Cassy O'Connor MP | Greens Leader
The Tasmanian Liberals’ inane, childish and inflammatory social media attack on the Australian Education Union is an insult to every teacher and school support worker.
Educators work tirelessly, providing Tasmanian students with a quality education. The least the government could do is to meet their reasonable requests for support. Instead, the Liberals have treated them with contempt.
It wasn't enough for hapless Education Minister Roger Jaensch to come out swinging against the AEU's planned industrial action. The Liberals then amped up their attack on educators through social media.
The Liberals' insulting social media posts - including paid advertising - claim efforts to address critical education shortages were a "stunt" that would see "Tasmanians get sent to the dole queue by the thousand".
The posts even had the gall to say "Tasmanian deserve better". Better than the committed educators fighting for the future of state's young people?
One thing is clear, the thousands of hardworking education professionals deserve so much better than this terrible, out of touch government.
The fact is, the Liberals have been underinvesting in schools for nearly a decade and teachers in the public system are leaving the profession in record numbers.
The result of the Liberals’ neglect of public education is some of the worst educational outcomes in the country, and a workforce that is desperately struggling to keep up with an ever-increasing workload.
Given their neglect of the education system, and refusal to listen to the cries for help from educators, it takes a special kind of arrogance for the Liberals to now turn around and accuse school staff of being the problem.
Schools are under real pressure, and teachers and support staff are doing their best to hold it together. Rather than receiving deep gratitude from their government, they've been treated with contempt.
As Leader of the Liberal Party and Premier of Tasmania, Jeremy Rockliff must apologise for his party’s childish, disrespectful behaviour.