ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has dismissed the education union's call for Joy Burch's resignation as "muscular and alpha-male tactics", insisting Ms Burch is "doing a good job as minister".
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"I am familiar with the occasional use of muscular and alpha-male tactics by union leaders in order to advance their case in relation to enterprise bargaining arrangements," he said. "This approach by the union is disappointing."
Glenn Fowler, secretary of the Australian Education Union, wrote to Mr Barr on Monday, calling on him to remove Ms Burch after two-and-a-half years of "confusion, inaction and poor communication".
Teachers had lost confidence in Ms Burch and the ACT branch council had voted not to continue negotiating their agreement with her.
"There is utter confusion and the minister has taken to speaking in riddles," he said.
Ms Burch hit back at the union on Tuesday, saying she was "disappointed ... on a number of levels and indeed on a personal level".
"I'm a passionate advocate for public education and I intend to continue on as minister," she said. Asked what had gone wrong with her relationship with the union, she said she was disappointed the union had "gone to such an extreme step" over a good offer.
The offer of a 12 per cent pay rise over four years, would see more than half of the teaching workforce being paid more than $100,000 and graduates earning $68,000 by the end of the agreement, she said.
The union wanted to reduce the current face-to-face teaching hours – 19 hours a week for high schools and 21.5 hours for primary schools. "They want to reduce that, which will effectively take teachers out of the classroom and between two or three extra weeks a year, that will cost the budget and the community an extra $70 million," she said.
Mr Barr said he would meet the union with Ms Burch "in due course".
The fracas comes after a difficult few months for Ms Burch, who has faced criticism over her handling of poker machines, and who is awaiting the outcome of an investigation into her son's involvement with Menslink in schools.
Liberal education spokesman Steve Doszpot said the no-confidence vote was not surprising.
"The onus is certainly on Andrew Barr to act as the education union says enough is enough," he said.
"Minister Burch's lack of attention to detail and inability to communicate clearly with teachers has apparently exhausted even the patience of the ACT teaching community and has led to the extraordinary step of calling for her dismissal.
"Just how many blunders does the Education Minister need to make before the Chief Minister finally takes some action."
