You will have received a letter recently from Tasmanian Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff outlining his budget cuts and broken promises to parents on Gonski.
These cuts will deny our children the educational resources they need to reach their full potential and you have every right to feel angry and betrayed.
I want to first make clear that the AEU is determined not to let Premier Will Hodgman break his election promise to fund schools according to need and to deliver on his personally signed pledge to implement, in full, the Tasmanian Gonski Agreement.
We will not let our children be the victims of a Premier who finds it inconvenient to keep his election promises. The impact of these cuts and broken promises on student learning is simply unacceptable. I know, as a former Principal, that our schools and colleges cannot afford to lose a single educator or educational program.
You may remember Premier Will Hodgman personally signed the AEU’s Gonski pledge ahead of the last state election. The pledge committed him to, among other things, increase, not cut, funding to schools and deliver funding according to need. Using Gonski money to plug his budget hole is a serious breach of that pledge.
The Premier said during the election that his “word is his bond”. There were no ifs, no buts, and no excuses. Mr Hodgman did not say supporting Gonski was contingent on sacking teachers or freezing wages.
Mr Hodgman went further and said: “Unlike Labor and the Greens, we won’t sack nurses, teachers or police. We’ll prioritise essential frontline services over other, less essential areas of Government.” (The Liberals’ Future Directions 3, pg. 5)
Budgets are about priorities. The Government decided to spend more than $400 million on election promises and now public education is paying the price as they sack teachers, increase class sizes, cut funding and programs. Mr Hodgman and Mr Rockliff’s support of Gonski is now nonsensical as they take out of schools more money than they put in and are sacking almost 400 frontline educators during their first term in government.
Sadly, Mr Rockliff and his Government are laying the blame at everyone else’s door for their broken election promises – educators, the AEU, the Legislative Council, and the Industrial Commission. The Government is using the debate around a wage freeze as a smokescreen for its broken promises and budget cuts in education.
For the record, teachers in public education were always willing to accept a wage freeze but only through negotiation and only in return for iron-clad guarantees on protecting jobs in schools. We were never given the opportunity to negotiate and they instead issued an ultimatum. The Government’s ultimatum did not commit them to protecting a single job – “best endeavours” to protect jobs were the exact words.
Mr Hodgman has broken a promise and solemn pledge to all parents in Tasmania who care about their children’s education and his Government must be held to account.
It is for this reason that the AEU is joining public sector union Stop Work Action on Thursday 27 November 2014, from 8.30am to 10.30am. We know this will cause temporary inconvenience but we are fighting against deep cuts that mean barriers to Tasmanian children reaching their full potential will remain. These cuts will have long-lasting and damaging consequences for this and future generations of students.
Premier Will Hodgman must be held to account for his broken promises on education and we must work together. Here are some ways you can help.
• Find out how the budget cuts will impact your school. How many fewer educators (teachers, teacher assistants etc.) will your school/college have? Which programs (e.g. music, specialist support) will be cancelled? Email this information to the AEU [email protected]
• Email Premier Will Hodgman ([email protected]) and ask that he stop the cuts to your school.
• Visit your local state politician and tell them what the cuts mean to your school
• Support the educators in your school when they take Stop Work Action on the morning of Thursday 27 November 2014.
Yours sincerely,
Terry Polglase
All the detail on the stopwork meetings
Terry Polglase, AEU Tasmanian Branch President.
