2018-09-28
Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has said that the new Education Minister, Dan Tehan, is not up to the job following his threats to withhold education funding to the States if they don’t accept the $4.6 billion ‘special deal’ with the Catholic and Independent sector. The Greens have consistently said that these billions must be diverted to the needy public school sector.
Senator Faruqi said:
“If striking a grubby special deal with special interests wasn’t enough, the way that Minister Tehan has threatened to withhold education funding to State Governments shows he clearly isn’t up to the job.
“To have a Federal Education Minister write to states and threaten to hold millions of students to ransom shows that he has incredibly poor judgement.
“The whole point of Gonski was to end the special deals but Minister Tehan seems intent on striking as many of them as possible.
“Minister Tehan needs to stop acting as though he is the overlord of education, throwing his weight around and actually listen to stakeholders and the community. He should start by putting the $4.6 billion where it is needed most - in our public schools" she concluded.