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The Coalition has defended more than $5 billion in controversial cuts to the public service and federal government programs, as new detail shows the health and social services portfolios have lost $4.7 billion through efficiency audits. Information provided to a Senate committee this month shows the functional and efficiency reviews established in May 2014 will cut $3.2 billion from social services and $1.5 billion from health between the 2014-15 financial year and 2020-21. Labor has expressed alarm at the figures, while the government says the savings will be achieved through streamlining programs, improving control and compliance measures and ending outdated government spending. Education and Training is seeing $221 million in cuts from the reviews, while the foreign affairs and trade portfolio will lose $157 million. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann told the committee in May he could not release the full findings of the whole-of-government reviews, because they were part of deliberative government processes and subject to Cabinet confidentiality. Instead the Department of Finance presented a table of savings, which includes $30 million in cuts from the Tax Office and $9.2 million from the agriculture and water resources portfolio. The reviews were established to "comprehensively assess the efficiency and effectiveness of all aspects of an entity's operations, programs and administration". They are on top of $3.8 billion in efficiency dividends to departments and agencies, $200 million in savings from the public service property program Operation Tetris and $3.8 billion from the Coalition's smaller government agenda. Review leaders have been required to consider if functions being performed by government departments and agencies align with priorities and Coalition policy commitments, if there are barriers to planned outcomes and the feasibility and efficiency of alternative approaches. Labor Senator Katy Gallagher said the government should provide more detail behind the savings figures. "Every Australian knows that this government has cut funding for pensions, family payments and Medicare," she said. "These figures indicate just how aggressive the Turnbull government has been in pursuing savings from health and social services with over $4.7 billion of the $5.2 billion in cuts coming from these areas. "Australian taxpayers have a right to know this information especially when it's their services and payments that are being cut back at the same time the government is giving tax cuts to millionaires and multinationals." But Senator Cormann defended the reviews and said they helped the government remove waste, maximise efficient and effective public administration and ensuring taxpayer resources weren't wasted. "These reviews have not only looked at where money can be saved, but also at how we can do things better," he said. "How productivity can be improved by improving our systems and processes so we can sustainably deliver more with the limited resources available for government administration." Health Minister Greg Hunt said the measures had been previously announced and the government included more than $10 billion in new health investments in this year's federal budget. "It is surprising that measures previously announced over 12 months ago are being presented as new," Mr Hunt said. "Labor spent $75 billion on health in their last year in office, compared to our health investment of $105 billion in the final year of our budget projections." Shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh said the government was cutting the Tax Office despite repeated outages of its online services at tax time. "This is madness. The Turnbull government needs to support our public servants and come clean on the rolling outages, which have disrupted so many Australians' tax time," Dr Leigh said on Friday. Follow Tom McIlroy on Facebook and Twitter

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