Krudd is a fine orator. His true believing bretheren really love his phrasing. Good for them. The poor souls really were in the grips of depression after a decade of the other mobs pragmatically bland spin.

Mostly, kid-kruud will keep up the oratory and continue to mean what he means by saying what he says. He will position himself so as to appear effective yet not really do much. Electorate wont acknowlege this until a second term, at best. krudd is very astute at the grand standing game. Signatures on pieces of paper with no teeth like Kyoto and getting red herring concessions from the Japanese not to introduce 50 humback kills a year in exchange for continuing their existing program. Wily move by the Japanese, conceding a mirage. Australia gets to have its world stage relevence too, which egomaniacal pollies love.

His revolution will be one of spin. Keep it revolving. Give the youngens a poota, give the battlers a concessionally taxed bank account for this and another one for that, lots of nicely couloured bandaids, packaged with beautifully phrased spin and not much substance.

Memories of labour-speak ala Hawke-Keating are resurfacing. Should be entertaining.

Themistocles,

The claim that teacher unions need to be overthrown implies that they have power in the first place. If this is so, please explain why Victorian teachers are paid $31,000 less than in 1975 relative to average earnings, why the secondary pupil-teacher ratio is now 11.9:1, compared with 10.6:1 in 1990 and 10.9:1 back in 1981, why there are still almost 2,000 secondary teachers missing from our schools, why the maximum teaching load has increased to 20 hours from the 18 hours pre-1992, why the class size limit of 25 students is now just a general intention rather than the legal requirement it was pre-1992, why teacher representation on School Councils is now cut if any parent members are employees of DET unlike the pre-1992 non-discriminatory method and why the superannuation contribution has been cut from a notional 21 per cent of salary pre-1988 to 9 per cent today. The teacher unions have been near powerless shells for years, held back by members who won’t take industrial action and by teachers – members and non-members alike – who endorse pathetic EBAs.

As the Hampton Park Secondary College timetabler until the end of 2004, I organised that school with a maximum teaching load of just under 18 hours a week and the capacity for decent time allowances (deductions from teaching for demanding leadership positions). These were the best conditions in the state, the ideal towards which other teachers should have worked in their own schools.

Instead, Victorian teachers foolishly endorsed the 2004 Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, as a direct result of which the teachers at Hampton Park, who intelligently voted against the proposed EBA, were forced to accept higher teaching loads, longer periods, inadequate time allowances and the abolition of their management advisory committee.

Reporters can hardly mention teacher unions without adding the word “powerful”, but this is just another lie. The teacher unions did not stop Labor returning history to the curriculum after the Liberals’ trendy SOSE. They did not stop the rigorous reporting system Labor provides for parents.

And this is "par excellence defenders of the status quo”?

To Chris C.
You distort the real relationships. The unions have been in power, the ALP is the political arm of the trade unions. The teachers union pays into the ALP large contributions knowing full well the ALP will carry through the attacks on teachers. You do not know that? You say incredulous "why there are still almost 2,000 secondary teachers missing from our schools" well the unions went along with that. Yes there has been a major program of school closures and amalgamations in Victoria under Premier Steve Bracks. Bracks in conjunction with the unions has been trying to keep parents and teachers in the dark while it continues the assault begun under previous Labor and Liberal state governments. Most probably 16 primary and secondary schools face closure, with 13 regions discussing mergers. This after all the closures in the last two decades.
In fact the governments rely on the unions doing their filthy work in sabotaging any genuine struggle. Tell us that has not happened for the whole of the last century, yes the full century!

To all you loverly liberal voters. You lost and that dont mean the private schools are going to close, it just means you start relating to your children in a real way, and not leave your childrens learning of life skills to the schools.

Their your kids, so love them, give them your time and communicate with them!

Chris C

Only Sun Kings have absolute power and the teacher unions are not sun kings! But they do have enough power to keep intact the status quo of the postmodernist and PC superstructures that they have built on the edifice of the educational system that prevent the development of curricula founded on reason that would attract people with merit to enter the teaching profession. And because of the up till now mediocre curricula, that are especially extant in government schools, these in turn attract a garden variety of people to enter the profession, and even these in inadequate numbers, and hence a shortage of teachers that in turn generates a higher pupil-teacher ratio, increased teaching loads, and low paid salaries. Since people with mediocre abilities who enter the profession and teach in GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS are “satisfied” with what the unions can get for them salary-and condition-wise in this intellectually “undernourished” sector.

It’s this CONCENTRATED power of the teaching unions in government schools that Rudd has to overthrow if his “education revolution” will have a chance to take off.

http://kotzabasis1.blogspot.com

johncee1945,

Themistocles said that Kevin Rudd would have to overthrow the teacher unions to achieve what he wanted in eduction. I presented a list of examples, most of which are central to unionism, that show teacher unions are powerless and invited Themistocles to explain how such supposedly powerful bodies could accept such a deterioration in the working lives of their members.

I gave the example of the school with the best conditions in Victoria, which lost those conditions because of a vote by the teachers of the state, more than 75 percent of whom voted for a faulty EBA.

I do not see any evidence that the ALP is the political arm of the unions, as it has adopted a minor wind-back of the Liberals’ IR laws, not the major wind-back the unions wanted. In Victoria, the Labor Government has not budged on its poor pay and conditions offer to teachers.

Teachers elect their union leaders, refuse to take industrial action, vote for pathetic pay and conditions deals and spend the following three years complaining about their lot in life. The union is not separate from its members.

The missing secondary teachers have nothing to do with the voluntary school closures and amalgamations of the Bracks Government, which actually increased secondary teacher numbers from a ratio of 12.6:1in 1999 to one of 11.9:1 in 2006. My criticism is that such an increase still leaves the system way short of both the 1981 Liberal Government’s staffing ratio and the 1996 Labor Government’s ratio. The low staffing is due to the current inadequate funding formula for schools. Victorian schools receive most of their funding from vouchers worth about $5,000 per student, the exact amount depending on the year level. This amount cannot fund sufficient teachers in secondary schools.

Teacher unions are powerless because their members are naïve and weak.

Themistocles,

I will respond to you in a separate post.