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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 753 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 11 November 2021 by Mr P.J. Rundle

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

TEACHERS — RECRUITMENT

753. Mr P.J. RUNDLE to the Premier:

I refer to our question asked in this place yesterday, articles in The West Australian today and the train wreck interview from the Minister for Education and Training on 6PR this morning announcing that part of WA's strategy is to recruit teachers from New South Wales.

(1) Is the Premier aware that New South Wales has launched an aggressive $125 million recruitment strategy to find close to 4 000 teachers to fulfil its own shortage?

(2) How many teachers will the government need to recruit to ensure there is a teacher in front of every class in 2022?

Mr M. McGOWAN replied:

(1)–(2) I do not accept any of the preamble by this MP. I advise him once again not to read out what is put in front of him by the staff in the Leader of the Opposition's office.

The truth of the matter is that we are determined to get the teaching and education workforce vaccinated. It needs to get vaccinated. We need to do that in order to protect a critical industry, which is education, in this state and also make sure that parents, families and children are kept as safe as possible in our schools. That is why we are doing it. Overwhelmingly, we have had the support of the teaching workforce, and the education workforce more broadly.

I was at a meeting the other day with a senior union leader from the education workforce, and she was supportive of our vaccination program. If teachers and other education staff are vaccinated, obviously they will all be at work next year and have a job available to them. That is what everyone needs to understand. As I said, overwhelmingly, the education workforce understands that. Our advice, by surveys of the workforce, is that there is overwhelming support for vaccination. The vast majority of teachers and education assistants have now been fully vaccinated and the remaining, who have had one vaccination, are obviously heading in the direction of another vaccination.

Point of Order

Mr P.J. RUNDLE: Madam Speaker, the question was about teacher recruitment, not about vaccination. I refer to section 78 of the standing orders—relevance.

Several members interjected.

The SPEAKER: Can we have some quiet please. Firstly, there is not an obligation to name the section of the standing orders. The member is actually out of order. Secondly, I do not believe you have a point of order. You may not be wanting to draw that connection, but the Premier is choosing to do that as part of his answer.

Questions without Notice Resumed

Mr M. McGOWAN: There is obviously a connection because the question asked yesterday referred to it—that some education staff may not get vaccinated. The expectation is that 98.6 per cent are either fully vaccinated or expect to be vaccinated by the time the mandate to work in education kicks in at the start of the school year next year. That is a very, very strong figure.

What we found with the aged-care workforce, when we put in place the mandate for vaccination, we were down in the 20 or 30 per cent vaccination rate. By the time the mandate came into effect, we were over 99 per cent. That is what happens with these things. We overcome apathy and people's time constraints and the like by making sure that we have an imperative to get it done, and that is what we are doing.

What ordinarily happens—it happened during the last government, during the boom in the late 2000s, early 2011–12—is we have to come up with innovative measures to get additional staff into the workforce should there be staff shortfalls. The easiest way of avoiding all that is for the education workforce to get vaccinated.

The SPEAKER: Member for Roe, with a supplementary question.

Ms S.E. Winton: Don't do it, ''Rocky''!

The SPEAKER: Member for Wanneroo, we do not need a comment from you at the end of every answer that is given and every question that is asked.