Page 861 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 March 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Canberra, as our nation’s capital, has historically been the home of the commonwealth parliament and Australia’s public sector, as well as increasing private sector jobs and opportunities in recent years. It is essential that we take appropriate steps to protect jobs in Canberra which provide employment for our growing population and enliven our various town centres.
Since the coalition government’s election in 2013, we have already seen a loss of federal public sector jobs in Canberra. Canberra lost more than 6,700 federal public sector jobs between 2013 and 2017. By contrast, as Ms Cheyne noted, Melbourne and Sydney in that time have seen a slight increase in public sector jobs. The coalition government’s decentralisation policy is largely premised upon the idea that regional areas in Australia would benefit from further employment opportunities being provided there. However, it should be noted that Canberra itself is a regional hub, and forcefully locating Canberra public servants to regional towns is not beneficial to Canberra or the broader Australian community.
As Ms Cheyne also mentioned, we must take note of the negative consequences we can observe from the forced move of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority from Canberra to Armidale. This move can be described as ill-thought out and misguided at best and calamitous at worst. Not only were there initially no appropriate facilities for the workforce who agreed to relocate to Armidale—many workers were forced to do their work at the local McDonald’s to access wi-fi—but many of the authority’s staff resisted the move, with the resignation of the agency’s chief executive as well as 20 scientists.
This led to the need to recruit scientists from overseas to fill the gap left. As Ms Cheyne pointed out, no cost-benefit analysis has been carried out in regard to the move. However, I would hazard a guess that the potential benefits of the move were not worth the difficulties and extra cost entailed.
Further, it should be noted that the federal Select Committee on Regional Development and Centralisation notes in chapter 7 of its report that dependency is a risk that should be considered in moving public sector work forces to regional towns. Even if a town is able to adjust and provide for a workforce, it may suffer if and when the workforce is ultimately transferred elsewhere. This was the case in Benalla in Victoria when the government agencies located there were transferred to Wangaratta. This calls into question the rationale for decentralisation—there might not be any benefit at all to the communities outside Canberra.
In addition, as I just mentioned, relocating departments from Canberra to regional towns involves large costs in providing adequate work spaces, incentivising staff to relocate, and investing in technology and organisational measures allowing teams to work from various locations when ultimately not all of the department is able or willing to move to the rural areas. The costs involved are simply unprecedented and unwarranted when these departments functioned efficiently and effectively in Canberra.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video