http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/10/06/101575_tasmania-news.html
Ha! … nothing unexpected from the government here… but what an irony that the Australian Education Union’s president Leanne Wright has chosen to criticise the government for inaccurate numbers and inadequate systems!
The Tasmanian branch of the AEU is notorious for having no capacity to keep accurate membership records!
Despite collecting some $3.5 million in membership fees each year, the AEU cannot apparently manage this rudimentary tool to keep track of a few more than 5000 members. Membership figures (which are it seems in significant part fictional ) are used by the union to claim that 95% of teachers are AEU members. This is an entirely self serving statistic – it has no impact on government policy or action, but it is one of the key performance indicators for Ms Wright’s partner in mediocrity – the $120,000 a year state manager Chris Lane.
Silly Ms Wright. In seeking a bit of face recognition for her upcoming attempt to be re-elected to her $130,000 (plus clothing allowance) per year job, she has exposed one of the failings of her first term.
Another more glaring and perhaps more significant failing of her first term is of course that the AEU under her leadership has had absolutely no impact on the restructure of the Colleges and TAFE – College and TAFE members have been left to take on that fight themselves.
But to be fair, Wright wasn’t the AEU president when the restructure was announced – she was the AEU’s secondary colleges organiser and was obviously very busy campaigning for the top job.
What Wright has managed to do is preside over an increasingly dysfunctional, divided and ineffective union. A damning indictment of her first (and hopefully last) term. Which is why her position will be keenly contested in the AEU’s state elections. We will watch with interest as her electoral self promotion campaign unfolds.
Clavis Aurea
