PM Transcripts

ASSIUSATMAINACLE TTOE ~ IdNHDERP ENADE dN) T THSEC HOnUOLHST IEIRNI THTEE RAiHUISTTRRYA-LIAN
Statement by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert
Menzies in the House of Representatives on
November, 1965
The Commonwealth has adopted a new policy to assist
independent schools in the Australian Capital Territory and in
the Northern Territory to finance the construction of primary
and secondary school buildings and associated facilities.
For the last ten years, the Australian Government
has been helping this construction in the Australian Capital
Territory by paying a subsidy up to the long term bond rate
towards mee ing the interest charges incurred by independent
schools when they borrowed money for construction. This assistance
was first paid for construction of facilities in secondary
schools and, inre recently, has been paid for both primary and
secondary schools. In future the Government will continue to meet interest
charges on approved borrowings of capital, but will also repay
the amounts of capital borrowed for appDroved projects. Capital
repayments will be made by equal annuai instalments over a period
of twenty years. The same assistance will be extended to schools
in the Nrhern Territory with the exception of mission schools
which have special characteristics and for which special Commonwealth
assistance exists already.
The Government believes that this arrangement will
assist independent schools in the two Territories both by removing
the necessity for such schools to repay capital themselves and by
enabling them to borrow at reasonable rates of interest.
The increased assistance will aptly both to approved
projects constructed or begu over the next ten years and also to
a group of projects now under construction or on the point of
starting. For schools in the Australian Capital Territory and
the Northern Territory, the new form of assistance will replace,
for the future, assistance now available to provide science teaching
laboratories and equipment.
In each case where assistance is given, the Australian
Government will need to be satisfied that the propnsed facilities
are needed and will require that details such as the standards of
construc tion, the area of land around the school, and the borrowing
arrangements, be approved by it.
The increased assistance will not apply to projects
already built under the previous scheme.