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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

The teacher shortage across Australia has led public school educators to feel burnt out, undervalued and, in many cases, to quit altogether.

In New South Wales, a plan to turn the state’s teacher workforce from the least to the highest paid in the country, helped Labor win their state election this year.

But months after entering into pay negotiations and all but signing off a historic deal, the NSW government has been accused of reneging, breaking a core election promise, and severely wounding a relationship between Labor and the teacher’s union.

So, what went wrong?

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper and public schools advocate Jane Caro, on how teachers keep being let down in Australia.

It’s Tuesday, August 15.

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ANGE:

Jane, you've been a passionate advocate for public schooling for a long time. When you look at what's happening around the country, with pay and conditions for teachers in the public system, have you ever seen anything like what's happening at the moment?

JANE:

No, it's never been this bad before. And it's not just about pay and conditions for teachers, although that's really important. It's also about the chronic underfunding of every single public school. Well, 98% of them, in Australia. So 98% of public schools are not funded to their agreed resource, School Resource Standards. So they don't have enough money to do their job properly already. And then, with the pay… that increases the workload of teachers. Obviously they have to do more to fill that gap in funding. So that starts to burn teachers out. So some of them leave. So then the pay and conditions aren't keeping up with the level of work that's expected, to the effort that has to be put in. And so, it just continues to spiral downwards. So everything feeds into itself. The lack of basic funding for the schools themselves and, therefore, the lack of proper pay and proper conditions. Schools are crumbling. And of course, New South Wales has dropped the furthest behind, in terms of pay, because of the Coalition government's pernicious 2.5% public sector pay cap, which has meant that private school teachers now earn more than public school teachers. So of course, that means the private schools can start poaching teachers from the public schools. It also means other states can start poaching teachers from New South Wales public schools. So we have created our own nemesis. Government funding has created its own nemesis, and anyone with half a brain could’ve worked out it was going to happen.

ANGE:

And Jane, you mentioned New South Wales there was having a particularly bad problem with teachers, and keeping teachers in the profession, and having a lot of burnout among teachers. Can you talk to me about how New South Wales has approached this issue in the past year? We've seen a change of government in that state. What was happening around this time last year in the state, to try to solve this issue?

JANE:

Virtually nothing was happening this time last year to try and solve the issue. The Coalition appeared to be perfectly happy and had been for a decade, at least, to bleed the New South Wales public school system dry.

There were marches and demonstrations. I attended a few of them.

Archival tape - [Protesters cheering]

JANE:

And the level of anger, the sense of betrayal, the sense that they were being taken advantage of and unappreciated and manipulated, was huge.

Archival tape - [Protesters cheering]

JANE:

I knew that, you know, something was going to explode.

Archival tape – Chris Minns:

“Chris Minns here, NSW Labor leader… First thing I want to mention is the state of public education in NSW, in particular the teacher shortages, right across…”

JANE:

Minns came in with rhetoric, which sounded fantastic. He was going to abolish the cap, he made that promise. He was going to start negotiations on teachers pay right from the get go.

Archival tape – Chris Minns:

“We are unable to retain or attract enough teachers to meet the demand, to teach our kids, to focus on the future, and deliver world class education in New South Wales.”

JANE:

And he sounded believable because, you know, he said his father was a teacher. He really got, you know, what it was like to be a teacher. He was very good at appealing to teachers' emotions.

They started to support Minns at the ballot box. They turned up at polling booths. They actively worked to get a Labor government in, because they were so out of patience.

Archival tape – Chris Minns:

“Friends. After 12 years in opposition, the people of New South Wales have voted for a fresh start. Friends, they voted for our nurses, our teachers.”

JANE:

When he won, things looked good. Again, there was a lot of positive talk, a lot of reinforcement of the importance of teaching and how valuable teachers were. And this was all sounding great. And in fact, Angelo Gavrielatos, head of the Teachers Federation, Minns fulfilled his promise. He said, we will start negotiations straight away. That's exactly what happened. The department, and Angelo and the Teachers Federation, started negotiating a deal and by the end of my end of May, I'm told by the Teachers Federation, they thought they had a fantastic deal done, dusted and agreed. They were delighted.

ANGE:

Okay so, the deal has been negotiated. Jane, can you tell me what that deal looked like, and why teachers were so delighted about it?

JANE:

Well, it was, it was a good deal. That's why they were so happy, because it would have meant that New South Wales teachers were the best paid teachers in Australia, the highest paid teachers in Australia. So you can see how that would immediately stop the attrition of teachers, certainly in to other states, why it would start to attract new graduates, and might also bring teachers who've left back into the profession again, and back into public schools. The deal was a 12% pay rise for beginning teachers. Then the top of the scale teachers were going to get an 8% increase. Because one of the problems with teaching is, the initial pay isn't terrible, in terms of competitive with other, you know, professions. But it flattens out and it doesn't go anywhere. There was also some other elements to the deal, such as reducing workloads. Part of it was returning to transfer rights so that, to attract teachers to harder to staff schools, like rural and remote areas, for example, they would get rights which would then give them choice of school. So, that was the basic deal.

So they thought that everything was terrific and the Teachers Federation were thrilled, really excited to announce it to their membership. Which was going to be the Teachers Federation annual conference on July the second, with the minister and secretary there, they were going to sign the deal.

And then, it all started to go horribly wrong.

Somebody somewhere said, woah, can’t do that. No, we have to go back to the negotiating table.

ANGE:

After the break, how teachers in NSW were left feeling betrayed.

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ANGE:

So Jane, teachers in NSW went through this whole process of backing Chris Minns in the election. He promised to increase their salaries. They went through the negotiations. All was looking good, and then suddenly the government comes back with a different offer. What was it?

JANE:

As I understand it, the original deal, it was a one year deal. So they had negotiated for the next 12 months. Then they would return and renegotiate again. Now, it's been said it needs to be a four year deal, that the 12% for beginning teachers, 8% for highest top of the scale teachers, remains. But after that, year two, any pay rise is capped at 2.5%. Year three, 2.5%. Year four, 2.5%. Now the problem is that's the cap that operated prior to this negotiation. Exactly that, 2.5% across all public sector workers. It's hated by public sector workers, who have watched their standard of living drop, and particularly as inflation has ramped up.

ANGE:

You've been speaking to some of the key players in these negotiations, like Angelo Gavrielatos. What does he say? What's his reaction to all of that unfurling of this deal, that he believed was in good faith?

JANE:

He regards it as a betrayal. He's devastated.

Archival tape – Angelo Gavrielatos:

“Teachers of this state have been gutted. Never before has a government walked away from a deal, in the way that we are experiencing now.”

JANE:

And I think, people who haven't been following what's been going on in the teaching profession for the last few decades, have no idea how exhausted and demoralised, not just the teachers but their representatives are. Just how few wins teachers have had, just how little respect teachers now get.

Obviously any kind of appearing to renege on a deal, or actually reneging on a deal, and, you know, the government will argue one and the union will argue the other, is going to have a disproportionately big effect on a profession that feels that demoralised.

Archival tape - [Protesters cheering]

JANE:

A week ago, Chris Minns was visiting Griffith, and he was at the airport going and a bunch of teachers made their way down there, wearing their t-shirts, and they were yelling abuse at him. Two things I remember, one of them said, your… your dad will, you know, be ashamed of you, because Chris Minns father was a teacher. And somebody else yelled, we got you in, we'll get you out.

Archival tape – Protester 1:

“Your old man would be embarrassed.”

Archival tape – Protester 2:

“We put you in, we’ll get you out.”

JANE:

You dash people's hopes, you get an exponentially bad reaction.

ANGE:

And obviously, something has seriously gone wrong in these negotiations. So, how does the NSW Government see it? What’s the response been from the NSW premier, Chris Minns?

JANE:

Well he said, the 2.5% for the last three years of the four year deal, is not a cap. Hard to see what it is if it's not a cap.

He says, he wants to go back to the negotiating table. He wants, he's sure, they can come to some sort of a deal. I know that the Department of Education is committed to finding some sort of resolution to this. I know that Prue Carr is very aware that teachers need to have their workloads reduced. That in fact, they can't do their job properly, unless their workloads are reduced. But all of this hinges on ending the teacher shortage. Because you can't reduce teachers' workloads if teachers keep leaving. Because the number of children in public schools is going up. So those two things don't mesh. And really, in a competitive employment environment, there's only one way to end the teacher shortage. Increase their pay, so that they're the best paid teachers in Australia. Not just for a year, but the best paid teachers in Australia for the foreseeable future. That's the only way to end the teacher shortage.

ANGE:

And Jane, this story is particularly explosive. But we have seen, again and again, government's low balling public sector workers. You know, it's not just teachers, ambulance drivers, nurses, all of that. What is the result of that, do you think, if state governments keep applying the pressure on public sector workers? What kind of country does that create?

JANE:

Well, neoliberalism, it always seems to me, is the fastest way to take a first world country and turn it into a third world country. Because the thing that differentiates first world countries from third world countries is not that there are rich people in them. It is the public infrastructure. It's the state of the roads. It's the reliability and the decency of the police force. It's the ability to get healthcare if you need it, regardless of how wealthy or poor you might be. It's the public education system. Any tinpot dictatorship can create a highly educated elite. That's easy work. A well-educated general population is what defines a civil society. And there's only one way we found to do that, and that is public education available to all, regardless of who their parents are or whether they can afford or are prepared to pay fees.

Basically where we're at, is increasing inequality. People who rely on public services, and people who provide those public services, are underpaid, overworked, often blamed.

So the problem with this, and I think it's been a deliberate death of a thousand cuts, of the public sector across the board, is an impoverished society and an unequal one. A one where a privileged group can afford to pay for various services, which will be over luxurious. And then a group that have to rely on an ever more crumbling public sector. And the problem with inequality, as we know, is it makes a more dangerous, violent society for everyone.

Privatisation has been a disaster. Minns said all this. He said, we won't be privatising anything more, we disagree with privatisation. Well now, unfortunately, he's made big promises. They were good promises. Now he has to live up to them, and he's fallen at the first hurdle.

ANGE:

Jane, thanks so much for your time today.

JANE:

It’s a pleasure.

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ANGE:

Also in the news today…

The woman at the centre of a death cap mushroom lunch that ended in three deaths, has given details about the meal in a written statement she sent to Victoria Police.

Erin Patterson says in the letter, that the mushrooms she served at the lunch were a combination of button mushrooms, bought at a major supermarket chain, and dried mushrooms, bought at an Asian grocery store in Melbourne, months before the meal was eaten.

And,

Former Labor leader Mark Latham has been ousted as the leader of One Nation in New South Wales, by federal leader Pauline Hanson.

The national executive voted to remove Latham, citing a decline in the party’s vote at this year’s New South Wales election. Latham released a statement, claiming to still be the leader of the parliamentary team in New South Wales.

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

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