Liberals to push for ACT teachers conditions to be reviewed by Ombudsman

Canberra Liberals education spokesman Jeremy Hanson will claim in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, in a motion, that unpaid overtime from the ACT's teachers may be "one of the worst cases of worker exploitation in the history of the ACT".

Mr Hanson's motion will be based on a survey of more than 1800 public teachers from the Australian Education Union's ACT branch which found more than 97 per cent of teachers work more than their maximum weekly hours.

Of those, 79 per cent of respondents said they worked excessive hours every week and more than 40 per cent were working more than five hours overtime on their weekends.

The report on the survey from the union said the amount of overtime could amount to more than $75 million annually.

Mr Hanson will claim that if a large company, such as a bank or supermarket chain, had workers doing so much unpaid overtime there would be an outcry.

"In any other industry, this could be called wage theft," Mr Hanson said.

"That's why I am calling on this government to refer the salaries and working conditions of ACT teachers to the Fair Work Ombudsman for review.

"Of all the workers in the ACT system, the last who should be subject to these sorts of work practices are our teachers."

In his speech to the Assembly on Wednesday, Mr Hanson will draw upon quotes from the union's report, including quotes from teachers that were included anonymously in the report.

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"I experience daily, and nightly, concerns around funding this school. We are rapidly expanding ... have so many new educators, so many part time positions and absolutely no ability to reduce the need for split classes," is one quote Mr Hanson will share.

"Classroom teaching is absolutely full on and beyond hard work. There is not enough time to manage all the demands."

Mr Hanson said the Fair Work Ombudsman was the right body to examine this as it functioned to monitor compliance with workplace laws and to investigate breaches of the Fair Work Act.

"I'm not a workplace lawyer, but I do know we cannot have a report as troubling as this come before us, and for us to do nothing," Mr Hanson will say.

"Worse still, for the government to investigate - again - and for them to find there is nothing wrong - again - is not acceptable. We do not trust this government to review itself.

"We need - and our teachers deserve - a fair, impartial, expert appraisal of what is going on and what an appropriate remedy may be."

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