Transcript 1 Dec 2008 - Breakfast ABC2

ABC2 Breakfast with Barrie Cassidy

Schools Assistance Bill

1 December, 2008

Barrie Cassidy:

The Coalition says that it will not vote for a Bill that forces private schools to publicly disclose all their funding sources, or creates a national curriculum. Joining us now is Opposition Education Spokesman Christopher Pyne, welcome.

Christopher Pyne MP:

Good morning Barrie.

Cassidy:

What is your essential problem with the Bill as it essentially stands?

Pyne:

We have two major considerations with this Bill. The first is that we don’t believe that the private funding sources of non-government schools should be published. We have no problem with that information being collected. Indeed it was collected in the previous government, but Labor wants to publish it, and that’s part of their hidden agenda to destroy the SES Funding model for non-government schools, which we think is the most objective system of funding non-government schools.

And secondly, we do support the National Curriculum but we believe that the inflexible mandated national curriculum required by this legislation would destroy Steiner schools, Montessori Schools, International Baccalaureate, unique schools that might teach methods like Emilio Reggio, Jewish schools, Muslim schools, some Christian schools. We think we should have a national curriculum “or its equivalent”, and Labor simply has a mandated inflexible national curriculum required by this Bill.

Cassidy:

What do the private schools have to hide, why are they worried about their funding being disclosed?

Pyne:

Well they’ve got nothing to hide, but in the same way that every taxpayer doesn’t have their tax return published on the front page of the Australian every day there is no reason that non-government schools should have their private sources of funding published on the internet to be used by the education union or the people who oppose the SES funding model, to destroy that model. So it’s not that they’ve got anything to hide, just as no individual taxpayer has anything to hide. There’s a big difference between providing information to government and then having it published for everyone to see. That’s the difference.

Cassidy:

Might it be embarrassing for them if it was published?

Pyne:

I doubt it, I doubt it very much. We’re talking about every source of funding Barrie. We’re not just talking about the school foundation or the old scholar’s organisation. We’re talking about the school fete on the weekend, or the money from the chocolate wheel, the raffle tickets bought for the dunking machine, every source of funding would need to be disclosed to government. We think that’s over the top.

Cassidy:

How far are you prepared to go, are you prepared to go to the point of denying funding to the schools for the beginning of the next year?

Pyne:

Well as with everything in politics Barrie it depends on the numbers.  We will insist on our amendments, but there’s absolutely no reason why it will have any impact at all on funding for non-government schools from January 1st. The issue of the national curriculum can quite discreetly be removed from this Bill and be debated in a different Bill which we’re happy to do. The curriculum is not slated to begin next year so there is plenty of time for that debate if the Labor Party wants to. The Liberals will pass the funding aspects of this Bill and then we’ll debate the issue of national curriculum and debate the issue of publicly disclosing every private source of funding.

Cassidy:

Christopher Pyne, how do you feel about the outcome for education over the weekend? Are you pleased that almost a billion dollars will be going to some of the poorest schools in the country?

Pyne:

Well I’m always pleased when there is more money for schools. Schools need great resources of public revenues, there is no doubt about that. But we need to look at the detail of this Barrie. Most of the money that was announced, that was “put on the table”, as the government said, was not new money. It even included the money for non-government schools which has already been passed by the House of Representatives. $28 billion of this so-called $44 billion has already been passed, so there’s not a substantial amount of new money. What new money there is of course is to cover the 66% blow out in the Computers in Schools program - $800 million. That speaks volumes for the competence, the economic competence of this Government.

Cassidy:

Christopher Pyne, thanks for your time.

1 December 2008

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