Director

Pat Byrne Pat Byrne is currently the Federal President of the Australian Education Union, a position she has held since May, 2003.

Prior to that, in 1999, Pat became the first woman elected as President of the State School Teachers' Union of Western Australia and retained that position until moving to Melbourne at the beginning of 2004 to take up her present role.

Pat's background is in primary education. Much of her classroom experience has been as an English as a Second Language teacher in both metropolitan and country locations. It was this experience, especially working with the first â“wave” of Vietnamese refugee children to arrive in WA – in the late 1970's – which politicised her, leading to formal union involvement and her election to the SSTUWA executive in 1982.

Pat has retained her commitment to a social justice agenda in education. As such, she has maintained an interest in the ANSN and its work since its inception and has actively promoted it within the union and education department in WA.