The Left is privately bracing for a Trump-style DEI apocalypse if Dutton wins. These programs will be first on the chopping block – and you won’t believe some of them existed in the first place, writes STEPHEN JOHNSON

You walk into work at your government job and receive an alert that a scheduled ‘cultural training session’ has been cancelled.

That’s strange, you wonder.

Then, you notice the usual welcome to country pop-up that greets visitors to your department website has been quietly removed.

The reason why soon becomes clear.

It’s the day after the election and new prime minister Peter Dutton is heading to The Lodge with a Trump-style plan to ditch the diversity, equity and inclusion policies that defined the Albo years.

Government departments are wasting no time adjusting to the new administration – fearful that if they don’t, they will be hit with Budget cuts courtesy of Dutton’s new efficiency tsar Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Now, of course, this is all a bit of light prognostication on my part. Labor may well secure a second term – in fact, that’s looking like the more likely option despite what the polls say.

But there’s always a chance Dutton will surprise us. And if he does win, expect a DEI crackdown.

After all, Donald Trump’s scrapping of DEI programs in public service departments has been wildly popular among those who voted for him. Unsurprisingly, his approach has lefties frothing at the mouth with rage.

Woke programs, dividing up staff based on immutable characteristics like race and sexuality, are simply an affront to privacy and merit.

Remember that? The old-fashioned idea of hiring the best man or woman for the job based on their talents and qualifications, instead of ticking politicised diversity boxes.

President Trump made this clear nine days ago when he issued an executive order on the day he was sworn in for the second time, declaring it was about ‘ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity’.

The American Department of Education followed this order and three days later removed references to DEI initiatives from its website and training manuals.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, too, is fed up with this cultural left diversity drive and earlier this month made this clear in a podcast interview with entrepreneur Mark Bouris, who, like Trump, previously hosted a local version of Celebrity Apprentice.

‘I just don’t believe that we should discriminate on the basis of gender or race or on any basis,’ he said.

Dutton could surely dismantle the progressive agendas within the Australian public service, of which there are many.

The Australian Public Service Commission describes itself as a paragon of ‘diversity and inclusion’ with policies apparently designed to ‘foster diverse workforces and create respectful, psychologically safe and inclusive workplaces where everyone can contribute’.

Federal public service departments now typically run pride networks catering to gay, lesbian and transgender bureaucrats, and promote such activity on Instagram. 

It’s a wonder any work gets done.

As Australia struggles with government debt, the Australian Public Service Commission seems to have other priorities.

Like conducting a taxpayer-funded census on the sexuality of employees. Seriously.

It’s illegal to ask prospective employees about their sexual orientation in a job interview and whether someone is attracted to men or women is hardly relevant to their ability.

But apparently, the proportion of LGBTIQA+ staff more than doubled in six years, rising from 4.1 per cent in 2017 to 8.7 per cent in 2023. This covered the ever-expanding rainbow flag spectrum of ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and/or gender diverse, Intersex, Queer, Questioning and/or Asexual’.

During a productivity crisis, public servants have other priorities like ‘wear it purple’ day and ‘encouraging the use of preferred pronouns in email signature blocks serve to demonstrate that agencies and employees welcome people with diverse gender identities’.

Anthony Albanese’s Labor government asked the public service in 2023 to devise a ‘Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Employment Strategy’ – apparently designed to hire more bureaucrats born outside Australia and from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet also held so-called ‘listening circles’ to hear from these minority public servants.

Pity they didn’t dedicate more resources to delivering better services. 

It gets worse with the Opposition recently revealing federal government agencies had spent $452,953 on welcome to country ceremonies in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

The benefits to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders living in impoverished, remote communities have yet to be quantified. 

The Australian public service’s ‘First Nations Unit’ has a goal of having Indigenous employees make up five per cent of the bureaucracy by 2030, in another sign race-based affirmative action is regarded as more important than merit-focused hiring.

The Opposition’s new shadow minister for government efficiency, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who is Aboriginal, could be in charge of dismantling DEI programs should the Coalition win the next election.

She used her maiden speech in 2022 to mock the DEI disease that has infected not just government departments but also big corporations, including Qantas acknowledging traditional owners every time a plane lands.

‘Throughout Australia, the reinvention of culture has brought us welcome to country or recognition of country, a standard ritual practice before events, meetings and social gatherings by governments, corporates, institutions, primary schools, kindergartens, high schools, universities, workplaces, music festivals, gallery openings, conferences, airline broadcasts and so on and so forth,’ Senator Price said.

‘I personally have had more than my fill of being symbolically recognised.’

With the exception of the inner-city Left brigade, ordinary Australians have had a gutful of DEI programs that do nothing more than spread division and emphasise our differences without making our workplaces more productive or effective.