I encourage the government to review the expanding use of contractors over permanent APS employees which is happening in many departments, particularly DHS.
There is an apparent conflict between a "recruitment freeze" preventing employment of new permanent staff members and promotions, and the continual coming and going of hundreds of contract resources, costing more per hour than ongoing staff, then we have to spend time and effort training them for in house procedures, then they often leave after a short time, and new resources take their place.
Instead of spending time and effort on APS employees, recruiting, training, keeping skills gained as part of the APS we are spending huge amounts of public money engaging contractors who do not leave the organisation better than they found it, and often provide no enrichment of permanent staff around them when they leave.
Stop the huge spending on contractors and start improving the APS by using ongoing resources.