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Catch up with Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin
Our teachers deserve better salaries, less admin
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I WELCOME a major election commitment made at our State Conference that a Minns Labor Government will create 10,000 more permanent teaching roles in New South Wales by shifting temporary positions into permanent roles in a bid to stem teacher attrition rates.
This issue was raised directly with the Leader at the Education Forum I hosted recently in Murwillumbah. After almost 12 years in Government, the Liberals and Nationals have casualised more than one third of the teaching profession, leading to job insecurity for temporary and casual teachers in the Northern Rivers and Northern Tablelands regions. NSW Labor Leader Chris Minns and NSW Shadow Minister for Education Prue Car have importantly promised to remove teachers’ excessive administration workloads, another reason why so many of them, younger and more experienced, are quitting or retiring.
I have asked teachers and New South Wales Teachers Federation and Independent Education Union representatives what is the one critical reform needed, and they all say to free us from the administrative burdens that do nothing to aid teaching and learning.
Last year I had lunch with a group of teachers in a Murwillumbah café and asked them to walk me through their day. It is mind numbing and not helping kids learn or teachers teach. I get it.
If elected next March, Labor will also scrap the Perrottet Government’s wages cap, ensuring teachers can bargain as is a basic right and more competitive salaries for teachers.
Police numbers drop under Nationals
DESPITE The Nationals’ annual puff pieces claiming more probationary constables, the reality is that police numbers in the Tweed-Byron Police District have actually decreased over the past decade.
NSW Police Minister Paul Toole in Parliament last week was forced to admit that there are only 181 sworn police in the District compared with 198 officers back in February 2012.
Worse still, there were no new probationary constables for our District out of the 145 constables who graduated on October 14 this year. The Nationals have never kept their promises of increasing local police numbers, including having enough police to provide Murwillumbah with a 24/7 police station.
I briefed Chris Minns and NSW Shadow Minister for the North Coast John Graham MLC on the need for more police when I hosted them on a recent visit to the Tweed.
Perrottet’s land tax is a forever tax
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is trying to slip through a new land tax, initially for first home buyers.
The Property Tax (First Home Buyer Choice) Bill 2022 last week was passed in the Legislative Assembly and is now before the Legislative Council as a short, sharp inquiry before coming back in November for final discussion.
Mr Perrottet really should have taken this policy to a general election to get a mandate for it.
Under his plan, first home buyers will have to choose between paying stamp duty or paying an annual tax for as long as they own their property – effectively a forever tax.
Alarmingly, Mr Perrrottet told Channel Nine that he thinks pensioners should also have the choice to pay the annual land tax.
How long before his new land tax applies to everyone purchasing a family home? CONCERNED KINGSCLIFF residents have attended a drop-in session with Resilience NSW at the Kingscliff Uniting Church Hall on Tuesday, October, 18, to air their concerns about the temporary accommodation pod site at Elrond Drive.
Kingscliff Ratepayers and Progress Association (KRPA) president Peter Newton said he thought the meeting went well.
“We had good, positive discussions with the resilience folk, particularly in relation to the operation of the facility and the support that will be provided to the flood affected members of the community that will be temporarily housed there,” Peter told The Weekly.
“The Resilience NSW team were also able to confirm that on-site parking will be available for each pod and that Resilience will revisit ingress and egress points with their contractors.
“Resilience also confirmed that there would be onsite management and security 24/7 to ensure these vulnerable, flood affected members of our community would be safe and supported.
“Would have been useful if community sessions like this had taken place from the start, and disappointing that they didn’t, however they are happening now and important that this community engagement continues.
Local residents had previously expressed concerns about the site selection process saying they had not been consulted and knew nothing of the hub until work was just beginning.
There were also concerns that work on the site is allowed seven days a week from 7am to 10pm and that it won’t be completed until February next year because part of the site is being used for pipe laying equipment by the Australian Bay Lobster Producers.
Kingscliff Ratepayers and Progress Association Inc., the Chinderah District Residents Association Inc., and the Tumbulgum Community Association Inc. wrote to Premier Dominic Perrottet recently asking for a temporary moratorium on floodplain development until the findings of the flood inquiry were in.
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