The other extreme that is often mentioned is countries like Finland, where there are no private schools at all. The education there is one of the best in the world.

However, having spent some time in Finland, there is no incentive for the parents to contribute anything other than their taxes to their kids education. The result of which is a socialist taxation system where everything is taxed to death, and the real standard of living is much lower than the salaries might suggest.

Independent schools in Aus receive subsidies on a sliding scale dependant on the wealth of the suburbs. The average subsidy is about 75% dropping to about 50%.

The majority of independent schools charge less than $10 000 p.a. and more in the range of $7000 p.a. where their loss in subsidy reduces the total spend to just over what public schools get.

But what they do with it is what counts, as their results are overwhelming better than the public schools, as they are not suffocated by the teachers' union and gov regulation to the same extent and can hire and promote teachers based on competence not service.

The reduced subsidy enables the gov to spend less on education for far better results, and enables parents to have some say in their kids education rather than the vanilla flavoured one for all education provided by the state.

As nearly half the children in NSW are independently educated, this is a choice not made by only the wealthy, but by many middle and working class families to give their kids what they didn't have.

The abolition of the subsidies would not free up funding for public schools, as it is estimated that the majority of independently taught children would then descend on the inadequately sized public schools to receive the full 100% funding from the state.

This is why even the most rabid gov ministers such as Julia Gillard have not been moronic enough to touch the funding, as along with the negative consequences for the populace, the voter backlash would truncate their political careers.