Working for Victoria jobs scheme undercuts battling businesses

Shire councils are employing hundreds under the Working for Victoria Scheme, but their free services are undercutting existing rural businesses.

Rural landholders have been offered up to four days free labour for weed control and revegetation, undermining local contractors work. Picture: Chloe Smith

PRIVATE contractors say they are losing business to teams of council-employed workers offering rural landholders free labour, under the State Government’s $500 million Working for Victoria scheme.

Paddock Solutions land management services contractor Charles Grech said landholders had told him his services were no longer needed because they could get the work done for free by Hume City Council.

Under the Hume Council scheme, landholders can apply for a team of four free workers for up to four days to conduct weed control, brush cutting, revegetation and erosion control.

The council has employed 15 teams of four, supplying each with a vehicle, brush cutters and other equipment.

Councils across Victoria have taken up Working for Victoria grants, which offers employment to people out of work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Grech said he didn’t blame the councils for taking up the grants, but said the Victorian Government had not thought through the impacts of offering free labour on businesses such as his.

“Contractors face losing staff over this, even those on JobKeeper,” Mr Grech said. “It’s an unfair market practice.”

Birchip-based TMC Environmental managing director Tom McLoughlan, who employs 28 full-time staff, said his firm had not been hit as hard as Mr Grech’s business, but feared he was going to lose weed control work.

Tree Wishes land management adviser Dean Platt said while he had not been affected, contractors he knew were wary of the impacts the Working for Victoria scheme could have on them.

Victorian Employment Minister Jaala Pulford said more than 70 councils had taken up Working for Victoria funding to create more than 5000 jobs.

“These jobs cannot replace existing workers or undercut local businesses,” Ms Pulford said.

Under the fund’s criteria, local councils and organisations must demonstrate that the proposed short-term roles are new and would not otherwise be created without government intervention.

In the past State Government employment schemes, such as those enacted during drought, conducted environmental work on crown, not private land, under the direction of catchment management authorities.