During the Christmas/New Year holiday period, prior to the tragedy of floods and fires, Prime Minister Julia Gillard chose to feed out some media announcements about local school autonomy.
Her proposal was to give schools the right to “hire and fire” teachers. The model would give school principals and local parent representatives control of staffing, replacing the current statewide system of appointments.
Many states have a variation of this localised system to some extent. However, NSW and Queensland, which are still under state-based employment relations, do not.