Perth, May 19 (IANS): Public servants in Western Australia took to the streets on Tuesday to protest job cuts across the state.

Officials said staff from Australian Bureau of Statistics and department of agriculture held an hour-long strike to protest the 17,300 job cuts and the pay and work conditions of public servants, WA Today reported.

"The deals this government is offering across the public service are so draconian no one could accept them," Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) national secretary Nadine Flood said.

CPSU is Australia's national trade union.

Sue Bowers, the regional secretary for the CPSU, said on Tuesday that Federal Minister for Employment Eric Abetz refused to come to the bargaining table.

Public servants were planning more industrial action down the track, Bowers added.

However, a spokesman for Abetz has said that the single biggest impediment to reaching a new agreement is the union's claim for a 12 percent pay rise with no productivity offsets.

This claim is utterly unrealistic and would cost the jobs of 10,000 public servants, the spokesman added.