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Dylan O'Callaghan

Submission: 

I’ve worked multiple jobs in my past and even undertook warehouse and truck driving through part time studies at uni as a mature age student. I expected to have a small financial setback for a while developing my career. But it’s a joke when I earn almost as much now as I did ten years ago driving a medium ridge truck delivering Samsung products week days to retail outlets as a fulltime employee. I had similar working “perks” and hours and flexibility which allowed me to take a half day off each week to attend uni and still work my fulltime hours. If you were to look at the pay increases I would be financially far better off and without the HELP debt (making additional impacts to my actual take home income) then I am as a public servant where our income is constantly below inflation and going backwards.

Add to that many people on Centrelink in real terms are better off with the discounts they get when compared to the additional costs we bare to be productive citizens. Child care, full price prescriptions, bills, registrations and transport to and from work all eat into our negative wage growth. Then we get further attacks on our conditions and employment security with pushes to force more and more onto even less income by outsourcing more and more of what we do.

It is already hard enough having to fight tooth and nail to keep what we have let alone the dog fight for the scraps to get ahead. As a person with an invisible disability I have constant challenges to overcome without the additional burdens of trying to improve my future and career prospective in the dog eat dog world ever becoming more and more of a reality.

The government has a responsibility to lead by positive example rather than the constant attacks against us that we have endured over several years now. Make the Australian public service an inspirational and innovative world leader raved about by employees everywhere about how great it is. Stop the back room pat on the backs for leading the charge for the corporate “Fat Cats” ever expanding their profits at the exploitation and expense of the people.

Once upon a time the Australian Public service was looked up to and admired as a place to work, don’t let this turn into a myth an urban legend. People should be queued up itching to get into and remain in the Australian public service not looking for opportunities to jump ship and get out!