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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2845 ..

Mr Stefaniak: That's how much money we had.

MS GALLAGHER: Right, yes. I think that's a very convenient argument, Mr Stefaniak, very convenient.

Mr Stefaniak: It's a good one.

MS GALLAGHER: Yes, that's right. It's probably more about priorities than money available. The Liberals were delivering to public sector workers around a 1.6 per cent increase per annum. How disgraceful is that! With CPI running around 3 per cent you were delivering about 1.6. When you double that for the teachers and they get a miserly 3 per cent-

Mr Stefaniak: 11.5 divided by 3. Double it for the teachers. Keep going, keep going. No, that's good.

MS GALLAGHER: Well, you did; you doubled it for the teachers.

Mr Stefaniak: Your maths might almost be right. Keep going.

MS GALLAGHER: You doubled it for the teachers. Other public sector workers were getting about 5 per cent over three years, and you were giving teachers about 12 per cent.

Mr Stefaniak: Because we realised how valuable they were, didn't we?

MS GALLAGHER: How outrageous. By suppressing wages, by suppressing real wage outcomes, you were recognising the value of teachers!

Mr Stefaniak: We think they are valuable.

MS GALLAGHER: Well, I think the AEU and some of the teachers have a bit of a different slant on that history. But, anyway, there we go.

Let's talk about where we're up to now. We're in the situation, with this ridiculous clause, that we're in a dispute with the AEU. We have offered 41/2 per cent average across the classification scale, which is more than any state or territory government has offered up front to teachers, which is 11/2 per cent more than you guys were delivering over an annual period. We have not said that that wage increase is over a year; nor is it over the three years. That is the initial offer once we negotiate this agreement. We have a further three years of this agreement to negotiate after that, so that's the initial offer.

It delivers wage outcomes of 31/2 per cent up to 8.7 per cent across the classification scale. This is in conjunction with the 3 per cent that was received in July. So it's not 31/2 per cent over a year, nor is it 41/2 per cent over a year; it weights the wage increases at the upper end of the teacher level 1 category; it raises the casual rates-another tremendous legacy of your government was that you made casual teachers at least that proportion behind New South Wales rates.

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