hunter WED 11 MAR 2015
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JEFF MARTIN Turn over for your entertainment guide
PROUDLY INDEPENDENT
page 15 pa
Leave health services alone Displaced workers join union in rally against government privatisation MELISSAH COMBER
@melcomber
A More funding for Levee development p.4
SPORT Knights give Rick Stone a winning start p.17
pproximately 40 health services workers rallied outside Maitland Hospital last week, calling on the state’s health services to remain in public hands. The rally, coordinated by the Health Services Union, was held in conjunction with rallies in five other regional centres and one in Sydney. In Maitland, they were joined by approximately a dozen workers from the now-closed NSW Health medical distribution supply warehouse at Cardiff. The warehouse, which also distributed hospital supplies, shut earlier this year when the tender for the service was awarded to a company that operates out of one warehouse in western Sydney. Rally organiser Josh Howarth said that no former employees of the warehouse had secured another job yet. “These guys are the prime example of what the government is prepared to sign,” he said. “The people of the Hunter aren’t going to travel to western Sydney [to work] in a centralised warehouse.” But Liberal candidate for Maitland Steve Thomson has questioned the significance of the issue on a local level. “There were actually people trucked into the rally from the warehouse at Cardiff, so let’s not get carried away,” he said. “If a third of the crowd are coming from a warehouse in Cardiff how big a local issue is it?” Labor candidate Jenny Aitchison was present at the rally.
Organiser Josh Howarth and Labor candidate for Maitland Jenny Aitchison rallied with health services workers
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