TAFE, schools and our profession to benefit from change in government
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 127 No number 4, 3 June 2022, page no. 10
Anthony Albanese has been sworn in as the 31st Prime Minister of Australia, after the Australian Labor Party won the federal election on 21 May. While the final details were not clear as this Journal went to print, the most likely outcome is a small majority Labor government or a minority government with support from a broad cross bench.
The election outcome will mean a number of substantive policy changes at a federal government level. Firstly, we will see 70 per cent of federal government training funding being provided to our TAFE system. This will be an important investment as our country looks to rebuild from some of the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and also as the new government looks to bring manufacturing jobs back onshore in Australia.
The Albanese Labor government has also committed to providing a pathway to all state schools achieving 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard (SRS) when bilateral agreements with the states are renegotiated at the end of 2023. As a profession and Union, we will need to keep the pressure on the incoming federal government and our current state government to ensure the new bilateral school funding agreement delivers for our workplaces and the students we teach. This is in contrast to the Morrison government, which built ongoing inequality into the current funding arrangements by capping federal funding for state schools at 20 per cent of the SRS while guaranteeing 80 per cent of the SRS for non-government schools.
The final significant outcome of the election will likely be the restoration of a voice for the profession on all federal government education authorities such as the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL) and the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). The Coalition government had removed all representative voices from these organisations. It is important that the industrial representatives of the teaching profession have a seat at the table when key decisions are taken that impact upon the workload and wellbeing of teachers and school leaders.
QTU member likely to be elected to the senate
At the time of writing, Penny Allman-Payne (pictured left), a QTU member from Gladstone, looks set to be elected as a Queensland Senator for the Greens. Penny is a strong advocate for public education, and we look forward to working with her to ensure Queensland teachers and school leaders in state schools and TAFE have the issues that matter to them raised in the Federal Parliament.