While the union is playing politics with staff and the industry, Biosecurity Tasmania is getting on with the job of protecting Tasmania and is meeting its demands.
The anti-business union clearly wants to hold Tasmania back and is using Biosecurity Tasmania staff as political pawns. The union has imposed this ban on staff, without so much as a ballot of its members.
Biosecurity Tasmania staff are passionate and hardworking, and I have every confidence that biosecurity has the resources it needs.
Export certification continued this week, just as it would any other week, in its normal prompt and professional way. All requests for export certification were met.
Just as is the case as we approach the peak season every year, scheduling is used to manage competing demands.
Scheduling is what biosecurity staff do every day to prioritise work, and that same common-sense approach is being applied this year.
The union clearly wants to hold Tasmania back and hold the industry to ransom.
In recent months there have been ongoing meetings with the union, and further offers to meet. But it is blatantly clear that the union is disingenuous and is more interested in grandstanding.
We have put considerable planning into managing seasonal demands on the workforce, just as we do every year.
There are an additional 20 casual support officers to assist in the busy summer period and beyond; the same approach has been used for many years, though I didn’t hear the unions complaining when Labor did it. First the unions complain there’s not enough staff, now they complain when there’s more, it’s ridiculous. The support officers free-up more experienced officers so they can meet summer demand in areas like export certification.
We are also working collaboratively with the Commonwealth to make Authorised Officers available. And, we will also have three new detector dog teams coming online this summer. The dogs are in training and the specialist dog handlers are in the final stages of the assessment process.
We take very seriously our responsibility to protect Tasmania’s borders that’s why we’ve invested an additional $5 million in biosecurity, strengthening our frontline.
More Media Releases from Jeremy Rockliff
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