The nations tertiary education sector including Deakin University and its staff and students have been badly let down by the Morrison Government a new report confirms, Corangamite MP Libby Coker said today.

Tertiary education has lost almost one-in-five positions, or nearly 40,000 jobs in the 12 months to May this year according to An Avoidable Catastrophe - Pandemic Job Losses in Higher Education and Their Consequences released today (13 Sept) by The Australia Institute.

Most of the jobs went from public universities and more than 90 per cent were full-time roles. Sadly, women were the ones disproportionately put out of work, Ms Coker said.

The report comes out as hundreds of Deakin University staff are losing their jobs, or are in a limbo-land of job uncertainty. This comes after a previous round of hundreds of Deakin job redundancies last year.

Staff at Deakin havent been supported by the Morrison Government during COVID. There was no Jobkeeper for them.

Billions of dollars were squandered by the government on Jobkeeper for businesses who didnt need it, yet our university sector, one of the nations biggest export earners, was snubbed.

Were now seeing the harsh impacts of Morrisons trashing of universities. The talented people universities are being forced to let go in order to stay afloat is devastating. The sector will take decades to recover.

I feel especially for the Deakin people in the Geelong region who are impacted. Every one of those jobs supports a family and our local economy.

The Governments failure to establish adequate purpose-built large quarantine facilities has meant theres no chance of revenue from overseas students in the immediate future.

Had Morrison not squandered up to $12 billion of Jobkeeper on big businesses who have returned profits during COVID, and instead used part of it to support the tertiary sector, Deakin job losses may not have been necessary.