Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1931 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The union is already making the productivity improvements, Minister. The P and C Council's media release is mainly directed at you. It continues, dealing with the involvement of parents in the current dispute:

... the Government is seeking Union commitment to such things as implementation of school based management and development of new curriculum reporting processes. It would be unacceptable for parents to be locked out of decisions on these issues.

It talks about teachers, parents, students and the Government as partners in education and - something I disagree with - it urges you to go to arbitration. I do not mind whether you go to arbitration or not. If you go to arbitration, no matter what is the outcome of that, if it assists you to settle the dispute, I think that is great. But I am saying to you that, if you have not settled it by the time the education budget vote comes in here, I will not be supporting the vote on the education line in the budget. That is my position, and I do not intend to move from it.

Built into this whole issue is the way this Minister and the Chief Minister deal with education, which is to create a whole series of misperceptions. It is done quite deliberately. They say that our teachers are the highest paid in Australia. That is constantly reiterated by both the Minister and the Chief Minister. ACT teachers are only marginally better off than government teachers in New South Wales, who have a 24 per cent pay claim in. We already know that private school teachers in New South Wales - for example, teachers in the Christian Brothers schools - if my memory serves me correctly, have been granted, as of 1 June, a pay rise of about 6 per cent, which makes them more highly paid than teachers in the Australian Capital Territory. That is just one example. By the way, there are others. Certainly, there are other examples within the Australian Capital Territory of where non-government teachers are paid more than government teachers.

Mrs Carnell creates the perception that ACT teachers are going for double what the other unions have got. They are not. If she says that in this house, we will see how long she lasts. It is not true. What did nurses get? They got 11 per cent. If she is saying that teachers are seeking double the budget funding component, then she might actually be telling the truth. But that is simply not the case. The maximum proposal, on my understanding, is for a 12 per cent pay rise over two years for teachers, which simply restores teachers' salary levels, on a comparative basis, to the levels of January 1995. Mrs Carnell says that teachers can have their pay rise by trading off pupil-free days and doing professional development in their holidays. I dealt with that earlier. That accounts for a couple of per cent, at the most. Yet Mrs Carnell creates the perception in the community that that is all that is needed in order for the teachers to be able to lift their bans and get the pay rises they seek. It is not true. She creates the perception that this will cost the community $12m. That is simply not the case. It might cost $12m overall. If you did a full examination of the nurses' costs, you probably would find a similar figure. I do not know what those figures are. But you have already offered 7.1 per cent, which is approximately $9m. So a fully funded 10 per cent would probably cost about $12m altogether. What you are talking about is the difference between what you have offered and what the teachers seek, which is something like $3m to $3.5m. (Extension of time granted)

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .