The Victorian branch of the public sector union is demanding the state government drop any plans to privatise or commercialise the state’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
CPSU Victoria has accused the government of seeking a quick cash injection to plug holes in the budget and says it want to achieve this by selling off the registry in whole or in part.
The registry currently returns more than $10 million a year to the state and selling even part of it would be short sighted, the CPSU says.
“The Victorian Government must drop any plans to privatise or commercialise the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages,” the union says.
Union launches petition
The CPSU is urging members to sign a petition demanding Treasurer Tim Pallas keep the state’s private records in public hands.
“The publicly owned registry and the people who work there are the custodians of our precious records,” the petition says.
“They record every birth, every marriage and every death that occurs in our state and assist with recognition of relationships, name changes and gender affirmation.
“Our private details and records should not be in private hands, at the mercy of profit-making interests who’ll want a return for their injection of billions of their corporation’s dollars.
“We can’t afford for our most private records, like our birth certificates, to be trusted to anyone but the public service.”
The union says the registry, which has been in existance since 1853, should remain in public hand like its counterparts in every state and territory, and commercialisation will see the cost of registering and certifying key life events go up.
According to unnamed sources cited by The Melbourne Age, Mr Pallas met with stakeholders earlier this month where he talked up the benefits of opening up the registry to private investment.
A state government spokesman told The Age on August 19 that “Victoria’s Births, Deaths and Marriages service will not be privatised, but we are looking at how we can continue to improve the quality of government services.”
Government News has sought further comment from the Treasurer.
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Vic union says Births Deaths and Marriages in danger of privatisation
I truly hope that this will not be the case. You only have to look at what happened after the management of titles was sold off on a 40 year deal for $2.4 billion dollar immediate uplift to the Govts bottom line.It went to a crowd called PEXA who is now listed on the stock exchange. NB Land Titles also was an on going revenue raising asset for the Govt. Also note peoples identity and holdings are not specifically covered by legislation fully in the digital age despite attempts to get the situation right and the ability of scammers to be ahead of the game. Govt entities do have better systems and processes granted which at least contains this situation and tighter overviews operationally.
I would like Tim Pallas to explain, when it was that he asked the actual ‘stake holders’….the living men & women of this State, what if anything they wanted to change & if so how ?
We The People are in charge & any and all Government officials, are our servants & are supposed to be our representatives…that is why they’re called Public Servants.
It’s long past due for them to start behaving in the Interests of the Populous, not in the interests of Corporations & Lobbyists.
There is no explicit or implied right for Government Officials to sell off our information to any one….When you sell something that is not yours, in everyday life, what is that called ? There are normally criminal charges for such behaviour.