- The Guardian
- Issue #2119
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres has vented his frustration at the security council’s failure to end wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and the Middle East. Addressing the 15-member council last week, he said: “Peace demands action. And peace demands leadership.
“Instead, we’re seeing deepening geopolitical divisions and mistrust.”
He highlighted that, amid repeated violations of the UN charter and international law, conflicts have been multiplying and becoming more deadly, with civilians paying the highest price.
The council has been blocked from taking any action on Gaza because the United States has repeatedly wielded its veto. The US is also a party to the conflict through its provision of around 80 per cent of the weapons used by Israel in its war on the Palestinians.
A new report – A decade of inequality: How Australian governments have funded private schools above public schools since 2013, shows that inequity in school funding has increased significantly over a decade, and that more than half of private schools now receive more combined Commonwealth and State government funding than public schools of very similar size, location and with similar student needs.
The report finds that:
In 2013, there were a total of 1,146 private schools (45 per cent of all private schools) receiving more combined Commonwealth and State Government funding per student than comparable public schools
By 2022, this had increased to 1,550 private schools (56.3 per cent of all private schools)
Private schools where students come from households with above average levels of social/educational advantage showed the most growth in being funded above similar public schools – from 856 to 1,197 between 2013 and 2022, an increase of 39.8 per cent over the decade
The funding gaps between comparable schools are as large as $7,282 per student.
The Australian Education Union warns that new agreements that will determine school funding for the next decade are being negotiated between the Commonwealth and State and Territory governments right now.
The AEU says that to finally make the promise of a “better and fairer education system” a reality, the Albanese government must keep its commitment to get every school to 100 per cent of SRS by replacing the 20 per cent cap on Commonwealth SRS contributions to public schools with a 25 per cent floor followed by ensuring that the new funding agreements hold State and Territory Governments to their commitments.
PARASITE OF THE WEEK: WA Labor. Australia’s Kimberley region has some of the largest, intact natural landscapes left in the world. It has globally significant wetlands, free-flowing river systems, and pristine oceans. It provides refuge for threatened wildlife that has disappeared from most of Australia. In response to the 2018 fracking inquiry, the McGowan Labor government promised Traditional Owners the right to veto fracking production projects on their country. At least four Traditional Owner groups in the Kimberley oppose fracking, but the Labor government is yet to respect the government’s commitment and enshrine the veto right.
As Mangala Martu Traditional Custodian Nuriah Jadai says: “We are a very spiritual people and we’ve been here a very long time, thousands of years, and we know how to look after the country, we know how to look after the animals and the plants, and the water.
“We stand for a frack free Kimberley and a frack free Australia … our voice is not going to stop … let’s tell them to frack off and leave this Kimberley alone!”
