Macquarie Street fiddles while NSW burns

PSA General Secretary, John Cahill

We didn't have an easy ride under Nathan Rees.

The fallout from the measures in the Mini Budget, along with on going job cuts and privatisation - most notably Parklea prison - had us on the front foot continually.

But with the state crying out for proper services, instead of focusing on the issues we instead had the spectacle of the very public Macquarie Street fight in the first week of December.

The result was we now have a new Premier, the first woman to hold the position, Kristina Keneally.

The move was as breathtaking as it was exasperating.

In the first instance, it will probably mean, yet another unsettling new agenda for the public sector and no doubt a further round of restructures and rebadging to meet the new administration's own particular desires.

But the much bigger, more far reaching picture is that the entire exercise has been a huge neon lit billboard advertisement for a change of Government and has probably handed the Libs the next state election on a platter before it has even been called.

Now that's a disaster.

A Government playing with fire

Every now and then Governments make decisions that defy belief.

Opposing positions or views are par for the course but some are simply irrational from any perspective.

At the top of that list this past year has been the continued push to sell off State Lotteries despite it being a strong and on going revenue stream for government services such as roads, schools and hospitals.

Also ranked highly was the underhanded relocation of more than 100 inmates from Cessnock prison in the dead of night back in March in preparation for the privatisation of the establishment and the slashing of jobs and entitlements, a move which I'm proud to say we helped defeat.

But those "crowns" have now slipped and a new contender has taken their place.

With the temperatures in late November soaring to record highs and dire warnings of the worst bushfire conditions in many years, the State Government announced cuts to vital National Parks and Wildlife staff.

Some of these members are the crack troops, the Special Forces experts if you like, who steer the state from ashes and total blackened disaster each and every bushfire season.

Cutting their positions during winter would be bad enough but to do it as we approach summer is breathtaking.

When the PSA launched the Jobs Cuts = Service Cuts campaign prior to the last state election with the then Premier giving a guarantee that jobs and services would at least be maintained, National Parks - proudly fronted by Arthur Willis - were among the groups that were specifically highlighted in our advertising and promotion.

Now it's a whole new ballgame it seems and agreement, honour and just plain common sense can all be sacrificed to improve the appearance of the budget bottom line in the lead up to the next state election.

The new Better Services campaign is round two of that ongoing fight.

Attempts to cut jobs generally seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment like some disturbing industrial relations virus. The attempted $127 million cut to the Department of Education and Training budget being one stunning example.

This has nothing to do with the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the PSA late last year.

The PSA signed that document in good faith.

What we are seeing now is a number of desperate Departments who have been instructed to find savings - and find them fast - and are trying to use the MOU as a vehicle to achieve them.

Every such case is and will continue to be vigorously fought by the PSA in the Industrial Relations Commission.

It is not up to PSA members to fund the Government's services with their own jobs.

When will someone in Government give some thought to the pressure that PSA members are under?

Another blow to NSW IR system

The PSA has long been a strong supporter of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission which has been a fair and impartial umpire for more than a century.

We have strongly supported the position of some members of the State Government who over the past few years have fought to maintain a state IR system.

But now a little more has been eroded from that institution.

Section 146A of the NSW Industrial Relations Act has been repealed as part of a referral of powers to the Commonwealth.

It means that State Owned Corporations or SOCs that were under NSW industrial law will move to the Federal jurisdiction.

It's all part of Julia Gillard's national industrial relations system, something that John Howard disturbingly also wanted to achieve.

I voted Labor to right the wrongs of Howard not have them compounded and expanded upon.

The Abbott nightmare

The Federal Opposition had barely left the party room after electing Tony Abbott as new leader before he was defiantly talking up the "merits" of the Howard era, WorkChoices and the dreaded AWAs.

He seemed to have forgotten that his party lost Government in a landslide on those very issues.

While the Rudd Government has not done enough to wipe away the industrial relations stain of Howard, Abbott will drag workplace laws back to a point well past what even Howard so proudly had in place.

He is no friend of the worker, of unions or clearly, the climate.

The coming year will now be a far bigger fight on a number of fronts than it appeared just a few weeks back.

John Cahill
General Secretary