The Australian High Court iNDUSTRIAL rELATIONS (wORKCHOICES)  decision ENDANGERS THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION THROUGHOUT AUSTRALIA

kIRBY'S DISSENTING JUDGMENT  SOUNDS THE ALARM

THE MAJORITY DECISION Illustrates the importance of the  eight fold definition of secular, universal public education.

Public Education has eight aspects. It must be public in :

• purpose

• outcome/benefit

• access for students ( regardless of class, colour, creed, culture, place of residence, or ability to pay)

• control

• ownership

• provision

• accountability

• sole public funding

None of these aspects of our public education system are found in the private church system although they are currently favoured by the Commonwealth Government. 

These are under threat with the Victorian Treasury's policy of public private partnerships.

The future of our public system is jeopardised by the recent High Court I.R. decision. Fortunately, in the same way that Justice Murphy left a seminal dissenting report in the DOGS 1981 High Court Challenge to State Aid, so Justice Kirby has provided a dissenting finding in the recent. I.R. case

The following Statement by Justice Kirby in the recent High Court decision on the use of the Corporations Power of the Commonwealth in the area of Industrial Relations indicates the enormous dangers to

• The Australian federal system

• The areas under State responsibility such as public education, health, transport etc.

• Our public education system

Consider the following:

The States, correctly in my view, pointed to the potential of the Commonwealth's argument, if upheld, radically to reduce the application of State laws in many fields that, for more than a century, have been the subject of the States' principal governmental activities. Such fields include education, where universities, tertiary colleges and a lately expanding cohort of private schools and colleges are already, or may easily become, incorporated. Likewise, in healthcare, where hospitals (public and private), clinics, hospices, pathology providers and medical practices are, or may readily become, incorporated. Similarly, with the privatisation and out-sourcing of activities formerly conducted by State governments, departments or statutory authorities, through corporatised bodies now providing services in town planning, security and protective activities, local transport, energy, environmental protection, aged and disability services, land and water conservation, agricultural activities, corrective services, gaming and racing, sport and recreation services, fisheries and many Aboriginal activities. All of the foregoing fields of regulation might potentially be changed, in whole or in part, from their traditional place as subjects of State law and regulation, to federal legal regulation, through the propounded ambit of the corporations power. ( New South Wales  v Commonwealth of Australia; Western Australia v Commonwealth of Australia; South Australia v Commonwealth of Australia; Queensland v Commonwealth of Australia; Australian Workers Union & Anor v Commonwealth of Australia; Unions NSW & Ors v Commonwealth of Australia; Victoria v Commonwealth of Australia [ 2006] HCA 52, 14 November 2006 paragraph 539) 
 

It is clear from the  Justice Kirby decision that the I.R. decision has grave implications for the control, ownership and provision of public education.

The involvement of corporations of any kind in public education would enable the Federal Government to intrude much further into public education.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

It is time that all persons with any interest in the future of public education in Australia should say No to any corporate involvement in the provision of public education by whatever the name of the process. Public Private Partnerships or Private Finance Initiatives. DOGS have already indicated opposition to PPPs in Press Release 57 at www.adogs.info/pr57.htm

What are PPP and FPI?

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) is the umbrella name given to a range of initiatives which involve the private sector in the operation of public services. The Private Finance Initiative ( PFI) is a frequently used initiative. The key difference between PFI and conventional ways of providing public services is that the public does not own the asset. The authority makes an annual payment to the private company who provides the building and associated services, rather like a mortgage or debenture. Whereas public services in the past were in part financed by taxation and in part by  loans from the public raised through governments bonds, the assets and services were owned, controlled, financed, and accountable to the public or their political representatives. The opposite is the case with PPPs.

Call to Pat Byrne

We trust that Pat Byrne , the President of the Federal AEU will say No to PPPs in her address at a Seminar on Public Private Partnerships in Education to be held at the Four Points by Sheraton Darling Harbour Sydney, on 7 December 2006. We also hope that she persuades the AEU Victoria branch to vigorously oppose their implementation in the Victoria public education sector.

Countless lessons and articles have been written on the folly of Public enterprises being entangled with privateers and profiteers in PPPs . DOGS quote from UK sources found on the unison website at http://www.unison.org.uk/

• "Profiteering from Public Services!" ;

• "A Policy Built on Sand"

• " Complexity, Secrecy, and Lack of Accountability involved in PFI/PPP Contracting"

• "There is no such thing as a perfect market, but the PFI/PPP sector is more flawed than most The trouble is that it is the public that is paying the price for both fat cats and catastrophes."

• "A licence to print money"

• "Public services depend upon continuity and consistency;"

• "schemes allow flexibility for private investors but inflexibility for the government"

• "PPPs institutionalise conflict of interest, creating new organisations which sit uneasily between the public and private sectors".

• "In a Public private partnerhip the investor can also be the regulator. "So any appeal is from Caesar to Caesar!

• "Public private partnerships do not give value for money"

• "Public private partnerhips outsource employment leading to reduced pay, conditions and job security "

DOGS refer readers to the work of Ken Davidson in the Age, the work of Unison in the UK and other research units throughout Australia and the UK with the countless pages written on the stupidity of these schemes. No supporter of public services and the public good can tolerate the entanglement of public enterprises with the private sector through PPPs. The IR High Court decision is an additional reason for saying NO to these arrangements.

12.30 p.m. ON Saturdays.