Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the early 1990s the then Labor government operated a New Schools Policy. Orwellian in name, this policy effectively discouraged the establishment of new schools. It was repealed by the Howard government, leading to the establishment of many new schools which exist today. Indeed, many of these schools can be found in the outer suburbs and in the regional areas of Australia. By 2007, 33.6 per cent of students attended non-government schools in Australia, and the proportion of students in independent schools in years 11 and 12 is even higher.

The disdain for independent schools has surfaced in Labor Party policy frequently. Remember Mark Latham’s hit list of the wealthiest schools targeted for funding cuts? Under the plans of Mr Latham and Jenny Macklin, 67 schools would have seen their funds cut and another 111 would have had their funds frozen. Mr Rudd subsequently repudiated this proposal in his election commitments last year, saying that funds would be maintained for the 2009 to 2012 period, with a review of subsequent arrangements. No school would lose a dollar was Mr Rudd’s claim. During the campaign, the Labor candidate for Eden-Monaro, Mike Kelly, revived the spectre of a hit list but was slapped down by Mr Rudd. But much of the Left remains antithetical to non-government education, as I shall illustrate.

The President of the Australian Secondary Principals Association, Andrew Blair, argued recently that non-government schools would have to cap their fees to qualify for federal funding or have their subsidies removed. Mr Blair proposed three tiers of funding: first, government schools, which receive all funds from the government; second, government supported schools, which receive some government and some parental funding; and, third, independent schools, which receive no government funding.

If this proposal were implemented it would return us to the days before the Menzies government introduced state aid for non-government schools. Worse, it would impose a new level of government control over the hundreds of independent schools that could not afford to operate on fees from parents alone. They would be required to abide by government policy on issues like accountability and curriculum and cap their fees. Mr Blair quotes other activists, including Chris Bonnor, who describes the current system as ‘stupid’.

Supported by groups such as the Australian Education Union, this is a campaign to slash expenditure on the education of many young Australians and to introduce left-wing controls over most non-government schools in this nation. Given Labor’s history on these matters, Australians are entitled to be suspicious about their current intentions.

The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, which we are currently debating, raises these suspicions. The Schools Assistance Bill mandates as a condition of funding that all Catholic and independent schools implement the new national curriculum and make public data about school performance, including all sources of funding. This has a number of problems. First, the requirement of adherence to a national curriculum puts at risk the uniqueness of many schools such as Steiner schools, Montessori schools and special needs schools. It also risks the International Baccalaureate and the Cambridge international exams. This requirement is being introduced in this bill despite the fact that the national curriculum will not be finalised until sometime in 2009. Worse, the requirement that all funding sources be disclosed and revealed fuels the campaign to remove funding from independent schools. That campaign, I submit to the House, is misleading.

The proponents claim that Australia is at the bottom of the funding table compared to other OECD countries, but when both public and private funding is combined we are about average among OECD countries. They also ignore the huge savings to the taxpayer because parents sacrifice other expenditure for their children’s education—and, remember, one in three children who are in school in Australia are now in independent schools. The cost of educating a child in government schools in 2005-06 was, on average, $11,243. The cost to government of educating children in non-government schools in the same period was just $6,268. So, on average, the cost to government to educate a child in a government school in Australia was $11,243 compared to just $6,268—about half—to educate a child in an independent or non-government school. What this represents is a saving of billions of dollars each year because of the financial sacrifice that hundreds of thousands of parents throughout this country make. It is a laudable objective to increase schools funding, but it should not be undertaken in the misleading and divisive manner being advocated by the Australian Education Union and its supporters. It is for these reasons that I commend to the House the amendments which have been moved by the shadow minister.

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