15 November 2018

Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Education and Training

Update on formal negotiation meeting with AEU

The Government welcomes today's positive and constructive formal negotiation meeting with the Australian Education Union.

The Government’s negotiating representatives formalised the offer, made to the AEU yesterday, with delegates at the meeting today. The AEU has advised it will give serious consideration to the offer.

The Government’s offer provides a fair and affordable payrise, and also addresses teacher workload concerns. Now that the AEU have received our offer and are considering it, they should withdraw threats to close schools through industrial action.

The offer includes:

• a fair and affordable 6% payrise over three years.
• a reduction in face-to-face contact hours for primary school teachers from 22 hours per week to 20 hours per week.
• 95 new dedicated specialist teachers that will be recruited by the end of 2019. These new specialist teachers are in addition to the Government’s existing election commitment of 250 extra teachers and 80 teacher assistants.

The Government looks forward to the AEU’s positive consideration of the offer, which has been the result of ongoing negotiations and discussions with the AEU including meetings on Monday, yesterday and today.

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