Education union calls on Dutton to ‘come clean’ on Department of Education cuts

The Australian Education Union says it is concerned about Peter Dutton’s plans for public education, after the opposition leader said he may impose conditions on funding if elected.It comes after Dutton questioned why there was “a department of thousands of thousands of people in Canberra called the Education Department if you don’t run a school”.At a Sky News event in his electorate of Dickson, Dutton was also asked what he would do about the “woke agenda” in education.

“We do provide funding to the state governments and we can condition that funding,” Dutton said in response to the question.“We should be saying to the states ..



. that we want our kids to be taught the curriculum ..

. not be guided into some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities,” he said.In the wake of the comments, the Australian Education Union said it wanted Dutton to make clear his plans for education.

“We have had no clarity on the cuts Peter Dutton plans to make to education, nor will he come clean on what his plans are for public education,” AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe said.“Peter Dutton has had three years as leader and has never supported public education in that time.”“Now he is taking a leaf from the Trump playbook by going for the Department of Education by threatening to cut thousands of jobs, control what teachers teach – and pull funding if they don’t comply with his ideology.

”Duttton has already said he will cut at least 41,000 public servant jobs if he is elected as prime minister, and that public servants would need to work from the office five days per week. “We have said we want to take waste out of the federal budget and put it back into frontline services,” he said on Tuesday.Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Dutton’s threatened cuts to school funding came “right from the DOGE playbook”.

“This is DOGE-y Dutton, taking his cues and policies straight from the US in a way that will make Australians worse off,” Chalmers said.Last month, the Albanese government finalised its agreements with states and territories over school funding. The deal lifts the Commonwealth’s contribution from 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) for all jurisdictions, except the Northern Territory where it will rise to 40 per cent by 2029.

The education union says it has written to Dutton, asking him to show bipartisan support for the deal but is yet to hear back. “We called on Peter Dutton to give bipartisan support to the Albanese Government’s commitment to lift the federal share of public school funding to 25% of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) – the amount needed for every child to succeed no matter their circumstances.”The post Education union calls on Dutton to ‘come clean’ on Department of Education cuts appeared first on Women's Agenda.

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