The quarterly Joint Consultative Committee meeting was held on 19 June and attended by the Public Service Association (PSA), your elected delegates, and representatives from National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) management. This meeting served as an important platform for discussions on various matters affecting our members.

NPWS Briefing by Executive Director (Park Operations Coastal)

The NPWS budget was described as ‘business as usual’ with no major surprises. However, no advice can yet be provided on the recruitment of the promised 100 new staff for NPWS. An undertaking was given that the unions would be advised, and a meeting convened, when details became available.

The PSA has been extremely concerned with regards to the future management of the fenced Feral Free Areas (FFAs). The meeting was advised there would be extensions to some of the 21 FFA staff until June 2025 but no roles will be converted to ongoing unless sustained funding is made available. The Koala project roles (14) have also been extended (to June 2026). The department needs to ensure that the additional workload associated with these projects does not fall to other staff should funds dry up and the temporary project roles are deleted.

De-skilling and insecure work of NPWS

The PSA is highly critical of the significant deskilling and insecure work in NPWS, with a shift to hiring temporary project officers and a loss of ranger roles despite significant park additions. Therefore, the PSA is advocating for temporary project officers to be made ongoing and an increase in ranger roles. Given there has been significant additional Parks, the PSA is advocating that the ranger cohort be increased significantly to keep up with the demand.

WHS matters

the PSA raises serious concerns that there have been no updates on the implementation of the recommendations in the Risk-E Business report aimed at improving your safety when conducting compliance and law enforcement activities, despite several requests from the PSA and a commitment such a report would be a standing item at JCC meetings. If the agency is not providing the report, if not why not.

If you work in Park programs and based in a regional office, you are covered by the branch WHS committee and are entitled to the minutes of those branches

Incident claims and the transition to My WorkZone

Some members are concerned that when payment of incident claims is delayed, a higher tax rate would be applied. The meeting was assured that the tax rate that applies for outstanding payments is the same as if those payments were made on time. We were also assured that DPHI Payroll is preparing to be adequately resource to handle incident claims in the upcoming fire season. At the time of the meeting only one incident claim was awaiting payment.

The PSA remains concerned, however, that NPWS’s transition to My WorkZone will occur in October – at the start of the fire season. Industrial relations staff in the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW), familiar with NPWS awards, are ensuring that the pay and conditions will be interpreted correctly by the new payroll system.  As part of this, the new system is being tested through dummy parallel payrolls which are being run to check the accuracy of the new system against existing processes.

The PSA sincerely hopes the adoption of the new system will not continue the major problems that have plagued SAP.

Ranger survey

The PSA is committed to supporting our Rangers, we have been provided with a summary of the ranger survey results and are currently sieving through. The PSA will be following this closely on what recommendations will be implemented and timeframes.