Today (Monday) the AEU Executive passed a motion that a political and industrial campaign be planned to address the issues of teacher salaries and the unpaid stand-down of Teacher Aides.
Executive expressed its frustration and increasing anger at the failure of the Department of Education and Government to adequately and appropriately address and respond to the issues raised by the Union in its Logs of Claims lodged as early as August 2010.
“Prior to the state election the Union sought and gained commitments from the Government to maintain salary relativity for teachers and to improve the stand down situation for Teacher Aides. The Government now appears to be trying to back out of those commitments”, said Ms Wright, President of the Australian Education Union.
“As a result the AEU will plan a campaign to address these matters. The Tasmania Tomorrow issue will look like a picnic in comparison to what can be expected from the Union if the Government does not deliver on its commitments.
“These issues are of significant concern to our members and I anticipate they would be prepared to take action if needs be.”
Officers of the Union will meet this week to begin planning the campaign.
Background …
HANSARD
EDUCATION – WAGE NEXUS FOR TASMANIAN TEACHERS
[10.38 a.m.]
Mr FERGUSON (Question) – Mr Speaker, my question today in the absence of the minister is to the Premier in regard to a pre-election commitment given by the ex-Premier on 12 February. Premier, I refer you to the promise in writing to Ms Leanne Wright of the Australian Education Union, on 12 February, when the former Labor Leader wrote, ‘Labor gives a firm commitment to maintaining wage relativity with other States in a future wage agreement.’ Premier, will you confirm that as a consequence of Labor’s and the Greens’ poor financial management, the Government will in fact now break its pre-election promise to provide a wage nexus for Tasmania’s teachers –
Mr Bartlett – That is not a nexus; that is incorrect.
Mr FERGUSON – and that, as a result, Tasmanians will become the lowest-paid teachers in the nation?
Mr Bartlett – You used the word, nexus, which we never committed to.
Mr Ferguson – I quoted your letter.
Mr Bartlett – In fact, we are the party that did not.
Mr SPEAKER – Order, order! The member for Bass has asked his question, he should now sit in silence. The Attorney-General should do likewise and enable the Premier to respond.
Ms GIDDINGS-Thank you, Mr Speaker for that ruling. This just reminds me of some of the misinformation and the deliberate misleading of the Parliament that we see from the Liberal Opposition. In fact, we saw it again yesterday in the carbon price debate where we had the member for Denison quoting figures from the CPRS.
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER – Order.
Mr ROCKLIFF – Point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask that you enforce standing order 192, concerning relevance.
Mr SPEAKER – It is pretty difficult here because it depends who is asking and who is answering because we had a point of order taken by the Government in relation to the Leader of the Opposition asking a question earlier. I uphold the ruling I have always made – that I believe that the Opposition should have a fair run in asking their questions and therefore the Government should have a fair run in answering them. You cannot have your cake and eat it too; you have to accept that the ruling is intended to help everybody, and so therefore I do not uphold your point of order. A lot of latitude is given in asking the question and because the questions are so broadly-based, obviously ministers should have the same latitude in response in order to answer in a manner they see fit.
Ms GIDDINGS-Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is very relevant because it goes to the heart of the dishonesty that we continually see from the Liberal Opposition.
MrHodgman – It is dishonest, you are right. This letter was dishonest.
Mr SPEAKER – Order.
Ms GIDDINGS-Another example was during the carbon price debate yesterday when the Opposition –
Mr ROCKLIFF – Point of order, Mr Speaker. I direct you to standing order 102, digression from subject.
Government members laughing.
Mr SPEAKER – I merely ask you to read the Hansard of the questions that have been asked both today and previously and certainly earlier today when the Leader of Government Business took a point of order in relation to the question that was being asked. I just ask people to be mindful of the time; we have a lot more questions to go and that I intend to stick to the ruling that I have always adhered to, that is to give each side a fair go. Referring to some other debate in responding to an answer is quite in order. As the Leader of the Opposition took quite a long time to ask a question that went across a whole range of political areas, I will give the same opportunity to the Premier in her reply.
Ms GIDDINGS-Thank you, Mr Speaker. Third time lucky, Mr Speaker. The sensitivity, the glass jaw, that we see on the other side of the House when we get an opportunity to set the record straight and say the dishonesty that we saw yesterday in a debate in this House bringing in evidence from a separate debate on a totally different matter, Mr Speaker –
Mr Hodgman – It’s not true, Premier.
Mr Bartlett – Does it mention nexus? It doesn’t mention nexus, does it.
Mr SPEAKER – Order. I caution the Attorney-General. As I said, both sides have to play to the rules and not just try to change them every time something arises that they feel may disadvantage them. I ask the Attorney to stop his continual interjections.
Ms GIDDINGS-Mr Speaker, yesterday they were claiming that modelling done on a totally different scheme – the CPRS – was somehow relevant to a totally new debate on a carbon tax versus an ETS scheme. Now we have the same sort of thing again today. This is irrelevance, Mr Speaker. Here we have further dishonesty today and this time by his mate, the man sitting right next to him.
Opposition members laughing.
Ms GIDDINGS – The member for Bass does not have a mate, I am informed from behind me, but anyway that is a little cruel and I do not want to go there.
Mr Speaker, the reality is that we never promised a nexus and I was part of those discussions in the lead-up to the last election when we were under a lot of pressure to sign up to nexus. That is the easiest most populist position you could take in the lead-up to an election. We did not sign up to a nexus, but you did.
Mr FERGUSON – Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table the letter of 12 February –
Mr SPEAKER – The honourable member can seek leave to do that after question time. He cannot get up in the middle of an answer to a question that he himself has asked and suddenly hold up the whole of Parliament to try to table something.
Mr Ferguson – I just thought she needed it.
Ms GIDDINGS-Thank you, Mr Speaker. We did not make the mistake of the Liberal Opposition. We were very certain in not committing –
Mr Ferguson – She’s not to know about the ex-Premier’s letter.
Mr SPEAKER – Order. I caution the member for Bass, Mr Ferguson.
Ms GIDDINGS- Thank you, Mr Speaker. We were very cautious and withstood the pressure to actually succumb to signing up to a nexus. We did talk about pay –
Ms O’BYRNE – Point of order, Mr Speaker. After cautioning the member for Bass he immediately interjected again and therefore he has persistently and wilfully disregarded your authority.
Mr SPEAKER – Some of those people who seek to assist me are sometimes not as helpful as they think they might be. I will control the debate.
Members laughing.
Ms GIDDINGS-As this debate has now gone on for some time, I am going to be very succinct and formally say that we did not promise a nexus. We did say that we would look at pay relativity, which is what we do in all negotiations across the public service. We are entering into negotiations with teachers and others across the public service. Those negotiations have just started or are about to start and I am not going to pre-empt them.
We do have a financial problem in this State and we all have to do our bit to rein in spending. This is a critical time for us if we are to avoid harsher cuts that will hurt Tasmanians and public servants even more. We are in a different climate from the past when we were negotiating agreements. We will have those discussions with the representatives of our public servants, whoever they may be, and try to conclude reasonable negotiations through a very tough financial period.
