Strong Choices or political smokescreen?

The so-called “Strong Choices” website represented a cruel tug-of-war for Queenslanders, on the one hand giving them an opportunity to voice their opinions on our state’s future, while on the other, offering few sensible alternatives to enable the state to move forward.

Launched last month by the Queensland Premier and Treasurer, the site claimed to provide a way for “the people” to rule how, when and where savings should be made, or rather, mask the way savings may be made.

However, what the website did do was suggest that critical services such as education and health are now at risk, if the government has its way. Although little information was actually provided on the website indicating what each portfolio responsibility (i.e. education and health) actually spends money on, options presented for choice included:

• reducing the total education and health budgets by up to 10 per cent each
• slashing the Fixing Our Schools fund
• selling assets.

The website gave visitors the option of making up to 10 per cent in "savings" in the combined education spend, which would inevitably impact on crucial services. Such a spending decrease could mean:

• a severe reduction in teaching staff (equating to a higher teacher-student ratio)
• a loss of resources and facilities within schools
• reductions in grant money (paid to schools to function).

It seems that the current government will consider doing whatever it takes to slash public funding, regardless of the outcome. While it maintains that such measures are simply options, it is fair to presume that should it take this $6million website and campaign seriously, it would study the responses closely with a view to using them to justify future decisions

Queenslanders have always had a say on their budget, through discussions with Members of Parliament, focus groups and unions such as the QTU. However, to provide an option for members of the public to reduce this government’s core elected responsibility by asking the public to make budgetary decisions on its behalf (allowing all future consequences to then be put back on “the people”) is wrongfully shifting accountability.

The website did not offer reducing the salary increases politicians have recently received as an option, yet it gave users an alarming option to “freeze all public servants pay for three years” or even “reduce the size of the public service” by up to 10,000 FTEs. Such decisions of course would be to the detriment of the lives and careers of hard-working front-line staff – and in turn, would single handedly destroy assets that should be under government watch, our schools and the students within.

At its core, the problem with this website is that it is our students who will be the most disadvantaged. They may be failed by a government more focused on reducing services and cutting costs than providing a world-class education. Queensland doesn’t need a website to promote the selling of assets or another slash and burn of jobs or resources.Queensland requires continual financial investment in education (by a government prepared to fulfil its responsibilities) that recognises today’s educational challenges and turns them into outstanding opportunities for tomorrow.

Aleksandr Taylor-Gough
Acting Research Officer

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 119 No 4, 23 May 2014, p15