Last week I received a copy of a letter from a good friend and a Prison Officer from yesteryear regarding Lauren Oliver, the Director of Training at Brushfarm Prison Officer Training Academy.
I have written a number of blogs regarding Ms Oliver and her outrageous statements recently concerning the “fat old white guys” as she labeled the Prison Officers from my era.
What Mr. Severin and Ms Oliver have done is underestimated the tenacity and willpower to see issues through to the end as we are never going to give up on these two over paid Public Servants.
I recently received my copy of The Red Tape, dated December 2016 to January 2017. The Red Tape is the official tabloid for the Public Service Association and although I have not worked inside a Gaol since the late 1980’s, I am still a retired member of the PSA.
I read with interest under Mr. Severin’s watch, and he IS responsible for what occurs within his Department, a Prison Officer at Cessnock Corrective Centre who was suffering from a long term illness, took sick leave. His position within the Department was an Overseer. The Officer met all of the criteria under the Department’s sick leave policy. The article does not indicate what the Officer’s condition was, however I somehow suspect that it may have been stress related. The Officer, during his leave, completed a marathon event which as I understand it, physical exercise was recommended by his medical practitioner.
A Line Manager at Cessnock Corrective Centre, and I am not quite sure of the level this person held, rejected and recorded his absence as “not acceptable”.
The PSA contacted the Director of Corrective Services Industries who refused to reverse the Line Manager’s decision. A dispute was lodged with the Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales. There the Commissioner Newall issued a recommendation stating, “It seems inescapable that whatever view one takes of the reasons underpinning this absence, if a Registered Medical Practitioner tells the Agency with full knowledge of what he is writing, that a man was unfit for work…..” Mr. Newall went on to say that the employee should be paid the time he spent away from work.
Of course under Mr. Severin’s leadership, the Department declined to accept Mr. Newall’s recommendation and sought to have the matter arbitrated.
The matter was heard before Commissioner Murphy and the PSA argued the employee had run the marathon on a rostered day off and had been advised that exercise would actually assist him in his condition. Commissioner Murphy ruled in favour of the employee, ordering the Corrective Services to pay the outstanding leave.
This is where Mr. Severin fails in his duties as Commissioner of Department of Corrective Services. He has allowed his underlings within the Department to fight a sick leave entitlement, of less than $2,000, that the decision was always going to be in favour of the employee and costing the Department around $20,000 to reach this failed ruling, is simply outrageous, has no economic sense at all and can only be described as a waste of good tax payer’s money.
Mr. Severin is a disgrace. He is a do-gooder, he has ruined the reputations of those gallant Prison Officers of yesteryear, he does not run his Department using economical common sense and I suspect he plays the “Yes Minister” game to his own advantage.
He should resign under his own volition or alternatively the Minister must sack this man before he causes any further damage to the Department with which he is solely responsible.
This I believe
Peter T Egge
On Friday 10th February I had lunch with my old work mate Charlie Geddes. 
