On Friday, while Tamworth was revving up for the highly successful Academy Games held over the weekend, 30 regionally based staff in the NSW Government Office of Sport were told they may no longer have jobs.
All of the eight regional offices that support and facilitate place-based initiatives to encourage sport in regional areas are being closed by the Minns Labor Government. This includes the office at the Tamworth Sports Dome, and the staff members who work there face an uncertain future.
The New England North West office in Tamworth has enabled a number of local activities and healthy participation in sport, including recent workshops on keeping kids safe in sport and efforts to get more girls involved in sport. Previous achievements from local development officers involved setting up clubs, supporting coaches with training and accreditation, and helping minor sports get established in local areas. It was quiet, on-the-ground work that made real differences in many regional areas.
The Office of Staff confirmed they have begun ‘consultation’ on the proposed changes and asserted that the important work of “supporting all people, communities and organisations across NSW to enjoy and realise the benefits of participating in sport and active recreation” will continue.
Tony Wright from the Public Sector Union said that they are still working to understand what is being proposed.
“We are consulting with the relevant departmental managers to understand what this restructure will entail.”
“The PSA supports jobs in the bush and the drought and flood proof pay cheques they feed into regional centres like Tamworth and we will be supporting members as this process plays out.”
According to the documents provided to affected staff, the reason to close the offices is because they’d been so significantly cut back previously, incrementally reducing both staff and services to regional areas, that they had “limited reach”.
“This workforce was once significantly larger and has reduced incrementally over several years in response to a tightening fiscal environment and budget constraints in the NSW Government,” the document states.
“The reduction in workforce over time has required the Office of Sport to reassess their ways of working.”
The proposed restructure will see all of this place-based regional activity centralised to Sydney, and the Centres, Venues and Regions Group to be renamed the Centres and Venues Group. Confusingly, the Office of Sport denied that the physical work sites are being closed, and some staff may continue to work in state-wide roles from the current regional locations.
The proposed timeline would see this change process done and dusted in just six weeks, with “excess employees” to be dealt with in June.
The Policy Branch, within the Policy and Planning Group, is also getting an overhaul, with staff taken away from other policy areas and the Duke Of Edinburgh Award program to deliver “a focus on climate change adaption and sustainability” and a new “Aboriginal Outcomes Team”.
The move follows a series of job cuts in the NSW government in the past year, including previous restructures in the Office of Sport and parent Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport, and massive layoffs at Services NSW and NSW Government insurer iCare.
It also follows a proposal last month by the Office of Sport to force staff back to the office for the majority of the week in a major change to workplace flexibility policy being driven out of the Premier’s office.
Member for New England Barnaby Joyce, campaigning in Muswellbrook today which will also be affected by the closure of the Hunter office at McDonald Jones Stadium, described the NSW Labor Government’s action of moving to close regional offices during a federal election as ‘brazen’.
“The essence of the Labor Party is one of centralisation to their core constituency in Canberra and near the CBD in Sydney,” Mr Joyce said.
“Now the State Government has joined in, taking more resources and jobs paid for by the taxpayer out of regional areas and putting them in the city.”
“The are flying the kite of centralising public service jobs out of New England and they are so brazen that they are doing it before prepoll at a federal election,” he said.
Read all the way through to the end of the story? So did lots of other people. Advertise with New England Times to reach New England locals who are interested and engaged. Find out more here.