January 19 February

National education and union news

TAFE investment would fuel future workforces

Morrison must act on climate change

Critical industries like childcare, ICT, carpentry and plumbing are at risk of significant workforce shortages, which would undermine the strength of Australia’s COVID-19 economic recovery according to the Australian Education Union (AEU).

Investment in TAFE would help ensure a sustainable supply of highly trained workers and support people to gain the skills they require to get good jobs, AEU Deputy Federal President Meredith Peace said.

“TAFE has suffered over $3 billion in federal government funding cuts since 2013,” she said.

“Instead of adequate TAFE investment, the Federal Coalition has used taxpayers’ funds for poor quality private training colleges and the failing job network. “TAFE is the centre of our vocational education system. Public TAFE institutions are ideally placed to train the workforces our nation needs to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The federal government’s Skills Priority List shows 153 professions with current workforce shortages and projects an additional 144 will experience moderate to strong levels of future demand by 2025.

Analysis of the federal government’s Labour Market Information Portal shows a shortage of more than 207,600 workers in the next five years in critical industries including childcare, aged and disability care, hospitality, carpentry, plumbing and ICT.

“In order to ensure these industries have the highly trained workforce they require to function effectively, Australia requires a properly funded TAFE system,” Ms Peace said.

“The AEU is inviting the community to support our Rebuild with TAFE campaign and sign an open letter to the Prime Minister calling for a guaranteed minimum of 70 per cent of total government funding for the public TAFE system.

“Without proper investment in TAFE, the federal government will fail to provide the education and training workers need to get real jobs. They will also fail to ensure critical industries have the highly skilled workforces they need to deliver the services we all rely on.”

To show your support for TAFE visit rebuildwithtafe.org.au

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to immediately increase Australia’s ambition on climate change and support a just transition for Australian workers following the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) science report, which has found that the last decade was hotter than any period in the past 125,000 years.

As covered on page 16 of this Western Teacher, the IPCC report is the culmination of five years of assessment, writing, review and approval processes from 234 leading scientists from more than 60 countries.

The report found that Australia has already experienced warming and faces a future of more extreme bushfire weather, flooding, marine heatwaves that will bleach coral reefs and lower winter rainfall in our major cities and agricultural regions.

Without ambitious global action to reduce emissions warming is projected to spiral out of control and make parts of Australia intolerable by people, agriculture and wildlife.

ACTU President Michele O’Neil said workers were already on the frontline dealing with the impacts of climate change, be it through protecting and rebuilding communities affected by natural disasters, caring for those affected by heatwaves and bushfire smoke, or working in increasingly extreme weather. “With the departure of Trump, Australia now stands alone and isolated in its climate inaction among OECD nations, with most of our trading partners aiming to halve emissions this decade,” she said.

“The Prime Minister’s hollow rhetoric about technology, not taxes, does not disguise the Coalition’s failure to act on global warming and failure to plan for a low carbon economy. The Coalition’s emissions targets are unscientific and if replicated by others would doom us to runaway global warming.

“Australian workers know that it’s in our best interests to move quickly to net zero emissions and that we can develop renewable energy powered export industries to help the world limit global warming.