Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lindsay for her question. In answering it, I note that the unemployment rate in Lindsay, in the western suburbs of Sydney, has fallen from 7.3 per cent when the Howard government was elected to just 4.3 per cent today. In answer to the question of the honourable member for Lindsay, yes, I am aware of, in particular, teachers in New South Wales schools who have been providing political campaign material to young students to act as a postbox for their parents. This anti-Work-Choices pamphlet which has been distributed in schools in New South Wales by the teachers union is clearly inappropriate material to be given to children as young as kindergarten and grade 1 through to grade 6.

What we have here is a blatant example of the unions in New South Wales seeking to politicise the school system in New South Wales by providing this material to children as young as prep in schools in New South Wales. It is this sort of behaviour by the teachers union in New South Wales which is part of the reason the Prime Minister said this week that parents are increasingly voting with their feet and moving from the public school system into the independent school system.

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