BY SAM ISAAC

The New South Wales Government has announced that it will be axing 34 staff from the Maitland Office of State Revenue.

This comes after the government pushed to remove 65 jobs last year.

Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison says she was able to save 25 out of those 65 jobs and is again opposing the new cuts.

She has approached the Minister for Finance, Services and Property, Victor Dominello, to try and save the staffers from losing their jobs or being transferred to Gosford.

Ms Aitchison believes public workers are needed in Maitland, especially due to the construction of the Stockland Greenhills shopping complex as well as the proposed Lower Hunter Maitland Hospital.

She says this last round of cuts to the public sector in Maitland compounds the $2.6 million taken from the community already since the Berejiklian Government has been in office.

Ms. Aitchison is highly critical of the State Government’s tendency to focus primarily on Sydney and not elsewhere in the state.

“By Christmas 2018, this Minister will have stolen 74 jobs out of the central business district in my community,” she said.

“The government is once again displaying its lack of concern for preserving and creating jobs in regional areas.”



Member for Maitland, Jenny Aitchison MP. Source: The Maitland Mercury