The Sauce: Minns offers carrot to end war on work from home
The Minns government has now decided on a carrot instead of the stick approach in its long-running war on working from home.
NSW
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After generous salaries and the prospect of job security fell short of enticing public servants to come back to the office, Premier Chris Minns decided it was time for a multimillion dollar renovation.
Minns’ long-running war on working from home has continued but the government has now decided on a carrot instead of the stick approach.
The current WFH policy is that public sector works should spend the majority of their working week in the office.
Soon, bureaucrats who return to the office will be treated to sparkling new working quarters with two floors of their 52 Martin Place HQ set to be revamped.
The renovation will cost $3m and will bring in more desks and meeting rooms, in hot anticipation of the workers returning, and promises better office design and staff amenities.
Insiders familiar with the renovation told Sauce correspondent Angira Bharadwaj that prior to the refit, staff were being subjected to hot desking, with one desk available for every two staff members at the Premier’s Department Cabinet office.
The renovation marks the first substantial upgrade of the employee office space at 52 since 2019.
Understandable, given everyone stopped coming in the year after and it’s been a journey to haul them back in ever since.
If the plan works, we have no doubt federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton will be watching closely and taking notes after he was forced by Anthony Albanese to dump his own anti-remote work agenda during the election campaign.
BOOZE BUCKS
The good folk leading Northern Beaches Council have had a stressful few months, with their decision to approve a potential 39.6 per cent rate rise earlier this year making councillors as popular as a brown snake in a lucky dip.
It won’t help them, then, that the council’s financial records published for 2023-2024 show a whopping $17,777 was spent that year on catering for council meetings and briefings.
That includes the cost of meals ($17,281) and alcohol ($496) for councillors – something picked up on by Liberal Davidson MP Matt Cross, who fired a question over to Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig, asking whether this spend was fair game.
A stern response came back, confirming that splashing out ratepayer cash on grog was not in line with local government rules and regulations.
“The model policy expressly excludes alcohol from the definition of ‘appropriate refreshments’,” the reply from Hoenig’s office said.
“(The Office of Local Government) has written to the council requesting further information about this apparent noncompliance with its policy.”
Cross was happy to spell out where councillors went wrong.
“Attending a council meeting isn’t attending a pub,” he said. “Ratepayer-funded alcohol at council meetings fails the pub test, especially when imposing a 40 per cent rate rise in a cost of living crisis.”
Sauce correspondent Lachlan Leeming attempted to contact long-time councillor and current Mayor Sue Heins for her thoughts.
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