New analysis shows schools in Lalor set to lose millions

Malcolm Turnbull’s brutal funding cuts will rip millions of dollars from schools across Wyndham and Altona in the Lalor electorate, new analysis from Victoria’s education department has found.

Manor Lakes P-12 College will be hardest hit with an estimated $2.5 million funding cut. Grange P-12 College in Tarneit is not far behind as it faces an estimated $2.3 million cut in funding.

Iramoo Primary School is set to lose an estimated $1 million and Seabrook Primary School faces an estimated $800,000 funding cut.

In total, Victorian public schools are set to miss out on $1.1 billion over 2018 and 2019 because the Turnbull Government refuses to fund Years 5 and 6 under the Gonski needs base model. 

Joanne Ryan, the Member for Lalor, called on the Turnbull Government to listen to concerned parents, teachers and principals and immediately commit to fund the final two years of the Gonski agreement.

“Our community is a growth corridor in Melbourne’s west and full of young families who are now set to lose from the Turnbull Government’s brutal cuts” said Ms Ryan, a teacher and principal for 27 years. The needs based funding is about providing equity.”

“Schools need this government to provide the funding they promised before the previous election.”

Ms Ryan described the Turnbull Government as “a government with no plan for education now and into the future.”

“It’s only plan is to cut, cut cut,” she said.

Australia-wide, the Government has cut $30 billion from our schools, and become infamous for inflicting the biggest school funding cut in our nation’s history.

Ms Ryan said she was proud to stand beside Labor leader Bill Shorten, Shadow Education Minister, Kate Ellis and Principal Moira Findlay of Iramoo Primary School recently to announce Labor’s Your Child Our Future policy.

“A Shorten Labor Government will reverse all the school cuts by Tony Abbott and now Malcolm Turnbull and deliver the Gonski reforms on time and in full,” she said.

“As a former teacher and principal working for decades in state schools in Melbourne’s western suburbs, I’m proud that Labor has committed to $37 billion to our schools over the next decade.

“I’ve seen the huge difference proper funding and support can make to children at a grassroots level. I understand the transformative nature of education and I know Labor’s Your Child Our Future will mean better trained teachers, more resources for our schools and support for all students with special learning needs.

“Federal Labor has committed to meet this shortfall and put back the $30 billion in cuts from school funding over the next decade because we know that education is an investment in all our futures.

“This is about taking what we know works, giving the funding to ensure that every child, in a needs-base, sector-blind model, gets what they need in the classroom.”

Put bluntly there can be no innovation without equity in education.