Press Releases

State Auditor-General Finally Blows the Whistle on Public Funding of Private Schools

Press Release 647

For fifty years DOGS have been pointing to the State within the State which is paid billions of dollars of public money to indoctrinate children and build up wealth in real estate and investments – with no strings attached.
In 2008 the Commonwealth Auditor General complained that there was minimal, if any accountability for Commonwealth money. DOGS noted that the Commonwealth Department checked on private religious schools’ expenditure of public money once e very 50 years! http://www.adogs.info/images/pr256.htm

By 2016, at the State level a Victorian auditor-general who was experienced in Canadaian procedures indicated that things were not as they should be! He was looking carefully at the lack of accountability from the Catholic Education Office, Victoria. Stephen Elder, their CEO was not, and is still not happy. That auditor-general was forced to resign. Yet, thankfully, the new, acting Auditor General has not stepped back from blowing the whistle regarding State grants to private religious schools.

In a scathing report, acting Auditor-General Dr Peter Frost said the education department had "weak" funding agreements with the schools, no performance measurement or targets, and that the schools were unable to prove funds were spent as they were intended.

Paper presented to Political Group 7 March 2016

Press Release 646

Contemporary Australia is a very strange place when it comes to education funding, and the idea PUBLIC FUNDING FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ONLY is actually normal for the majority of the rest of the civilized world.

In fact to many people from overseas who look as Australia schooling system we are just plain weird.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia : a Disaster for Separation of Religion and the State

Press Release 644

DOGS agree with Americans United for Separation of Church and State that whatever his personality, Justice Scalia’s legacy is that of a dangerous, radical conservative in matters of Church and State. Although, with his legal ‘originalism’ he claimed to be interested in the intentions of the original Founders of the American Constitution, he twisted the original concept of separation of church and state to fit the conservative views of his Catholic forebears.

Trevor Cobbold provides Facts and Figures: State Aid to Private Schools is Disastrous Public Policy

Press Release 643

Trevor Cobbold of Save Our Schools continues, valiantly, to expose the funding follies with public funding of private education. But The answer to the gross inequities which have developed BECAUSE of State Aid to private schools in the last half century is not to give Labor leaders a way out of their DLP , Catholic and Christian lobby vote. It is to tackle the problem at its source and demand PUBLIC FUNDING FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ONLY

78% Want Religion out of Government : Section 116 of the Australian Constitution should be applied as it was Originally Intended

Press Release 641

Public Education is and should be the responsibility of a democratically elected Government. Yet billions of dollars of public money are alienated from the public estate, namely public education, into privatised, religious institutions.

DOGS have always argued that State Aid to private religious schools contravenes Section 116 of the Australian Constitution because it entangled government with religion, and religion has no place in the government of a nation.

It now appears that 78% of Australian citizens are of the same opinion. The following information has been made available by the Rationalist Association of NSW.

The Human Cost of TAFE Privatisation

Press Release 639

More than sixty years ago, in the 1960s, religious interests began a politically organised effort to privatise public education. Well-meaning Australians were snookered by talk of ‘Needs’ policies and ‘declining’ standards. In the 1980s corporate interests joined the privatisation push and started to undermine the technical education system. Religious and private interests have waited, like jackals, on the sidelines, hoping to pick up a few of the pieces. This they have done to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars.

How have we come to the pass where our young people are burdened with tens of thousands of dollars debt and nothing to show for it?