Landgate automation needs to be managed properly

Toni Walkington spoke to Laura Garty on Saturday morning to express our concerns about the latest cuts at Landgate.

"What we have seen, and from a range of different government departments, is announcements of job losses following reviews or reforms," she said.

"This week we saw 230 jobs announced as going out of the reforms in the vocational, education TAFE sector.

"We know that the Government has flagged a further five areas to be reviewed and we know they will lose jobs out of that review process."

Ms Walkington said that the union ackowledged that automation was a reality and would mean change, but that it [automation] should be about better services to the community, a better way of doing things. 

"And you can only substitute automation to an extent for personal relationships," she said. 

"So we would cooperate in a process, and have done, around automation, but that needs to be managed properly."

With the recent announcements of cuts to TAFE, Corrective Services, Department of the Attorney General, and the 1.5 percent increase cap, Ms Walkington said the Government appeared to be trying to pick a fight with the public sector as a whole.

"When an economy is struggling — like the WA economy is at the moment — the Government's role is to invest in the economy and diversify it," she said.

"What we need is for the public service to take on some of those diversified roles."

See the full ABC news story here.

The West Australian; Landgate cuts to go deeper as more redundancies planned

UPDATE

Further coverage: The West Online