Funding deal means we can finally dare to dream...
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 130 No 2, 11 April 2025, page no 7.
As I write this, I am sitting here in Canberra airport waiting for my flight home, pondering my life as a teacher, activist and union official.
It’s Monday 24 March, and the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments have just delivered a deal that will see all state schools fully funded to 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard (SRS), which was first unveiled in the Gonski Report in 2011. This bipartisan approach recognising the importance of public education came as federal education departments are being defunded and ripped apart in the United States.
As I reflect, I think about the number of years we have been advocating and campaigning for full funding. We have had all the campaign slogans and all colours of the rainbow broadcasting our message. We have held MP delegations − locally and at Federal Parliament. I remember one such delegation at which QTU activist Bede Horsfall and I wanted to highlight the really positive things that were already being done even with the limited funding we had and what we could do with more. We were told that they weren’t interested in positive stories, they wanted to know how the money was being misspent.
As a school-based Rep and activist, I have influenced P&Cs, walked the streets in green Gonski shirts, convinced and railroaded at staff meetings, held morning teas and fluoro dress days, and spoken at community events. I have written the letters and submissions – and encouraged my fellow members to do the same – so that we can have the resources we need to do the jobs we do on a daily basis.
At State Councils, Area Councils, and Federal Executive meetings, we have all continued to have the required conversations to maintain the very long campaign to achieve full and fair funding for our children.
My own children, who have now finished school, attended schools firstly in rural Queensland before finishing at a big metro high school. The whole time, they never had full funding. At times, I have wondered would we ever achieve this dream? Why were all Catholic and independent schools funded at or above the SRS, but our state schools, which educate the majority of the most vulnerable in our community, not considered worthy of such support?
Now that the ink is dry, and Queensland has signed on − the last state to do so − I dare to dream of what may be achieved.
This money must resource what is needed at a school level. We all know someone who has retired early, or left early in their career, or gone to teach supply after having their own children. We have all experienced the teacher shortages; the workload burden that leaves you asking yourself why you are doing it; so many have been impacted by violence in classrooms and schools. We all know of students unable to access specialist support. We can all identify a class within the maximum class size limit that seems too large for the level of complexity experienced very single day.
So much more is now possible for our members and our students. We are in every community in Queensland − metro, rural, remote, regional and isolated. The distances alone make resourcing complicated.
This agreement brings hope. Hope for our profession. Hope for our students. Hope for our comrades. Hope for our future. This funding will transform some elements of education and benefit those currently in our state system and those not even born yet.
This has not occurred in a vacuum. So, if you have:
- worn the T-shirt
- written on the poster
- held the corflute
- run or assisted at a community stall
- written a letter
- written a submission
- contributed to the books
- marched the streets
- advocated with colleagues with politicians and parents...
I thank you.
This is a true collective story from which we may all benefit. I look forward to working with members to see the fruition of this full funding deal and seeing it fully realised in Queensland.
