The Berejiklian Government no longer provides information on the number of public sector jobs it has relocated to Wollongong from Sydney as part of its Decade of Decentralisation program, Member for Wollongong, Paul Scully, said today.

Mr Scully asked the Minister for Water, Property and Housing, Melinda Pavey, a Question In Writing in July 2019 to provide the number of public sector jobs that have been relocated from Sydney CBD to Wollongong with the response received this week.

The Minister indicated that 5,245 public sector jobs had been relocated from Sydney CBD to “…metropolitan areas including Western Sydney and Regional NSW.”

However, the Government refused to provide a number of the public sector jobs it had relocated to Wollongong.

The last time the Government provided an actual number of public sector jobs relocated to the Illawarra was in July 2015 and December 2013.

For the record that number was: just 38 public sector jobs – seven to Wollongong and 31 to Nowra from NSW Fisheries.

Mr Scully said that the Government was no longer prepared to reveal an actual number because its record of relocating public sector jobs from Sydney CBD to Wollongong remains dismal.

“If it was a record worth crowing about Wollongong would not hear the end of it.

“We’d probably have marching bands, neon lights  and planes buzzing writing it in the sky over Wollongong crowing and boasting of the Government’s achievement.

“Instead over the last six years we’ve only seen the Government, under successive Ministers, slinking away in embarrassment from such a dismal record of only ever relocating 38 public sector jobs to the Illawarra – just seven to Wollongong and 31 to Nowra.

“It’s a dismal, pathetic record after eight long years in Government”, he said.