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1. Well anyone who believes Tony Abbott deserves anything they don't get. Unfortunately the rest of us will suffer too. Unless, of course, mhis promises are scripted and not spoken - remember?

   Posted By: gloria healey, Sydney

2. When all the tumult and the shouting of pre-election promises is over next week we shall return to the real world in which there are ever widening gaps in terms of educational opportunity between the haves and the have nots and not least of all in the public sector of education.
   Then will be the time for courageous leadership that will ensure that all children have access to to the educational resources that will prepare them for life in today's perplexing world.
   Previous Howard and Rudd/Gillard governments chose to put aside such concepts as The Common Good and Positive Discrimination for the Disadvantaged.
   For this shameful inequity to be redressed, richly resourced schools, Catholic as well as non-Catholic, will have to make some sacrifices and practise the Christian principles they espouse.

   Posted By: David Ballarat 3350

3. Perhaps I'm deaf, but I haven't heard CathEd raise concerns over the Greens' projected cuts. If they have their way, funding for non-government schools will be reduced to 2004 levels, presumably minus indexing.

   Posted By: Fr Brendan Arthur, St Philomena School, Park Ridge

4. I am not sure that I follow David’s argument above that so-called ’richly resourced’ non-government schools should make sacrifices to redress alleged inequitable Federal Government funding policies against other schools including government schools.
   Based on 2007-2008 data in the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services 2010, in regard to the most vital funding support, recurrent funding, the annual average combined amount from Federal and State/Territory governments was $12,639 for a government school student and $6,607 for a non-government school student - the latter over 47% less (see APC Review, Vol XXXIX No.2, June 2010, Australian Parents Council, at p 9).
   The average amount for a student at many of the ‘rich’ schools would be less than the non-government school student average. Parents of students attending those schools, who generally are already paying high tuition fees, are also entitled, as taxpayers, to appropriate allocation of public funding to their child’s education. Against this background, I fail to see that any non-government school, yet alone those ‘rich’ schools’, should be expected to make ‘sacrifices’ for any failing of governments in the resourcing of other schools, particularly their own government schools. I am not discouraging any inclusive engagements the so-called ‘richly resourced’ schools might have with students of other schools for the educational benefit of the latter, where that is feasible. However, those engagements would not proceed from any claimed obligation to make sacrifices.

   Posted By: Paul Sykes, Melba ACT

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