I am a classroom teacher at Darwin High School and have been teaching in the Northern Territory since 2003. My teaching career spans thirty years in government schools and I previously taught in South Australia. I have taught at Years 8-12 High schools in rural and urban locations, an Adult Re-Entry College which included night classes and in a specialist school for students with extreme behaviours which had primary and secondary campuses. I have been a member of the Australian Education Union (AEU) throughout my teaching career and for most of those years I have accepted representative positions at the school, regional and state levels within the AEU which reflects my commitment to teaching and teachers. I have a Graduate Diploma in Education and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Adelaide.
I visited the Territory in 2001 and my partner, Judy, had some of her photos blown up to poster size prints and mounted. We looked at these through the winter of 2002 and just had to come back. I needed to swim out to those waterfalls a few more times. Which ones ? Gunlom and Maguk especially.
I had 2003 at Sanderson High and just couldn't go back to Adelaide. The Territory is fantastic, but the schools and the students are absolutely marvelous. It is a privilege to meet and teach the young people we have. Not everyone is a great student, but so many are truly wonderful people. Don't get me wrong I see the shortcomings, share the frustrations BUT the essential element that keeps each of us fronting up each day, the "kids", is really special in the NT.
I used to play lacrosse seriously (and well) and tennis seriously (but not very well!). Now my recreation is fishing. I am not a boat person, I love wandering along the banks of the Reynolds or hitting Roper Bar at the Easter break (not this year, how disappointing!). Mostly it is local stuff at Buffalo Creek or out the front of our unit on Casuarina Drive (another reason to love this place!). Shady Camp Barrage gets a few visits each year. The wildlife out there totally makes up for my numerous woeful returns on the fishing front.
Union Roles
I have been the Subbranch President at Darwin High since Jean Memery stepped down from that position in 2007. I am currently President of the Darwin Regional Council, a position I have had the pleasure of holding in 2009 and 2010. I have been actively involved in the AEU NT since my decision to be a permanent resident in 2003.
I was elected to Executive in 2007 and worked diligently throughout the last UCA. In my position as DHS Subbranch President I organised the only protest against the Henderson Government using the Work Choices legislation to prevent us from taking the 3 day stoppage that was planned.
Similarly it was me that organised the successful protest at Henderson's electoral office during the last election. I tried without success to improve the communication between meetings of Executive members. This is an important part of my platform as this has still not been addressed and it will hamper the current negotiation process. I expressed concerns at Executive about the FTOs not following Executive directions. At the final stages of the UCA process I resigned because the offer to be voted on had been grossly misrepresented in a paper produced by our FTOs and even after a significant number of Executive objected to it, the FTOs circulated it and handed it out at mass meetings.
Prior to coming to the NT I held positions equivalent to Subbranch President at each of the schools I taught at in South Australia since 1980 which was my second year at Mt Gambier High. I also accepted or won positions on regional councils, state councils and annual conferences over the next 20 years.
