Press Releases

AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

PRESS RELEASE 519#

HOW THE RELIGIOUS STATE OPERATES
WITHIN THE AUSTRALIAN SECULAR STATE
10 July 2013
The new Federal Education Minister is Bill Shorten.
What is his Educational Background?
Bill Shorten was born in Melbourne, where his father was a waterside worker and union official. His mother was a lawyer and university academic. He was educated at Xavier College and Monash University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws. Wikipedia
So Bill Shorten, like Abbott and Pyne will be able to use his old boy Jesuit networks to get around the snags surrounding the Gonski reforms.The State Aid auction is on again.
Bill Shorten and Kevin Rudd are entering into the usual Catholic backroom deals. The majority suffer to appease the minority.
Already the Catholic system has gained the ability to move money around within their school system and the Gonski idea of education funding following a disadvantaged student wherever they attend school will not be adhered to in the Catholic system. They will also receive about $3 billion extra over the next six years. ( AFR 4 July 2013) This means that any hope of a a transparent, equitable system based on individual need has gone-ski.
The Catholic Church has become an imperium in imperio – a State within a State – holding governments to ransom.
The Catholic Church and the Needs Policy
DOGS have followed the Catholic ‘management’ of ‘Needs’ policies of all government since the Whitlam Govenrment’s Karmel Committee fiasco in 1973. Perhaps the most extraordinary was the deal they struck with Howard’s SES system.
For the Catholic Church ‘the poor will always be with us’ but they can be the responsibility of the public system.

In 2013, forty years after the State Aid floodgates opened, the ‘needs’ of the institution known as the Catholic church must be met before any funding can flow to disadvantaged children in the public sector.
What is surprising is that journalists are finally prepared to remark upon it. Consider the article by Tim Dodd in the Australian Financial Review of Monday 8 July 2013.
He notes that the Catholic system provides a lesson to governments on how to run an efficient education system on $8000 a student in public subsidy. He leaves out the indirect and capital grants that are also taxpayer funded but notes that ‘you also need to bear in mind that, unlike public schools, Catholic schools do not have to accept all children who apply, which does make a difference to school performance.’
How has the Catholic church system got to its favoured position, with at least 77% public funding, when other religious schools allegedly only receive 45% of their income from governments? he asks.
The way the Catholic school system has got to the influencial position it has today is a study in successful political manoeuvring.
Until 1970, no non-government schools received recurrent funding in Australia. But the tap was opened fully when the Whitlam government introduced needs-based funding. Since then, the Catholic church has negotiated skilfully, notably in a deal with the Howard government in 2004.
The growth in government funding for Catholic schools over the past four decades has enabled them to move away from a non-professional teaching staff mainly composed of nuns and brothers to the professional system they have today.
Now, as federal Labor negotiates its Better Schools plan ( formerly known as Gonski) the Catholics are an objectlesson. They are not going public, as are the groups representing other independent shools,. But they are quietly negotiating, as they always have, with a keen eye for political opportunity.
Once the Church is involved, you can forget about
• Accountability, honesty and openness
• Genuine Christian concern for the disadvantaged in the community unless there is money in it
• Democratic procedures.
Once the church, the State within a State is involved, you can forget about ‘reforms’ to public funding in Australia. You are only looking at ‘deforms’. You are looking at ‘deals’ done behind closed doors in the corridors of power

Australian churches are supported by the taxpayer though tax-exemptions as “charities” and their tax-exempt schools also receive substantial direct grants from the taxation citizens pay: a double whammy. The church schools always want more, but the churches themselves are not prepared to reveal their accounts to show that additional public funds are in fact needed. Author of The Purple Economy, Dr Max Wallace* reveals what is known about this murky situation and suggests a way to clear up the financial secrecy.

Many parents wishing to enrol their children in public schools throughout Australia are confronted with a choice between Buckleys and None. Australian conservative governments no longer accept responsibility for the entitlement of EVERY Australian child to a public secondary education.

Since the introduction of State Aid to Church schools in 1964, churches have been using public subsidised school buildings for church purposes. Voluntary funds from pockets of the faithful dried up. Why give money to wealthy churches made wealthier by State Aid?
The Tax Office has finally made a ruling on church use of publicly funded school buildings for church purposes.

See Non-Profit News Service No. 0395 - School building fund taxation ruling. http://www.ato.gov.au/nonprofit/content.aspx?doc=/content/00346832.htm
On 13 February 2013, the Australian Taxation Office released Taxation Ruling TR 2013/2 Income tax: school or college building funds

So churches have used involuntary taxpayer funds to fill the shortfall. This became obvious in the Trial of Evidence in DOGS High Court case in 1979 when it was disclosed that the Roman Catholic church was using school buildings to hold churches services in areas like Churchill and Geelong. Since that time the practice has expanded to most religious groups. Church Planting teams in developing areas like Mernda for example, use Christian and Anglican school buildings for their services. But other groups have been even more ‘pro-active’ in obtaining public funds for church buildings and chapels within a school complex. Scandals have surfaced in the media when schools have wanted to reclaim their buildings.

The Tax Office has shut the door on a ruling that churches have been using to fund their building projects. It will no longer be possible for a church to gain deductibility for donations by setting up a ‘school building fund’ unless the building has ‘the character of a school building’.

Some churches have gone further and funded church buildings using tax-deductible school or college building funds, arguing that the premises were being used for education. It will be harder to do this under the new ruling from the ATO. This Ruling focuses on the extent and character of the use, and outlines the following factors as being relevant for the determination of whether a building is used as a school’:
a) The amount of time the building is put to school use relative to the amount of time it is put to non-school use;
b) The number of people involved in the school use of the building relative to the number involved in its non-school use;
c) The physical area of the building put to school use relative to the physical area put to non-school use; and
d) The extent to which the building has been adapted or modified in order to accommodate its school or non-school use.
For example, an auditorium used by a school, but made large enough to hold church meetings for more people than the school has students, will not be able to use tax deductible funds.

DOGS note that the Religious lobby has already thumbed its nose at the tax office. The lobby group, Christian Schools Australia believes schools will not be significantly affected by the new ruling. After all, the Tax Office can make rulings, but who is going to police them? (Reference Eternity, April 2013, p. 3)

Since the introduction of State Aid to Church schools in 1964, churches have been using public subsidised school buildings for church purposes. Voluntary funds from pockets of the faithful dried up. Why give money to wealthy churches made wealthier by State Aid?
The Tax Office has finally made a ruling on church use of publicly funded school buildings for church purposes.