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On Friday 17 June, member voting closed on the Agreement in Principle for the 2021 General Agreement (Schools). Just over 5,000 members voted with 70 per cent of those voting in favour.

With Labor forming government, public education has been handed a reprieve from what may well have been an existential threat to the entire system.

The management of COVID-19 with the ever-changing advice and the daily impact on schools and TAFEs threatens to overwhelm every other aspect of our working days.

The announcement from the government of a new public sector wages policy is a positive step: the $1,000 salary cap has been given the boot and replaced by 2.5 per cent across the board. This is a welcome return to a percentage-based increase for SSTUWA members.

Western Australia’s economy is handling the impacts of COVID-19 better than anyone anticipated, and we’re expecting a multi-billion dollar surplus in the next budget. But at the same time that our economy is booming, education funding per child is falling and teachers’ wages are stagnant.

In many ways 2021 has continued the pattern of uncertainty, anxiety and loss that we saw in 2020.

On 11 March this year the Federal Minister for Education Alan Tudge declared that he was “pleased the funding wars are now over”.