Page 664 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 22 February 2012
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Most telling of all was a statement from Mr Chris Watt, Federal Secretary of the Independent Education Union, who was reported as saying that if the Gonski model of funding was implemented without a $5 billion investment from the government to place all sectors on par, Catholic schools would be significantly worse off in the long run, particularly in the ACT. Mr Watt went further to say:
Add to that that the ACT Catholic system only gets 51.2 % (average government school recurrent costs) compared to 56.9 % in other states and territories and you’ll see Canberra schools will be hit the hardest.
We’re already paying a premium for Catholic Education here, with secondary school fees ranging up to $3,500 per year compared to $2,500 per year in a Catholic School in Sydney.
Then we come to the ACT Labor-Greens’ track record. It is worthy to note that in 2010-11 non-government schools received only $47 million from the ACT government, which equates to approximately $1,777 per student. This is in contrast to the $463 million allocated to the public school sector, equating to approximately $11,871 per student. In short, the over 40 per cent of students that attend non-government schools are, in effect, saving the government money. They are also supplementing overall resources, ensuring that our public schools are not oversubscribed.
The Canberra Liberals have highlighted this issue and the need for a well resourced government and non-government education system in this Assembly on numerous occasions, yet the government’s response has been firm: no investment without reform. Yet we are at the cusp of reform. This ACT Labor government’s only tangible proposal seems to involve making our community foot the bill for a multibillion dollar commonwealth government initiative. This is coming from the same government that promised no school closures, but sowed the seeds for gutting our public community schools.
This is also the same ACT Labor government where in 2006 only four of their nine members supported non-government schools, with our present Chief Minister and Mr Corbell supporting the motion that stated:
ACT Labor asserts that it is not the role of Labor governments to promote private education. Instead, it is incumbent on all Labor parties and governments to unashamedly support, promote and fund public education … The growth of private education is facilitating the fragmentation of Australia’s children along ethnic, cultural and particularly religious lines.
That was supported by the then education minister, now our Chief Minister.
I recall that it was the ACT Greens who then supported an education policy that would limit commonwealth government funding to 2003-04 levels, thus appropriating approximately $60 million from ACT non-government schools.
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