Graham, if you are correct that funding for private schools has not come at the expense of funding for state schools, then yes, I agree that in general the state schools should better off in the long run.
My point was merely that you provided no numbers to back up your claim, which may well be perfectly correct.

BTW, I agree that GST arrangement is an improvement on what came before, although there are still issues with the way taxpayers moneys are allocated to the states. Nor sure if you saw this article in The Age recently: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/its-a-federal-election-on-state-issues/2007/11/19/1195321692331.html

All I can say to jolanda about not getting into selective schools is that the research is clear that kids actually do better in non selective schools in the longer run. Pooh pooh that if you must but it remains true. Ricky ponting went to Brooks High School in Tasmania. It has barely any cricket facilies an now he is captain of Australia. It has not got 17 turf pitches as Kings School is reputed to have. Brooks is about the lowest socio economic school in Tas. My kids went there an all achieve TE scores of 97- 99. I my kids can achieve at a state school Ricky Ponting can rise to the top why are parents so worried that their kids can not hack it. They are better off mixing it.

Why should the state subsidise parents to spend more on an inferior education? 10% of parents would send their kids to private schools without subsidy so the subsidy encourages 20% to go private. So all the savings calculations should be done with that in mind. also we know that private school take less that their fair share of special needs kids so all costing should be done on what it costs to educate similar kids to the same level. The average kid takes less than the average amount to educate. see senate select committee.

the argument really is not about private v public but about selective/exclusive v inclusive. Private usually rates a good mention because the lack ofmoney automatically excludes.

As well as my previous references see Win and Miller2005 Australian economic record v38 N1 pp 1-8
or Birch, Determinants of students teriary academic success productivity commission 2004

Wizofaus, if funding to schools has decreased, it has to be because of the states. Federal funding has increased significantly. This text is taken from the former Prime Minister's web page.

"All schools are getting more money from the Australian Government. Funding for state schools has risen in every Budget with an estimated increase of 118.0% since 1996. The Government will provide an estimated $33 billion for Australian schools over the 2005-08 funding period – an increase of $12.1 billion over the previous four years." If you google it you can view it on google's cache, but Rudd has sin-binned the former PM's web pages so you can't view it on the actual site.

Linda, the states don't need to fund schools on an enrolment basis, or if they do, they can adjust upwards to take account of the fact that parents and the commonwealth are sharing some of their burden.

The arguments about economies of scale sound like just an assertion to me. You'd need some pretty comprehensive economic modelling to prove to me that this holds water. As the state system is larger than the private, economies of scale would prima facie appear to be on the state side.

I don't think you fix inequality by penalising some, and I don't think it's possible to. If you took funding away from private schools, you wouldn't stop private education, you'd just restrict it to the very rich and make it more exclusive.