Delegates still want answers from Labor

Jenny Macklin speaks with Sarah Redfern High teacher Megan Tarrant.

by Kerri Carr

Delegates to Federation Annual Conference were sceptical of Federal Labor's commitment to public education when shadow education minister Jenny Macklin addressed the conference on July 5.

While Ms Macklin declared "the choice is stark" between the policies of the Coalition and Labor and described "a very unfair Howard Government" she also failed to declare that funding taken from "rich" private schools would be re-allocated to public schools.

"If a Labor Government is elected public education will be a national priority," Ms Macklin said.

She said funding allocation would be done on a needs basis.

"We made it very clear that we do think it is very important for all children to get the resources that they need to get a great standard of education," Ms Macklin said.

"We have made it very clear that we will be cutting funding to some of the high fee, very wealthy schools that exist in many parts of Australia. We will not be delivering the sorts of increases in funding that you've seen from the Howard Government over the last four years...We think that money should come off those schools and be given to much, much more needy schools.

When Ms Macklin said Labor would increase public funding and cut funding to high-fee private schools, a delegate yelled: "That's not good enough."

Delegate Linda Eisler asked: "We have 70 per cent of the children. Are we going to get 70 per cent of the money?"

In response Ms Macklin said: "I think I said quite a few times in my remarks that we will be increasing the amount of funding going to public schools. The amount will be announced well before the election and you will see that there will be an increase in the funding. If you don't want the money I'm sure people will find other priorities if that's your attitude."

Delegate Kevin Thomas asked how Labor would determine 'level of need'.

Ms Macklin said there would be a National Schooling Resource Standard and every school would be measured against that standard.

Again she said full details would be released at a later date.

Delegate Justin Longabardi asked why Labor didn't oppose the federal schools funding bill and would the money to be taken from rich private schools be re-directed to poorer Catholic schools.

Ms Macklin said the "legislation that is currently before the Parliament in fact is the money that pays for the vast majority of the cost to meet the salaries of teachers in most of our non-government schools, and we were never in a position of not allowing that money to go through the Parliament, otherwise we would have thousands of teachers around Australia who would not be able to be paid, and thousands of children whose schools wouldn't have teachers in them."

Ms Macklin said that if Labor was elected, 2005 would be "a transition year" and there would be a new piece of funding legislation with "very different priorities".

In her speech Ms Macklin said she was sick of buck passing between the Commonwealth and the states and if elected, Labor would seek to have an agreement about funding of all schools.

At the conclusion of question time Federation Senior Vice President Angelo Gavrielatos said: "We are critiquing the policies of all parties and will continue to do so right up to the election."

"You will not get an argument from the NSW Teachers Federation that public education should be a national priority and funded accordingly and recognised as such by all governments. You would be aware that your messages are not being helped by your State colleagues, the ALP government in NSW, which is contributing to a high level of cynicism and that cynicism can be dispelled by the announcement of details policy showing the dollars and cents additional to public schools in Australia," Mr Gavrielatos said.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005