TEXT OF TELEGRAM SENT TO ALL PREMIERS
BY THE PRIME MINISTER 3/ 12/ 73
My dear Premier, You will remember that on 30th May last I tabled the'
report by the Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commission
and that on 12th June I cabled you that my Government had decided
to accept the educational programs and financial recommendations of
the Committee for 1974 and 1975. Although the consequential legislation
was passed by the House of Representatives there is some doubt whether
it will be passed by the Senate this year.
Your planning for the amount of funds available during
the first quarter of 1974 should at this stage make contingency
provision for this situation. The Australian Government understands
that your education authorities will have entered into commitments
on the basis of our earlier assurances and it is our intention to give
you the maximum flexibility to honour those commitments during the
first quarter of next year. There might however be no statutory
authority for the amounts promised for recurrent grants to state
schools, for disadvantaged schools, for special education, for primary
school libraries and for our joint programs of librarian training,
of special education teacher training, of teacher development and of
special projects. There might be no extra amounts available for
your general capital program or for secondary school libraries unless
you can find flexibility within the existing legislation providing
grants for science laboratories, secondary libraries and capital
expenditure. The secondary libraries and science laboratories programs
are limited by statute to their specific purposes and the capital grants
are required by statute to apply 70% of the aggregate of payments to
facilities in addition to and not in replacement of existing facilities
at Government schools. These statutes provide for maximum expenditure
during the 1973/ 74 financial year for general capital works and science
laboratories and during calendar year 1974 for libraries. In order to
give your planning the maximum flexibility, we would be willing to
accelerate in the first q'uarter the total amount of payments which
would otherwise be made under these statutes during 1974. Furthermore
we would be willing to release your Government from its obligation,
which is not specifically provided for in the statutes to use these
funds in addition to state funds, i. e. you could use the maximum
available in this quarter under the three specific statutes currently
in force and divert your own expenditures on such projects to other
expenditure. ./ 2
2
On a strict calculation, the maximum accelerated amount
we could grant for Government schools in the first quarter of
1974 under existing statutes would be New South Wales $ 14.3m,
Victoria $ 13.7m, Queensland $ 4.5m, South Australia $ 0.8m, Western
Australia $ 3.5m, Tasmania $ 1.2m, Total $ 38.0m. This would
compare on the basis of a calculation of one eighth, i. e. the
first quarter of our proposed two year program, with the following
amounts New South Wales $ 22m, Victoria $ 18m, Queensland $ 8.2m,
South Australia $ 6.5m, Western Australia $ 4.5m, Tasmania $ 1.8a.
Total: $ 61.0m. I realise that the alternative we are considering
represents a crisis for your education system. Under the circumstances
I feel it is necessary to advise you of our present thinking so
that you can at least begin planning for the contingency I have
mentioned. SGN. E. G. WHITLAM
3 DECEMBER 1973
CANBERRA. A. C. T.