State services cut in regional towns, says Tesch

Government documents have revealed service improvements to regional towns such as Woy Woy have been cut or delayed to plug a $104 million budget black hole at Service NSW, according to Member for Gosford Ms Liesl Tesch.

She said cuts by Premier Gladys Berejiklian's razor gang showed the Government's ongoing neglect of areas like the Woy Woy Peninsula.

"The cuts, and the NSW Government's refusal to give the Peninsula its own Services NSW centre, show just how little the Sydney-centric Liberal Government cares about regions like the Central Coast," she said.

"The Minister for Finance and Services spends his time in Parliament preaching about the number of Service NSW centres he is opening, conveniently in Liberal-held city based seats, but forgets that there is a whole state out there crying out for investment and services." Ms Tesch said.

"This decision comes only a month after the Government's backflip on shutting down the Service NSW Digital Pop-up Kiosk in Woy Woy," Ms Tesch said.

"Despite the budget blowout, customer service improvements in the city haven't been touched with only one location affected.

"The revelations are contained in documents obtained by the Labor Opposition under Freedom of Information laws, until now never released to the public.

According to the documents, in May 2016, Service NSW axed store-in-a-store service centres from 11 regional communities, and another 19 towns had their Service NSW downgraded to "access centres" and "unassisted self-service", with customer service improvements delayed in 33 other communities.

Ms Tesch said that it was only through community pressure that the Woy Woy pop-up kiosk was saved from closure in September.

"I was proud to stand with the community to save what was left of the Service NSW kiosk in Woy Woy just last month.

"Anything is better than nothing, even if the kiosk is limited in what services it can provide to customers, locals deserve to access these services on the Peninsula." Ms Tesch said.

"I spoke about this again in parliament last week, and I continue to encourage customers to use our local pop-up office whenever they can.

"You are always letting me know the service is inadequate, yet we must constantly remind to the government that the people of the Peninsula want the full Service NSW office re-opened in Woy Woy."

SOURCE:

Media release, 25 Oct 2017

Richard Mehrtens, Office of Liesl Tesch MP