Premier Carr’s exit ends an era

By Maree O’Halloran

The resignation of Bob Carr as Premier after 10 years, as well as that of Deputy Premier, Treasurer and former Education Minister Andrew Refshauge, changes the landscape of the body politic in NSW and provides Federation with new opportunities to pursue policy.

Federation must ensure that public education, including TAFE, remains an electoral priority for the new Premier, Morris Iemma. Public education is the institution that allows Australians to embrace multiculturalism while maintaining social cohesion.

As the self styled "Education Premier", Bob Carr controlled the education portfolio to such an extent that Ministers and Directors-General exercised virtually none of their decision-making capacity without reference to the Premier's office.

Media manipulation may well be the outgoing Premier's greatest strength and yet his government will be remembered as primarily media-driven with no long term plan for the future of public education. The Vinson plan, appropriated by the State Government for the 2003 election, has been eschewed post the election.

In recent months the Daily Telegraph, in particular, appears to have hounded and herded the State Government to adopt the Daily Telegraph's own brand of education policy. For example, apparently at the direction of the Premier's office, the Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt banned a Personal Development/Health/Physical Education lesson after a Daily Telegraph front page. The ridiculous and demeaning ban was on a lesson developed with Department of Education and Training (DET) curriculum "seed" money to support Board of Studies syllabuses.

Driven once again by media frenzy to produce "league" tables of schools, in late June the former Premier and the Minister announced that NSW annual school reports would describe mass test data graphically and in detail.

Advised that Federation had an award about annual school reports, Bob Carr announced that he would legislate to over-ride either the award or the finding of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. These statements were made deliberately during the union movement's National Week of Action against the Howard Federal Government's proposed industrial relations changes, which include award stripping.

The former Premier's best policy decisions in the education portfolio have been the ones based on the advice of parents, principals and teachers in public education. Most memorable of these were:

1. The class size reduction program announced in 2003 to be fully implemented by 2007.
2. Restoring the teacher positions stripped away from public schools by the Greiner/Metherell Coalition government.
It is no secret that Federation has had many policy debates and arguments with the Premier over the past 10 years, some of which have resulted in industrial action. Those arguments have often been provoked by the Federation's desire to see increased funding for public education.

Bob Carr's departure now exposes the vulnerability of NSW Labor. The machinations surrounding the leadership succession have been murky. Despite a 17 seat majority, the Unsworth experience shows Labor that an election victory is not assured.

Salaries negotiations with the NSW Labor Government under Bob Carr's leadership have been particularly fraught. In the 1999/2000 campaign, teachers received via the internet the infamous DET draft award that sought to strip away conditions. In 2004, Bob Carr, in a legally and politically unprecedented move, reopened the public education teachers' salaries case in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. Simultaneously the Premier issued a media release warning the Industrial Relations Commission not to significantly increase wages.

Negotiations for the 2006 salaries award began on July 29, after Bob Carr announced his resignation. The negotiations were suspended to allow DET officials to seek new instructions from the incoming Premier. Premier Iemma will clearly need to consider his own 4.1 per cent increase in July and recent public sector settlements as well as the importance of 2006 in the electoral cycle. Negotiations resume on August 12.

In the week preceding his resignation, Bob Carr signed two letters critical to the course of the campaign against the industrial relations changes proposed by the Federal Government. The first, sent to all State Government employees except, curiously, for those employed by the DET, amounts to a guarantee that the State Government will protect its employees' working conditions. The second in similar terms was sent to Unions NSW. Addressing that body on July 28, Bob Carr gave assurances that the letters would be honoured by the State Government. Teachers' salary negotiations will be the first test of that commitment.

State Opposition leader John Brogden has clearly, and in contrast to other state Coalition leaders, determined to support the Federal Government's industrial changes. He will cede all industrial relations power to the Commonwealth. Thus industrial relations will be a major issue at both the state and federal 2007 elections.

The union movement's industrial relations campaign is demonstrating to the Australian public that industrial and legal rights at work are a valuable and fundamental part of Australia's democracy. The preparedness of the union movement to fight this campaign over a long period is already attracting renewed union membership. Unions will grow stronger throughout this campaign.

From March to July the union movement has conducted a very successful education strategy involving community campaigning, media advertising and industrial action. On July 5 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Howard Government's popularity had plummeted to its lowest level since taking office in 1996.

Congratulations to all Federation members who have been involved in the campaign including attendance at the Unions NSW Sky Channel in July 1.

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August 2005 contents