The Victorian TAFE Association has called on the Federal Skills Minister, Senator Chris Evans and the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations,  Bill Shorten, to intervene in the Victorian TAFE sector following last week’s State Government budget cuts to the TAFE sector.

 

The Association claims the Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu is in breach of a commitment he signed off on the National Partnership Agreement on Skills Reform on 13th April agreeing to; “implement strategies which enable public providers to operate effectively in an environment of  greater competition, recognizing their important functions …” (source NPA clauses 6d and 29b)

 

It has called for the State Government to immediately review its budget announcement and restore the “full service provision” payments to public TAFE providers of approximately $150million per annum. This amount has been progressively paid over the last two decades for TAFE community service obligations, staff legal entitlements and student disability support payments.  The Federal Government contributes over $290 million through COAG agreements per annum to Victoria.

 

The State government has confirmed to TAFE CEOs that the budget cuts to TAFE equate to about the same amount, in the order of $290million in 2013 according to their financial modeling.

 

The Executive Director of the Victorian TAFE Association, David Williams said that early indications are for massive job losses in the sector.

 

“Early indications of the impact of the budget cuts to TAFE are job losses which will clearly exceed 500 effective full time roles, as many as 1,200 to 1,500 teaching and support staff over the coming year,” said David Williams.

 

“These losses are in excess of those threatened in the Victorian automotive and manufacturing industry, which the government has rightly sought to protect. It should apply no less principle to TAFE.”

 

“It is clear Premier Baillieu’s promise of no job losses to front-line public sector jobs has been shattered and many of these critical jobs will be in regional Victoria where alternative work options are limited, particularly for teachers and associated staff such as librarians and counseling support staff.”

 

“We wrote to the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Hon. Bill Shorten over a month ago outlining our concerns that the cuts to TAFE funding from November last year represented a shift of work from the public to private sector. This is in clear breach of the principles of the Federal Workplace Relations Act. We have not received a formal response from the Minister and eagerly await his response.

 

“The massive additional cuts in this Victorian budget call for an urgent response from both Minister Shorten and Senator Evans.”

 

“We will be writing to Federal Skills Minister, Senator Chris Evans over the next day or so outlining our concerns and the obvious breaching of obligations by the Victorian Government under the COAG National Partnership Agreement” said David Williams.