Finding disappointment: John Tucker. Credit:Marina Neil Since coming to office on September 7, the Coalition has cut billions of dollars in programs, including $1.1 billion it will save by abandoning grants promised by the Labor government, announced this month in its mid-year economic statement. Treasurer Joe Hockey's office cannot provide a comprehensive list of the grants programs it has cut, and a spokeswoman says no estimates have been made of the jobs to be lost due to the cuts. Among the casualties are a host of advisory boards and their part-time representatives deemed to have outlived their usefulness, with $43 million stripped from programs delivering policy reform and advocacy activities. A spokesman for the Community and Public Sector Union says it's impossible to know how many jobs will be lost, because of the ''conspicuous absence'' of hard data in the mid-year financial statement.

The government came to power promising to cut 12,000 public service jobs through natural attrition. But Finance Minister Matthias Cormann said last month the government had discovered Labor had ''hidden'' its own plans to cut 14,500 jobs over the next four years, making achieving the target through voluntary departures hard. A Fairfax analysis of the savings announced in the mid-year economic statement shows hundreds of jobs and volunteer positions will be lost as the government grapples with a budget blowout of more than $17 billion on top of the promised public service job cuts. Some of them will be jobs in name only, having been announced by Labor then cut by the government before anyone had a chance to actually do the jobs. These include ''live music ambassadors'' who were to head the $560,000 national office for live music announced by former prime minister Kevin Rudd during the election campaign.

Also given the chop is the person who would have become the independent inspector general of animal welfare and live animal exports (saving $3.9 million over four years). But most of the job losses will be felt by real people. The Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, which had operated since 1966, went into administration after it learnt last month that its funding would cease immediately. The council was the peak body for organisations working to minimise the harm caused by drugs and alcohol, providing professional development, information sharing and advocacy services on an annual budget of $1.6 million from the federal Health Department. The position of co-ordinator general for remote indigenous services, now held by Brian Gleeson, will be axed when Mr Gleeson retires in January, saving $7.1 million over three years. Also losing their jobs are an unknown number of Aboriginal legal aid policy workers.

Members of the advisory panel on the economic portrayal of senior Australians - Everald Compton, Gill Lewin and Brian Howe - will also go, saving $958,000 over two years. The ABC's Insiders host Barrie Cassidy, who was appointed chairman of the Old Parliament House advisory council, has handed in his resignation after the Coalition asked him to step down from the voluntary position. The government appointed former Howard government minister David Kemp in his place. Then there are 38 university graduates who accepted jobs in the prestigious AusAID graduate program, only to be told the program had been scrapped. Other groups that have gone are the Climate Commission (now operating as the donor-funded Climate Council) and the Climate Change Authority. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation also faces an uncertain future. The First People Education Advisory Group, comprising indigenous academics and education experts, also will no longer receive funding.

A dozen non-statutory bodies, advising on everything from animal welfare to ageing, will be abolished while a further three will be amalgamated with other non-statutory bodies and five will be absorbed by portfolio departments. Funding change slams door on multicultural men's shed It was going to be Australia's first multicultural men's shed. A place for about 80 elderly postwar migrants and new migrants to spend time tinkering with hands-on projects and talking to each other. As well as supporting other blokes in the shed, the men would have been involved in a pilot ''in-home maintenance program'', going into the community to fix windows, change light bulbs and perform household tasks for residents too frail or elderly to perform them themselves and all for a gold coin donation. Newcastle Ethnic Communities Council executive officer John Tucker spent six weeks on the proposal. His organisation submitted a successful development application to Newcastle City Council and spent about $30,000 on plans and preliminary works.

But the plan - which would have cost $159,000 to complete, employed dozens of local tradesmen and has the support of the NSW government, which kicked in $40,000 - is one of hundreds of community projects abruptly stripped of funds by the federal government in the final weeks of the year. ''It was funded under the previous government's budget, so it was already money spent,'' Mr Tucker said. ''It was a legitimate, legal, legitimately applied for grant, so it's just really disappointing.''