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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1929 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

I also mention something I mentioned to Mr Haggar and members of his union when I last saw them. Teachers say that their salaries have dropped in real terms. The figure Clive Haggar uses is 25 per cent over 20 years. Sadly, a lot of other jobs and professions in Australia have also suffered significant losses in real terms. That is an unfortunate fact of life in Australia. Indeed, I mentioned to Mr Haggar that it now takes 1.6 people to earn the same income as it took one person to earn back in 1970. That is a fairly sad reflection on the way our economy has gone. It reinforces the fact that we live in difficult financial times. Every other union has come to the party. Although the AEU knocked back the first offer which Mr Moore was involved in because of solidarity with the movement, they are now the only ones who have not accepted an agreement with the Government. That is certainly having a bad effect on our children. I would urge members to reject Mr Berry's motion and vote for the amendment.

MR MOORE (4.15): Mr Speaker, I will be speaking to both the amendment and the motion. The very sad part about the Minister's speech was that it showed again and again that this Minister just does not understand why teachers are keeping their bans in place and why they refuse to accept the Government's offer. Mr Stefaniak has said that the teachers can have a pay rise. Indeed, Mrs Carnell has said that they can have as much as they want, provided that it comes from productivity gains and provided that it comes out of the education budget. Mrs Carnell acknowledges that at the moment. So, why do the teachers not say, "Right; we are going to take 20 per cent and catch up to where we were back in 1970."? In fact, it will have to be a bit more than 20 per cent; it will have to be closer to 25 per cent. The reason why they do not say that is very simple, Mr Speaker. They know that there is only one way to achieve that, and that is to have fewer teachers, which means bigger class sizes.

Mrs Carnell: It is not even on the agenda.

MR MOORE: Once again Mrs Carnell shakes her head and says, "No, that is not true. There are other things". She says again and again, "They can find productivity gains. They can give away pupil-free days. They can do their professional development in the holidays". Yes, Mrs Carnell, they are going to do that. They are happy to leave that on the table. They have agreed to do that. That comes to about 2 per cent. They can find productivity gains of about 2 per cent. It may well be that they can even find productivity gains of 3 per cent. To do that they may be prepared to do a whole range of other things. One of the options they have, instead of just cutting class sizes, is to say, "All right; we will work for the whole time we are in the school. We will not have any preparation hours or marking hours". How is that going to benefit pupils? It is not going to benefit them at all. So, what are the productivity outcomes going to be as far as the kids are concerned? The productivity outcomes as far as the kids are concerned, Minister - if you could only get this through your head - are going to be that they miss out. Teachers will not take the pay rise that other unions have taken and they will not go for the productivity gains that other unions have gone for because it is going to have a much worse effect on the kids than these bans. It is the only way they have to make you listen, short of going on an indefinite strike. That would make you listen. If they went on an indefinite strike, during the first week people would be very cross at them. But see how quickly parents who are trying to manage their kids, including many people in this chamber, would be getting cross at you in those circumstances.

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