mmg.com.au

Goulburn-Murray Water will slash 60 jobs in a bid to save $3.4million.

Managing director Gavin Hanlon said G-MW would make targeted redundancies, in an attempt to streamline its management.

While G-MW has a staff of 813, Mr Hanlon said customer service positions would be unaffected.

‘‘The majority of job losses will be from middle management. The majority will be from our Tatura office, but there could be others across our region,’’ he said.

Mr Hanlon said G-MW would review its staffing level during the next three weeks, with staff to learn their fate in five weeks.

‘‘These will be targeted redundancies. There are areas of he business that need to be trimmed and there are other areas which need to be invested in,’’ he said.

‘‘During the review we will look at redeployment where possible.

‘‘The restructure aims to re-balance the skill-set to areas that will be essential in the future with our modernised system.’’

G-MW has put a freeze on filling all vacancies and aims to reduce layers of middle management, including looking for efficiencies in its head office functions.

It will invest modestly in information communication technology.

Member for Rodney Paul Weller and Victorian Farmers Federation water council chairman Richard Anderson said the redundancies were inevitable.

‘‘Looking at G-MW’s water plan, they indicated they would cut $20million from their budget,’’ Mr Anderson said.

‘‘It is a predictable that the workforce will be shortened given the modernisation process they are going through.

‘‘As modernisation continues, I would expect there could be further job losses to further improve efficiency.’’

Mr Anderson said it was a necessary decision to help lower financial burden on irrigators.

‘‘G-MW has to keep prices affordable for irrigators, otherwise it becomes unviable. G-MW is also losing irrigation water as the Federal Government enters the water market,’’ he said.

Mr Weller also labelled G-MW’s decision as inevitable, blaming a reduction in irrigation water for the financial pressure.

‘‘G-MW needs to run effectively, otherwise irrigators will be left to bear the costs,’’ he said.

‘‘This is why we want a Murray Darling Basin Plan in place that keeps the Federal Government out of the water market.

‘‘If the Federal Government keeps taking water from irrigators then the region loses food production and processing and more jobs will be lost.’’