Couldn't agree more Jane,

If you want to send your kids to a private school, you should pay the full cost. The state should put its resources into state-run schools.

Presently a site previously used as a private school in my electorate is being advertised to be sold.
The buildings on that site would have received Commonwealth capital works funding to be built. The school is less than 12 years old.
Now if the site is sold the value of the buildings funded by the taxpayer will be part of the purchase price and the full amount paid by the purchaser will go into the pocket of the vendor.
But the capital works moneys paid by the Commonwealth to fund the buildings should be returned to the Commonwealth!!
This may be an unusual situation but nevertheless it is crucial that public monies put into education facilities are never used to provide private profit!!

Not so unusual Arbeze. With dwindling congregations churches are selling off land, often granted to them free by the state and subsidised by the tax payer through rate exemptions with no return to the taxpayer. This whole grants and exemptions to religions rort needs a major review, but which government will have the cujones to stand up to the churches? Certainly not Gillard's nor Abbott's.

Aha, Runner, never has a truer word been spoke....

"No amount of funding will ever help a totally flawed system based on rotten theology"... which I take to be your late but welcome admission that 'religion' should not receive any funding at all from the public purse.

There is hope for you yet, and maybe it's because I've been burning candles and saying secular prayers for your soul?

The power of the Great Nothing is unknown and yet magnificent, and wonderous.

He speaks to me often, and on your behalf, and I always put in a good word for you.

No need to thank me, I do it out of a sense of community... and love of course.

The only time I have had anything to do with private schools is when I, or one of my kids went there, as part of a public school sports team, to thrash those silver tails.

Despite this, I can see no reason why I, as a tax payer, should contribute more to the education of some public school kid, than I do to some private school kid. After all, they are all Ozzie kids aren't they?

This sounds much more like a continuation of the teachers union fight to get more money into public schools. Not a bad thing you say. Well try looking at what happens every time a bit of money appears in a public school.

By the time the teachers have stopped diving in, there won't be a cent left to spend on the kids. The teachers & their union will have snaffled the lot, & probably a bit more as well.

In the 10 years I spent as treasurer of a number of P&C associations in different schools, we always found the same thing. When ever more money was announced for schools, it disappeared into salaries, & we, the P&C & the parents, had to find yet more money for essentials to keep the kids learning

What about the huge fees the elite private schools receive as well as the subsidies from taxpayers? How much money do they need? Those who choose private education can pay for it. I am sick to death of subsidising the rich and I shouldn't have to. (Even when buying wine - if I buy just one or two bottles, I pay more per bottle to subsidise the rich who can afford 12 bottles and get them cheaper!) I work bloody hard but there's no way I could afford to, nor do I want to, send my kids to a school that will teach them that they're better than anyone else. OK, I'll stop now, but gosh it makes me mad!