At least 15,000 teachers, education assistants, school support staff, parents and children rallied at Perth’s Gloucester Park racecourse on 19 September, in protest at the Barnett government’s cuts to public education.

More than 60 schools closed for the morning, while 5,000 people rallied in dozens of regional centres across the state. Two hundred thousand students stayed away from school, according to Education Department figures.

State School Teachers Union (SSTU) members stopped work alongside educations assistants, cleaners and gardeners from United Voice and school support staff from the Civil Service Association (CSA). A sizeable contingent joined the rally from the WA branch of the Maritime Union.

Community and Public Sector Union/CSA assistant secretary Rikki Hendon told the rally, “The Barnett government has made the mistake of attacking something dear to the hearts of Western Australian people. Communities all over the state are standing up and expressing their support for the campaign to overturn these cuts, and this will only grow.”

SSTU president Anne Gisborne added, “The children in this state should not have to pay for the government’s mismanagement of its budget”, in reference to the state government’s loss of its triple-A credit rating.

Unions warned the government that the stop-work meeting was only the start of their campaign.

“[Premier] Colin Barnett and [education minister] Peter Collier continue to hide from the truth, but the community is determined; we’re not going away”, said United Voice secretary Carolyn Smith.

In response to the mass rally, the Barnett government remained defiant, claiming that the strike was disruptive, unnecessary and unjustified. Collier has claimed that current funding arrangements are “not sustainable” and that “reforms” are needed to “distribute resources more equitably”.

But the reality of this overhaul will be the loss of 500 non-teaching jobs, including 150 department positions, 150 education assistants hired to monitor kindergarten to year 2 children with anaphylaxis and up to 200 more education assistants, as well as hundreds of teachers’ jobs.

The School Support Program Resource Allocation, which tackles behavioural issues and literacy and numeracy, will be cut by 30 percent, and schools are being asked to pay a levy for long-service leave liabilities, leading to further job losses among teachers.

Next year, the average primary school is estimated to be about $80,000 worse off, and some high schools are set to lose up to $1 million.

Families with 457 visa holder breadwinners will be asked to pay annual school fees of $4,000 for each of their children in public education.

The Barnett government must be stopped. A determined and ongoing campaign of industrial action by staff, in alliance with school communities, will be needed to fend off this attack.