PM Transcripts

6 I
PRESS OFFICE TRANSCRIPT MONDAY, 5 MAY, 1980~ z
PRIME MINISTER INTERVIEWED BY PETER HARVEY, CHANNEL 9
( ON FUNDING FOR INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS)
Harvey Prime Minister, how much funding goes from Government into
. independent schools?
Prime Minister
A good deal. For independent schools the recurrent payments
vary from about 16% or 17% to 34% or 35% of the cost of
educating children in Government schools. In one sense, it is
cheap so far as the taxpayer is concerned. But the funding is
very significant for independent schools. It is not generally
realised that in recent years Government schools have passed
the resource levels that the Schools Commission thought were
necessary and desirable as minimum objectives. But a very
large part of the independent school system has not reached
those resource levels. In that sense, independent sectors,
at least in physical resources, 1 tha-t is the deprived sector
of education. So funding from Governments, from Commonwealth
and State Governments, is terribly important to the system.
Without it, a large part of it could not and would not survive.
Harvey If this current legal action succeeds, do you see Constitutional
change as essential?
Prime Minister
Well, like all litigants, we hope to win. Then there will be
no problem. If we did not win, there would need to be
discussions, probably with the States, with the Schools Authorities.
You would need to look very carefully at the judgement to see
what it was appropriate to do and what it was not: what could
be done and what could not be. What I have said, if it is
necessary, if it is only way that it could be done, we would be
prepared to face a constitutional amendment over the issue.
Now, against the background in which all political parties
support funding for independent schools, in which all State
Governments support funding for independent schools, I would have
thought it should be possible to devise an amendment that everyone
would be supporting, certainly all political parties and all
Governments. But I do not think that it is the desirable course,
I think it is a last resort course, but one we would not flinch
from if it was the only way of achieving support for the
independent system. 000-