Major impact on health
Announcing the new laws last month, NSW Deputy Premier and Education Minister Prue Car rightly told The Sydney Morning Herald: “Harassment and abuse of teachers impacts their ability to teach and can drive them from the profession, with students suffering the consequences.”
Declining respect for the teaching profession has long been a factor in teachers’ dissatisfaction with their jobs. It has a major impact on their health and wellbeing.
A 2022 Monash University study found 70 per cent of teachers in Australia do not feel teaching is respected or appreciated by the public.
“In some instances, you do have parents that believe that they can treat teachers like verbal punching bags and go in and take out their frustrations on a principal or a teacher,” NSW Premier Chris Minns told the ABC in March.
Calls for change
Last year, a rising tide of online abuse directed at teachers and principals prompted calls for parents to be fined.
The chairman of Victoria’s Independent Office for School Dispute Resolution, Frank Handy, called for $1000 fines to deter parents from making inflammatory comments about school staff.
Data from Australian Catholic University’s Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey shows 54 per cent of school leaders reported threats of violence in 2024, compared to 43 per cent five years ago.
Two-thirds of school leaders say those threats came from parents. Almost 48 per cent of school leaders have experienced physical violence. That is compared to 37 per cent five years ago, and one in five of those surveyed now says parents were responsible.
In 2024, more than 35 per cent of school leaders reported being subjected to cyberbullying. Alarmingly, almost 90 per cent of those surveyed said parents were responsible.
“Unfortunately, we have to admit that for more than a decade
we have seen an increase in harmful and threatening behaviour directed towards teachers and school leaders,” Car told the NSW Parliament in March.
The Daily Telegraph in March reported principals were too scared of being attacked to leave their offices at school drop-off and pick-up times.
“Principals are being punched, kicked, pinned against walls, followed home, stalked by cars with headlights off, pelted with rocks, threatened with death and rape, forced to hide in locked rooms, and having chairs, tables and bookshelves thrown at them,” the newspaper said.
“Some schools have restricted parent access to drop-off and pick-up zones to limit violence.”
Deakin University professor Phil Riley, a former principal and the founder of the research, said the “tragic” violence being fuelled by parents and students could claim a leader’s life.
“The numbers would suggest that eventually someone is going to die,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “The incidents of violence are creeping up, but also the intensity as well.”
Shocking stories
The IEU has long called for action from employers to stamp out bad behaviour from parents. IEU members have told harrowing stories of receiving threatening emails from parents.
In 2025, more than 120 IEU delegates unanimously endorsed a motion at the March Council meeting noting “the increase in unsafe behaviours from the parental community”.
The union wrote to Catholic employers in NSW and the ACT to request action to ensure respect for teachers, including:
- formally acknowledging the concerning rise in abusive behaviours by parents towards staff
- reminding parents of their obligation under diocesan family and school partnership principles and policies
- developing an addition to the assault register to enable staff to report unsafe parent behaviours effectively.
School employers are legally obliged to ensure employees are safe and free from harassment.
Threatening and abusive behaviour directed at school staff by parents is unacceptable.
The NSW government’s proposed ban on aggressive parents is a necessary first step. But the union will continue to campaign for greater measures to protect school staff from unacceptable conduct and restore respect for the profession.
