Standing up for each other and the future
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 130 No 6, 5 September 2025, page no 7.
It’s clear we are in the fight we predicted for improved conditions and salaries in EB11. As I expected, we as the QTU are more than up for it.
We knew heading into this negotiation that public support would be a major factor in ensuring we secure the positive change in public education that’s long overdue.
We understood that sharing our experiences and stories with Queenslanders would be a key factor in helping them understand what our members go through every day, including the workload burden, violence, and staff shortages.
With the government’s two largely unchanged and rejected 8 per cent offers, even the Premier must have understood strike action was inevitable.
Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the action, and on Wednesday 6 August, for the first time since 2009, we sent the government a clear, united, statewide message.
Teachers and school leaders are standing up, with community backing, and demanding change.
On the morning of the strike, we saw favourable opinion pieces in newspapers, while the media covering our events understood why we were taking this action.
We received overwhelming support from members of the community on social media. They agreed that it’s time to protect our members, pay them a living salary, and turn around the teacher shortage crisis.
QTU members filled the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre’s 4,000 seats, while hundreds more waited patiently outside, watching the livestream. It was a similar picture around the state, with members gathering from Cape York to the southern border.
The sounds of members chanting and cheering in unity is a memory I will never forget.
And then we marched — filling the streets and city bridges towards Parliament House. Our solidarity convoy stretched for more than a kilometre. It was so large in number that we didn’t fit into Speakers Corner, causing police to close the nearest intersection.
To say I was proud doesn’t capture my emotions. Our members rallied with positive energy, our members demonstrated respectfully, both of each other and the police officers guiding us through city streets.
The personal and professional qualities that we bring to our classrooms each day were on display, and each and every one of us did our schools, our students, and our Union proud.
This was a day we all stood up for each other and our future.
Just a day later, our Minister John Paul Langbroek accused our members of modern-day bullying, a tone-deaf remark considering the explosion of real violence and aggression our members have experienced in the past decade.
It’s clear we need to fight this government with discipline and facts and not get drawn into culture wars or distraction.
Teachers and school leaders aren’t bullies. They are fighting to save public education, and they want to get on with their jobs. We will not be silenced, we will not be shamed or intimidated, and we will not go quietly.
Our members are continuing to publicly advocate with rolling demonstrations after school hours across our regions, to ensure our claims and our fight are not forgotten.
I encourage you all to join and support these rallies.
As we continue down this road, which includes conciliation in the Industrial Relations Commission, it’s important we maintain our energy and support of one another.
We will win this fight together. We will win this fight by continuing to share our experiences with the community and our loved ones.
Governments are elected to work for the people and to govern, a fact that can get lost in enterprise bargaining. Right now, like us, Queensland nurses and police are fighting for their professions, and its quite clear our government doesn’t have any solution.
We need this government to do the job it was elected to do.
Elections come around quite quickly, and as your President, I know that together we will make sure the Crisafulli government is reminded of this fact.