June 20 2019
Long service leave to be halved for new teachers, nurses and police   

Northern Daily Leader

NEW teachers, nurses, council employees and police officers will all have their long service leave effectively halved, if the NSW government passes an upcoming bill.

The proposal, which is part of $3.2 billion in cuts to the public service sector, would see leave accruals after a decade of service reduced from five months to three months for each subsequent period of 10 years.   

With the NSW Department of Health, NSW Department of Education and Tamworth Regional Council among the Tamworth electorate's biggest employers, the changes would impact hundreds of people starting a new job across the region from July 1.

Manilla healthcare worker and NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association delegate, Tanya Rogers, said the changes "would definitely not help" attract more people to healthcare, an industry that already struggled to get young professionals to regional areas.

"It is really unfortunate to see them going ahead with this," Ms Rogers said.

"Attacking our benefits is only going to make it harder to get people to smaller healthcare facilities.

"In our current situation, after the first 10 years you get eight weeks long service leave, and it's in the second 10 years where you get five months. So cutting that back is a big blow."



Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson did not respond to The Leader's request for a comment.

Tamworth Shooters Fishers and Farmers spokesman Jeff Bacon said to halve leave entitlements of new public service employees was "an act of bastardy".

"How could Minister Anderson possibly support parts of this bill? There is no excuse, he now sits within cabinet and would have been well aware of this and the impacts it will have," Mr Bacon said.

"Why hasn't he spoken out against this? Once again Mr Anderson is doing what the city Liberals tell him to do, even if it's bad for the bush."   



Mr Bacon said his party would not support the legislation.

Police Association NSW president Tony King said he was "shocked" and "appalled" that the government had moved to strip long service leave entitlements from police officers.

"This government's move to cut back the entitlement to the long service leave available to future officers who serve more than 10 years by 40 per cent is an extremely negative step to take," Mr King said.   

People vote for this low life scum.

It has never been a secret that these scummies are exactly like this.

Guess the expectation is that it's ok they will get someone else not me.

There are dumb police officers, teachers etc who vote Liberal.

This time they get exactly what they deserve and lose their penalty rates as well.