Nearly 2000 people have already signed a CPSU petition to reject the potential privatisation of Victoria’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Photo: CPSU Victoria.
Shortly after securing its new enterprise agreement, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) branch of Victoria has come out in fierce opposition to the possibility of another government agency being privatised.
On 19 August, the union launched a petition rejecting the State Government’s consideration of an approach to have investment firms run some of the services offered by the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM).
It claims the government is looking for a “quick cash injection” to repair the budget, leaving private details and records “at the mercy of profit-making interests who’ll want a return”.
Along with calling for the reopening of BDM’s Collins Street customer hub, union secretary Karen Batt is demanding that Treasurer Tim Pallas abandon this policy instead of “the principles on which this government was elected”.
“Expecting private capital to invest [in BDM] but not seek a return by ramping up pricing and mine opportunities from data is laughable,” she said. “We intend to campaign to expose this madness.”
BDM offers civil marriage services, returns more than $10 million a year to Victoria, and since 1853 has been responsible for recording all the state’s:
- Births, adoptions, marriages and deaths
- Domestic and caring relationships
- Name changes
- Changes of record of gender.
It issues certificates for all of the above.
Similar registries in every other Australian jurisdictions are still government-owned. However, Minister Pallas has been considering privatising Victoria’s after this year’s budget papers forecast $187.8 billion in net debt by June 2028.
After a 28.4 per cent pay rise for nurses and $1.5 billion of extra hospital funding, the Treasurer has been left in a sticky position as he works to return the state’s budget to surplus.
Following a review of the state’s public agencies in June, The Age revealed that Victoria’s Treasurer had started talks with investment firms on the matter. More recently, the masthead saw that Victoria Labor’s industrial affairs policy committee had passed a resolution against the idea.
“We resolutely oppose the privatisation, in whole or in part, of Births, Deaths and Marriages, including under any so-called ‘public-private partnership’ agreement,” the motion read. “The state does not have the right to privatise that which it holds in trust for the welfare of all citizens.
“This incumbent Labor government’s previous privatisations and ‘lease-offs’ of what were invaluable public assets, such as Victoria’s Port of Melbourne, Land Titles Office and VicRoads’ licence and registration arm, were disgraceful acts of neoliberal economic vandalism and a gross betrayal of basic Labor values that should never have occurred.”
Last week, the Fair Work Commission approved a new Victorian Public Service (VPS) Agreement that will expire on 9 April, 2028.
Effective from 19 August, the state’s public servants are entitled to a:
- $5600 cost-of-living payment
- Three per cent salary increase
- Back payment for the 3 per cent salary increase to 1 May, 2024
- 1.25 per cent mobility cash payment based on top of pay band rate progression (2%) payment and/or top-of-band (1.5%) payment.
An additional 1 per cent-equivalent cash payment for shift workers will also apply from 1 October.
