AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
PRESS RELEASE 621#
BILL SHORTEN , PENALTY RATES, AND
PRIVATE SCHOOLING
Public School supporters have found Bill Shorten falls short as a Labor leader when it comes to promoting public education. He claims that penalty rates are the difference for some people being able to afford to send their children to a private school or not.
"For people on 40 and 50 and 60,000 dollars a year, penalty rates are the difference as to whether they can afford to send their kids to a private school, whether or not they can afford to pay the mortgage," he said on 5 October 2015.
The Age journalists and letter writers can be forgiven for noting that Shorten is more interested in the votes of the ‘aspirationals’ – like his own parents who paid to send him to Xavier, an elite private Jesuit school that charges up to $24,000 for tuition fees. Mr Shorten, after all – like Mr Turnbull, has little experience or understanding of public school for the common good as opposed to the private privilege.
If Mr Shorten is more interested in the votes of ‘aspirational’ private school than public school parents then perhaps the more than 2/3 of Australian parents who still ‘choose’ to send their children to our wonderful public schools, should consider alternatives to the LIB/LAB sell-outs.
Or perhaps Mr Shorten should heed the Letter to the Editor of Maureen Savage (7 October 2015) who suggested that it was time he looked closely ‘at the principles Labor espouses’ and if he cannot support these, then step aside for a leader who can.’ Or that of John Tully who wrote:
Bill Shorten, my working-class parents’ aspirations was to send their kids to the best possible free, secular, universal state school system. Providing that should always be the aim of he labour movement. If you do not agree, please join the Liberals.
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