ATO jobs in Grafton are ‘safe for now’
THE jobs of 10 Australian Tax Office employees in Grafton are safe, but only for the time being, says a union official.
Grafton
Don't miss out on the headlines from Grafton. Followed categories will be added to My News.
THE jobs of 10 Australian Tax Office employees in Grafton are safe, but only for the time being, says a union official.
The taxation officers branch secretary of the Australian Services Union, Jeff Lapidos, said the Grafton office probably has until the second half of 2015, before the office's lease comes due.
"The lease for the office does not come due until November 2015," Mr Lapidos said.
"This puts Grafton in a fortunate position compared to other small regional offices.
"For example, Bundaberg's lease came up in January 2014 and they decided to close it. It had been built for 12 people but there was only three staff left when it closed."
He said staff were given the option to continue doing tax office work in the Centrelink office or take redundancy. All three took redundancy and the Bundaberg tax office was closed.
Mr Lapidos said looking at an ATO draft report into regional service delivery the writing is on the wall for regional tax offices.
He said the tax office no longer needed small regional offices, because technological advances meant most compliance risk could be handled from the bigger regional or metropolitan centres.
Member for Page Kevin Hogan said he will be working to make sure the ATO jobs remain in Grafton.
"Even if technology is changing, tax office employees are doing tax office work," Mr Hogan said.
"Yesterday I spoke to the tax office about this and wrote a letter to (assistant treasurer) Arthur Sinodinos. I want to pre-empt any decision of the tax office to move jobs out of Grafton."
The tax office said no decision has been made about the future of the Grafton office.
"The ATO has not made a decision to close the Grafton site. We are consulting with staff during this review of our office locations," an ATO spokesperson said
Originally published as ATO jobs in Grafton are ‘safe for now’
‘Heading in the right direction’: Ghosts eye off charge
After their first win of the season, find out why the Grafton Ghosts are confident of climbing up the Group 2 ladder.
‘Sense of entitlement’: Accounts worker jailed for ‘outrageous’ fraud
A trusted worker who defrauded a Mid-North Coast company out of more than $500,000 in one year, and spent it on various ‘lifestyle’ items, was motivated by ‘greed’. Here’s her sentence.