Australian Greens Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that a new report by the Centre for Future Work estimating 40,000 job losses is a devastating exposure of the extent of the insecure work crisis in higher education.
Senator Faruqi said:
"Tens of thousands of job losses amount to nothing less than complete decimation of large parts of our tertiary education sector.
"Workers at our universities and TAFEs have been completely hung out to dry by an uncaring government and, more often than not, neoliberal management.
"Morale across tertiary education is at historic lows. This is in no small part due to casualisation and insecure work, which is rife in higher education and must be combatted.
"It's hard to separate this devastation from the Liberals' thinly-veiled contempt for tertiary education, and universities in particular.
"Not only were universities excluded from JobKeeper, they were targeted by the so-called 'Job-ready Graduates' fee hikes and funding cuts. The consequences of this are now being felt across the country.
"This is having devastating impacts for university staff, students and education now, and the reverberations will be felt for decades to come unless the government provides the investment needed to support and advance the sector. "
