44 jobs axed at Rotorua IRD office

Forty-four staff at Rotorua's branch of the Inland Revenue Department are to lose their jobs.
Staff numbers at the Rotorua office will drop from 67 to 23, while another 42 jobs will be lost in New Plymouth, 16 in Napier, 26 in Nelson and 63 in Invercargill.
Inland Revenue Service Delivery deputy commissioner Carolyn Tremain says the department has been looking at how it can do business easier and more efficiently and services will improve as a result of the cuts.
However, the union that represents IRD workers, the Public Service Association, says provincial New Zealand needs more jobs, not fewer.
Ms Tremain said Inland Revenue regional offices would remain open but the way the department did its business would have to change.
Some IRD work that could be done elsewhere would be transferred to the larger metropolitan centres.
Ms Tremain said the department would begin a consultation process with affected staff in Rotorua. By mid-2013, 191 full-time staff would lose their jobs around the country.
"We believe that work not requiring face-to-face contact should be grouped in larger centres, allowing regional sites to increase their focus on education and advisory services for their communities," she said.
"We want to make it easier for people to comply with their tax obligations and receive payments."
Staff would be offered a range of options including applying for new roles, relocation or redundancy, Ms Tremain said.
Ms Tremain said the changes would take about 18 months to implement, starting early next year.
The national secretary for the PSA, Richard Wagstaff, said the latest round of jobs cuts followed the loss of 30 jobs at smaller IRD offices in Greymouth, Timaru and Gisborne.
"There's a scarcity of work in provincial New Zealand ... good jobs bring benefits for the whole community, so local businesses are impacted when jobs go."
Mr Wagstaff said the National government had been serving up spin to the public since it came into office.
"Inland Revenue is calling this overhaul an efficiency drive but it's actually government down-sizing in action with the dirty work of implementing the cost-cutting being left to public sector chief executive.
"Provincial sites generally attract longer-term employees so it makes no business sense to relocate virtual jobs to large cities and risk losing these highly-valued employees," Mr Wagstaff said.Labour's State Services spokeswoman Ruth Dyson said today's announcement was a body blow for the provinces and reinforced the "indiscriminate nature" of National's public service job cuts, following a number of job loss announcements for government departments.
The affected provincial areas generally could not compensate for large job losses and Ms Dyson accused National's provincial MPs of being silent.
"There is a common misconception that job cuts in the public services impact largely on Wellington," she said.
"That's not so.
"Provincial areas are the hardest hit.
"And the harsh reality is that provincial areas are those least well-placed to absorb job losses within their communities."
Rotorua Labour MP Steve Chadwick said in a statement: "These cuts come on top of the loss of Collections staff after its restructuring.
"IRD provides valuable local services whose loss, along with that of skilled staff, will be huge."