The deadlock over climate change policy in the past decade is often cited as the great example of what is wrong with Australian politics but federal school funding is right up there with it. The deal Prime Minister Scott Morrison has just announced is unlikely to end that mess.
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Since the 1960s, when the federal government started funding private as well as public schools, there have been constant arguments between private and public schools and between different strands within private schools over money.
The bulk of federal schools funding, currently about $20 billion, has for some time gone to private schools which has resulted in a higher share of Australian students attending private schools than almost anywhere in the world. The ALP has advocated a switch back to public education while the Coalition has backed maintaining ''choice''. Each federal election produced a new ad hoc stitch-up.
The good thing about the deal Mr Morrison has just struck is that it still pays lip service to the Gonski consensus. It offers an extra $3.4 billion to private schools to ease the transition, roughly matching the ALP but by 2029 the plan is still to reach the Gonski 2.0 model of funding.
The deal also offers a new way of assessing the capacity of private school parents to pay. Parents were previously assessed based on their postcodes. The new system, which seems to favour Catholic schools, will look at actual matched tax data.
There are, however, several problems. The success of Catholic and independent schools in winning this stitch-up deal before a federal election will just encourage them to try more special pleading next time.
It is no wonder that NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes broke Liberal Party ranks, attacking Mr Morrison's judgment and warning the plan will do nothing to end the funding wars. The Liberal Party policy seems currently to have the worst of both worlds. It is almost as spendthrift as the ALP because it will hand cash to private schools without any obvious productivity agenda. Yet it is less fair because public schools will not get their allowance under Gonski.