The Federal Government has announced that the electoral offices of its parliamentarians will have another staff member added. The added employer will be paid by tax dollars and according to the government is required, due the influx of enquires after naturals disasters.
The Federal Member for Barker Tony Pasin indicated that that he didn’t require extra staff and those tax payer dollars could be sown back into electorates as the government adds more jobs to the public purse.
“I've indicated that I'm not someone who was calling for additional staff. In fact, not only was I not calling for it, I'm disturbed to hear that there are, in addition to additional staff in each electoral office, close to 10,000 additional public service jobs provided for in this budget," Mr Pasin said.
At a grassroots level there were programs that back in by local communities like the Stronger Communities program which were government funded. Mr Pasin said the program has “paid for barbecue trailers for service clubs, change rooms or barbecue refurbishments at footy ovals, you know the type of grants, those modest but meaningful grants under the Stronger Communities Program.”
“It was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars that could be distributed via a process per electorate. That's now abolished,” Mr Pasin said.
“It was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of federal government funding that was going into service groups, sporting organizations, otherwise in the electorate to assist them in serving their community,” he said.
With every electorate office able to add to a staff member at a cost of $150,000. Mr Pasin said he would “rather not have that staff member and continue to be able to give those modest but meaningful grants which mean the likes of the Rotary Club of Mobilong can get a new barbecue chiller or the Caddell Pistol Club can put a solar system on their roof or the Millicent Gymnastics Club could upgrade their trampolines. That's more meaningful for the additional staff member.”