PSA "Public Interest" Campaign

Date: 06 February 2006

The NSW Public Service Association will today announce that their members will refuse to carry out the duties of colleagues whose jobs are cut from the public sector by the current or any future state government.

Launching a state wide 'Public Interest - Job Cuts = Service Cuts' campaign, PSA general secretary John Cahill said public services has reached a 'tipping point' and that any further cuts would severely compromise service delivery.

Concern about service delivery has been heightened by the State Opposition's commitment to cut 29,000 public servants and the upcoming Costa Audit, with mooted job cuts of between 4,000 and 10,000.

"Both sides of politics are talking about wholesale sackings of public servants - which would severely compromise the delivery of services across the state," Mr Cahill said.

"Our members are saying to politicians if they cut further jobs, they need to stipulate clearly which services will be cut - because they can no longer simply absorb the extra workload."

Mr Cahill said research from voters in battleground state seats conducted for the PSA over summer found that voters want more workers in key public services and will punish job cuts at the ballot box.

According to the Auspoll survey of NSW voters:

• the majority do not believe that the private sector deliver either better quality or more cost effective services than the public sector.
• jobs cuts work against the public interest and are only in the interest of big business.
• they would be less likely to vote for political parties who cut public sector jobs.

"What this shows is the tide has turned against the privatising and contracting out of government services," Mr Cahill said.

"We are reaching a point of no return, where any further cuts will compromise public services so fundamentally that their ongoing provision will no longer be viable.

Mr Cahill said that over the coming 12 months, the PSA will campaign in the community to raise awareness of the impact of job cuts on service delivery across the state.

The campaign will involve:

• departmental audits on the impact of job cuts,
• town hall meetings across the state to uncover the regional impacts of cuts
• development of a Public Interest Compact, calling for a commitment from all political candidates to the maintenance of public services
• he targeted use of radio advertisements and other forms of paid media to take the message directly to the public.

"The electorate is crying out for leadership, where the key issue is how to fund public services, rather than how to cut them or hive them off to the private sector."

"What they don't want to see is an auction on job cuts in the run up to the next election."

For further information

Contact:	John Cahill, General Secretary
Union:	Public Service Association of NSW
Phone:	02 9220 0982
Email:	psa@psa.asn.au
WWW:	http://psa.labor.net.au/

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