Last Thursday was National TAFE Day and the Greens are proud supporters of TAFE and the role each campus plays within their communities. 

TAFE doesn't just benefit the individual students, it contributes to every Farrer community and business.

Hurting TAFE also hurts the businesses that rely on the vocational training it provides.

We have recently seen a huge push from both Labor and the Coalition to privatise educational services.

This has resulted in the wasteful rorting of public money by for-profit private training colleges, for courses that our public TAFE system has provided affordably and reliably for decades.

In 2014, the federal government spent $1.4 billion of public money to students attending private colleges.

The Greens have analysed the Department of Education and Training's funding figures and shown it cost taxpayers an average of $73,200 per graduate from private colleges, but only $10,500 per graduate in TAFE courses in 2014.

These colleges are not only costing taxpayers 7 times more than TAFE per student, but far fewer students actually pass those courses compared to TAFE." 

That money could easily have paid for face-to-face TAFE courses in any of our regional communities.

Dr Amanda Cohn

Greens candidate for Farrer

FUNDING for aged care services, including services in rural and remote locations is mostly funded by the Australian government.

In NSW, more than 393,000 seniors (aged 65 plus) live in rural and remote locations, including seniors living in Farrer.

It is well known and well documented that costs for providing services in rural and remote regions are higher than costs for providing the same services in metropolitan regions.

The Aged Care Financing Authority Report (ACFA), Financial Issues Affecting Rural and Remote Providers, tabled in February tells us the average operating result for age care providers in rural and remote regions was -$2004 per resident per year.

A loss of just over $2000 per resident per year.

These findings, tells us that on average, age care services in rural and remote locations were financially unviable based on 2014-15 financial and operating data. Federal policy and funding decisions since 2014-15 have stripped $3.1 billion from Australia’s aged care system.

The impact of these cuts was not reflected in the ACFA report. It will be even tougher for aged care providers in these locations to provide accessible, affordable, good quality care.

Although welcome, $102 million (over four years) boost to the viability supplement to support regional and rural providers announced in the 2016-17 budget, will make little impact.

Seniors living in Farrer should be able to access appropriately funded, sustainable aged care services in their communities.

Governments cutting funding to meet Treasury expenditure projections, is nothing more than complete denial about the growing demand for care, and the true cost of the care our seniors need and deserve.

We are seeking a commitment from sitting member and Minister for Aged Care Sussan Ley and all Farrer candidates to reverse the $3.1 billion of cuts to aged care.

Funding cuts that impact the accessibility, affordability and quality of care for older Australians, including seniors living in rural and remote locations.

Loula Koutrodimos

Chief executive officer

Leading Age Services Australia NSW/ACT