As tens of thousands of federal public servants prepare for large-scale strike action, Eric Abetz says he does not think there is a strong willingness to go through with it.

Abetz says less than a fifth of federal bureaucrats voted in favour of industrial action, according to the results of the ballots.

But it appears to be a bit of statistical trickery, given that two-thirds of the workers were not union members (and therefore could not vote), and a large proportion abstained from the vote.

Among the unionists, about a quarter abstained or failed to complete a ballot paper, a vast majority in all departments voted in favour, while less than a tenth voted against strike action.

Employment Minister Eric Abetz has told Fairfax Media that public servants agree with the Federal Government on the debt left by Labor.

“They appreciate the need to work with the government under the current budget conditions and would prefer a minimal wage rise with job security, rather than engage in the [Community and Public Sector Union]'s outlandish pay claims and its industrial actions,” he said.

“The CPSU should stop exaggerating support for its industrial action, abandon its ridiculous 12.5 per cent wage claim and stop standing between public servants and the entirely responsible wage rises on offer.”

It has been almost a year since most federal bureaucrats' pay deals ended, and the only offers so far have been for small pay rises coupled with the loss of benefits.

Senator Abetz says that the sooner the union adopts “a reasonable approach to bargaining, the sooner public servants will benefit from affordable deals which don't endanger their own jobs”

CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood says the minister's attack “just smacks of desperation”.

“The ‘reasonable’ agreements minister Abetz is pushing are actually much harsher than those offered by any major private sector employer,” she said.

“The minister can't name any major employer offering to strip 40 to 70 per cent of enterprise agreements' content, cut conditions, remove workers' right to representation – and all for less than 1 per cent in pay.

“If minister Abetz is so confident of the views of public servants, why aren't there more enterprise agreements being put to a staff vote? Because agency heads know they'd go down in a screaming heap, just like in minister Abetz's own department, where 95 per cent of staff rejected a nasty deal.”

Strike action so far has seen some Centrelink and Medicare front-counter staff wearing casual clothes rather than uniforms, some Employment Department staff undertaking short stoppages, and at least ten Agriculture Department staff refusing to inspect meat for a 15-mintue period.

The Ag Department staff had their pay docked for the protest behaviour.