ALP will not support a bid to shut down Coalition’s ‘choice and affordability’ fund and welcomes restored funding

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Labor has ridden to the defence of the Coalition’s $1.2bn Catholic and independent school package it formerly labelled a “slush fund” after the Greens revealed a plan to shut it down.

Guardian Australia understands Labor will not support the Greens’ move to disallow the “choice and affordability” fund, with the shadow education minister, Tanya Plibersek, instead welcoming the fact the Morrison government has restored funding for Catholic and independent schools.

The Greens education spokeswoman, Mehreen Faruqi, blasted Labor for joining the government in “setting up a private school slush fund that has no justification, no accountability and no guarantee the cash won’t go to subsidising fees for wealthy private schools”.

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Weeks after becoming prime minister in September 2018, Scott Morrison announced a 10-year $4.6bn funding package to settle a bitter dispute with the Catholic school sector, including the $1.2bn fund which was not on the table before Dan Tehan took over from Simon Birmingham as education minister.

Labor and several states – including the Coalition government in New South Wales – were highly critical of the choice and affordability fund, which Plibersek said “looks very much” like a $1.2bn “slush fund” for non-government schools.

Before the 2019 election Labor promised an additional $14bn over 10 years to public schools and that Catholic schools would be $250m better off over the first two years under Labor, but questioned the model of the choice and affordability fund.

On Monday the Greens lodged a disallowance motion, providing the Senate an opportunity next week to vote down the regulation setting up the choice and affordability fund – a move now doomed to failure given Labor’s opposition.

Plibersek said: “Scott Morrison’s highest priority should be restoring the billions of dollars he’s robbed from public schools.

“The Liberals have restored the funding they ripped from Catholic and independent schools, and we welcome that. But they should now do the same for public schools.”

Faruqi said the choice and affordability fund is “a perfect symbol of educational inequality in Australia”. “All of this money should be going to underfunded public schools, not private schools.

“This slush fund will only serve to widen the already extreme gap between public and private schools in Australia, fuelling inequities introduced by Labor and Liberal governments in one special deal after another.

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“It’s thoroughly disappointing, though not surprising, to see Labor reject this opportunity to stand with the students, teachers and parents struggling in public schools around the country.

“We are committed to reversing the grubby Labor and Liberal deals that keep private schools overfunded at the expense of public schools.”

The Greens went to the 2019 election calling for public schools to receive 25% of the schools resource standard – up from the 20% provided by the federal government under the Coalition’s Gonski 2.0 package – at a cost of $20.5bn over a decade.

Labor has been engaged in a robust internal conversation about its appeal with religious voters, with members such as MP Chris Hayes and senator Deborah O’Neill suggesting it was a factor in the surprise May election loss.

Labor frontbenchers including Michelle Rowland and Joel Fitzgibbon have suggested the opposition should consider supporting the Coalition’s religious discrimination bill to reconnect with religious voters, although Plibersek has noted the “real problem” that it interferes with state discrimination law.