Jeremy Rockliff,Minister for Education and Training
It is highly disappointing that the Australian Education Union is ‘directing’ teachers to engage in industrial action which will disrupt student learning next week, despite a scheduled meeting between the Premier, Treasurer and unions this Friday to continue good faith negotiations.
The union’s direction does not represent good faith negotiations and shows a complete disregard for students and their parents.
The Department of Education will now need to asses the negative impact of the AEU’s industrial action on student learning and what actions need to be taken to ensure a duty of care to students. Parents will be informed on Friday of these arrangements by their school.
It’s bad enough the AEU is directing teachers to abandon students next week, they need to be upfront with parents and rule out other threatened actions such as directing teachers to not put comments in report cards.
We have already put a range of offers to the AEU and continue to negotiate in good faith.Threatening to close schools and disrupt learning while negotiations are scheduled is an indictment on the AEU’s leadership who seem intent on causing as much political disruption in the lead up to the Federal election.
