Page 839 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 6 April 2022
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that they have faced assault and when we have a significant number of serious incidents coming across our schools. That indicates one of two things. Either the minister is not telling the truth, or she is so out of touch with what is happening that the teachers on the ground are saying, “One in five of us are being assaulted,” and she is saying, “No, this is a very rare and isolated incident.” So either she just does not have a clue what is going on in her own schools in the directorate, or she is simply coming in here and trying to whitewash and cover up what is going on.
Which is it? It has to be one of the two. Is it the fact that there are only isolated, rare incidents, as the minister asserts, or is it, as one in five teachers are saying, that they have been assaulted in a unit and that there are many hundreds of these incidents occurring every quarter? These are not isolated incidents, and to try and suggest that these are isolated, and are the result of the pandemic, is disingenuous. It is disingenuous and it is disrespectful to the union, but, more importantly, to our frontline teachers, who are out there working passionately, as hard as they can every day, to try and teach kids in an under-resourced environment. They are working in an environment, where, sadly, unions are saying teachers do not have enough resources and they are not being listened to by this government.
Yesterday the minister came in here and said, “This is all to do with COVID. Haven’t you been listening for the last two and a half years? Haven’t you been paying attention?” Well, it is not because of COVID that a principal was thrown across their desk. Where has the minister been for the last two and a half years, or the five years that she has been a minister? COVID was not the cause of teachers being screamed at and abused. It was not COVID that caused a teacher to hide, terrified, in a cupboard. It was not COVID that resulted in mobs of kids marauding through a school. It was not COVID that caused fires to be lit or so many drugs or weapons to be brought into the school. In many ways, the cause of it is the minister failing to listen when these concerns were raised repeatedly to her. Those concerns have been ignored.
This is a pretty straightforward motion. I hope it gets support because I am not sure, when I look at the “calls on”, that there is anything that this government or the Greens would not support. Firstly, the ROGS report makes it clear that there has been a 3.3 per cent cut in real terms over the reporting period of the decade. I am saying to the government, “Stop doing that.” I am calling on the government to stop cutting funding in real terms, because that is what it has been doing. The ROGS makes that abundantly clear. If the government does not support my motion, then I guess the answer is that they are going to continue making those cuts. Surely not!
Secondly—and again we are trying to get a straight answer on this, and I know the unions are trying to get a straight answer on this—what is the number of teachers that we need in the ACT? Where are they required, and over what time frame? Tell us what that is. The minister should have that information at her fingertips. Where is it? How many teachers do we need right now in the ACT and what is the plan over the next three or four years in terms of the number of teachers you need to fill vacancies and any growth in schools? Where is that information? It is inconceivable that this government would not know that. If the government does not know that then possibly that is part of the answer—a bit of a clue—as to why there is such a crisis in our school system at the moment.
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