Education Spokeswoman for Labor, Tanya Plibersek, has condemned the federal government for not continuing higher education JobKeeper payments. National Tertiary Education Union national president Alison Barnes said the government has ‘abandoned’ the sector and has proposed a rescue package be designed amidst an underestimated job loss figure of greater than 11,000. Plibersek likened the higher education industry to that of coal or gas and claimed the current response to such a dramatic raise in voluntary redundancies to be of great detriment to our export industry.