Background
Of Italian descent, Piccoli was born in Griffith.
Of Italian descent, Piccoli was born in Griffith.
He completed a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Laws at the Australian National University in 1993.
He is the deputy leader of the The Nationals in the New South Wales Parliament, and has been the Minister for Education since 2011, in both the O"Farrell and Baird ministries. Piccoli has represented Murrumbidgee for the Nationals since the 1999 state election. In 2008 he became the deputy leader of the National Party in the NSW Parliament.
Following the Coalition victory in the 2011 New South Wales election, Piccoli was chosen by Premier Barry O"Farrell to be part of his cabinet as the Minister for Education.
When Deputy Premier and Nationals leader Andrew Stoner announced his resignation in 2014, Piccoli as Stoner"s deputy was expected to stand as a candidate to succeed him as Nationals leader but chose not to nominate for the leadership and instead remained deputy to new leader Troy Grant. lieutenant is believed that Piccoli did not have the numbers to beat Grant for the leadership, despite Grant"s political inexperience.
Stoner had endorsed Grant over Piccoli as his successor. Piccoli has promoted an educational reform called "Local Schools, Local Decisions" to give state schools more authority.
Ethics classes
Ethics classes were introduced by the Keneally Labor government as an alternative for children who did not want to attend traditional scripture classes.
Prior to the 2011 state election, Barry O"Farrell made a pre-election pledge of not scrapping the ethics classes. While negotiating the lease of the electricity grid, Mike Baird announced changes to scripture enrolment forms, with the availability of ethics classes removed from forms sent to parents. The existence of ethics classes would only be made known to parents in a secondary form if they had chosen no scripture classes.
The changes were described as "misleading and deceptive" by Anglican minister John Dickson.
Adrian Piccoli"s department blocked access to the chairman of Primary Ethics, despite holding meetings with faith-based lobby groups. The government made the enrollment process increasingly deceptive in 2016, requiring parents to fill in multiple forms before being made aware that ethics classes are an option.
Following the election, Fred Nile, who was vehemently opposed to the ethics classes, introduced a private members bill proposing the abolition of the classes, arguing that the ethics course is based on a philosophy linked to Nazism and communism.