Federal ‘intrusion’, but resources remain inadequate

By Kerri Carr

The Federal Government has mandated an unprecedented level of intrusion into schools across Australia, but won't take more responsibility for providing public education with the resources it needs, Australian Education Union Federal president Pat Byrne told Annual Conference.

Ms Byrne said the Schools Assistance (Learning Together through Choice and Opportunity) Bill tied funding to "blatant interference into state employment matters".

"The requirement for a greater level of autonomy for school principals, for example, specifies that the state is required to 'give the principal and governing body of each government school in the state strengthened autonomy over, and responsibility for, education programs, staffing, budget and other aspects of the school's operations'. Further, the state must commit to require appointments of staff in government schools to be made with the approval of the principal, or the governing body," Ms Byrne said.

"While the Federal Minister gets more power to intervene in the affairs of state public education systems using the funding package as threat, he will not take any more responsibility for providing public education with the resources it needs," Ms Byrne said.

She said the political hoo-ha which has been attached to the Bill's process has been a case of "a Coalition Federal Government -- in an election year -- to portray itself as having to rescue education from the ineptitude of state and territory Labor governments which have allowed education standards to deteriorate and confusion to reign".

"To secure victory for public education, we must defeat the Howard Government," Ms Byrne said.

"We have extracted commitments from all opposition parties to making public education a national priority.

"We must continue to push them towards an early putting of their commitments into practice and public declaration of their specific policies so that the electorate clearly understands its options.

"At the same time we must sway the votes in the marginal seats."

"Each of you has a role to play to influence the outcome/to sway the vote, whether it is talking to the parents at your school or to your own families and friends," Ms Byrne said.

"Whether it is assisting electorate workers to lobby elected representatives or to galvanise local community groups, whether it is volunteering to help organisations with membership phone-arounds or to be a guest speaker at a local function."

Ms Byrne said the National Lobby Day on June 21 "showed that we have a core of competent community activists".

"We need to build on the work done in Canberra and leading up to it, through a variety of means, electorate committee work with parent and community groups, local radio and newspaper advertising in targeted seats, link with other unions through the ACTU to provide them with good quality information for their members to distribute, continue to make use of free media opportunities to highlight stories about fair funding and to use the State of Our Schools survey results and the Charter for Public Education to argue in a constructive way for more resources in our public schools and colleges," Ms Byrne said.

We have already achieved a lot," she said.

"We can shift things further. We can get rid of this government which is the first step in reclaiming Australia as the fair and just society that we want it to be."

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005