Trouble brews over budget threat to public service jobs
Josephine Tovey
June 9, 2012


EARLY details of planned job cuts to the public service in next week's state budget have angered the opposition and trade unions, who say the O'Farrell government cannot guarantee frontline services won't be affected.    :(

One union has already threatened strike action following revelations yesterday of a plan to cut 10,000 jobs across all government agencies. The cuts may be in the form of forced redundancies and, while school teachers, police and nurses are exempt, TAFE teachers are not.    :(   

The Opposition Leader, John Robertson, accused the government of going back on its commitment to provide ''more public servants, not less'' before the last election.    :(


''You can't cut 15,000 workers without impacting on the essential services we all rely on,'' he said. Five thousand redundancies had already been announced in the September budget last year.    :o

The Fire Brigade Employees Union says it will meet on Wednesday to discuss industrial action after the budget is handed down. ''If there is any threat to our award conditions around workers compensation or if there is any threat to our Death and Disability … firefighters will be considering all courses of action,'' the union's state president, Darin Sullivan, said.

The Greens MP John Kaye said he was concerned about the impacts of cuts on TAFE and there were fears the O'Farrell government would emulate the Victorian government, which recently cut $290 million from its TAFE budget. ''TAFE cannot sustain further cuts and unfair competition without unacceptable damage to the skills base of this state,'' he said.

Leaked internal memos from different TAFE institutes, obtained by the Greens, showed staff were already being asked to find significant savings. One recent memo to part-time casuals said ''extreme adjustments to running costs'' were now required.

Details of the budget revealed yesterday also included plans to raise speeding fines by 12.5 per cent to increase revenue by $140 million over four years.

It came a week after the government announced a huge increase in the number of mobile speed cameras.

The NRMA president, Wendy Machin, last week welcomed the new cameras, but said yesterday that reaction may have been different if she knew that fines were set to rise, too.

''We were disappointed the government didn't tell us that was their thinking at the time,'' she said. ''I think we might have wanted to talk to them about the magnitude of the [speeding fine] increases. It's a large rise, four times the rate of inflation.    :(

''Our concern that the motivation for these rises is that it's all about making up for a budget shortfall, not road safety.''

The Treasurer, Mike Baird, said yesterday the government faced ''immense challenges'' due to the collapse of GST revenue but promised ''a whole range of initiatives across infrastructure'' would be included in Tuesday's budget.

''Predominantly we are creating the firepower for the report of Infrastructure NSW in September,'' Mr Baird said.

''That's what this budget is about. Creating and establishing the firepower we need to fast-track the infrastructure on the release of that report, and that will be achieved.''

Business groups have begun lobbying for business tax reform and further sales of state assets. The NSW Business Chamber wants the government to scrap its payroll tax rebate, aimed at generating 100,000 jobs, in favour of increasing the payroll tax threshold.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/trouble-brews-over-budget-threat-to-public-service-jobs-20120608-201fn.html#ixzz1xFgXv4Co

surprise surprise ... not really, the only surprise is that it took him so long

''You can't cut 15,000 workers without impacting on the essential services we all rely on,'' he said. Five thousand redundancies had already been announced in the September budget last year.    >:(

you do know why the States are doing this dont you crook????????????????

One would have to ask the man that's in control Cods.  A Mr Barry O Farrell.    :(

wrote on Jun 9^th, 2012 at 11:31am:

One would have to ask the man that's in control Cods.  A Mr Barry O Farrell.    :(

you will find its not just NSW thats cutting the cost of everything.. and I mean everything..


the FEDS are doing it.. you see they are the ones with the purse strings..and the States are not getting what they need..

in fact I could tell you something that is personal

something that the feds are cutting back on..but not on here of course..its ridiculous but it will save them about $5000..the is foreign affairs...but they are doing it to save money..mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Quote:

the FEDS are doing it.. you see they are the ones with the purse strings..and the States are not getting what they need..

They could cut back on something else to make the shortfall. Like their pollie wages and perks. Im sure theres other things that arent low paid workers jobs.

SOB