The NTEU praised the budget, even though it cements a $10 billion cut to university funding over the past decade and is predicated on the greatest attack on working-class living standards since World War II.
The opposition Labor Party voted for the federal budget, which targets higher education for further steep cuts, on top of the elimination of up to 90,000 jobs in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Arts courses are under threat from the chorus of philistines
Kim Carr
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The Morrison governmentâs cuts to university funding have destroyed a system that had existed since the 1980s, with bipartisan support.
Labor and the Coalition used to argue about the scale of commonwealth funding for universities while accepting a Faustian pact â that the surplus revenue from international student fees could be used to subsidise research.
But the loss of those fees during the pandemic has accelerated the affect of the governmentâs legislative changes, forcing universities to make drastic cuts.
Archeologists were critical to saving significant rock art from destruction in the Pilbara but the course has been cut from UWA. Â