The Wanaka Sun

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Bridging the gap The Rob Roy swing bridge, built in 1978, will be deconstructed to make way for a bigger bridge. Story page 3.

Honour for Phyllis page 5

Inaugural Great Autumn Apple Drive page 9

photo: wanaka.tv

DOC staff face uncertain future Tim Brewster

Words, wine and voices page 15

Jossi takes silver page 18

rental listings

sunclassifieds page 23

The Upper Clutha stands to lose a total of four employees from the Department of Conservation offices in Wanaka and Makarora, almost 20 percent of its staff, and the highest of any centre in Otago, if a proposal for a restructure is adopted. Following Tuesday’s announcement about redundancies and a restructuring of the Department of Conservation, local staff are still unsure of the eventual impact on staffing and programmes. “There’s a lot of anxiety until we work things through,” DOC Wanaka area manager Paul Hellebrekers said. “I can’t really say anything more.” Paul was briefed on Monday at the DOC head office in Wellington and had started the process of discussing the changes with Wanaka staff. He

said he was unable to reveal many of the changes “at this stage” as a consultation process was required with staff, and he referred any other questions to DOC’s head office. The department’s director general, Al Morrison, was

full-time employees of their 19.5 permanent staff, Makarora will lose 1.0 of their 2.5 fulltime employees, Alexandra will lose 3.0 and Owaka will lose 1.0. “It’s really tough to lose that number. We work hand

the money.” The decision for the changes in staffing numbers was based on workload Lisa said. “As with most regions, there is a small change overall with some sites getting more roles and some getting less – based

This is their second round of cuts and it’s hard to put your heart and soul in, especially when you’re doing it for the love of the job. It’s certainly not for the money. unavailable for comment yesterday with inquiries responded to by DOC media advisor Lisa Sutcliffe who supplied the information on the proposed change in staffing levels yesterday afternoon. In contrast to Wanaka’s proposed reduction Queenstown and Glenorchy stand to gain one and two fulltime positions respectively. The Wanaka office will lose 3.1

in hand with them and it’s going to create a huge hole especially with hands-on work,” Central Otago’s Forest and Bird chairman, Mark Ayre said. He said morale for the department would also be an issue. “This is their second round of cuts and it’s hard to put your heart and soul in, especially when you’re doing it for the love of the job. It’s certainly not for

on our analysis of the work to be done in each region and on the locations we believe it would be best to do that work from.” A release from the department on Tuesday said no offices would be closed down, but there would the loss of 118 management and administrative positions with a total of 140 staff to go. There are currently 160 DOC vacancies

“frozen” which may be opened up for staff who lose their jobs. It is unknown when or how many new vacancies will be open for applications. The department is also proposing to replace its 11 regional conservancies with six nationally. Wanaka would join Wakatipu and coastal Otago in the new southern South Island region and be administered by the Dunedin office for “partnerships” and Invercargill for conservation services. The Wanaka office currently has 12 active memorandums of understanding with volunteer groups and trusts in the area including Forest and Bird, the Upper Clutha Tracks Trust, Diamond Lake Predator Control Group and Lake Wanaka Cycling. DOC staff have until April 12 to provide feedback on the changes before a final decision is made.


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