· Academy chief’s comments bring into doubt the Premier’s claim that there was a 95 per cent retention rate in Term 3 of the new PY10 system

· Premier refuses to release the evidence to support his claims, which are at odds with what teachers are telling us

· What has the Premier got to hide?

There are fresh doubts today over the truth of the Premier’s claims that there has been a retention rate of 95% into Term Three in the new Polytechnic and Academy.

Academy chief Mike Brakey is quoted today as saying that that 95 per cent of students who attended in March this year were still there on July 25.

That does not equate to a retention rate of 95% into Term 3 – which clearly begins well after July.

Did Mr Bartlett mislead Parliament in a desperate attempt to show that the new system was a success?

In Parliament today, the Premier again failed to release the evidence on which he bases his claims that there is 95 per cent retention into Term 3, which is totally at odds with what teachers and staff are telling us. Rather than a 95 per cent retention rate, I am hearing from many teachers that some Polytechnic classes are running at only 30 per cent capacity.

He also again refused to guarantee that the figures he was using were current active enrolments.

Why won’t he just release the raw data and definitions of what it does and does not include? What is he trying to hide?

The Premier also again refused to initiate a full independent audit of current active (i.e. attending) enrolments, so that we can have full confidence in the data before anyone even considers transferring remaining Colleges to the new system.

This is simply not good enough. The Tasmania Tomorrow system is in crisis and it is well and truly time that the Premier demonstrated some genuine leadership to get the system back on track as soon as possible.

Instead, for three days of Parliament, he has ducked answering questions.

And if the Premier has used unreliable data to save his own political skin and misled Parliament – and the Tasmanian community – he must apologise and take the first opportunity to correct the record.

This is not the type of leadership that Tasmania needs or deserves.
Sue Napier MP Shadow Minister for Education