The education minister, Simon Birmingham, has denied the Catholic school system is being singled out for funding cuts by the Turnbull government’s new school funding proposal.
The Catholic education sector has criticised the Coalition’s new school funding package, which the government announced on Tuesday.
The Greens have not immediately ruled out supporting the government’s funding proposal, saying they want to consider the details.
“People are sick of the argy-bargy between the states and the federal government, they’re sick of the hyper-partisan fights between the government and the opposition, we’ve got to get the politics out of this,” the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young told AM on Wednesday.
Malcolm Turnbull has admitted under his proposed funding model, which represents $2.2bn over the next four years, that funding will be cut from 24 private schools in a 10-year plan.
In the transition for all schools to a common schooling resourcing standard (SRS), as recommended in the 2011 Gonski report, Birmingham has also conceded that a small number of schools on the eastern seaboard would lose funding.
But Danielle Cronin from the National Catholic Education Commission has said the majority of the 24 schools targeted by the minister for a cut in funding appear to be Catholic schools. She has accused the government of unfairly targeting the Catholic school system.
Birmingham said all schools were being treated under a consistent funding model, with no sector being unfairly treated.
“Non-government schools, whatever their faith and background, will be treated exactly the same way,” Birmingham told ABC radio on Wednesday. “Catholic schools will receive over the next four years estimated growth in funding of $1.2bn, or around 3.7% per student.
“That contrasts with government schools that will receive funding growth of about $2.2bn, or 5.2% per student, and independent schools receiving funding growth of $1.4bn, or about 4.2% per student.
“Because of all the inconsistencies in current funding deals, everyone’s starting at a different point.
“Over 10 years we want to transition them to the same end point of consistency but there is absolutely real growth, real funding for Catholic education and for small parish schools in this model.”
Ross Fox, the Catholic education director for the archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, told ABC TV on Wednesday that Birmingham’s explanation of the model masked the reality of the impact of the cuts.
“I’ve heard those comments by the minister,” Fox said. “The reality is his plan means a funding freeze for 29 Catholic schools in the ACT, for which I have responsibility.
“That’s a student in Year 2 currently in a Catholic school in the Australian Capital Territory will get no more funding for the rest of their school career, not a single dollar more.”
Fox said the government seemed to have been very deliberate in saying it would freeze funding to 14,000 students in systemic Catholic schools, and 3,000 in non-systemic Catholic schools. “This is a great concern,” he said.
Turnbull told WSFM radio on Wednesday that he was committed to delivering funding to schools that needed it most.
“We are delivering on the vision that David Gonski set out all those years ago, which is that government funding for schools ... should be needs-based ... and should be consistent and fair across Australia,” he said.
“That’s what we’re delivering on ... it is a massive increase in funding, but above all it’s going to ensure that kids that need the most funding get the most funding.”
But the shadow education minister, Tanya Plibersek, has criticised the government’s claim that it’s delivering on Gonski’s original vision.
“This is the absolute opposite of what we would have done in government,” she told ABC radio. “This is a $22bn cut compared to a proper needs-based funding system, which Labor committed to when last in government and had set in motion.
“It’s amazing that people have been talking about Gonski 2.0, including Mr Gonski himself of course. This is like Snowy 2.0, you look at the detail and it turns out to be a $500,000 feasibility stable.”
