Mr Chaney said a world-class education system was also needed to bolster workforce participation. He reiterated the BCA’s calls this week to business and both sides of government to address Australia’s workforce participation rate, as well as the unemployment rate. The BCA said an extra one million people could join the workforce if business and government moved to break down financial and social barriers, particularly for women, mature-age workers and indigenous Australians.  “Economic prosperity should be the catalyst to unwind disadvantage – not perpetuate it,’’ Mr Chaney said last night.  

From ‘Invest in Teachers – BCA’ by Fleur Leyden, Herald Sun, 25 October 2007, p. 77.

‘In the midst of so much prosperity, it is easy to overlook the many Australians who continue to confront a vastly different reality,’ Chaney said. ‘This is a world where economic opportunity is limited or non-existent and social isolation a fact of daily life. For all the talk and mutual congratulations over economic prosperity we need to remind ourselves of the other Australia.’

From the ‘CBD’ column, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 October 2007, p. 31.

The outgoing president of the Business Council of Australia, Michael Chaney, is right when he says teachers should be paid up to $130,000 a year, compared with the current top salary band of just under $74,000. Mr Chaney says greater salary incentives, improved teacher training and a national curriculum would improve educational standards and reduce the number of school leavers who cannot obtain work or are employed only part-time.

From editorial titled ‘Rewarding Our Best Teachers’, The Advertiser, 26 October 2007, p 16.

Former Wesfarmers boss and outgoing Business Council of Australia president Michael Chaney said greater emphasis was needed on national approaches to school curriculum and teacher training, because the education system was failing more than 300,000 young people. ‘This is the number of young people who are either unemployed or working part-time, or have not gone on to further education,’ Mr Chaney said last night. He said the ‘best and brightest’ were not entering the teaching profession. ‘Today we are fortunate still to have very many teachers who are highly competent, professional and dedicated to their task, but it is inevitable that unless we do something about the unattractiveness of teaching as a career, we’ll see a steady decline in teaching standards over time,’ he said.

From ‘Top Teachers Should Be Paid $130,000: Business Chief’ by Fleur Leyden, The Courier-Mail, 25 October 2007, p. 3.

President of the Business Council of Australia Michael Chaney has called for a dramatic increase in teachers’ pay, saying top teachers should receive almost double the salary. Mr Chaney said the cost of pay increases for both public and private teachers would be about $4 billion. He said the figure was a manageable amount. ‘We should consider such expenditure an investment rather than a cost,’ Mr Chaney told the annual BCA dinner in Sydney on Wednesday night. 

From ‘Top Teachers’ Pay Should Double: Chaney’, Australian Associated Press, 25 October 2007

... a leading figure in the business community, Michael Chaney, who is the chairman of the National Australia Bank and the outgoing head of the Business Council of Australia, called for greater attention to Australia's social needs in a speech this week. Chaney said Australia needs to be “as proficient in the language of social prosperity as we are in the language of economic reform”.  

From ‘Only Heaven Is Worry-free’ by Peter Hartcher, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 October 2007, p. 6.

Outgoing Business Council president Michael Chaney this week went further in calling for much greater investments in education, training and the elimination of disadvantage as an economic imperative. “Education and workforce participation are what will drive economic and social prosperity.” He proposed lifting teacher pay, tied to performance, so top teachers could earn up to $130,000 a year. He described the estimated cost of $4 billion as manageable, yet Mr Costello and Mr Swan would probably regard it as eye-watering. It is more than any single health, education or infrastructure funding announcement to date. Such long-term investments can have huge impacts on participation and productivity, but amount to only a fraction of the tax cuts.

From editorial titled ‘Costello and Swan Face Test of Responsibility’, The Age, 27 October 2007, p. 8.