My message today is a simple one—the Howard government has got to go! Public education cannot afford another three years of this government. John Howard’s attempts to unpick every skerrick of the Whitlam achievements and to reframe Australian culture into something of his own choosing continued unabated during 2006 and have reached a point which most of us would not have imagined possible ten years ago. —Pat Byrne, Federal President, Australian Education Union, 2007 IF, AS THE APHORISM suggests, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then it is obvious that school education is a key policy area where the…