According to the Age 27 June 2006, Steve Bracks has announced a shuffle of senior personnel in the Victorian public service, after the sudden death of  the Treasury Secretary, Ian Little. The current Education Department Secretary, Grant Hehir, replaces Little, while Peter Dawkins, the deputy secretary of economic and financial policy at the Department of Treasury and Finance replaces Mr. Hehir.

The appointment by the Bracks Government of Peter Dawkins to the position of Secretary of the Victorian Department of Education and Training on 26 June 2006 indicates, -as DOGS predicted in their two full page Age Advertisements dated 27 March 2006 and 26 April 2005, - the determination of the Victorian ALP to destroy public education .

The Bracks Government  now have the legislation and are putting in place the personnel to yoke our public school unequally with the private sector.

Who is this Dr. Peter Dawkins? DOGS have done their research and discovered the following.

He arrived in Australia as a migrant from the United Kingdom in 1984. According to The Australian June 27, p. 7, he is the father of two children. It would be interesting to know, if the children are of school age, where they attend school. From our research we can discover no evidence that Dawkins has ever been connected with public education.

Our research indicates that in 2004, when he was the Director of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, he and the Institute combined with the Australian newspaper to present a "Making Schools Better" Conference. Given this earlier association, it is interesting to note the item about his appointment in the Australian newspaper on 27 June 2006, p. 7. The item has the heading, "Economist to Push Education Reform". We quote:

"Dr. Dawkins has been elevated to lead the Department despite having spent little more than a year in the public service. Dr. Dawkin's appointment is seen as an attempt by Premier Steve Bracks to strengthen his push for major changes in education.....he has argued strongly for market based solutions .... Mr. Bracks said 'I look forward to (his) contributions in managing complex and challenging issues for government'"  

 In the above mentioned Conference, in the session headed "Private and Public Education: What is the Proper Role of Government". Dr. Dawkins gave a presentation entitled: "Towards a Funding Model for a More Integrated Public-Private School System"  

DOGS have always maintained since the early 1970s, that our public system will survive State Aid to private schools but cannot survive the integration of the public and private sector proposed by various persons since the 1970s, and in 2004 by Dr. Dawkins.

This appointment has been made in order to carry out the destruction of public education as we know it by  a Labor Bracks Government - or should we call it the Bracks/Brumby DLP Government, with the assistance of its private school advisers.

The appointment of Dr. Dawkins is all the more appalling because of the passing of the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 assented to on 16 May 2006.  This Act has gutted the secular provision of the 1872 Act and gives no specific commitment to public education as does the New South Wales equivalent act.

To make matters even worse, for the first time since the 1860s public and private schools are combined in a single Act.  The new Act also  places public and private schools under the one Registration Authority which, following the UK precedent can "fail" them and hand them over to "faith" schools or private corporations.

Dr. Dawkins' appointment is no accident. In the next few news releases we will support our proposition of why this appointment is appalling by considering his associates and his support for the integration of the public into a privatised system.

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