Labor’s budget reality bites as industrial peace with teachers ends

March 25, 2026 — 5:00am

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In a speech to a business forum in October, Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ben Carroll declared that “our teachers deserve nationally competitive wages – a proper pay rise”.

The reference to the national situation is telling. When Victorian schoolchildren came out top in last year’s NAPLAN test results, Carroll pointed to his government’s push for explicit learning but also said “the credit goes mostly to our hardworking teachers”.

Yet when it comes to reward for effort, those teachers have found that the state is bringing up the rear. Victoria is bottom of the class in funding of state schools, and public school teachers in Victoria are currently the lowest paid in the country.

The starting salary for a graduate teacher in Victoria is about $78,000. In NSW it’s more than $87,000 and in the Northern Territory it’s more than $92,000.

The Australian Education Union, stung by........

© The Age