Far North Qld teachers join 50,000 in statewide strike action
Far North teachers have joined mass protest action in a bitter fight for better working conditions and pay that the union claims is at the bottom end of the Australian pay scale.
Far North teachers have joined mass protest action in a bitter fight for better working conditions and pay that the union claims is at the bottom end of the Australian pay scale.
Nearly 200 Cairns teachers gathered at the Brothers Leagues Club for the strike, with others taking place in Atherton, Innisfail and Weipa.
Parramatta State School teacher and lead QTU representative Jen Conje said she didn’t want to be at the union protest on Tuesday.
“I didn’t want to strike today,” Ms Conje said.
“But we don’t have a choice, we have a government that hasn’t been fair in its dealings with us.”
This is the union’s second strike this year after teachers rejected an offer of an 8 per cent pay increase over three years in October, which the government says would mean every teacher will earn at least $100,000 a year by the end of the agreement.
But according to the union, this offer still places many teachers “at the bottom end of the Australian pay scale” and nearly 30 per cent of all public service workers now earn at least $120,000 per year.
QTU education leader officer Rebecca Hack said she had wanted to be a teacher since she was a little girl.
“But when I was imagining being a teacher, I don’t remember imagining what it would feel like to get king hit by one of my students,” she said.
Ms Hack said the profession was at a tipping point, and if action wasn’t taken soon there “wouldn’t be a profession to save”.
“Our students deserve better, our teachers deserve better and our society deserves better,” she said.
“Mr Crisafulli – enough is enough.”
Ms Conje said the education system had long played on the unpaid labour of teachers.
“It counts on us to go on camps that we’re not paid for … to write reports on the weekends, to take students to excursions and sporting events after hours,” she said.
However the strike was not only about pay, she said, but also about improving student learning conditions, resourcing, staff retention and safety.
“I quite happily would take what I’m on and stick with it,” she said.
“It’s about where we’re at in the classrooms.
“We have an increasing problem with occupational violence that is going unaddressed, we have a problem with resourcing, we have students with special needs that aren’t getting what they need in order to be successful.”
In the first term of 2025, there were 119 violent incidents reported a day by Queensland teachers which equated to 5,741 incidents of “occupational violence and aggression” during term 1 in 2025.
Ms Conje said regional and remote schools were the under the most strain.
“There are so many schools that cannot get staff in,” she said.
“Or if they are able to get staff in, they can’t maintain those staff because a lot of the benefits that make teaching remotely attractive expire after a set period of time.”
According to the Queensland Audit Office’s 2025 “Attracting and retaining teachers in regional and remote Queensland” report, as of June 30 this year there were roughly 600 vacancies in Queensland’s regional and rural schools.
Ms Conje said she was personally sorry for the inconvenience caused to parents and kids as a result of the strike.
“(The strike) is not out of a desire to cause an inconvenience, but it’s out of a desire to be seen and to be heard,” Ms Conje said.
“I’m doing this because your child will benefit with improved conditions.
“Your child will learn better and have more opportunity if they’re in a school that is resourced fairly and can access things they need.”
A total of 109 schools across Queensland had year 10 and 11 exams impacted on Tuesday, with around half deciding to reschedule.
The Department of Education could not confirm how many exams, if any, had been affected across Far North Queensland.
The QTU confirmed arbitration would be begin by December 31.
Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said it was difficult to come to an agreement with QTU when “union claims were different to what they had made before.”
“I’m not going to go into everything that the union makes allegations about because we have a clear process of conciliation, that was where both sides had a chance to put forward their claims, which is exactly what the government did and the union did,” Mr Langbroek said.
“Often, over time, the union claims were different to what they had made before.”
He said the government would continue to follow due processes and hoped an agreement could be reached.
Originally published as Far North Qld teachers join 50,000 in statewide strike action
