ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Another day, another personal grievance with Scott Morrison has been raised.
The latest trouble comes after the Prime Minister off-handedly suggested that if Australians don’t like the public school that their kid goes to then they could always just send them to a nice private one where they have nice things.
Those comments have upset a number of workers in the public education sector because, in the latest Federal Budget, just over half a billion dollars was slashed from their budgets over the next three years while private, independent schools were hand-balled a further $2.6 billion.
Mr Morrison spoke to The Advocate a short time ago. Again, he got this masthead confused with our crosstown News Corp rival, The Betoota Bugle.
“I understand that some parents are concerned that their local school is underfunded,” said Morrison.
“That is a state issue. However, in my experience, if you don’t like the government school that your kid goes to then just send them to a local private one. It doesn’t have to be a GPS school, it doesn’t even have to be religious. It can just be a plain old private school that so many Australians went to,”
“Look, I’m just the son of a cop. We didn’t have a truckload of money. I went to a selective, academic high school. If your kids can’t get into a school like that and you don’t have much money to send them to a school that does rowing, then maybe you need to look at yourself in the mirror and ask if you’re really having a go,”
“But again, I must stress that this is primarily a state issue. It’s not my problem.”
When asked why his government has given so much money to private schools in recent years, Mr Morrison said the answer was simple.
“Private school parents pay much more tax,” he said.
“So in my opinion, they should get a little bit of bang for their buck. Not all of it should go to paying for things like welfare payments and the NDIS. Some of it needs to be spent to directly benefit them as a taxpayer,”
“It’s simple economics.”
Mr Morrison’s media advisor then took the phone from him to ask who he was speaking to.
The interview was terminated a moment later.
More to come.
