Former district forester and area manager for the National Parks, Kevin Carter has slammed a draft Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) plan to restructure the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) operations.
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The structure proposal, released last month, appears to move towards lowering the grading of several classifications across the NPWS in NSW, with Taree in particular affected.
Mr Carter claimed the move would result in a downgrade rather than improvement of staff in the Taree area in terms of salaries and job stability. It is understood staff positions are to be downgraded under the proposal.
“Why should it be done for less money?” he said. With the loss in expertise in the field, he insisted that fire fighting, weed management and wild dog control would suffer due to the removal of staff “on the ground”.
Described as an “aggressive” approach to job cuts, Mr Carter said that the move would affect the local economy as well as staff and community morale. “It will demoralise staff,” he said. “It’s industrial erosion.”
The passionate former area manager had previously mentioned his desire to preserve the national parks for future generations.
And he points to a lot of expertise within NPWS staff in subjects as broad as whale disentanglement and fire fighting.
During the past 20 years, the NPWS rangers had built up a rapport with the Elands Bulga community to achieve good results in wild dog control. Likewise there had been environmental wins in the Upper Manning, once again through building good relationships, he said.
“You put a lot of yourself into this job only to see it stripped away.”
On top of this, visits to national parks has increased by 30 per cent.
A spokesperson for the OEH claimed the proposed workforce changes are “part of a process to deliver a more flexible and efficient workforce.
“These changes are about allocating money and resources where they are needed the most and allow the organisation to build its capacity for regional service delivery, including conserving the significant natural and cultural values of our national parks.
“The proposed changes include expanding the total number of roles to ensure the organisation builds its capacity to meet ongoing and future work demands,” the spokesperson said.
