Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're hurtling towards a two-tiered school system in this country with Labor's new funding scheme a reverse Robin Hood, which is still bleeding public schools dry to give to wealthy private schools. Last week, analysis showed that over 50 per cent of private schools are getting more government money than comparable public schools. Even when you hold a private school and a public school which are as similar in their demographics as possible next to each other, the current system still tilts the scales in favour of the private system.

Every single school parent and carer can see that this is a deeply broken and inequitable system. Every day this year the federal government will give $51 million to private schools. Cranbrook School, known for its $125 million redevelopment, including an aquatics centre, received $4.5 million in Commonwealth government funding in 2022. It also raked in $62 million in fees from parents. That is a joke, and the only people laughing are rich private schools. Honestly, who can look a public school parent or carer in the eye and say that is a fair system?

This Labor government is making a choice. It is choosing to further entrench a two-tiered system. This is a system where its public schools and public school teachers educate the vast majority of young people who experience educational disadvantage, and yet they continue to struggle on inadequate funding. It's broken, it's unequal and it has to change.