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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2843 ..

MR PRATT: Just explain it to the teachers and explain it to the community. Don't waste my time, Mr Corbell. Where else are they going to spend their increased revenues? Are they going to waste additional revenues on unnecessary, new, knee-jerk, reactive expenditures relevant to the McLeod inquiry, for example? It is time for a cool head on the part of this government and fiscal discipline focused on core programs, and education is a core activity currently neglected.

Mr Speaker, our teachers are well underpaid, and the government must do the best possible to rectify that. Other jurisdictions are paying much more for teachers, and we are losing good teachers. The bleeding continues. The government has dragged the chain on negotiations for months. This has only exacerbated the problem and increased the risk of the loss of good teachers and now, quite likely, strike action. The government, by its failure to act and its failure to be fair, has now put education into jeopardy.

If we now go into a season of strikes, disruption and unhappiness within the ranks of our teachers and our children, be it on the head of the Labor government. I call upon the Labor government to match the New South Wales benchmark for teacher payments, now and in the foreseeable future.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (8.06): Well, I don't know where to begin with this because I don't think Mr Pratt has made one correct statement in this whole speech. I feel I have to take on a bit of a story, Steve, about why we're at the situation we're at now.

Mr Pratt: Just explain why you're letting down the teachers.

MS GALLAGHER: I will, Steve. I didn't interject on you, so let's just move on. Let's have a look at this. This is industrial relations AO1. The current agreement says that the parties must agree on first instalment offer prior to negotiating the rest of the agreement. You said, "What is the government hiding? Why don't you put the whole offer on the table?"It's probably because we'd be in breach of the agreement, Steve, and we'd be in the commission.

Let's look at the other reason why we're negotiating a first instalment agreement, and my understanding is-and this is how history's been relayed to me-

Mr Pratt: Why is it so low?

MS GALLAGHER: The history that is being relayed to me is that, at the last minute, because of the atrocious wage outcomes that your party in government was delivering to public sector workers, Kate Carnell agreed to a clause in the agreement which-

Mr Pratt: That's your story, Ms Gallagher.

MS GALLAGHER: No, it's not only my story, Steve. I wasn't here at the time. Mrs Carnell agreed to a clause in the agreement, directly in negotiations with the union, that said, "We will agree on a first instalment pay offer prior to this agreement

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