AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS - D.O.G.S.

PRESS RELEASE #7.

We are told that "as the implications of the funding system began to sink in, it was predicted that non-Catholic school systems, such as Antglican Luther and Seventh Day Adventist, would disintegrate."

In contrast with Catholic system schools, it is claimed that they have no financial incentive to stay together in the new funding Howard-Kemp funding model. Under this model, funding for new schools entering non-Catholic systems entering the non-Catholic systems will be determined by the sociaio-economic status of their client families, allocated to the system on an aggregate basis. The 1500 Catholic systemic schools representing 20% of the nation's schools effectively sit outside this new model. Their funding, which will amount to more than $3 billion will no longer be determined on a "needs" basis.

The chief executive officer of the Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation, Guy Yeomans says it appears that the Howard Government has done a deal that allowed "one group to gain and other groups to be prevent from gaining".

If he had read the DOGS Press Release #1, he would have known before the election that Mr Howard had indeed done a deal with the Roman Catholic Church and the Budget is just the continuation of that "State Aid Auction" deal. If he had followed the research of the DOGS in the 1970s and 1980s, he would have also known that the "Needs" policy was used and well abused by the Roman Catholic Church. As the "needy" schools gained the funds, money was diverted to the setting up of more "needy" schools and, in any case, all systemic schools was labelled as "needy". In this way, the State Aid bill to the taxpayers grew from a trickle of a few million to the present billions diverted annually to the coffers of the wealthiest church in the country.