“When Dutton announced that he wanted to mandate public sector workers returning to the office five days a week, I think a lot of us were really concerned. We know that the public sector influences the private sector and vice versa, so those kinds of mandates on public sector workers affect all of us.”
That’s according to FSU member Jimmy Whitfield, who told the FSU his ability to work from home enabled him to keep working at a time when an illness prevented him from going to the office.
“Flexible work arrangements allowed me to get my job done, help out the rest of my team while I recovered at home so that I could be ready to get back out again.”
While Peter Dutton may have walked back his commitment to end work from home arrangements for public sector workers because it proved unpopular, Jimmy said the fact that Dutton proposed it in the first place told him everything he needed to know about the LNP’s attitude towards flexible work.
Going into the election, Coalition MPs said the quiet bit out loud, calling work from home “a right that is creating inefficiency”, equated it to a “holiday”, and dismissed the real benefits workers experience every day.
Peter Dutton himself said, “I am not going to tolerate a position where taxpayers are working harder than ever to pay their own bills and they’re seeing public servants in Canberra refuse to go to work.”
Already, big business is urging Dutton and the LNP to reconsider their backflip, declaring work from home provisions had gone too far.
And as recently as 19 April 2025, Liberal Senator Jane Hume said the Coalition’s ban on work from home was a “good policy that hadn’t found its appropriate time”.
Jimmy said Peter Dutton’s initial attempt to scale back work from home showed how out of touch he was with average workers.
“Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party know that these mandates are unpopular and that was the reason for the backflip,” said Jimmy.
“That’s why he can’t be trusted now to keep his word.”
FSU members expressed their concerns about losing their right to work from home in our snap election poll. The results proved how much is at stake:
And despite employers arguing that productivity is suffering, Jimmy said his productivity hasn’t been affected at all by his ability to work from home.
“We’ve seen this push in the private sector to get people back in the office out of some idea of efficiency or collaboration,” said Jimmy.
“I work from home three days a week and I’m able to achieve all the targets I need to. I’m able to get everything done that I need to and I can trust that the rest of my team, when they’re working from home, can do it as well.
“We’ve been doing this for five years now and things haven’t collapsed, things haven’t fallen apart.
“In fact, banks have posted amazing profits over the last five years. That’s due to the hard work of all of their employees working from home and doing what they need to do.”
There’s a lot at stake this election. Our rights at work cannot be taken for granted.
“Flexible work arrangements, working from home, the right to disconnect, superannuation … these are all really important rights and they all directly benefit the lives of a lot of Australians,” said Jimmy.
“We can’t let Peter Dutton take any of these things away from us, no matter how many times he backflips or pretends to care.”
Peter Dutton’s flip-flop on forcing public servants back to the office doesn’t mean we’re safe. First it was all public servants. Then it was only public servants in Canberra. What will it be if he’s elected?
We can’t trust him to do the right thing if he wins government. This election, Don’t Risk Dutton.
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