Teachers warn of more strikes

I’ve made my position quite clear about this before, namely that you can’t pay teachers enough in my opinion, and I hope the continuing strikes cause the arrogant and intransigent state MPs get really pissed off, along with the moronic parents who whine about the inconvenience of their personal child-minding service being unavailable for a day. I realise I may be biased considering both my parents are teachers, but in my view they, along with nurses, represent the most important public positions in any healthy liberal democratic state. Why the hell anyone would want to incur 3-4 years of university debts to be employed in a highly stressful job with a first year salary of around A$40,000 before tax, with incremental annual salary increases to a maximum of around A$57,000 before tax, is beyond me. No, I didn’t just make a typographical error; a teacher who has been working for 30 years makes A$17,000 more than a first year teacher in the same position. Is it any wonder the best and brightest in the profession are being scalped by private institutions or just plain ditching the public education system altogether for career paths with better economic prospects?

A portion of the required funds can be raised through the abolition of the NSW Legislative Council, deemed economically exhorbitant and largely useless through the machinations of electoral Proportional Representation (whereupon a candidate can win a seat in the Upper House with as little at 0.2% of the vote), which would free up an absolute minimum of A$4.1 million dollars per annum, excluding parliamentary entitlements and lucrative superannuation packages (valued at 48% of the mean annual salary of A$98,000 for life). The rest is merely a pittance when compared with the Federal defense budget, which is (unsurprisingly and disgustingly) nearly double the allocation of the previous budget. Although perhaps that’s all part of Johnny’s plan. Why would illegal immigrants want to waste their time on a country which languishes in education and health-care crises despite being one of the most heavily taxed nations in the world, while MPs sneak salary raises for themselves through parliament and continue to abuse publically-funded travel allowances? Meanwhile the federal government has a virtual license to print regressive social legislation and privatise just about everything they can get their grubby little hands on, while any semblance of federal opposition and regulation continues to be rendered a joke through a mixture of gross incompetence, an absence of integrity, leadership and charisma, the collective intelligence-insulting “War On Terror”® fear-mongering and xenophobia, and plain old gutlessness. Ah, democracy.