The future of the employees of the former Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka is at the forefront of Councillor Daniel Moloney’s mind, he has told The Courier.
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While he was at pains to stress that what he was saying was a personal view and not reflective of the City of Ballarat’s official position, Cr Moloney said he would hope to see as many of the staff redeployed as was possible.
He said the professionalism shown by the MADE staff was admirable, given the uncertainty they had faced in their jobs over the past year.
His comments come as some MADE staff expressed concerns for their futures following the decision to ‘wind down’ the operations of the museum made by council on Wednesday night.
One staff member told The Courier stress among the employees had been great since the review of MADE operations was announced in March last year.
Knowing that a freeze on staff hire was in place, staff had opted to continue in their roles rather than resign in order to support the then-acting CEO Sarah Masters, the staff member said.
Current CEO Rebecca MacFarling said counselling for the staff would be available to them from Monday, as a a matter of urgency.
Ms MacFarling said it was no understatement to say the next few weeks would be challenging for staff.
Cr Moloney said in his opinion, as someone who was both a councillor and a MADE board member, one of the problems in the issue was neither MADE nor Ballarat City Council could appreciate what the other wanted.
“There were no clear performance indicators or strategies for MADE. Its role was ambiguous,” he said.
“Staff have been through an incredibly difficult past year. There’s an opportunity to employ plenty of those people, who can bring their expertise to it going forward. We as a city owe it to those employees. I think we owe it to those employees who have actually stuck with the centre and continued the tourism offer.”
Cr Moloney says there is broad consensus across the nine Ballarat councillors that the focus of the centre needs to return to the Eureka story and Ballarat’s history.
We as a city owe it to those employees
- Daniel Moloney, Ballarat councillor