MARK LATHAM AND STATE AID

THEN AND NOW

        The following information was communicated on the DOGS Community Radio 3CR program (855 am dial) on Saturday 28 February 2004. Our listeners - and readers- may wish to analyse Mark Latham's courage at takingon the Catholic Church in 2000 and his behaviour as Leaders of the Labor Party in election year 2004.

WIll he do a back flip?

Will he try to out auction Howard?

Will he slip and slide, taking our public school system further down the slippery slope into a sectarian denominational church system ?

We refer you to Mark Latham's media release of 6 September 2000 and the attached speech which he made the night before on September 5,  2000 in the House of Representatives in a debate on State Aid - remembering that the Labor Party let the Act which so grossly favoured the Church interest through the parliament in that year.

Amongst the many comments he made he pointed out that

•     the Federal Government had cut a special deal with the Catholic Education Commission on School Funding.

• the deal had backfired on Catholic Schools - they would have been $140 million per annum better off under the SES funding system.

• the Catholic Education Commission had agreed to this deal for the sole purpose of keeping the distribution of school funding in its own hands.

• the distriction of funding between schools by the Catholic Education Commission was often inequitable, particularly in NSW and Queensland.

• the Federal Government was applying a weaker standard of accountability and transparency to the Catholic system than other parts of the non-government schools sector.

In Parliament he said that

"the oldest and most poisonous issue in our nation's politics is state aid. ......The resolution of the state aid controversy was supposed to deliver Catholic school a fair deal, not a special deal. ...

Catholic schools will receive a block grant. Taxpayers will not know how this money is distributed and used....

The system adopted by the Liberals pits schools against each other,not on the basis of need but  according to their political muscle and clout. They allow the powerful to prosper and the weak to be marginalised. They allow politicians to be corrupted and decision making to be perverted. ...

This is one of the sickest things I have seen in federal politics and  the Catholic system has been ill advised indeed to play along. ..

It is unacceptable for taxpayers to contribute $2 billion annually to Catholic schools without any guarantee of its equitable distribution. ..

The funding of non-government schools was never supposed to end up this way. State Aid was not supposed to be a system in which a particular Church throws around its weight and negotiates a special deal with the government. In some respects we have created a monster. The political system is unwilling to say No to the Catholic Education Commission. It has become one of the untouchables of Australian politics. ..

At the end of the quadrennium it will be another discussion with the government - that is, another opportunity for cutting a deal, another opportunity for a bidding war between the major parties."

WELL MR LATHAM, ON 29 FEBRUARY 2004 HOWARD SAID HE PERSUADED CARDINAL PELL TO COME TO HIS SES PARTY WITH FURTHER FUNDING.

ARE YOU AS LEADER OF THE LABOR PARTY GOING TO FIGHT FOR  THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OR THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN THE BIDDING WAR OF FEDERAL ELECTION 2004?