May come in handy for some frontline health professionals
The state’s healthcare workers will now get free parking at hospitals in a bid to ease the pressure on those working on the COVID-19 frontline.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said all staff rostered to work at hospitals, including cleaners, security staff, allied health workers as well as nurses and doctors, will have access to the free parking from today.
Mod: See all Healthcare Worker deals
Came in just to post this
Same! Hospital parking prices might be worse than Syd Airport!
I remember not even 6 months ago seeing an advertisement about 'invest in an Airport carpark - best investment ever'. Lol, I bet its not that good an investment now, with all the airlines grounded
I also came to post this…
Agreed. What kind of workplace charges it's employees for parking?!
It's a problem of supply and demand.
If they let everyone park for free, it would be impossible to find a park.
Fortunately with the cancellation of many clinics at these hospitals, parking supply is now ample.
The recent parking concessions kind of highlighted the supply/demand problem - once those parking concessions came in, it suddenly became extremely difficult to park at many hospitals across Sydney.
I had to go to emergency with my mum on a Saturday night, and unlike the usual bloodbath of Saturday night antics, it was totally dead.
I would have thought that OzLandlord/OzFreeMarket decrying socialism and freeloaders would understand why people are charged for parking in high demand areas.
Many hospitals dont even have a dedicated staff parking area.
Some hospitals dont even have enough spaces for staff parking.
And to my knowledge no NSW hospital with paid carparks have free parking for frontline workers. (not sure about the high up hospital admins).
Sounds like whoever designed and built those hospitals was stupid, if they didn't include enough spaces for everyone.
It is not that they are stupid, it is they don't care.
The people charged with the hospital projects are often have no idea what is required and they just care about their political careers.
Most of the multi-storey carparks in hospitals I know are privately owned. Many built on land from the hospital.
People don't understand just how much space car parking takes up, especially those big multi-storey lots.
A general rule of thumb is that for an office building to have ample parking for all of its workers, you'd need approximately the same amount of space dedicated to car parking as you do for the actual floor space of the office building.
If you want to see that in action, just go to the USA, where most cities mandate extremely large parking lots to go alongside large buildings. You either end up with a large tarmac blight on the landscape, or a monolithic multi-storey hellhole which is ripe for muggings and crime.
Australian cities are beautiful in comparison to them.
I've lived there, I know what it's like. However, you forget that you can also dig down underground. Going down is much better than going up or sideways, because you can utilise almost the entire area of the site, so you don't need as many levels.
@AussieZed: We should do like what the Japanese do and have car stackers. I'm starting to see them more often in Australia now
Wow, something that should have always been free is now free, good work -_-
My girlfriend has to pay about $25 to park her car and work at hospital, there goes over an hours wage…
(gave it a plus just so more people might see it)
This is normal for other workplaces too with offices, especially if you park in the city.
Not all work places provide free parking…
I have to pay hospital car park by salary deduction. How to get 'Free' car park?
Why would you ask this here? Speak to your HR dept.
I'm go out on a limb and say this is a sh**ty gesture in the scheme of things. Hospital and charity employees are entitled to salary packaging benefits from the federal government. Most organisations allow their employees to receive the full benefit of salary packaging.
NSWHealth seems to be the only organisation in the country that keeps 50% of the salary packaging benefit for themselves. Now if Gladys, Brad and Dom want to help NSW Health employees, they should start by stopping this wage theft.
Its actually about 15%
Source: looking at my payslip
But i agree with the sentiment
Its actually about 15%
15% of your gross pay?
The official policy is 50% of the tax saving due to salary packaging. The calculation is somewhat convoluted. For a mid-level employee in the 37% tax bracket, it comes to ~2k/year that NSWHealth steal from you … not to mention the admin fees. It gets even more egregious if you try to package a car or laptop or something.
I just did a simple calculation without factoring in taxes. I get $346 to me and $70 goes to employer share. Thats how i got the 15%. Admin fees go to the salary packaging company (my hospital is using SmartSalary) not NSW health, which is $2.43 per fortnight
$70 goes to employer share
~1820/year stolen from you by Gladys, Brad and Dom (although it's been government policy, long before they were in charge).
they get millions legally, and pay parking fees in hospitals for this period is using their employees benefits they profit to pay. No expense from NSW government and get PR for Brad. disgust
The 50% salary packaging claw-back racket that NSW Health is running really needs to be stopped. It is particularly nasty because you still get hit with admin fees and other consequences (higher HELP repayments etc) based on the gross-up calculation of your income.
NSW Health really makes a mockery of this Federal government incentive scheme.
This is a joke. Should be free year round for frontline workers.
There's FBT implications for free parking, especially when there's a paid lot near by.
This guy gets it. Blame the ATO for classifying free parking as FBT liable.
Thanks, nice gesture, but I'd really prefer a supply of PPE right now. Trying to get masks and gowns is impossible. Thank you to all who bought up on supplies of masks unnecessarily, good job.
A friend works for NSW Health on the frontlines and it is policy not to wear (to conserve) masks unless the patient is confirmed positive. Unbelieveable given how contagious this disease is even in asymptomatic cases.
Damn I just bought five prepaid car parking tickets one hr ago. And there were big signs saying no refunds etc
Flip them to patients …
Good thought. We have to still see if Wilson's car park can be influenced by the government
I pay about 41$/fortnight to park in my hospital
That's one day for me in the city.
i’m still #122 after signing up to the hospital car park waiting list in september 2018… free is good but i don’t even have a spot haha
Not wanting to make this political but I feel like it's a bit remiss to not mention that this is the outcome of advocacy by the Health Services Union, rather than an act of pure government benevolence:
https://www.2gb.com/podcast/hsu-calls-for-free-parking-for-h…
Just think that the HSU deserves some recognition for this bargain, and TBH I think it was a bit ridiculous that they had to pay in the first place.
This is exactly the sort of thing that should be pointed out mate. I absolutely despise this liberal government taking credit for ideas that weren't their own (and were usually the from Labor or strong lobbying from unions or other groups)
Is HSU paying for this?
Ah, so this is why I haven't seen them parking in their usual spot a 20 minute walk from the hospital recently.
still parking there
Just a suggestion, can we have a separate category just for health workers like groceries, electronic, etc. Where all the deals go. Thought it might be easier for health professionals to see.
![[NSW] Free Parking for Frontline Workers at Public Hospital Car Parks](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/58/530058.jpg?h=593f722b)
It should always be free for their workers