Non-government schools are precisely that - an alternative to government schools. Government schools are for all students, all religions or none and various kinds of disabilities. Non-government schools are for those children whose parents don't wish their children to go to government schools. They have the right to make that choice, but they should not have the right to make other taxpayers pay for that choice.

Segregated schools whether segregated by race, religion or other criteria which should not be the business of the state are divisive in that some children are isolated from other children and are liable to grow up with the prejudices that isolated groups inculcate through their isolation.

All government money allocated for education should go to government schools. If one wants a Ferrari rather than a Holden it is a matter of personal choice and should not be funded by the general taxpayer.

Agree entirely with David F. Although the more apt analogy is that public transport is available for all at a low cost. If you want to drive, buy your own car. The roads are built on public funds, it is enough.
If you don't want to use the public education service, but want to use a more private form of education, you shouldn't expect the state to pay for it. Every dollar spent on private schools is not spent on public schools - where the most disadvantaged children go. If we fail to educate them, we fail the next generation.

David f's response is a reprise of the logical falacy that funding government schools removes the legitimacy of choice by taxpayers to use non-government schools and recieve any part of funding for education they have contributed to as taxpayers.
Would david f agree to taxpayers, who chose use non-government schools, recieving a reduction in taxation as compensation for the money the save the government by reducing the burden on the public purse?
Or would david f prefer to have all taxpayers recieve a voucher for the education of their child at the school that best suits the needs of their child?
Or would david f just wish to have all non-governmenty school s starved of funds so that they cease to remain viable.
Just what are we talking about here genuine equity or socialist ideology?
I presume david f's lack of use of capitals letters in names is just stylistic and not idicative of a deeper significance.

MaomiMelb roads are built with a small part of the tax & excise charged on fuel. The rest is used to pay for hospitals, schools etc.
Perhaps only motorists, should be allowed to use them. Public transport should build & pay for their own & cyclists paying for bike lanes, would be more equitable.

When it comes to schools, all tax payers kids should receive the same government support for school costs, that CARFAX would be equality. Whether non tax payers kid should get any government support is another question.

Carfax wrote: "Would david f agree to taxpayers, who chose use non-government schools, recieving a reduction in taxation as compensation for the money the save the government by reducing the burden on the public purse?"

Would Carfax agree to taxpayers who choose to drive their own cars to work receiving a reduction in taxation for saving the government the cost of having to provide more trains, buses and ferries?

I do give a Gonski, I just want all Govt largesse to be means tested.
We could do worse than follow Finland's pragmatic example. Where there are no private schools?
Just better funded public ones? And then we wonder why their education model outperforms ours?
Perhaps its because education is just that, rather than a platform for time wasting religious indoctrination or justifying privilege?
Perhaps we should take a hard long look at places like Pakistan, where religious indoctrination has been allowed and or tolerated since inception, or northern Ireland, where infinitesimal differences in religious belief, allowed various sections of society, to regard friends and neighbours as the literal enemy; and or, deserving to die, in the most horrific ways imaginable.
Not all that long ago, that very same outcome was imaginable in Australia, with a similar religious divide.
And we have of late, opened our doors to some very different and vastly less tolerant cultures!
And may well be witnessing the whirlwind that Britain has inherited, by doing just that?
Albeit, much more massively than we have done thus far!
Sure, let well heeled parents send their tin lids to private schools, if they needs must.
Just don't ask the taxpayer to fund it, unless religious education is optional and outside normal school hours; and then always providing, any assistance is also means tested!
As implied in the Gonski model?
Rhrosty.