QTU response to DoE’s housing review
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 130 No 1, 14 February 2025, page no 15.
After a series of formal requests to the Director-General, the QTU met with the Department of Education on 12 December to discuss the department’s housing review.
The review began in early 2023, when the department informed the QTU that it had engaged KPMG to support a review of the teacher housing model. The purpose of the review was to address a range of objectives, including an assessment of both the current issues and future opportunities across the model, policy, processes, and other enablers.
It was planned to take just under six months and, despite the QTU making it clear that the department needed to actively engage with tenants and local accommodation officers (LAOs) and committees, very limited consultation occurred.
Unfortunately, the summary document provided to the Union at the December meeting did not contain substantive solutions.
Members were represented at the meeting by Acting QTU Vice-President Josh Cleary, Assistant Secretary Kevina O’Neill, and two acting officers with deep teacher housing experience, Chris Smith (former LAO and QTU State Accommodation Committee (SAC) member) and Jade Wager (current LAO and SAC member). QTU Central Queensland Organiser Dan Coxen focused on the “bigger picture,” with regions being impacted by teacher shortages exacerbated by the challenge of accessing housing.
The QTU repeated the key issues consistently communicated over the past decade.
Since 2012, housing and its management have become more complex due to the move to the private rental market. Systems and administrative funding have in no way kept up. Nor has provision kept up with demographic changes and the needs and nature of the workforce choosing to go rural and remote.
The present teacher housing delivery model, through which housing is provided to the department by Government Employee Housing (GEH), and through the private market, is complex and not resourced for that complexity. Further complexities, flaws and challenges facing the current model were also identified and elaborated on.
The review began in early 2023, when the department informed the QTU that it had engaged KPMG to support a review of the teacher housing model. The purpose of the review was to address a range of objectives, including an assessment of both the current issues and future opportunities across the model, policy, processes, and other enablers.
It was planned to take just under six months and, despite the QTU making it clear that the department needed to actively engage with tenants and local accommodation officers (LAOs) and committees, very limited consultation occurred.
Unfortunately, the summary document provided to the Union at the December meeting did not contain substantive solutions.
Members were represented at the meeting by Acting QTU Vice-President Josh Cleary, Assistant Secretary Kevina O’Neill, and two acting officers with deep teacher housing experience, Chris Smith (former LAO and QTU State Accommodation Committee (SAC) member) and Jade Wager (current LAO and SAC member). QTU Central Queensland Organiser Dan Coxen focused on the “bigger picture,” with regions being impacted by teacher shortages exacerbated by the challenge of accessing housing.
The QTU repeated the key issues consistently communicated over the past decade.
Since 2012, housing and its management have become more complex due to the move to the private rental market. Systems and administrative funding have in no way kept up. Nor has provision kept up with demographic changes and the needs and nature of the workforce choosing to go rural and remote.
The present teacher housing delivery model, through which housing is provided to the department by Government Employee Housing (GEH), and through the private market, is complex and not resourced for that complexity. Further complexities, flaws and challenges facing the current model were also identified and elaborated on.
- Volunteer LAOs and local accommodation committees (LAC) can influence housing requirements and allocate housing informed by local knowledge, but the LAC was not designed to manage and source housing from the private rental market and cannot do so.
- The private rental market has created significant complexities; and cannot provide enough suitable accommodation to meet the department’s responsibility for staffing schools.
- There is not enough of the well-maintained, appropriate, fit-for-purpose teacher housing required to both attract and retain teachers.
- Housing provision must include sole individual tenancy options.
- The department urgently needs at least two fit-for-purpose online tenancy and property maintenance management computer systems.
- Examples of different solutions or approaches from other states were, on the whole, not relevant to a large and decentralised state. This point is made every time the department conducts a teacher housing review.
- The teacher transfer and mobility review outcomes will have an impact on housing, and therefore need to be considered before any proposals are considered.
QTU officers made it clear that any stakeholder reference group developed by the department must include the QTU as a key stakeholder. It was agreed that the QTU needed to be included in any further conversations.
The Residential Tenancy Authority (RTA) and Tenants Queensland websites are excellent resources for tenants or LACs wanting to confirm rights, responsibilities and processes, especially when operating in the private rental market you can access them here www.rta.qld.gov.au/.
For LACs, don’t forget that the department, not the tenant, is leasing from the property owner. For more infomation click here tenantsqld.org.au/.