TEACHER PLAN TO GET RID OF BAD BAILLIEU MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

The main headline in today's Age newspaper reads:

"Baillieu plan to get rid of bad teachers."

It is difficult to work out which century the Baillieu government functions in, because the ideas it is propagating belong in the 19th and 20th centuries. Going backwards has been the hallmark of the Baillieu government since it was elected about 18 months ago.

Core and non-core promises seem to have been made during the election campaign during which a main core promise seems to have been to make Victoria's teachers the best-paid teachers in the country. Now they are in danger of being the worst-paid and on top of it all to be oppressed by some of the most punitive legislation in the state.

How do you get rid of bad teachers? What are bad teachers? Is the government also going to legislate to get rid of bad teachers from the private school sector as well? - not forgetting the religious exemptions from tax enjoyed by so many religious organisations!

Teachers perform much as workers throughout the employment sectors perform - some are good, some are fairly good, some are middle-ground, some are fairly ordinary and some are not really happy in their jobs. Think of any organisation which employs a fair number of people - including state parliaments and the people they employ to do all their hard work for them, and let's see some performance indicators of the Baillieu government's parliamentarians.

Where to start?

Well, there is the transport debacle with Myki - Myki is a disaster and continues to be so, and we fear for the future without the Metcard system which wasn't broke but the previous government decided to fix!!

Then we have the desalination plant and all the industrial and other issues involved such as the espionage allowed by the government for the builders of the plant to spy, not only on their employees, but also on the protesters who have railed against the project from the beginning.

Also we have the nurses' pay dispute which only got resolved because one of Baillieu's relatives made an obscene gesture to the nurses and it was caught by the media.

Then there is the special arrangement with the police but no mention of good police and bad police in a pay arrangement!!

And much, much, more!!

To be added to as these issues come to light - but let us not forget the teachers are amongst the worst-served by this government to date, and the government ought to be brought to book over the whole nasty business!