The education minister has written to the peak independent and Catholic school bodies, warning a Peter Dutton government will “dictate” what students are taught and promising private school funding will remain unchanged under Labor.
Jason Clare’s emails – sent to the executive director of the National Catholic Education Commission, Jacinta Collins, and the CEO of Independent Schools Australia, Graham Catt – warned Dutton had “opened the doors” to abolishing the Department of Education and cutting funding to schools.
The Coalition has made no election commitment to dismantle the department of education and on Monday Dutton walked back on a pledge to cut 41,000 public service jobs, if elected.
Questions have hovered over Dutton and education since comments he made at a Sky News forum on 31 March, when the opposition leader said the federal government could “condition” funding provided to state governments.
Responding to questions about a so-called “woke agenda” in curriculums, Dutton suggested students were being “indoctrinated” at school.
“The commonwealth government doesn’t own or run a school, which is why people ask, ‘well, why have you got a department of thousands and thousands of people in Canberra called the education department if we don’t have a school and don’t employ a teacher?’” he said.
“But we do provide funding to the state governments, and we can condition that funding. We should be saying to states that we want our kids to be taught the curriculum and not be guided by some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities.”
At the time, Clare accused Dutton of a “dangerous” agenda reminiscent of Donald Trump, who recently signed an executive order ordering the US education department be dismantled.
One day after the Sky News forum, Dutton said the Coalition would commit to funding in the budget for education. But when asked by reporters, Dutton didn’t deny he would look to cut the education department. “We have said we want to take waste out of the federal budget and put back into frontline services,” he said.
In his email to Collins and Catt, Clare wrote: “Dutton’s comments that ‘the states run schools’ fail to understand the reality that a longstanding and central responsibility of the commonwealth department of education is to provide funding for non-government schools.”
Clare expressed concern that Dutton’s comments on Sky indicated he would “attempt to dictate what was taught in schools if he did not agree with it”.
Clare claimed the “agendas” Dutton was concerned about included reforms to teaching such as explicit instruction and small-group tutoring to help children catch up, which have been embedded in the latest national school agreement.
“Given the commonwealth’s position as the majority funder of non-government schools, I am concerned about the potential for Peter Dutton to use funding as a lever to determine what students in non-government schools are taught,” Clare wrote.
“This shows an absolute abrogation of responsibility when it comes to the role of the majority government funder of the non-government school sector.
“I would like to reaffirm Labor’s commitment to parent choice, and that school funding arrangements for non-government schools will remain unchanged under a returned Albanese Labor government.”
Under the current funding system, the commonwealth provides 80% of government funding to non-government schools, with states and territories providing the remaining 20%.
The funding figure is estimated at $10.4bn for Catholic schools and $8.7bn for independent schools in 2025.
Clare said the department of education also rolled out infrastructure grants to private schools and assisted with Naplan and the national curriculum and resources to support First Nations students and students with a disability.
About 69% of the department’s ongoing workforce are women. Of its 1,581 employees, 1,223 are stationed in the ACT and 358 are based outside the capital.
The shadow education minister, Sarah Henderson, told reporters on Tuesday that claims a Coalition government could disband the department were “absolutely false” and her party had committed to school funding.
“This … is another scare campaign from Labor, which has no foundation,” she said. “We are, frankly, sick of Labor’s lies.
“We’ve also committed to a health and education funding guarantee, one of the very first bills that will be passed under a Dutton government.”
The Coalition has previously announced it would match dollar-for-dollar Labor’s commitment to fully fund public schools within the decade.
