One world ONE VISION One world ONE VISION - Australian ...

featureCONFERENCE 2011Turn up the HEATThe Federal Government’s record in education is abysmal but its plans for a carbon taxwarrant clamorous support, the AEU’s annual conference was told. Sian Watkins andNic Barnard report.AUSTRALIAN Conservation Foundation executivedirector Don Henry has urged teachers andunions to support the Federal Government’s carbontax package and repel the “ferocious, ill-informed”opposition to it led by Tony Abbott and big polluterswith “deep pockets”.Henry told AEU branch conference delegatesthat the next three months would be crucial towhether Australia took a modest step forward inaction to avert dangerous climate change. Failureto pass the legislation could also “break” the GillardGovernment, he warned.“Most Australians know we have to act,” he said,before urging AEU members to join the “Say Yes” tocutting carbon pollution campaign, organised by theACF, the ACTU and other environment organisations.But the Federal Government received no praisefrom federal AEU president Angelo Gavrielatos, whosaid that most of its policies had been “plagiarisedstraight from the Tory playbook”.Julia Gillard’s performance pay proposals were“hare-brained” and methodologically flawed andeven curriculum body ACARA had warned againstusing NAPLAN test results to guide teacherperformance evaluation, Gavrielatos said. Theproposal was a “profound attack on teachers. Itdenigrates us and our work.”Don Henry told the conference that theGovernment’s carbon price package would act asa vital incentive to companies and individuals toreduce non-renewable energy consumption anddivert investment to cleaner energy.It would not “break our economy” or, givencompensation proposals, impose too great aburden on low-income earners.Henry said Australia was one of the 20 biggestpolluters in the world and the biggest polluter percapita. As a wealthy country, it had a responsibilityto act. “If we don’t, how can we expect others to(reduce greenhouse emissions)?”He condemned the political debate onthe proposed package as “disgraceful andNeanderthal”, as was the media coverage of it,“particularly from sections of the media that arenow being held to account overseas”. The campaignagainst the package was “led by the deep pocketsDon Henryof overseas coal companies and big polluterswanting to make sure that the country stays in thedark ages of pollution”.Teachers had a vital role to play in helpingthe next generation move to a cleaner economyand in equipping people with better knowledgeof the science. “We are knocking on the door ofdangerous climate change and we must begin toturn it around this decade. Severe climate changeimpacts are already locked in.”Gavrielatos, in his keynote speech, was witheringabout a string of Gillard Government initiatives.Teach Next — the successor to Teach for Australia— treated teaching as an “evangelical mission”;the expanded chaplaincy program was “one of themost misguided policies we’ve ever had imposedon us”, and proposals for greater school autonomywere simply “the power to obey” in an increasinglycentralised education system of national standards,tests and curriculum.Autonomy was a ploy, he said. “driven by thisideology of shifting blame and risk away fromgovernments. It’s an abrogation of government’sresponsibility.”But all these issues were mere “irritants” giventhe main game: the federal funding review led byDavid Gonski.The AEU was virtually alone in campaigning fora fairer deal for public schools, he said. The privateAngelo Gavrielatos20 aeu news | august 2011