Thursday, 3 August 2023

Inclusive education

Matthew BACH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:42): (370) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Education. Like Ms Bath’s earlier contribution, it concerns the Andrews Labor government’s decision to cut many jobs from the Department of Education – not back-office jobs but frontline jobs: specialist teachers who go out into our schools to help children with disabilities and also with serious illnesses.

I had my concerns some weeks ago when the government came out to say that it was going to cut about 300 or so jobs from the Department of Education, but I was at least somewhat comforted by the fact that the government said at the time there would be no cuts to frontline staff – no cuts to teachers. Well, we know, perhaps unsurprisingly, that that was not true. The government has now been forced to concede that it will cut more than 80 teachers. These are specialist teachers, many with masters-level qualifications, who provide important support to children with disabilities. The minister, perhaps ill-advisedly, came out to do a doorstop earlier today, and she said that she was cutting this program because it was very old. It was implemented in 1974, she said. Well, that was strange logic from my point of view because we know – I know, as a former teacher myself – that providing individualised, one-on-one support to children with disabilities is critical. What the minister said is, ‘We’ve got a totally unrelated program over here; we’re going to do that instead.’ But some basic research today enabled me to find out that this totally unrelated program, as Ms Bath spoke about, will not deliver one single teacher into the classroom – not one.

The minister was also asked about further teachers for children with disabilities. The government had admitted to cuts in the order of 80 or 85 teachers, but there are still 32 teachers left. What the minister said today is that these other teachers will ultimately have to be ‘absorbed into the program’, which is a strange comment. I suppose you could argue, potentially, that Marie Antoinette’s head was not cut off, it was just absorbed into the revolutionary program. But I think most people would acknowledge that if there is blood spurting out of it and you can see the bone, it is probably a cut. What the government has in fact acknowledged is that it is cutting 117 teaching jobs that deliver incredibly necessary support to thousands and thousands of children with disabilities.

The minister has had a tough week, what with her flip-flopping on the schools tax, but come on, please. We all know Victoria is broke, but the people to pay for that must not be children with disabilities. There must be a better way to try to make savings across government without this Labor government punishing children with disabilities for its own economic incompetence.