Donnelly Cautions Teachers About PPTA Claims

Associate Education Minister Brian Donnelly said today that the PPTA executive's paranoia over bulk-funding has the potential to be extremely harmful to the secondary teachers it is supposed to support.

"The PPTA's analysis of the coalition agreement is so completely incorrect as to be laughable. Unfortunately the errors in the executive's analysis have the potential to hurt its members."

"If secondary teachers believe the fabrications of their president, they could easily be motivated into industrial action that will cause loss of pay for them and loss of educational opportunity to the students in their care. Such action would be absolutely fruitless and would result in extreme embarrassment to the PPTA's activists once teachers realised the truth."

Mr. Donnelly said the PPTA has used an irrational process to arrive at the conclusion that the coalition agreement allocated an extra $85 million, over and above NZ First's campaign policies, to further advance the bulk-funding agenda.

"There has not been one cent of additional expenditure allocated to move from the present system. The coalition agreement was to continue with the existing system, which delivered substantial salary increases to secondary teachers just prior to the election."

"The PPTA executive is being fraudulent in its dealings with its membership and it is time it was called to account," Mr. Donnelly said.