitation: Not an official aggregate. It spans different accounting boundaries and must exclude transfers, capital and internal transactions before use.
Open official source8% default; 4% low; 12% high
Source / method: Sensitivity range applied only to the modelled addressable base; no official benchmark is asserted
Date: Scenario assumption: June 2025
Limitation: Must be replaced by bottom-up agency process maps, protected frontline baselines, implementation timing and confidence intervals.
$4b default
Source / method: Separate placeholder for corporate, governance, property, ICT and procurement consolidation after overlap removal
Date: Scenario assumption: June 2025
Limitation: Cannot be added to agency savings until contracts, stranded costs, asset disposals and duplicated categories are reconciled.
$18b default
Source / method: Bottom-up cost envelope required for workforce, systems migration, property exits, legal change, communications and contingency
Date: Scenario assumption: June 2025
Limitation: No optimism-bias uplift, financing cost, schedule risk or jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction implementation plan is yet included.
11m default
Source / method: ABS, Household and Family Projections, Australia, 2021 to 2046
Date: Released 4 July 2024; model uses a rounded near-term figure
Limitation: The per-household result is an arithmetic scale illustration, not a forecast of cash received by each household.
Open official sourceLast reviewed 8 September 2026; next review due 30 September 2027. A changed source value requires a model-version and reference-date update. Definition changes are reported as not comparable until a documented reconciliation is available, and earlier limitations remain visible.
Check Public Sector Employment and Earnings and Government Finance Statistics for revised observations, definitions, coverage and the latest financial year.
Check the latest Report on Government Services tables, errata, service definitions and jurisdictional comparability notes.
Check appraisal guidance, assessment parameters and infrastructure market or pipeline releases used by any wider-benefit assumption.
Check budget papers, annual reports, workforce releases and finance-department updates for all nine jurisdictions, recording the release and table used.
Comparability rule: headcount is not FTE; cash wages are not total employment cost; budget expenses, GFS transactions and service-specific expenditure are not interchangeable. Series with different coverage, accounting bases or definitions must not be combined without a published bridge.
Step 1
Establish expenditure by function, jurisdiction and accounting year. Reconcile Commonwealth–state transfers and remove duplicated accounting entries.
Step 2
Identify genuinely cashable costs rather than costs shifted to a national authority. Include regional staffing and new regulatory responsibilities.
Step 3
Estimate capital and operating expenditure including parallel running, contracts, data migration, pensions, legal work and cybersecurity.
Step 4
Use verified before-and-after measures, independent counterfactuals where practical, and distributional and regional equity assessments.
Step 5
Realised cashable savings minus incremental recurring costs minus transition costs. Report economic and social benefits separately.
Step 6
Publish justified discount rates and sensitivities for costs, savings, delays and service performance.
Step 7
Require independent audit and parliamentary reporting before forecast savings are booked or reinvested.