State Election 2024
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 129 No 4, 7 June 2024, page 8.
With more than 48,000 members in state schools and TAFE institutes across Queensland, the QTU has a broad and diverse membership – a membership that reflects the communities in which we live and work. QTU members have a particularly close relationship with their communities, as state schools are often the only government service located in small communities.
At the state election on 26 October, QTU members, like other public servants in Queensland, will be in a position to elect their employer, the Queensland Government.
As with any election, the QTU will align its campaign with its mission, values and priorities to achieve the best outcome for our members.
Our overall aim is to have a Queensland Government that values our profession; a government that will ensure our members have safe, healthy, supported, and sustainable workplaces.
That is why putting forward our EB11 claims before the election will be critical, along with other asks that cannot be directly achieved via the enterprise bargaining process. These additional asks will be informed by QTU policy, member consultation through the ongoing Comprehensive Review of School Resourcing, analysis of the 2024 state and federal budgets, and input from members via our democratic structures, including workplace and branch meetings.
QTU members have been extensively involved in proposing items for the EB11 log of claims. This process has been brought forward by six months to ensure that it is finalised well before this year’s state election.
The key dates in the EB11 claim development process are:
- 14 June – cut off for submissions to be considered in the claim development process
- 8 July – QTU Executive will consider a draft log of claims
- 10 August – QTU State Council will endorse the final log of claims.
This timeline sees our claim development process concluding 77 days out from the state election.
The log of claims will be put to all Members of the Queensland Parliament before the election, so they know what QTU members are demanding. Formal negotiations will not begin until early in the new year.
However, EB11 claims are not the only issues that will be at stake in the next election. Matters like student behaviour, occupational violence and aggression, teacher and school leader workload, overall funding of schools and TAFE, investment in capital programs to upgrade and replace facilities, investment in more teacher accommodation, and better incentives for teachers and school leaders living and working in remote, rural and short-staffed locations can only be achieved with whole-of-government investment and policy.
The QTU believes that significant government investment in additional support services like positive learning centres and other flexible programs delivered onsite in schools and out in the community can address many of the challenges our members are dealing with as the complexity of student need continues to increase.
QTU members understand the transformative power of public education, and that is why engaging young people in education and supporting young people to re-engage when they have fallen out of the system is one way to address youth crime and maximise the life chances of all young Queenslanders.
But this important work cannot be done without significant resourcing. It cannot be left solely up to schools to do all the heavy lifting. Schools need the support of other government agencies and the community to ensure this work can be successful. They also need the full support of the employer – the Queensland Government and the Department of Education – to make decisions on student behaviour that minimise disruption in order to maximise learning.
QTU election strategy will be presented to QTU State Council in August for final endorsement in parallel to our EB11 log of claims, enabling members across the state to be raising these issues with MPs and election candidates before the election.
This work will build upon the work of many members across the state who have been engaged in delegations to MPs, government ministers and shadow spokespeople to advocate for state schools, TAFE, and improving the education system for QTU members and the students we teach.
A win for QTU members is a win for their communities. And a government that values the teaching profession values all Queensland communities.
As with any election, the Union will assess the policies and promises of the major parties to analyse their impact on QTU members. This may include member surveys and other direct campaigning in electorates where candidates commit to supporting key issues such as education and industrial relations policy that the Union determines are important to its members in state schools and TAFE.