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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3299 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
The territory government, as does any state government, has a responsibility to provide basic education and a decent level of education right across the spectrum from kindergarten to year 12. About 88 per cent of the total funding for state schools comes from state and territory governments. Other funding, 10 per cent or so, comes from the Commonwealth and 2 per cent or so comes from other sources. That is a general summation of what it is like across-the-board and the ACT is not terribly dissimilar.
As Mr Osborne said, we fund special education to a very high degree. In fact, I think that we fund our system far better than any other state or territory in the country. One of the problems may be that we are doing it so successfully that people tend to come to Canberra and stay here because of that.
Funding in the non-government sector is very different. The funding there in terms of government sources is mainly from the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth funds more than twice as much as the state or territory governments. Mr Osborne, our state funding towards government schools, depending on the category of school, is anywhere between about 42 per cent and 49 per cent of what the federal government puts in. As well, with the non-government schools the parents, depending on the system, make up a significant proportion of the funding.
The Commonwealth has some special programs for students with disabilities. Those special per capita programs which the Commonwealth administers go to the non-government schools for students with disabilities. That would be a primary source of funding for non-government schools.
The Liberal government here recognised, however, that there were certainly things that we could do as a territory to assist those children with disabilities in non-government schools. That is why we provided initially in, I think, the 1996-97 budget $100,000 for that. That went up to $200,000 and in the upcoming budget there will be the last of four increases of $100,000, taking the total to $600,000 for students with disabilities in non-government schools which the territory funds. The last increment on that will be in the 2001-02 budget.
We also give assistance in some other ways to the non-government sector in relation to disabled children; but, as a specific initiative of this government, it was initially $100,000 a year and it has now gone up to $500,000 a year in terms of assistance to the children with disabilities in the non-government sector.
MR OSBORNE: I have a supplementary question. Minister, I am still not sure-perhaps I missed it in your answer-why the funding does not follow the child from government to non-government schools. I am aware of situations within the non-government sector where children with disabilities have been denied places in the schools of their choice by particular schools because of lack of funding. Does this policy of yours leave the door open for these schools which reject these disabled children to be taken to the Discrimination Commission, as we saw recently in Sydney with a high-profile case?
MR STEFANIAK
: I suppose you could argue that funds should follow all students, Mr Osborne. That is certainly a vexed question and a very complex one nationally; but, basically, our fundamental responsibility is to provide programs in the government
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