AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT
SCHOOLS
PRESS RELEASE 772
Public Education Vote
and
the Victorian Election Result
The Liberal Party suffered a ‘bloodbath’ in the Victorian election, suffering defeat in its own heartland.
Public school supporters could have predicted it. Matthew Guy, Michael Kroger and their advisers had nothing to offer the majority of Victorian children who attend public schools. In fact, they could not even recognise their existence beyond a controversial curriculum program meant to ameliorate bullying.
The Labor Party were not so stupid. They were well aware of the concerns out there in ALL the electorates – including Brighton. Public school parents and teachers had been quietly informing voters of glaring inequalities between private and public sector funding at both the federal and State level. A few days before the election A new ABC digital report based on research done by Save our Schools revealed that 85 percent of private schools around Australia in 2016 received more public funding than public schools is yet more evidence of the deep inequalities in school funding in Australia.
According to the report, more than 4,400 public schools — over 70 per cent of the sector — received less public funding than at least one similar private school in 2016. Students at a public primary school in regional Victoria, for example, are each $5,500 worse off than than students at an equivalent private school.
These figures, together with political campaigning on the ground by the Fair Funding Group http://www.fairfundingnow.org.au/ go a long way to explain the Liberal Party bloodbath, and the belief of many rusted on liberal voters that their Liberal Party had been hijacked by right wing idealogues - admirers of Santamaria - like Tony Abbott. Matthew Guy thought he had the ‘Catholic’ vote covered, but in the process he forgot the public school vote – which represents two thirds of Australian children.
The public system of education was the creation of nineteenth century liberal minded idealists like Parkes, Higinbotham and Deakin who believed that every child had the right to an education. As moderates in the Liberal Party take on the ‘extremists’ in their midst, they should learn from their own history. Liberals rejected promotors of sectarian schools in the nineteenth century. In the twenty first century they have been taken over by those they rejected in the nineteenth century.
The Australian Education Union claimed that the weekend's state election result shows Victorian voters want a state government with a plan to fund preschools, public schools and TAFE.
“Daniel Andrews was re-elected yesterday because he has a plan for public schools and public education,” said Meredith Peace, president of the Australian Education Union Victorian Branch.The first order of business for the re-elected Andrews Labor government is to put renewed pressure on Scott Morrison to do a school funding deal that sees the federal government committing their fair share. The Australian Education Union in Victoria welcomes Andrews’ commitment to fight for more federal funding.
“Victoria has elected a state government that puts public education first,” said Meredith Peace.
The Morrison Government Should Take Note.
Public School parents can now inform themselves with hard facts and figures of how Prime Minister Scott Morrison, like his Victorian counterparts had abandoned Australia’s 2.5 million public school students at:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-22/counting-the-cost-of-the-education revolution/10495756
and parents and teachers can see exactly how much extra funding their child’s local public school will receive under Labor’s $3.3 billion public school funding plan at
There was a very good reason why the young Labor candidate in Brighton almost got into Parliament in the Liberal heartland.
LISTEN TO THE DOGS PROGRAM
855 ON THE AM DIAL: 12.00 NOON SATURDAYS
