THE Peninsula Aquatic Recreation Centre will receive an immediate cash injection of nearly $700,000 from council to help deal with the financial fallout of COVID-19.
The swimming centre has been shut during the pandemic, resulting in 259 casual staff and 26 permanent staff being stood down without pay.
At council’s May meeting, it was agreed that PARC would receive an immediate payment of just under $680,000, as well as a further provision of just over $2 million processed quarterly throughout the 2020/2021 financial year. That amount will be paid “after proper assessment and acquittal, under arrangements to be worked through between Peninsula Leisure and council”.
The motion approved by Frankston councillors “notes that the disbursement of any funds in the 2020/21 financial year is subject to a further report to council that authorises a mechanism that would have the effect of returning the funds to council with interest.”
The funding was drawn from council’s PARC asset management reserve.
The staff stood down at the swimming centre are ineligible for the JobKeeper program because they are employed by a council owned entity.
Dunkley MP Peta Murphy has again called for the federal government to expand the program to include the affected PARC workers. “I am terribly disappointed that the federal government insists it is not their responsibility to help 259 stood down employees keep their jobs at PARC. If the federal government was serious about supporting local jobs and local people, they would extend JobKeeper to PARC employees,” she said.
“During the last sitting week of Parliament I asked the treasurer a direct question, why has his government excluded PARC employees from the JobKeeper wage subsidy. His response was that the federal government wouldn’t give these locals job security through JobKeeper, and that I should go and lobby someone else.”
It was revealed last month that the JobKeeper program would cost around $60 billion less than was originally projected.
