The Rudd Government seems to be rolling with the momentum of the previous Howard government's agenda of privatisation. As Bob Dylan said about 40 years ago, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows..." With the wind blowing against the stretched fingers of Adam Smith's "invisible hand of the Market" and with the winds blowing through Wall and Main Streets of the USA and all of the developed world, you would think that our current Government will also feel it blowing against the previous Howard government agenda of privatising TAFE.
Alan Ramsey's article (Saturday's 22 Nov 2008 SMH) is about the current debacle of Eddie Grove's ABC Learning Centres and how Howard ignored Jennie George's warning. Ramsey quotes Jennie George who was a Teachers Federation President a lifetime ago and now is a Federal Labor MP. She was talking about the ABC Learning Centres in Parliament on March 28, 2006, 2 years before the collapse of the privatised child care centres. I won't quote the whole article because you can check it out yourself by going to the link http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/alan-ramsey/george-was-ignored-over-childcare-fear/2008/11/21/1226770735308.html
All you have to do, while reading the excerpt below is keep in mind what may happen to TAFE when you change the words child care and to TAFE and ABC Learning Centres to Private Provider Profiteers (PPP's):
"No wonder their recent announcement of $88 million in profits was described as appalling by the National Association of Community Based Children's Services [which] argued these profits could go to far better use in making child-care more accessible and more affordable. The truth is companies like ABC Learning have tapped into a rich seam of taxpayer funding underpinning its earnings and profit levels. What worries me is that often these healthy profits are coming at the expense of decent staff conditions and quality facilities ...Companies like ABC Learning can cherry-pick the market, free of
government constraints. Company profits are under-pinned by taxpayer funding,
yet taxpayers' interests are left to the mercy of the marketplace, free from
government intervention, free from any overall consistent planning, and free
from any form of regulation ..."
Jennie George MP, Parliament House,March 28, 2006
Ramsey added,
All the best,"Not free, though, of taxpayers having to pick up the bill after the biggest, and greediest, child-care conglomerate in the country goes belly-up under one government's policies and its successor has to fork out $22 million just to keep 1100 child-care centres operating, but only for a very limited time. Another plus for the dead Howard government."
Hallelujah to that!
On a micro, local scale, I remember a few years ago how a Private Provider Profiteer (PPP) - name of PPP not mentioned to protect the guilty - beat our Institute for a contract to train disadvantaged people in literacy and numeracy in the Upper Hunter. What this PPP didn't factor in is the demographics of the Upper Hunter and how the number of students might not be enough to make a profit because of rural isolaton. This was the case even though the PPP would employ trainers, not teachers, at a cheaper cost. Naturally, this PPP decided that it wasn't worth their while because of the cost (no consideration of the social cost, just the dollar cost).
Did the PPP get fined for not delivering the program? No! Our Institute heard about the situation of these people who needed education and to our Institute's credit, we quickly provided this program ... with our own State recurrent funds. We also provided fully qualified teachers, not just trainers.
Why? Because we care, because we are TAFE, because we know what the true social cost is when people do not know how to read and write, because our perception of capital includes the community cost. We care about SOCIAL CAPITAL. Our bottom line should be equal access to education and training for ALL members of the community. Our bottom line should be social justice, not making a profit.
Think about this - the current idea of "contestability" for courses and programs includes the concept of "third party access" to TAFE's facilities for "pepper corn" rent. What does this mean in every day practical terms? As we unpack the concept you will quickly see how the profiteers of PPP's will be able to legally "steal" from TAFE to make their profit. I'm not even referring to bailout of some future stuff up, like ABC Learning Centres. I'm referring to the fact that a PPP will be able to come in and use the workshops, the studios, the classrooms, the laboratories, the kitchens, the salons, the computers, the equipment and resources that TAFE staff have worked over many years building up in consultations with their team mates and negotiating with Institute Management to ensure that they can offer the best facilities for students. Some of these resources have been donated by members of the community and local business because TAFE is a public institution.
PPP's will not only get to use a room with 4 walls, a ceiling and a floor. They will be able to access all the embedded knowledge, planning skills and wisdom of TAFE staff (the holistic educational capital) to run courses using TAFE facilities while paying their trainers half or a third of what TAFE teachers get paid. Obviously, not a bad profit making venture. Just walk in and use the resources and equipment expertly procured by TAFE staff, pay a few dollars a day, pay your trainers cheap wages (because they don't have to be fully qualified teachers), keep the courses short and sweet and keep the profits for the PPP Corporation.
Now, this "third party access" along with "contestability" will mean that PPP's will be able to perform corporate piracy on Public resources, just like Eddie Groves did with ABC Learning Centres.
Steve g
