Chris Minns MP spoke about his connection to the IEU, the crisis in teaching and Labor’s vision for the profession at the IEU’s AGM on 22 October. Here are some excerpts from his speech.
“It’s wonderful to be with you this morning to talk about education, to talk about teachers and the importance of the role the state government can play in dealing with the teacher crisis that we have in education in NSW.
“I’ve got a long association with the IEU. My sister is a member of the IEU. My sister-in-law is a member of the IEU and my mother-in-law is a longstanding member of the IEU. And I’ve got a ton of cousins as well who are union members.
“So I know this union very well. I know its advocacy on behalf of the teaching profession, and the professionalism of teachers right across NSW, going back decades and decades. And I thank you for your work and your activism in really, really difficult circumstances.
“I’m also a product of the dedication and vocation of the IEU. I’m a former student of Kogarah Marist and St Declan’s in Penshurst, as well as Penshurst Marist.
“I’d like to read off some statistics that would come as no shock to you. There’s been a 30 per cent decline in the number of school leavers who are choosing to study education at our public research universities.
“We know that 60 per cent of teachers are looking to get out of the profession altogether in the next six years. And the public education union estimates, and we have this validated in a recent Upper House inquiry, that just one in five teachers will be in the teaching profession at the end of their careers.
“So we are losing teachers at the beginning of the profession. We’re not holding them in the middle and they’re not sticking around until the end of their careers. This is an unmitigated crisis in terms of education in this state.
“I know from personal experience that the reason this country is so egalitarian is that we have a system and an economy and a community where it doesn’t matter what your parents did for a living or what their parents did for a living, there is no limit on potential in NSW or Australia, and it’s because of our education system.
“But it’s not by accident, it’s in fact by design. And it comes about because of thousands of people choosing teaching as a career, choosing it as a vocation.
“Teachers over the last 10 years have had a 34 per cent less wage increase compared to the private sector in other professions – 34 per cent less. So wages are not keeping pace with other professions and they’re not keeping pace with inflation.
“We need to get competitive about teachers, we have to retain teachers and keep them in the system, and we are determined to do that.
“And with that, I can repeat an announcement I made last week, that if we win the next election, we will abolish the NSW wages cap.
“We will listen to the professionals; we’ll have deep and permanent communication with the IEU and the NSW Teachers Federation because we want to understand how to make the profession better and to improve education outcomes across the state.”