The government is resorting to smoke and mirrors to mask DAF’s underperformance.
Rather than leading research and extension services it is essentially leaving the heavy lifting
to the private sector.
It’s admitted the work is being conducted with other parties through partnerships, external
research partners, and multi-agency projects.
The Minister’s release is quite misleading.
The Minister needs to clarify if the 75 staff at the facility are DAF, and if so where and what
regions they have come from?
We know trying to get DAF staffing figures is almost impossible.
Staffing breakdowns are deliberately not clear and clouded in secondments, FTE and part
time employees, and offices linked to private sector companies, or padded with vacancies.
After seven years of this Government DAF staff has not increased.
Since 2015 DAF staff numbers have been going backwards at the same time as more than
30,000 extra Brisbane bureaucrats are on the taxpayer’s payroll.
The budget papers speak for themselves.
At the end of June last year, there were 238,673 servants in Queensland and 2,118 in DAF.
Last year’s Budget showed a fall of 10 staff, including one less in Biosecurity Queensland
when foot and mouth disease is our doorstep.
DAF staff went from 2,118 to 2,108.
It means that staff have been cut in rural and regional areas to allow for an increase in
positions in suburban areas like the Redlands.
Customer service and front of office roles have either been reduced or lost in regional and
rural areas, extension of services have all but disappeared.
The Government’s closure of agriculture colleges and pastoral education training colleges
means that some services linked to those facilities are gone.
Last week we learned that 13 stock inspectors and veterinarian roles have been cut since
Labor came to office in 2015. *
The response shows that in other words, they don’t have any stock inspectors – with stock
inspection predominantly now done by the private sector.
As the Minister is being cagey about DAF staff levels, I hear of problems with services cut
and operating hours significantly reduced right across the state.
Stand- alone office facilities have gone, and many have been absorbed into services from
other departments.
In some instances, farmers have been redirected to an impractical help hotline and ‘digital
service delivery’ which is impractical.
To have included comments from city-based Members who have made no advocacy for the
day-to-day issues facing agriculture shows just how disingenuous the Government is.
The significant increase in the value of agriculture in this state is not because of any
assistance from DAF because the Government is not prepared to back it.
