Tuesday, June 04, 2013

NSW: O'Farrell Job Cutting

More than 700 public service sector jobs will be lost across the central west as part of the O'Farrell government's cost-cutting, a union claims.

The Public Service Association of NSW has used freedom-of-information laws to produce an electorate-by-electorate map of how job cuts will impact on communities.

The results were published in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, with an interactive map uploaded to the SMH website.

While treasurer Mike Baird has already labelled the modelling as incorrect, the interactive map shows that 267 jobs are expected to be lost in the Bathurst electorate, 200 in Orange and 265 in Dubbo.

Included in those figures are the 57 jobs lost when Kirkconnell Correctional Centre closed in 2011, though many of those workers transferred to other jails within the region.

The PSA has also pinpointed job losses within the educational support sector in Bathurst and Housing NSW at Orange.

PSA general secretary Anne Gardiner said the O’Farrell government had failed to provide a detailed plan on how an estimated 15,000 public service sector jobs across the state would be lost.

“It is not open to scrutiny,” Ms Gardiner said.

“From biosecurity to emergency preparedness, these cuts are going to have long-term consequences, particularly in regional NSW.”

But a spokeswoman for Mr Baird said the PSA modelling was not based on actual jobs because the labour expense cap would not be achieved through a headcount.

Mr Baird said the government was “very upfront about the fact that last year's budget included a number of difficult and unpopular decisions, including job losses”.

“In line with our commitments, nurses, police officers and teachers in schools have been quarantined from this measure,” he said.

“The government was determined to give the directors-general as much flexibility as possible to achieve the savings required in the most appropriate way to maintain their services."

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