After Tuesday’s announcement by Vice Chancellor Jane den Hollander, National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Warrnambool committee member Michael Callaghan said staff were putting their lives on hold until they found out about the long-term future of the campus.

“The NTEU perspective is that they are a little bit disappointed that Federation University didn’t come to the party,” he said.

Mr Callaghan said Federation University indicated they had planned to focus on increasing enrolments, before negotiations between the two tertiary educators finished.

“Deakin University, while they have made a commitment for two years, there does not appear as strong a commitment to rebuilding the campus and that concerns the NTEU and it is also causing ongoing stress for the staff on the campus,” he said.

“From the NTEU perspective our priority must always be jobs and throughout this whole ordeal our concern has always been to maintain the jobs on the Warrnambool campus, which Federation would have achieved. The announcement in principle still leaves all of the staff in limbo in regards to their futures, buying houses, educating children, all of these things for an individual whose job and life is in Warrnambool is now on hold for another two years.”

Mr Callaghan said the situation had improved after the initial announcement in March, when staff were possibly facing job losses.

“I would like to see something done to secure the jobs for the long-term,” he said.

He said what the NTEU wanted was a greater commitment to the campus in terms of finding ways to make it more sustainable.

“It’s good that the Vice Chancellor has made suggestions along those lines,” he said.

“We do feel that there is a lot of potential for the campus, particularly in the development of new courses that are related to local industries and opportunities in the regional area.”