Like taking candy from a baby - Bishop slashes public school funds

18/3/07
The Howard Government has dashed the hopes of hundreds of public schools around the country by drastically reducing the amount of money schools can apply for under the Commonwealth's Investing in Our Schools program.
Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said the reduction in available funding was a slap in the face to the schools that had planned to apply for funding this year but would now miss out due to the slashed cut-off limit.
In a further demonstration of the Commonwealth's blatant bias towards private schooling, the new guidelines do not apply to non-Government schools.
Mr McGowan said he was disgusted and astounded to hear the news, which would result in many public schools missing out on minor capital works.
"While the Carpenter Government is mid-way through its record $1billion capital works program on education infrastructure, the Howard Government has decided to restrict its own minor capital works program for public schools," he said.
"We are living in a time of unprecedented economic prosperity and budget surpluses - they should be expanding the scheme, not reducing it.
"In a time when building costs are escalating, it would make sense to make more funding available to individual schools, not less.
"This hypocrisy is typical of the Commonwealth Government."
Mr McGowan said the Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, had some hard questions to answer.
"Ms Bishop is constantly running down the public school system and interfering in State responsibilities," he said.
"To continually criticise while simultaneously reducing funding is reprehensible."
The Minister said while the funds available to Government schools had been reduced from $150,000 per school to $100,000 per school, available funds for larger
non-Government school projects would appear to be uncapped.
"We are spending twice as much on education capital works than the Court Liberal Government spent while in their last year of office and more than any Western Australian Government in history," he said.
Minister's office - 9222 9111