Visiting public schools across the country, it is always inspiring to see the dedication and commitment of teachers, principals and support staff.
It is the determination to make a difference for students that really stands out, even in the face of all the challenges schools face today.
What I see are teachers going the extra mile for kids inside and outside the classroom, individualising lesson plans and assessments, buying classroom supplies, helping parents and spending long hours at home on schoolwork.
Our profession needs political leaders who understand what teachers are going through, who are prepared to stand up for them and, most importantly, to deliver for them.
Peter Dutton is not one of those leaders.
The Opposition leader has spent three years attacking and undermining teachers and it’s clear he sees them as the problem, not the solution.
Mr Dutton’s record
Mr Dutton started his attacks on teachers the day after he took over as Coalition leader in May 2022.
He painted a picture of a profession where extremists were pushing political agendas in a broad range of areas, “teaching a different view of history, absenting some elements of what’s been taught in the classroom from the actual facts and what happened in a time past”.
In his first budget reply speech that year he tried to drive a wedge between teachers and parents, claiming “many parents are increasingly concerned about the education their children are receiving” and “the system has allowed ideologically driven advocates too much influence over what is taught to our children”.
This set the pattern for the next three years.
Without producing any evidence, Mr Dutton has claimed children are being indoctrinated from preschool, that there are “a lot of teachers there who are masquerading as teachers” and “children are being taught what to think, not how to think”.
His extremist rhetoric exactly matches that of Pauline Hanson and the US President Donald Trump.
Using the Trump playbook
Like the US president, Mr Dutton has cast himself as the lone warrior fighting against a teaching profession determined to indoctrinate students and turn them out as “disciples of a woke ideology and agenda”.
Both claim that students are being taught to hate their country and must be taught to love it instead.
Mr Trump is cutting funding to “any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”
Mr Dutton has followed that by suggested public school funding would be conditional on schools teaching only what is approved by his government.
“I support young Australians being able to think freely being able to assess what’s before them and not being told and indoctrinated with something that is the agenda of others and that’s the approach that we would take,” he said.
In Washington, Mr Trump has slashed jobs in the Federal Department of Education which he wants to close.
Mr Dutton is clearly planning deep cuts in the Department of Education in Canberra saying “people ask why have we got a department of thousands and thousands of people in Canberra called the education department if we don’t have a school or employ a teacher”.
Plans for schools and teachers
In three years as leader, Mr Dutton has never expressed his support for the full funding of public schools. Nor has he ever said he wants the Federal Government to lift the share of funding it provides to public schools.
With the election in sight though he is trying to neutralise the issue with vague commitments to match the funding provided in the agreements struck by the Albanese Government.
But the Coalition is not promising anything that would assist teachers such as cutting workloads, employing additional support staff, or reducing class sizes.
After repeatedly criticising the national curriculum (introduced by the last Coalition Government), Mr Dutton is promising to “restore a curriculum that teaches the core fundamentals in our classrooms”.
But there is no detail and the only change he has repeatedly proposed is that every student should be taught the value of the mining industry and how much it contributes in company tax and royalties.
He also wants to tell teachers how to teach by dictating that explicit/direct instruction is used in every classroom.
Election choice
I can’t think of an election where more has been at stake for the future of public schools and the teaching profession.
It is a choice between a government that will invest in public schools and support teachers and an Opposition with a track record of cutting funding to public schools and attacking teachers.
We cannot afford to make the wrong choice.
Correna Haythorpe, Federal President, Australian Education Union
