How the Commonwealth Government could shape TAFE EB10
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 124 No 3, 23 April 2019, page no. 16
An analysis of recent Queensland budget papers gives an indication of the limited resources and financial pressures that TAFE is experiencing.
(Source: service delivery statements, Queensland Budget)
The figure above shows a decline in Commonwealth revenue as a share of Queensland’s training and skills budget over the period 2014/15 to 2018/19.
Scott Morrison’s first Budget as Treasurer invested $483 million in training and skills in Queensland - that represented 43.6 per cent of the state’s training budget. The increase for the year 2016/17 can be attributed, in part, to additional expenditure for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Subsequent Budgets have seen a decline in the Turnbull/Morrison governments’ investments in skills and training in Queensland, as well as in the percentage share of the Commonwealth contribution to training and skills. In 2017/18 the Commonwealth contribution reduced to $419 million, or 39.8 per cent of the state’s training and skills budget, and this declined further to $335 million, or 35.1 per cent, in 2018/19.
The impact of Commonwealth training policies has been widely reported. AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe explained: “TAFE funding cuts have had a devastating impact on our students, our communities and our TAFE staff.
“In the past five years we have seen the number of TAFE campuses across the country drop by a third. We have seen Commonwealth, state and territory government recurrent expenditure on vocational education decrease by $1.5 billion over the past five years, and, even after the VET FEE-HELP loans scandal last year, more than $325 million in publicly-funded loans went to private, for-profit providers.
“Meanwhile the total amount of public money given to private vocational education providers has almost tripled over the past decade,” Ms Haythorpe said.
The QTU and TAFE Queensland commenced bargaining for a replacement certified agreement in March.
The QTU’s EB10 log of claims includes a suite of initiatives to secure fairer conditions, such as improved access to permanent employment and greater access to parental leave. Better job security, gender employment equity, and increased salaries all form part of the QTU claim, which aligns with the broader national campaign to “change the rules”.
Changing the rules means changing the government
The QTU knows that changing the federal government will not of itself yield a successful EB10 campaign, but a change of government will provide an improved policy framework, fairer funding, and a restoration of TAFE to its rightful place as the strong public provider of vocational education in Australia.
The QTU log of claims is available as a member-only document at www.qtu.asn.au/tafe.