If you are an employee of Liquor and Gaming NSW currently based in the Sydney CBD, you probably wanted to be on alert on Wednesday.
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As part of a jobs plan for the region, State Labor announced it would relocate Liquor and Gaming NSW from Sydney to the Illawarra.
Great news for the Illawarra, not so great if you are a gaming employee living in Sydney – although you would have the opportunity to move out of Sydney to a place with one of the best lifestyles in the country. In our humble opinion.
As the fight for the seat of Wollongong hots up, Labor leader Luke Foley announced a bold plan to tackle the hot topic of jobs in the region.
Mr Foley could almost claim residency himself such has been his investment of time in this region of late.
The NSW Government, while it would contest Labor’s jobs record in the region, is not really in the fight as tit is actually not contesting the seat.
The most likely biggest opponent to Labor candidate Paul Scully – given Wollongong has traditionally been a safe Labor seat _ in the November 12 byelection is without doubt independent candidate and Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery.
The Lord Mayor described the vision announced by Labor as a “wish list” and in a sense he’s right.
Even if the Labor Party was to retain the seat of Wollongong it still needs to win the next state election, which remains a sizeable task despite the bounty of free hits they have received from Premier Mike Baird this year.
Cr Bradbery was pretty straight forward in his attack.
“We need to remember they’re not in government to be able to do it and I’m conscious of the fact they’re not likely to be in government for another two and a half years,” the independent candidate for Wollongong said.
“They’ve actually just putting out a wishlist and there’s not substance to it.”
There is no doubt Labor is committed to the plan, Keira MP Ryan Park made that clear.
“I’ll be the Treasurer of NSW in a future Labor government, I’ll be the Minister for the Illawarra,” Mr Park said.
“Let me make this very clear, I’ll be holding every single minister to account to make sure this is delivered.”
Mr Park's only issue is they’ve just got to win government first ….
