By Luke Voogt
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) faces calls for “long-term” job certainty after it scrapped plans to close its Geelong office next year.
The ATO announced on Monday it would “maintain a presence in Geelong” after initially planning to close the office where 120 employees currently work.
Chief executive officer of local municipal alliance G21, Elaine Carbines, joined various community groups, lobby organisations and MPs welcoming the decision.
“When many people have been stood down and lost their jobs, what we couldn’t afford was for a government agency to depart Geelong,” she said.
The ATO confirmed it would procure a new lease in Geelong beyond its current $15 million, 10-year lease ending June 27, 2021.
But the agency has yet to confirm how long it will stay in Geelong beyond this, stating it hoped to finalise the plans by the end of 2020.
“Whilst it’s fabulous news, we want reassurance from the ATO that they plan to stay in Geelong long-term,” Ms Carbines said.
Soroptimist International Geelong secretary Rita Jenkins echoed the call for long-term job security.
“It’s very unsettling not knowing if your workplace is going to stay,” she said.
“Having knowledge of how long the new lease is for would ease the mind of those who have been living under the stress of the planned move.”
But she described the ATO remaining as “brilliant” for Geelong, saying it would have positive flow-on effects for the local economy and mental health.
Australian Services Union taxation officers’ branch secretary Jeff Lapidos said the ATO would withhold how long it would stay in Geelong while negotiating a lease.
“It will hold a card up its sleave that it could look elsewhere in Geelong. How long they stay is going to depend on their strategy to restructure.”
The ATO has nine business lines in its Geelong office covering areas ranging from superannuation to small business.
The agency would seek to reduce these to “two or three” to make its Geelong office more economically viable, Mr Lapidos explained.
The ATO would retrain Geelong employees to work in new business lines and consolidate the other business lines in other offices, he said.
“Some people may not be able to make the transition with the support available.”
The closure would have cost Geelong’s economy $53 million and 200 direct and flow jobs, according to analysis using software from Bendigo-based consultant REMPLAN.
