But Coalition backbencher Andrew Laming was at it again this week, this time accusing David Gonski - the consultant brought in to advise successive governments on education policy - of ignoring the teachers’ current workplace arrangements.

These, he says, involve shorter-than-average hours and holiday periods far in excess of the average worker.

“Teaching needs to operate like other jobs, with the same hours, days and weeks as the rest of the economy, rather than cluttered school hours where there it is little beyond the face-to-face time,” he told Fairfax Media.

“Gonski skirted these workplace issues and opted for soothing words to keep all parties at the table.”

It’s a tired cliche that most people - those in the profession, those with school-aged children, or anyone who has ever met a teacher, really - understand to be a myth. Schoolchildren get 12 weeks of holidays a year; teachers do not. Many teachers work in excess of 50 hours a week, and spend large portions of their leave preparing for classes or undertaking professional development. Many more pay for school resources from their own pocket, and work many extra unpaid hours outside classes.

And their salaries are far, far lower than that of an elected politician, even a backbencher like Laming.

The Queensland MP has form when it comes to attacking the Australian teaching profession. In January 2017, he caused an uproar after posting on his personal page a faux-innocent question: “Are teachers back at work this week, or are they ‘lesson planning’ from home? Let me know exactly.”

There followed a barrage of criticism, with most seeing through those passive aggressive quotation marks to the implied denigration of the profession.

Laming also earned a stern rebuke from prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose own daughter is a teacher, and the post was later deleted.

But here he is again, wading in unhelpfully to the debate at a time when academic performance in Australian schools is in a decline, a fact that has been linked directly to the poor standing of the teaching profession in terms of pay scales and prestige.

In an opinion piece published on Monday, Gonski himself maintained that Australia needs to recommit to improving teacher skills.

“In terms of professional skills development, continuous improvement is just as important for teachers as it is for students,” he said.

“Schools and education authorities should provide high-quality and appropriate professional learning for their teachers.

“Teachers deserve to be paid well. Our report advocates strongly that instead of teachers salaries plateauing as they do now, unless they become principals – those who wish to continue as high-performing teachers should be able to earn more.”

In Canberra, we are rightly proud of the strong performance of our public schools, which wouldn’t be possible without dedicated, professional teachers. But the education system, like in the rest the country, is at a crossroads when it comes to a changing employment landscape, and the future of today’s school children looks very different to the one we’re used to. Calling teachers out for their work ethic is, at best, missing the point. At worst, it is attacking the very people we are relying on to help shape this uncertain future.