I’ve been reading over the media reports of the new pay deal for teachers that has brought The Editor almost to the brink of orgasm – and, as expected, some things don’t add up. According to Victorian politicians the deal makes the state’s teachers “the highest paid in the country”, and The Age’s little insert certainly seems to verify this:

State-by-state teacher salaries:
Maximum for a classroom teacher
Victoria – 2007: $65,414, 2008: $75,500
NSW – 2007: $72,454, 2008: $75,352
Queensland – 2007: $69,225, 2008: $71,994
South Australia – 2007: $68,422, 2008: $68,422
West Australia – 2007: $67,446, 2008: $71,206
ACT – 2007: $71,767, 2008: $74,279
Northern Territory: 2007: $70,047, 2008: $72,849

Sounds good, classroom teachers getting a $10k raise straight-up this year. Yet when you read the fine print that’s not actually how it works: the additional $10k will be phased in over three years: 4.9% in the first (about $3,200, taking them to about $68,600) and 2.7% in the second and third years of the agreement. That still leaves them well below NSW teachers at any given time.

In 2010 Victorian teachers’ pay will certainly overtake NSW teachers’ salary rates – but they’ll be the NSW salary rates of 2008 - and it’s highly likely that NSW teachers will have renegotiated their own agreement by then (it expires this year). Brumby and Pike’s claim that Victorian teachers will be the best-paid in Australia looks to be smoke-and-mirrors.

But it’s not all doom and gloom – The Editor gets $1000 to put on the bar at the Grodscorp Christmas Party. Huzzah!

UPDATE

According to the press today I am wrong, that this $10k pay jump is instantaneous and those scumbag Maoist teachers are actually getting 33-38% over the life of the agreement (sounds a bit far-fetched if you ask me). But the government is still sticking to its 4.9% thang. We’ll probably have to rely on The Ed to give us a clearer picture once he receives his new pay scales (if he has sobered up by then). 

Also, Zombie Mao informs us that the Oz is informing us that this will be the end of the fiscal world as we know it.

The Victorian government has a problem. 18 people have died in non-boom gated level crossing accidents across the state in the last ten months — with 25 deaths in the past four years — and the recent introduction of rumble strips, driver education campaigns, and other non-boom gate measures have done nothing to stop the carnage. It’s looking more and more likely as time goes on that Premier John Brumby and transport minister Lynne Kosky are going to have to bite the bullet and — gasp! — spend some serious money on boom gates to save some lives.

But that’s not how Brumby and Kosky roll.

The Victorian Government will slash speed limits at more than 70 level crossings across the state after a spate of fatal smashes.

Speed limits will be cut from 100km/h to 80km/h at 72 level crossings across Victoria by the end of the year, Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky said today.

I’m tellin’ ya, this government brings new meaning to the phrase “tinkering around the edges”. Firstly, cutting speeds by 20kph around rural level crossings is going to do nothing to stop drivers taking the risks that often contribute to these accidents. Secondly, cutting speeds by 20kph around rural level crossings is going to do nothing to stop drivers’ concentration lapsing as it often has in these accidents. Thirdly, how is the government planning to enforce these speed limits at 72 remote sites across the state?

As much as I hate to say it, it seems that the Victorian Labor Party has put a price on human life and they’re not prepared to pay it.

Victorian Premier John Brumby chants that education is his number one priority like a mantra, but utterly fails in making it so — Victoria can proudly claim that it has the lowest paid teachers in the country. After months of negotiations with the teachers’ union (following months of the government refusing to negotiate at all) the union has reduced its ambit claim of 10% per year to nothing more than pay parity with NSW teachers. But Brumby won’t budge from the government’s standard offer of a barely-CPI 3.25% rise per year with anything over this figure to be offset by productivity gains. Ask any teacher where there’s room in their work day for extra productivity and they’ll probably laugh at you before punching your lights out.

But here’s the weird thing: Victorian opposition leader, the Liberals’ Ted Baillieu, is promising to make Victorian teachers the best paid in the country if elected in 2010. This shit’s messing with my mind.

Victorian Premier John Brumby, being an earnest and very serious accountant kind of man, is usually not too fond of cliches and pithy slogans like most political leaders, but something he said yesterday while announcing a re-jig of the suburban train timetable made me shudder like a grave had just been opened.

Premier John Brumby said population growth, more employment in the central business district and rising petrol costs meant more people were using trains.

He said the extra services would “ease the squeeze” on overcrowded trains.

The squeeze, it must be eased!

1) Matching words with action… sort of
Victorian Premier John Brumby on Friday addressed a climate change summit and called climate change the “defining issue of our era.” We’ve heard this kind of crisis talk from Brumby and others for quite some time now but it’s very rarely matched with concrete action. On Friday Brumby pledged an extra $72 million for renewable energy projects, but in terms of the government’s overall expenditure, and the scope of the problem as declared by Brumby, $72 million is a drop in the bucket. Signing a “memorandum of understanding” with a Bill Clinton climate change foundation means nothing. Announcing that Parliament House will now be powered by green energy at a cost of $90,000 per year just makes me ask why it wasn’t already. Time for Brumby to stop talking and start doing.

2) More Prodos audio goodness
You’ve probably heard about racial vilification but have you ever heard about carbon vilification? Listen (if you can stand it) to Prodos‘ podcast interview with a svelte looking fellow from the Carbon Sense Coalition. You see, carbon is not a pollutant because we’re all made of carbon and it triggers our impulse to breathe.

3) David Oldfield throws gauntlet
Is 2GB’s overnight presenter David Oldfield (ex-One Nation royalty) so desperate for program content that he issues invitations to appear on his show to any blogger that gives him shit? Broken Left Leg questioned Oldfield’s claim that he is “A nationally successful sportsperson” and immediately received comments from Oldfield’s wife, Lisa, defending David’s sporting background. After a bit more comment argy bargy Lisa Oldfield extended a formal invitation for BLL and other commenters to appear on David’s show.

David would like to extend you and your reader, a forum for you to explain your manifesto in a fair environment with equal air time, so if you are up for it, would you like to join David in the studio ? Name the day, to discuss any topics, of your choosing, that are of concern.

Kind regards,

Lisa Oldfield.

So will Broken Left Leg go on the show? And will he post the audio for us all to hear?

Every day the Brumby ALP government in Victoria is looking more and more like the worst parts of John Howard’s shameful administration. Yesterday the head of the Transport Ticketing Authority, Vivian Miners, resigned from his job by “mutual consent” with the transport minister, Lynne Kosky. Miners is responsible for the smartcard ticketing debacle that is hideously over-budget and three years overdue, and in a completely unrelated coincidence he was due this morning to give evidence at a parliamentary committee investigating his apparent conflict of interest during the smartcard tendering process. This is the kind of accountability and transparency that John Howard was famous for.

But his resignation has highlighted the ridiculous salary that Miners was being paid: $545,000. That makes made him the highest paid public servant in the State, and it’s more money than John Surname earns in a year. How can we possibly justify such an astronomical salary for somebody whose job, while important, is to oversee only one aspect of one portfolio of the entire government? If over half a million dollars is justified for the head of the public transport ticketing division then why isn’t the Premier on at least double that figure? And since I can bring my classroom photocopying in under-budget every term why aren’t I paid as much as Vivian Miners is was?

We love to slag off taxi drivers for being unable to drive, unable to find major landmarks, and unable to speak English. I’ve done it. But honestly try to put yourself into the shoes of a Melbourne taxi driver and understand just how utterly shithouse the job would be. First there’s the pay.

[T]he driver, having split his fares 50/50 with the operator, will earn $8.50 an hour after tax and GST. For the shorter version of a standard 60 to 80-hour week, for full-time cabbies that’s $450. Hardly a rich reward.

That’s when you’re even getting paid the fare.

Three weeks ago, my driver was affable Ranji Mullick, from India’s Punjab, who said, “I’ve had a good run,” before checking himself. “Well, I’ve had two runners, the last one a woman in her 20s, who I drove from Chapel Street (Prahran) to a block of flats in Kensington. She got out, went into the flats to get money to pay me and, of course, I didn’t see her again.”

Plus you have to question whether the paltry coin makes up for the risks.

TAXI driver Praboj Rhani heard the racist insult on a Saturday night, about the same time his shoulders became footrests for one of the three young men in the back seat.

Mr Rhani had collected his passengers in King Street just before midnight, about the time pubs and nightclubs start disgorging the first of their well-tanked clientele. “Drive us to Sunshine West, brown c—,” he was instructed.

As the invective flowed, Mr Rhani, from Rawalpindi in Pakistan’s west, knew he’d be doing no such thing, and pulled over. His firm “Please leave my cab” was met with “Make us, c—”.

So where are the police when passengers get abusive and threaten violence? Oh, that’s right. Victoria’s finest aren’t really the finest.

[Rhani] got out and was met on the pavement by a young policeman, who asked him what the problem was. “My passengers are abusing me, sir, and I don’t want to carry them. This is a dangerous thing, I don’t want to be involved with them.”

Mr Rhani said his entreaties and the policeman’s command to “get back in and drive the cab, you’re a taxi driver, take them to where they want to go” became repetitive. Finally, the policeman became impatient and said: “Get back in the cab and drive the f—ing thing.”

To protect and to serve. Apparently.

Of course, Premier John Brumby has the power to, you know, make laws that increase the safety for taxi drivers and the quality of taxi services but he’s just employing the tactic that is working so well with teachers at the moment: bitch about the quality of those doing the job but do nothing to help those people do it better.

Shortly after becoming Premier, John Brumby said the two worst things about Melbourne were a 42-degree day and the city’s taxis.

Why not do something about it, John?

John Brumby, Premier of Victoria, loves to claim that “education is our number one priority,” repeating these words like a mantra. If you say it often enough it must be true. Such a shame that his government’s actions don’t come anywhere near this lofty claim.

The latest proof that education is not a Victorian government priority at all comes from education minister Bronwyn Pike who went on radio yesterday and flipped the bird at Victorian public school students.

Ms Pike, a former school teacher, said things such as air-conditioning are “optional extras” that schools can choose.

Ms Pike said schools could fundraise for air-conditioning.

“We certainly need heating in Melbourne, but we don’t really necessarily need to have air-conditioning.”

Ms Pike said the school year was structured so hot days were during the holidays.

What an utter load of shite. I work in a hundred-year-old public school building not dissimilar to most school buildings in the state. I’ve had the air conditioning running in my classroom at least a day or two a week for the last month and will have it on almost every day for most of term one next year. Without the air con my room turns into a sauna and ceases to be a productive learning environment. As any Victorian will tell you the hottest months of the year by far are February and March — the bulk of term one. It is not unusual to have strings of days in the high 30s or even low 40s. And our minister for “Victoria’s number one priority” expects kids to learn good while slowly roasting in cramped rooms of 28 sweating pre-pubescent snot monsters?

No wonder every Victorian public school teacher would not hesitate to slap Brumby and Pike upside the head if they saw them in public.

In a fairly standard election promise by oppositions of all political hues the Victorian Liberals have promised to raise parliamentary standards by “considering” the reduction in Dorothy Dixer questions, making the speaker and president more independent, and inserting a ten year sunset clause into all legislation. This all falls under the policy umbrella of their “Transparent and Accountable Government” policy.

However, on the radio this morning shadow treasurer Robert Clark (right — with the used-car salesman smile) indicated that with only four days until the election the Liberals had not yet employed the services of an independent auditor to assess the feasibility of their promises and wouldn’t commit to releasing any such findings before the poll. While ALP treasurer John Brumby also had difficulty naming a release date for their auditor’s report he could at least confirm that the firm Deloitte had been employed to undertake the audit.

Now, I’m no expert (this doesn’t stop Andrew Bolt from declaring himself the world’s leading climate change authority) but the Liberals’ promise to extend the Cranbourne East rail line and build a station for a mere $6 million seems a little far fetched. As does a similar extension of the Epping line for $12 million. I’m willing to bet that any actual expert, auditor or consultancy would recommend the allocation of much more money to the projects — but I’m willing to be proven wrong. If the Libs were actually committed to the principles of transparent and accountable government maybe they would pull their finger out and release an independent audit before the election so the punters could make up their own minds.