Some of my friends know that I spent nearly 6 months working for Biosecurity Tasmania as part of the Border Control team to help process passengers flying into Tasmania at Launceston Airport. Now that my contract has finished, I feel that I can honestly talk about my experience, and how I feel that the current government is not only letting staff down, but also putting the general public in Tasmania at risk.
My Biosecurity Tasmania colleagues and I had enough and walked off the job on December 14th 2021 for an hour to demand Peter Gutwein show leadership and stop gambling with Tasmania’s first line of defense against COVID.
In the previous days press conference, Premier Gutwein appeared not fully understand just how bad the situation is at our airports.
With just 24 hours to go until borders re-opened, Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania were scrambling to fill our critically understaffed airports, and they still are. They were looking for workers from elsewhere in the agency who will perform the same job as BT staff at higher pay.
All because of the systematic exploitation of staff with sham minimum hour contracts that guarantee as few as 50 hours a year and force workers protecting our borders to look for second or third jobs to make ends meet. This has changed, as those employed under the 50 hour a year contracts have been now employed as permanent part-time on a higher wage. Some staff are still looking to second and third jobs to make ends meet.
In my situation, I am the sort of person that would prefer to work, rather than take a handout from government as this is other hardworking taxpayers money that can go to improve roads, hospitals and other services. Anyway, due to the contract, I was no better off than being on Jobseeker. Jobseeker gives me enough to pay for my board and cover the internet and other expenses with a little left over, where as with the contract with Biosecurity, it covered my board and internet, with just enough to pay for the commute from home to the airport, with nothing left over. Thus it really didn’t make sense for me to continue working, as the days I was at the airport meant that my family and I needed to organise home help to support mum and my step-dad while I wasn’t there, which meant that the family as a whole was actually worse off financially.
Overall, now with the borders open, and over 3,000 people now positive with COVID – has the lock down to keep Tasmania safe, and with all the mandates in place in regards to masks – it is no wonder why businesses are opting to stay closed to keep there staff employed, and others putting on hold their plans of expanding. I do realise that we need to learn to live with the virus, but we don’t have mandates in place for those that are dying of influenza. Let’s remove the mandates, and having to show our medical certificates to non medical people and let people become responsible for themselves.