{"id":67082,"date":"2025-08-14T07:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/67082\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T07:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:33:08","slug":"victorian-department-of-energy-environment-and-climate-action-to-cut-350-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/67082\/","title":{"rendered":"Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to cut 350 jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Victorian government plans to cut around 350 jobs as part of a restructure to its Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA).<\/p>\n

The losses are expected to affect public sector workers in a variety of areas, including Agriculture Victoria, Solar Victoria, the First Peoples group and bushfire and forest services.<\/p>\n

“It is devastating for not only regional Victoria, but the Victorian public service,” Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) secretary Jiselle Hanna said.<\/p>\n

“A lot of people with very specialised and high levels of skill are going to be without jobs at the end of this process.”<\/p>\n

Review of public sector spending<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the government announced an independent review<\/a>, led by Helen Silver, to rein in spending in the public sector.<\/p>\n

In the May budget, Treasurer Jaclyn Symes promised to save $3.3 billion by making the public service sector more efficient.<\/p>\n

With state debt ballooning<\/a>, up to 3,000 jobs are expected to be slashed.<\/p>\n

\"Jaclyn<\/p>\n

Jaclyn Symes says savings need to be made by “stripping back” the public service. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Ms Hanna said the union had not yet seen the review, and the job cuts revealed on Thursday were premature.<\/p>\n

“These early announcements of job cuts are the Silver review by stealth,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We don’t actually understand the rationale, the justification for these wide-ranging jobs.”<\/p>\n

Ms Hanna said she was concerned about the impact the cuts would have on Victoria.<\/p>\n

“These people and their services are critical to local communities and economies,” Ms Hanna said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I don’t think that there is any guarantee that Victorians can expect the services that they’re used to.”\"A<\/p>\n

There will be fewer staff in the bushfire and forest services group, under the restructure. (ABC Gippsland: Millicent Spencer)<\/p>\n

‘They don’t care’<\/p>\n

The CPSU said it wanted the state government to consider making savings without cutting jobs.<\/p>\n

“We put forward an alternative proposal, called the gold review, that actually saw some $13 billion worth of government savings that didn’t cost a single job,” Ms Hanna said.<\/p>\n

“The union is committed to defending regional workers, and we have every intention of fighting these job cuts and winning.”<\/p>\n

Liberal MP for Western Victoria Bev McArthur said she was not surprised the government was cutting jobs that affected regional areas.<\/p>\n

“They’ve obviously decided they’ve got to make some cuts somewhere, but of course, where do they make them? Outside the tram tracks of Melbourne,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They don’t care about the services that they should be providing to rural and regional Victoria.”<\/p>\n

The ABC understands DEECA will consult with staff over the next month before implementing the changes.<\/p>\n

The Victorian government and the department have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Victorian government plans to cut around 350 jobs as part of a restructure to its Department of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[53373,53371,53372,181,43,45450,180,44,271,37650,27484,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-67082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-community-and-public-sector-union","tag-deeca-restructure","tag-department-of-energy-environment-and-climate-action","tag-employment","tag-headlines","tag-job-cuts","tag-jobs","tag-news","tag-public-sector","tag-public-service","tag-regional-victoria","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}