The Labor Party made a whistlestop election visit to the Blue Mountains last Thursday to hammer home a promise to freeze government plans to send public service jobs overseas.
The party's finance and services spokesman Peter Primrose joined Labor candidate for Blue Mountains Trish Doyle in Springwood to reaffirm Labor's commitment to freeze all proposals for any further privatisations of public services.
Mr Primrose singled out government plans for outsourcing jobs in the Department of Finance and Services (known as ServiceFirst).
"We know the Liberals want to send the jobs overseas, but they won't officially announce their plan until after the election, leaving ServiceFirst employees in limbo," said Mr Primrose.
"A Foley Labor Government will freeze all proposals for any further privatisations of these services, review all agreements entered into by the Baird Government and look at all options of keeping jobs here."
Trish Doyle said Blue Mountains residents were "worried about the Liberal's plan to privatise ServiceFirst and whether their jobs will be sent overseas".
A Valley Heights resident who works for ServiceFirst, located in Parramatta, told the Gazette that public servants were highly concerned about their job security.
The woman, who did not want to be named, has worked for the public service for 27 years.
But Liberal MP Roza Sage said the issue was a "cynical scare campaign" by Labor.
"The NSW Government has made no decision to offshore jobs at ServiceFirst. A number of options are being considered to deliver the best value for money for taxpayers, including regional locations," she said.
"I will be strongly lobbying the government to ensure regional locations such as the Blue Mountains are given the best opportunity to host these jobs."
Four possible options are being reviewed for ServiceFirst, but internal documents suggest preference for a model that involves sending 80 per cent of 300 internal service delivery jobs to India.
Three other models under investigation include one that would involve relocating half the 300 jobs to regional areas and the remaining half, overseas. Another proposes outsourcing 10 per cent of the jobs offshore.
- with SMH
