4BC

E&OE...............................

Gary Hardgrave: Christopher Pyne joins us, well Mr Pyne I feel pretty strongly about this, I hope you do to.

Christopher Pyne: Well Gary what the Prime Minister has announced is a con-ski not a Gonski.  She’s tying to fool people into believing she’s putting more money into school education. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul. In fact your listeners will find it hard to believe that while the Federal Government is announcing $9.4 billion more for schools, she’s ripping $11 billion dollars out of education in the last 12 months. So universities are paying, apprentices are paying, trainees are paying, the laptops in schools program is gone, the redirection of a number of different education school programs all designed to cover the embarrassment of the Government who need an education plan going in to this election. But in fact it’s a saving to the government of $1.6 billion.

Hardgrave: And that means they’re really spending less, that’s the point you’re making.

Pyne: They’re spending less on education, expecting the state governments to cover the difference. The Gonski report suggests that a $6.5 billion spend on new money each year. This is $600 million. One tenth of what was expected.

Hardgrave: The thing I find offensive is the notion that every child is going to have $4000 more. This is as big a conski as you put call it as the whole free laptop for every child going to school routine Kevin Rudd was on years ago.

Pyne: These are the rubberiest figures I’ve ever seen, Gary. No matter which way you look at this, no one can really work out where the $4000 dollars per child is, particularly when there will be less support for Western Australia, South Australia and the ACT than if they’d stuck with the current system. To make matters worse, the Prime Minister announced today that she’ll have different systems for different states for whoever signs up so we could have 16 different systems around the country, when for decades we had one. So rather than making the system simpler, she’s making it much, much more complicated.

Hardgrave: Well Christopher you will remember I was Minister in this area for a number of years along with Brendan Nelson and Julie Bishop. The thing that I was actually proud of was actually after David Kemp and others had brought on this one school kind of approach so if you were say in the armed forces in Townsville and you were transferred to Albury, you’d still be able to pick up your lessons in those different places.

Pyne: Well everyone was treated the same way under the SES, or the Socio-Economic Status funding model. This model is a pig’s breakfast Garry. Goodness knows where they’ll end up on Friday but if the states fall for it and they sign up to it, well then they’ll have it because the Coalition won’t save them from a bad decision before the election.

Hardgrave: But then again why would you sign up to this. $4000 per child offensive as I said for this reason; the $4000 goes into the federal bureaucracy they see their client group as the state bureaucracy and then after those two bureaucracies are finished playing with the $4000, what’s left over trickles out. That’s what’s offensive to me.

Pyne: Well the Government is finding it very hard to get the states to sign up to it. The ACT, probably the most left-wing Labor Government in the country, they’ve said that they think the ACT might be worse off. They’re trying to pretend they’re still supporting Federal Labor but they’re very concerned. Jay Weatherill who was previously supportive has said today in South Australia that he might be getting as gooder deal as he had expected and he’s open top the idea of not proceeding with it. Colin Barnett has said that if he signed up to it he will be doing his state a disservice. Campbell Newman says why would he sign over the state education powers to the federal government? Denis Napthine in Victoria has not signed onto it. Barry O’Farrell has yet to comment. In fact wherever you look this seems to be unravelling because the Prime Minister’s left it until yesterday, five days before COAG to make an announcement about such a massive change to school funding.

Hardgrave: Well Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, I saw him on the weekend he is very fired up on this. He believes paying better teachers a better wage is the way to go. He wants to go down that independent school path; he’s started doing that. I feel putting money into the hands of local school communities is going to make a lot more sense than the Gillard model.

Pyne: Look it’s the only way to go. We need more independence in public schools. Campbell Newman has the right idea about Queensland, education for Queenslanders. This model will put unprecedented power in the hands of the Federal Education Minister. Now if we get elected in September and I certainly hope we do and I’m the federal Minister for Education, I’d welcome having these extra powers. But if I was a State Premier or a State Education Minister I can’t imagine why I would sign over one of my core items of business, which is school education to Canberra.

Hardgrave: Okay but would you keep these powers, would you change anything?

Pyne: Well look if the states sign up tho this. We will not tinker with, we will not fiddle with it we won’t do what the Federal Labor Government has done with superannuation and change it every three to six months. If this is the model this is what everybody will have. The Coalition will not be tinkering constantly with the school funding model.

Hardgrave: That’s the challenge isn’t it.  The states have got to sort it out themselves.

Pyne: They’ve got to make their choice. If they make the wrong choice they’re stuck with it.

Hardgrave: Good to talk to you Christopher Pyne.

Pyne: Thank you Garry.

ENDS