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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 48 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I see the failure of these negotiations in two major ways - firstly, on behalf of the unions, and, secondly, on behalf of the Government. The failure I see on behalf of the unions is that they decided to insist on a block negotiation seeking a 9 per cent increase. They were not willing to separate and negotiate individually. As far as the Government goes, I think almost exactly the same accusation applies. In the case of the Carnell Government, they want to apply a single system right across the government sector and say, "That is how we are going to negotiate", basing all the salary increments that union members, their employees, might gain on productivity. Unfortunately, they base that just on financial productivity, instead of looking at the outcomes they would get in terms of what the service is that they are talking about and what it delivers. This is particularly true in the case of nurses and teachers. Where they have an enterprise bargaining system, where productivity gains can be returned to their workers, there is a whole series of areas where I think that makes very good sense. It does not make good sense in terms of education. It does not make good sense in terms of health.

While you can apply these same arguments to health, because of the limitations on time I will talk primarily about education. We have a situation where one of the few choices left for teachers to gain productivity at this point in time is for them to reduce the number of teachers. By implication, that increases the class sizes. In the initial instance they may be able to find a couple of other productivities, and most of us would say, "Fine; if they can find other productivities that is how they should work". But in this instance we can see that, in order for teachers to get a reasonable pay rise even to remain with the CPI, let alone to catch up the 25 per cent wage loss they have suffered on a comparative basis over the last 20 years, what it means is that class sizes will increase because there will be fewer teachers.

Even if that happens in only a small way this time around, once the system is established and we seek productivity in the next round, what happens? The only choice they will have is for class sizes to increase, perhaps to 35 this time, perhaps to 40 next time. Where does it end? We will have teachers paid $60,000 or $70,000 and teaching classes of 60. You really must ask the question: Where does it go in terms of its logical conclusions? Is that of great benefit to the community? It is not, because, quite clearly, large class sizes are going to mean a drop in the quality of education, particularly for those who are having the most trouble. I was in this situation myself as a teacher some years ago in Canada, where I was teaching a class of 45 students at Year 11 level. It can be done, but the students drop off at the end. You simply do not have enough time to reach those students who are having the most trouble and give them the help they need. The brightest students are likely to cruise through anyway, although in a smaller class they would also be able to be challenged much more effectively.

What we should see is a situation from both the Carnell Government and the unions where they look individually at particular situations, where they can apply the enterprise bargaining system, the trade-off for productivity, across a whole range of areas, but being careful to look at outcomes in other areas, particularly in health and education. After all, priority one of the role of government is service delivery, particularly if you are looking at it in terms of local government, which is a cliche we hear from the Carnell Government on many occasions - service delivery particularly when we take a long-term view of those fundamental issues of education and health.

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