CentreLady interview

Dana Pham did a magnificent job. I thought readers would be interested

One of my #CentreLady fans is David Daniel Ball. David has written books post-teaching career. He wrote History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice in twelve monthly volumes, and Bread of Life: a lay view of Bible Quotes in twelve volumes, with a thirteenth covering the whole year. He has a YouTube channel with a million hits, a blog with two million hits, and he maintains ‘The Bolt Report Supporters Group’ on Facebook, which has a ten-year history and over thirty-thousand members. He loves teaching, so I wanted to understand why he left his beloved career behind. David explained:

“I started teaching in 1992, and in my first year saw a teacher molest students openly in front of the principal’s office. I reported it appropriately, following Department guidelines that did not protect me. While Department abusers were attacking me, they negligently allowed a child to die from anaphylaxis shock. I again reported things within the Department, but the Department abusers of me got scared, making my position untenable after they remarked a class of Year 12 trials to lower marks for my students.

I was instructed by the Department to delete all my writing under the Teacher’s Code of Conduct 2005, which had been written by an old school friend of mine who was an ALP lawyer working in the Premier’s office. I contacted the Minister of Education outlining my issue and threatening to resign and speak publicly. I gave him a list of media outlets willing to work with me if I resigned. The Minister saw no problem with the issue I outlined. But when I resigned the media backers disappeared.”

David was a math teacher in South-Western Sydney up until 2007. His students were successful, and worked hard to make sure he didn’t shirk his responsibilities, giving his free time to establish games clubs and chess competitions, and generally just going above and beyond. Ambitious, and from a family of teachers, David served time as Year coordinator, and obtained a Master’s degree in Education without workplace support. So why did the media turn on an outstanding citizen?

“The Channel 7 news journalist said that his senior editor told him to back away. Nobody was willing to give me a name. Years later, 2GB’s senior talent scout told me that I was blackballed and if I ever found out who did it I would be surprised, but it wasn’t the obvious one.”

David was not a member of the NSW Teachers’ Federation because of their non-industrial relations-related political activism. Regardless, he had asked them to take a stance on his case several times, and pointed out that it was in their interest to be involved. It’s worth noting that under NSW Premier Nick Greiner, David was allowed to become a teacher without joining the Teachers’ Federation. That however, was amended later under Bob Carr, in that Teachers’ Federation members would be favoured in preselection for positions.

“Teachers in NSW used to be selected by seniority. So if a high school had a vacancy for a math teacher, and there was a list of people wanting to transfer there, then the teacher with the most seniority was picked. Here, there are job interviews thanks to Greiner. Now, if a panel prefers two teachers, and one isn’t in the union, then the union teacher is chosen thanks to Carr.”

Naplan and HSC produce results for students. However, it is easy to reverse-engineer the results to see the impact of teachers on students. It’s no surprise that teachers’ unions oppose that on principle, arguing that ‘all teachers are the same’ if they are competent. Another excess of the Teachers’ Federation, because authorities have data that would easily allow teachers to improve and professionally develop. And as usual, unions provide a mouthpiece for ALP politicians:

“One Federal Labor guy from Fairfield way spoke to a whole school assembly prior to a NSW State election at a local high school. No Liberal would be allowed that. He said he had grown up with Harry Kewell, but he was just name-dropping a younger man. Canley Vale High School got Joe Tripodi to speak at an awards ceremony to the high school. He gave a rambling speech circa 2002. The school also welcomed Reba Meagher to speak to girls on girls’ issues: this is the union being partisan in its advocacy.

The union would oppose me putting up a tribute to Ronald Reagan article on a wall (newspaper cutout), while littering the place with global warming theory. The union virtue signals on every issue, and so high schools have a welfare head teacher in every school. The previous position was named ‘Headmistress in charge of girls’ and their job was to hear female squabbles and hand out tampons. The position can only be held by women as a form of positive discrimination. Exceptions are made in male-only boarding schools.”

David then provided a magnificent example of unnecessary union interference:

“In the 70s, office ladies had pupil record cards coded blue and pink for boys and girls. Nobody ever looked at the pupil record cards unless a student transferred school, died or got into legal trouble. They basically tracked school performance in half-yearly tests and kept school reports and concerns by doctors etc, and are destroyed a few years after the student graduates from school. But the union was concerned about gender bias, so the instruction given was that all the pupil record cards would need to be recorded on plain colours. Which was done. But the office ladies found it easier to search for students based on colour. So they got sticker dots and placed stickers on the cards. Blue for boys, pink for girls.”

But it doesn’t stop there. David alleges that the union may have been complicit, or used, by the pedophiles flagged by the Woods Royal Commision into policing which branched into teaching. The union opposed investigation until everything blew up it seems:

“The Woods Royal commission was investigating police corruption when it came across the issue of the Dancing Koalas, a performance troupe of primary school students who were run by pedophiles in network. And then schools were noted for transferring, not firing teachers who were pedophiles, for fear of being called witch hunters if they tried to appropriately deal with a pedophile. That was what had happened in Campbelltown Performing Arts High School. A PE teacher who had been identified as sex offending against children was investigated.

When I went there, another teacher was seen by me misbehaving. The danger to the school was in calling out the child abuser, because he could sue everyone involved until they had nothing but debt forever. So when I asked the principal what I should do, she was terrified of letting something explosive happen. She first burned the children to shut me up, having them placed on detention under the teacher they accused. Then forced me to confront the teacher involved, then transferred me from the school. It should have ended there, except the Woods Royal Commission got the Labor Minister of Education to order staff to talk of what they knew to the Department. Which I did.

The Department covered the mess by waiting for the 1992 Year 7 students to graduate before interviewing them. At which time the students said they wanted to forget it. And so the investigating unit declared no substance to the allegation, which left me with a target on my back as a whistleblower who failed. The result was that I was shuffled away from my work at Hurlstone Agricultural High School, which directly resulted in the death of Hamidur Rahman. Once the Department realised the link, they called me to tell me they would never speak to me again, because they felt I was a pest. This was before I had known it was Hamidur who had died.

If I could do it all over again, I would never have tried to be even-handed with the ALP in talking to Della Bosca, Tripodi etc. I would never have talked to my school friend who worked as a lawyer for the ALP, or reached out to my uncle who was a lawyer for the Teacher’s Federation. I would have sold up everything, turning it into cash, and gone to live in the USA and got my credentials recognised to start again.”

The consequences of having the fortitude to whistleblow can be devastating. David still teaches, working as a tutor for Edu-Kingdom College five days a week, but it’s not as satisfying for him as public school teaching where one can impact lives with good study habits and introduce subversive reading material like Watership Down or science fiction. He found it satisfying to watch his students become mature adults capable of making their way in life.

If he had stayed a classroom teacher he’d be on $80k/pa plus entitlements. Instead, he now struggles to make $20k without entitlements. He’s lost everything, his home, life savings, everything he treasured growing up, opportunity to lead a normal life. He gristles over how one politician costed him dearly for his fortitude. Exhaustion, hurt and defeat are regular feelings. But it’s not all doom and gloom. He’s found friends he’d never expected to make:

“When I moved to Victoria it was to share accommodation and I ran into an ice addict that wanted to kill me. Police would not help me because the guy was a registered sex offender and he hadn’t threatened a sex offence. All under a Labor Government. Anyway, a Facebook friend, an ex-Vietnamese refugee invited to stay with his family for a realistic rent. I’ve been working with his two children for the last few years too. His son was in Year 2 and his daughter in Year 4 when I first came here over three years ago. Now she has been school captain and he has learned stuff you couldn’t read about, because he still prefers Roblox to reading. And so I’ve learned to work with younger kids too, which is a real privilege.

Then a Vietnamese girl I helped with English came to Australia to study. She needed help and I gave it to her as I could. I call her my daughter. She recently married, having graduated from university as an accountant, while working to pay bills. I could never choose an alternative. But I need to have a way forward, and things are closing for me. I can’t get work in schools in Victoria either.”

It appears to me that the current school system in relation to (Hamidur’s) anaphylaxis is geared to protecting school reputation, rather than addressing the needs of at-risk students. Students who are anaphylaxis-free shouldn’t have to forego food they aren’t allergic to. Instead, kids with allergies need to be identified and educated so they are less at risk, and can take defensive action in case of an accident. David concludes:

“Hurlstone Ag is being sold off, I bear them no ill will. Most of my abusers have retired. I have no urge to pursue them. Hamidur’s parents are owed an apology, but the Coroner was too political and has buried the boy. I wrote my books to recapture my voice lost when I was silenced. The most important thing for me is to thank God for my friends, and for the blessings he has shown me. I had given up on family, and now I’ve had a daughter and she has grown up, and I’ve met and seen how real children are raised in good families. My life is fruitful. But I must still fight for my future. But do so by walking the way He has shown me in love, and not by fighting meaningless battles.”