Tuesday, 21 February 2023

 Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (12:52): I want to raise the issue around the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action’s changed office hours. The department of name changes seems to have gone mad in my area. The DEECA – formerly the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning – office in Bairnsdale recently published its new opening hours. They are to be closed on Friday, the day when people coming into our area want to get camping information and maybe fishing licences and see what areas of national parks are open or closed. The office is closed on Friday, and on the days that it is open it is closed between noon and 1 pm and then after 3 pm.

If you think that is crazy, just down the road at Orbost they have decided to close all day Monday and all day Friday and have reduced hours on the other days. Why are we decreasing the public’s access to our government offices? Orbost is in one of the three most fire-prone areas in the world, but the DEECA office is closed four days a week. The local staff are generally very good and generally very professional; this is not a slight on them. This has obviously come from above, and it needs to be fixed.