Over 600 Main Roads jobs to be brought in-house by State Government over next five years

More than 600 jobs will be brought in-house by the State Government when road maintenance contracts expire over the next five years. Under the changes, 490 of the 660 new jobs at Main Roads will be located in the regions, with offices set to be established in Manjimup, Esperance, Karratha and Broome. Road maintenance delivery and management was outsourced by the Court government in the mid-1990s but an EY study commissioned by the McGowan Government found bringing the work in-house would not result in any extra cost to Main Roads. The report said it would eventually realise $25 million per year in savings compared to outsourcing. Small, local businesses or councils in the regions would also be hired to deliver some project work. Existing maintenance contracts with the five network contractors won’t be broken. Instead Main Roads won’t renew these contracts as they expire between 2022-23 and 2026-27. It’s estimated the Main Roads crew members would be paid between $12,000 and $22,000 more per year than under the current network contractor EBAs, as well as improved entitlements. “What we hope is that by making this change, more people will establish themselves in the regions because there’ll be permanent jobs and more incentive for people either to be trained and stay in or move to the regions,” Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said. “One of the big advantages, we believe, of this change will also be about training local people. Whenever you go out to the region there’s stories of what the old Main Roads workforce looked like. “There was a strong Aboriginal representation, particularly in the north, and it’d be really good to be able to have those permanent jobs where we can also local people and really support local people working on our Main Roads projects.” Ms Saffioti said the overhaul included a “transition plan” that would give the existing workforce the opportunity to work in the public sector. She said the changes were motivated by wanting to deliver better value for money, rather than Labor ideology to reverse privatisation. The move comes two years after 650 non-clinical jobs at Fiona Stanley Hospital were brought back into the State’s public sector at a cost to WA taxpayers of about $93 million over 10 years. Over the past three years, more than 400 outsourced jobs were also brought in-house by Water Corp. These included roles in the maintenance of the water, wastewater and drainage networks.

Over 600 Main Roads jobs to be brought in-house by State Government over next five years

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