AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

PRESS RELEASE 406

WHY DOES THE PRIVATE SECTARIAN SYSTEM

GET PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT:

INFLUENTIAL ELITES IN THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Although the vast majority of children attend public schools in Australia the private sectarian system is winning the funding race at every point. Why? Who knows who? Who influences the process and how?

Over the years the DOGS have attempted to trace the infiltration of the political, legal and administrative systems of Australia by graduates and supporters of the private sectarian system of education in Australia.

In Press Releases over the years DOGS have illustrated the influence of the ‘Old School Tie’ and tribalism in the corridors of power while State school bureaucrats (with the notable exception of Ken Boston when he was the Director of Education in NSW) are too craven to openly support public education. We refer you

to Press Release 289 at www.adogs.info/images/pr289.htm

and Press Release 285 at www.adogs.info/images/pr285.htm

and Press Release 261 at www.adogs.info/images/pr261.htm

and Press Release 241 at www.adogs.info/images/pr241.htm

and Press Release 224 at www.adogs.info/images/pr224.htm

and Press Release 197 at www.adogs.info/images/pr197.htm

and Press Release 113 at www.adogs.info/images/pr113.htm .

In the Age of November 17, 2010 we also find open recognition if not triumphalism of the new sectarian ‘elite’ in Australian political life. Barney Zwartz, the religion correspondent in an article entitled Last Orders provided readers with an interesting insight into the Jesuit religious order and the growing influence of the graduates of their schools in the political arena. The article traced the entrance of both the religious and lay members of the order into and through publicly funded social service enterprises in which the religious, despite their declining numbers, have the ‘governing roles’.

But what is of most interest to the DOGS is the stated view that the Jesuit graduates are well represented in the elite classes. DOGS quote:

‘St. Aloysius principal Chris Middleton, a Jesuit priest, says that when he was at school many students had five HSC subjects taught by Jesuits. The world has moved on and schools are very different places now. They are far more p0rofessional, more specialized, the pressure is greater. The Catholic ghetto culture is long gone.

Even so, Jesuits were hugely important in creating a Catholic professional class in medicine, law, politics and media. Middleton believes. Jesuit schools were very important in preparing people like (Gustav) Nossal in science or (Tony) Abbott in politics…

Frank Brennan hopes that Jesuit schools continue to help pupils take away an intelligent and acute reading of their faith. ‘But the Howard cabinet had nine Jesuit alumni, including Tim Fischer, Tony Abbott, Peter McGauran, Joe Hockey, Richard Alston and Christopher Pyne…

DOGS suggest that it is no mistake that there is an over-representation of sectarian school graduates in high places in Australia. And, given that this is the case, it is not surprising that the unequal funding of education continues to divide our nation into the have and have-nots, the advantaged and the disadvantaged.

DOGS predicted that this would happen when State Aid was reintroduced after 80 years in the 1960s. The only way to make Australia a fairer, egalitarian democracy is to stop the public funding of sectarian schools and adhere to Section 116 of our Constitution namely separate religion from the State.

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