Teachers thanked for putting students first

19 September 2013

Last night in Parliament, Peter Katsambanis, Member for North Metropolitan Region, thanked the vast majority of Western Australian public school teachers, education assistants, principals and school administrators who would be attending school today, despite industrial action taken by the militant teachers’ union.

“I wanted to state for the record my congratulations and thanks to those thousands of school teachers, principals, education assistants and administrators who will stay on the job during the strike to make sure that our school children continue to receive the highest possible standard of education in this state.” Mr Katsambanis said.

“It’s important to recognise these wonderful people who put the best interests of their students ahead of any wildcat industrial action organised by a rogue union.”

“Many of those attending the rally at Gloucester Park will be teachers, but a number of others will be the usual union rent-a-crowd who tag along. This is just as we saw outside Parliament a couple of days before the federal election when they ran a Labor Party campaign rally in the guise of a union rally.”

“While roughly 62 of our schools would be closed during the strike, let us put that into perspective. Western Australian has 769 public schools. That means that 707 of those public schools will be open tomorrow while the other 62 will be closed.”

“It is sad and it is unfortunate that those 62 school will be closed, but the vast majority of our state schools will be open for business during the strike, continuing to educate our children.” Mr Katsambanis said.

Mr Katsambanis said he believed fears of teachers and education staff would be allayed in time as the discussion about new funding arrangements continue.