The unions have sold the pass

The rise is one of 80 per cent from $120 to $216, not the $107 to $192 Dr Lind claims, because no teacher I know of can reclaim GST.

And while we’re on it, unlike doctors, dentists and lawyers are businessmen who charge fees, teachers cannot claim registration fees as a taxable item, irrespective of the fact that, in practical terms, they cannot work without this highly expensive piece of plastic.

This is of particular concern to part-time and relief teachers, not all of whom are so by choice. Already on pro-rata or ‘capped’ salaries, they are asked now to fund a massive increase in the cost of simply coming to work.

TRB offers no means of assuaging this in refusing to offer a means of on-going payment or even of permitting annual registration payments – something that the Department of Land Transport manages quite comfortably.

And what do teachers get for their $216? Nothing more than they got for their $120, in practical terms.

Dr Lind’s letter offers a range of ‘benefits’ that teachers supposedly receive for their compulsory association with the demand that his organisation both created and supplies, and scrutiny of them reveals that they are, in the main, far more the concern of the employer than the employee.

Does any teacher receive direct benefit, as a member of the workforce, from the activities of the TRB? And conceding, for a moment, that the TRB actually needs to exist, shouldn’t its ‘safeguards’ concerning personnel vetting and teacher education be a charge on employers rather than employees?

It is stated that ‘costs have gone up’. One of these costs concerns legal fees, which according to Dr Lind have increased by 306 per cent – clear proof that some of the groups against which TRB boasts of ‘benchmarking’ itself are doing much better than others and certainly much better than teachers.

Another rising cost is rent – but has TRB considered taking advantage of the age of electronic communication to relocate to less expensive areas?

Perhaps TRB’s most crass statement occurs on page three of the letter with the statement that inflation means that an item costing $1 in December 2002 cost $1.20 on 2009. That is an increase of 20 per cent.

How does it justify a fees increase of 80 per cent, Dr Lind? When the Northern Territory of Australia increased its registration fees last year, they went from $60 to $75. When Tasmania did likewise this year, they went from $82 to $85. Yes, Sydney charges $100 for registration, but the top step of the NSW basic scale is $81,656, not $70,000.

How about those for realistic benchmarks, Dr Lind?

Finally, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that if the TRB did as much for teachers as Dr Lind would have us believe, membership would be both voluntary and over-subscribed. Should we read anything into the fact that Dr Lind’s letter is dated 20th April?