Brisbane City Council called out as staff axed after budget blowout
Brisbane City Council is being urged to ‘come clean’ on just how many staff have already or will lose their jobs as they seek to claw back $400m in a budget blowout.
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A former Brisbane City Council employee has claimed she was sacked two days after the $400 million budget cut announcement, and given only one day’s notice, it can be revealed.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner announced council would axe projects, jobs and services as part of a savings drive, with $400m in spending to be cut from the mammoth $4.2bn budget handed down in June.
A casual employee of the council who asked to remain anonymous, said she was called on Thursday morning, just two days after the $400m blowout announcement, and told she was being “let go because of the budget cuts”.
“It was Thursday morning and they said tomorrow’s your last day at council,” she told The Courier-Mail.
“Sorry to let you go, but it’s because of the budget cuts.”
While Cr Schrinner was vague on where exactly the cuts would come from, he assured that no full-time staff would be sacked as part of the 10 per cent savings drive.
“We’ve made the commitment that no permanent council staff will be impacted as a result of these changes,” he said.
“What will happen is we will be reducing consultancies, we will be reducing agency work and these are things that I think are reasonable responses.”
Questions put to council asking how many casual, temporary and contract staff would be affected by the budget cuts have gone unanswered.
Brisbane Civic Cabinet Chair for Finance Fiona Cunningham said “sensible savings” were coming from advertising, travel, contractors, consultants and “some casual shifts”.
“The destructive Green/Labor coalition of chaos has opposed this plan, meaning the only way they can tackle rising costs will be to hit households with higher rates in the middle of a cost of living crisis,” she said.
“We’re making sensible savings while Treasurer Dick’s appalling record of massive tax increases are just a taste of what the destructive Green/Labor coalition of chaos will do to the rates of Brisbane residents.”
Brisbane City Council employ more than 800 casual staff, the majority of which are bus drivers for TransLink.
There are more than 1000 temporary staff, according to council’s latest annual report and 900 contract staff.
Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick said any job cuts as a result of the budget review were a “blight” on the LNP-run council.
“Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner must come clean now on how many more people will lose their jobs before Christmas,” he said.
“All governments around the world are faced with increasing costs … it’s just a blight on the LNP that its only answer to budgetary pressure is to sack hard working Queenslanders.”
Opposition Leader Jared Cassidy said Labor would be filing several questions on notice in upcoming council meetings in an attempt to uncover where the $400m would be saved.
He said he suspects most spending cuts will come from the suburban works program, which equates to about $430m.
“Anything that has a contract in place will be safe, which rules out all of the big stuff,” he said.
“Contracts for smaller stuff like curbing, playgrounds, weed management, is only entered into month on month, so if they stop entering into those, those smaller projects just wont happen.”
Details on the $400m worth of cuts are expected to be announced during the budget review process next month.
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