AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
PRESS RELEASE 617#
Malcolm Turnbull is a Member of – and Servant of the Wealthy Corporate and Religious Sector.
DOGS do not expect any change of educational policy from the new Prime Minister. Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, has travelled a long way from his earliest primary education at Vaucluse public school, a scholarship at Sydney Grammar and his Sydney and Oxford university training.
Public schools can expect little consideration from Turnbull. His experience and support of schools for the common good rather than the private privilege is exceedingly limited.
On his journey to the Lodge, Turnbull has concentrated on having a foot in the camps of the wealthy and powerful, until – with great wealth – he has become a member of both. A scholarship boy from Sydney Grammar, and Catholic convert, Turnbull has limited experience and no feeling for the values of public education.
For example, in his first speech to the Parliament in 2004, Turnbull took the part of ‘ poor struggling private school parents’ as opposed to disadvantaged children as follows:
Like most children who live in Wentworth my father chose to send me to an independent school. I boarded at Sydney Grammar from the age of eight as my father, a hotel broker, travelled around New South Wales on business. Sometimes when I was at home on school holidays he would take me with him, often to complete a stocktake before a pub was sold. I was counting beer glasses long before I was old enough to drink out of them. My father found paying the school fees was often a struggle, but he chose to postpone other things like buying a flat of our own so that I could go to the school he chose for me.
This came back to me vividly when the election campaign was in full swing and the Labor Party was declaring that so-called elite schools deserved little or no government funding. I knew exactly which parents that policy would hurt the most: the battlers, the renters, the Bruce Turnbulls of today, who choose to sacrifice personal comforts so they can give their children the education they have chosen for them.
DOGS see the changing of the guard as a decision within the ranks of the Institute of Public Affairs that Abbott, a member of the new DLP /Coalition establishment was unable to massage their right wing agenda for a gullible electorate. The IPA see Malcolm Turnbull, on the other hand, a member of both the Old Establishment and the New ( a Presbyterian converted to the Roman Catholicism of his wife’s family) as a more skilful corporate salesman.
Turnbull arrived in the ‘born to rule’ set long since. This was evidenced by the treatment meted out to the sitting member for Wentworth, when Turnbull decided that he would be the member for this blue ribbon liberal seat in 2004. He had both wealth and connections to unseat a well respected, long-serving member.
According to Wikipedia, In 2005, the combined net worth of Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull was estimated at A$133 million, making him Australia's richest parliamentarianuntil the election of billionaire Clive Palmer in the 2013 elections.
Turnbull made the BRW Rich 200 list for the second year running in 2010, and although he slipped from 182 to 197, his estimated net worth increased to A$186 million, and he continued to be the only sitting politician to make the list until the election of Clive Palmer in 2013.
See Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Turnbull;
And http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/meet-malcolm/first-speech
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