The union for teachers and support staff in non-government schools commends the federal budget for delivering historic reforms to Australia's education system.
"This is the result of three years of federal government repairs to the school and early childhood education and care sectors," said Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Carol Matthews.
"Together with much-needed cost-of-living relief, the government's commitments will help build and maintain a sustainable, high-quality education workforce."
100% funding in all public schools: The IEU supports a world-class public education system accessible to all children in all communities. "We congratulate the government and our public sector colleagues who have now secured crucial 100% funding for every public school," Matthews said.
Rebuilding quality early childhood education and care: This sector has seen overdue and unprecedented reform over the past year. "The budget continues efforts to rebuild the sector, from new funding for the three-day guarantee to federal support for better wages," Matthews said. "Our members who work in this sector and those with children in long day care or preschool or who are planning to have children welcome the $1 billion plan to build more centres in the not-for-profit community sector."
Cost-of-living and income tax cuts: The budget provides new cost-of-living support and tax cuts that will benefit IEU members and their families. Following the first round of tax cuts last year, this will see combined tax cuts of about $50 a week for a school staff member on average wages, or $2548 a year. "Tax cuts combined with changes to workplace laws that have delivered higher wage outcomes will make a big difference to household budgets," Matthews said.
Affordable housing for essential education staff: A growing number of IEU members are locked out of the housing market due to soaring property prices. Increasing the income threshold to allow more workers to access the Help to Buy scheme will include education staff who earn less than $100,000, or with combined incomes below $160,000. "This is meaningful housing support for thousands of early-career and mid-career teachers and school support staff," Matthews said.
Supporting the next generation of teachers: The 20 per cent cut to HECS-HELP debts means more than $5500 will be cut from the average early career teacher's university debt of $27,600. Combined with the capping of indexed increases to HECS debts last year, new teachers will have access to much needed financial relief as they begin their new career in the classroom.
"While there are still complex challenges in our schools and preschools that the IEU will continue working to solve, the government has delivered long-overdue reforms that we warmly welcome," Matthews said.
