At least John Button and his mates were honest in the Senate in September 1977. DOGS note the following:

14 September 1977

Senator Button:  The philosophical assumption which underlay the establishment of the Karmel Committee and the establishment of the Schools Commission were the priorities of needs and the concern to get rid of the debate in Australia over the funding of non-government schools.

Senator Susan Ryan: (Past Executive Secretary of the Australian Council of State School Organisations - ACSSO)The whole purpose of the needs based approach to the funding of education in Australia instituted under the Labor government was to remove that sectarian division.

8 September 1977

Senator Wreidt: ( ALP Shadow Minister for Education ) The Labor government established the Schools Commission for two basic reasons. The first was that it would take out this running argument...the so-called State Aid argument.

See DOGS Advertisement The Age 2 December 1977.

Anyone reading the sum of convoluted verbiage published in the Media concerning the death of John Button would not have known what the Media was really on about, especially in relation to the matter of  State Aid. Consider the following:

The Australian 8 April 2008 : Button returned to Australia in 1959 where he found the Labor party divided and insulated from reality...Then began the long process of reforming the Victorian branch through a group known as the Participants - predominantly younger Labor members who supported Gough Whitlam for the federal leadership. The task of dragging the Victorian executive into contemporary Australian politics occupied Button for five years. ....the Victorian Participants persuaded NSW to support Whitlam for the leadership and to give him the backing he needed to confront the Victorian executive which was still fighting the battles of the 1950s.

 The Age 8 April 2008: He (Button), was a founder of a group called the Participants - whose members included future Hawke government ministers, Barry Jones and Michael Duffy and a future Victorian governor, Dick McGarvie to promote party reform and progressive policies.

 The Age 13 April 2008 : Button, on the other hand, joined early the battle to transform the ideologically doctrinaire and electorally dysfunction Victorian ALP, whose post-split had fallen under the iron control of a so-called 'junta' that had its power base in left-aligned industrial unions.

Sydney Morning Herald 15 April 2008: Former Victorian premier, John Cain said Mr. Button played a crucial role in reforming the then dysfunctional State branch of the ALP in the 1960s.

 The Age 15 April 2008; Mr Bracks, the former Victorian Premier, said : Mr Button made a significant contribution to the longevity of the Victorian Labor party.  He made the Labor Party electable again.

The above Press reports represent yet another attempt to bury the State Aid issue. They all have something in common with the Official history of State Aid  produced under the Howard government. You will not find a reference to Button, Ryan's and Wreidt's statements in the Senate and the extreme right wing takeover of the ALP which has ensconced DLP type politicians in places of influence and power.

 It should be noted that John Button was himself the product of private schools and was not known as a supporter of public education.

DOGS also fail to understand the claim made for his quiet championship of human rights when he was a keen supporter of State Aid to religious schools which in itself is a blatant infringement of freedom for and from religion. He assisted in the imposition of forced contributions to religious establishments to which the majority of taxpayers do not adhere or agree.

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