Latest news with #EducationState
The Age
30-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Keeping power in check: The Age as a watchdog
In their feedback and correspondence, subscribers to The Age constantly make clear to me their desire for our journalists to hold society's powerful people and institutions to account. There is nothing new or innovative about the watchdog function of publications such as ours, indeed it is something people expect. But if you will allow me a small boast, I have to say I think we're quite good at it. In recent weeks our reporting has revealed: * The Victorian government is seeking to save $2.4 billion by delaying funding increases promised under the Gonski reforms, embedding the status of the so-called 'Education State' as the nation's poorest funder of public schools. * An outlaw bikie gang has been linked to a spate of firebombings targeting construction businesses across the state, and building industry insiders are concerned that government and law enforcement are not doing enough to stop it. * A dispute in the Victorian Liberal Party following a faux pas about Gina Rinehart has spilled over into a Fair Work matter. * Victorians' lives could be saved by mandating that defibrillators be registered on a public database. * A state government payroll tax touted as a salve for our ailing mental health system is overdelivering financially, but the state hasn't yet met a commitment for 170 new mental health beds. Most of these stories seek to hold our elected officials accountable along with the people they appoint to public roles, but our watchdog role extends beyond government to power in places such as sporting codes, business, schools, hospitals, the courts, society and the media. Of course, watchdog journalism doesn't cover everything we do, but it's at the heart of our purpose.
ABC News
26-05-2025
- Business
- ABC News
The public schools still waiting for better funding
Victoria is known as the 'Education State', with a vision to 'deliver excellence in every classroom'. But the Victorian government has quietly delayed public school funding reforms by three years — a move that will cost students more than $2 billion. Norman Hermant reports.
Sydney Morning Herald
14-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
In Allan's Victoria, pouring concrete is more important than our kids
According to the state government's own calculations, this decision strips from Victorian government schools $2.4 billion in state funding they would otherwise have received. Loading This leaves less money to pay teachers, less money to hire more teachers and less capacity to access the specialised skills and services that schools need to ensure disadvantaged kids don't fall behind. It means that if you are a parent of a kid with a learning difficulty or other disadvantage who started high school in Victoria this year, your child will get bugger all benefit from the grandly titled 'Better and Fairer Schools Agreement' recently signed by the state and federal governments. There is $2.5 billion in extra funding on offer from the Commonwealth but, due to Victoria's delay in upholding its end of the bargain, $2.2 billion of this money won't flow into schools until 2031. By this time, a kid who started high school this year will be finished year 12 – if they get that far. The premier's response from platform 9 ¾, a response she later repeated in parliament, was a mix of post-truth Trumpism and home-grown chutzpah. She denied her government had cut funding from state schools, arguing that every year, it has increased total funding. This is both correct and disingenuous. What we didn't hear – or perhaps couldn't because of the passing trains – is any explanation for why the premier, treasurer and other senior ministers who sit on the government's budget and finance committee thought it was reasonable to take the decision they did. Is it because the self-titled Education State doesn't believe in the Gonski reforms? Is it because the government does not believe the benefits to students from fully funding its share of the Schooling Resource Standard by 2028 instead of 2031 are worth $2.4 billion? Or is it because this government doesn't know what it believes any more? After this masthead revealed the government's decision to delay its Gonski commitment, a former Andrews government minister rang to talk about what was going on. They observed that Victoria is starting to experience the opportunity cost of its decade-long obsession with big, expensive transport projects. Loading They reflected: 'What is a Labor government for if it is doing this?' There is a real and pressing need to find savings in the state budget. Treasurer Jaclyn Symes will on Tuesday confirm Victoria's first operating surplus since the pandemic but in real terms, Victoria's finances remain deep in the red. According to the last budget update, the government will spend nearly $40 billion more than the revenue it generates over the next four years. The interest Victoria must pay to service its growing debt is $6.5 billion this year and is tracking towards $10 billion. In Neville Bartos' immortal words to Chopper Read, 'There is no cash here. Here, there's no cash.' But there is always cash for the $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop. Or the $26 billion North East Link. Or the proposed, $4 billion upgrade of Sunshine station. In next week's $100 billion budget, one out of every five dollars will go to capital works. The Victorian government, having elevated transport infrastructure into an electoral art-form, has decided that what matters most, even more than public schools, is digging tunnels, pouring concrete and laying tracks. The Education State has become the Hi-Vis State, where you can earn as much as a state school principal by holding a stop-go sign at a Big Build site. The only reason we know about last year's raid on schools funding is there are people working in government who are passionate about the value of education and willing to speak up about it. They don't necessarily think the SRL is a bad idea. They just know a good education will do more than a new train line to help young people get where they want to go.
The Age
14-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
In Allan's Victoria, pouring concrete is more important than our kids
According to the state government's own calculations, this decision strips from Victorian government schools $2.4 billion in state funding they would otherwise have received. Loading This leaves less money to pay teachers, less money to hire more teachers and less capacity to access the specialised skills and services that schools need to ensure disadvantaged kids don't fall behind. It means that if you are a parent of a kid with a learning difficulty or other disadvantage who started high school in Victoria this year, your child will get bugger all benefit from the grandly titled 'Better and Fairer Schools Agreement' recently signed by the state and federal governments. There is $2.5 billion in extra funding on offer from the Commonwealth but, due to Victoria's delay in upholding its end of the bargain, $2.2 billion of this money won't flow into schools until 2031. By this time, a kid who started high school this year will be finished year 12 – if they get that far. The premier's response from platform 9 ¾, a response she later repeated in parliament, was a mix of post-truth Trumpism and home-grown chutzpah. She denied her government had cut funding from state schools, arguing that every year, it has increased total funding. This is both correct and disingenuous. What we didn't hear – or perhaps couldn't because of the passing trains – is any explanation for why the premier, treasurer and other senior ministers who sit on the government's budget and finance committee thought it was reasonable to take the decision they did. Is it because the self-titled Education State doesn't believe in the Gonski reforms? Is it because the government does not believe the benefits to students from fully funding its share of the Schooling Resource Standard by 2028 instead of 2031 are worth $2.4 billion? Or is it because this government doesn't know what it believes any more? After this masthead revealed the government's decision to delay its Gonski commitment, a former Andrews government minister rang to talk about what was going on. They observed that Victoria is starting to experience the opportunity cost of its decade-long obsession with big, expensive transport projects. Loading They reflected: 'What is a Labor government for if it is doing this?' There is a real and pressing need to find savings in the state budget. Treasurer Jaclyn Symes will on Tuesday confirm Victoria's first operating surplus since the pandemic but in real terms, Victoria's finances remain deep in the red. According to the last budget update, the government will spend nearly $40 billion more than the revenue it generates over the next four years. The interest Victoria must pay to service its growing debt is $6.5 billion this year and is tracking towards $10 billion. In Neville Bartos' immortal words to Chopper Read, 'There is no cash here. Here, there's no cash.' But there is always cash for the $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop. Or the $26 billion North East Link. Or the proposed, $4 billion upgrade of Sunshine station. In next week's $100 billion budget, one out of every five dollars will go to capital works. The Victorian government, having elevated transport infrastructure into an electoral art-form, has decided that what matters most, even more than public schools, is digging tunnels, pouring concrete and laying tracks. The Education State has become the Hi-Vis State, where you can earn as much as a state school principal by holding a stop-go sign at a Big Build site. The only reason we know about last year's raid on schools funding is there are people working in government who are passionate about the value of education and willing to speak up about it. They don't necessarily think the SRL is a bad idea. They just know a good education will do more than a new train line to help young people get where they want to go.
News.com.au
25-04-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
NSW set to take auction capital crown as Victorian buyer sentiment drops to lowest in Australia
Victoria is set to lose its crown as Australia's action capital to New South Wales. For years, Melbourne and surrounds have been the nation's auction powerhouse, dominating the number of properties going under the hammer every week. But since 2025 began, NSW has knocked the Education State off its throne several times. Mount Martha beach box sells for $1m at hotly contested two-hour boardroom auction In January, a three-week stretch saw the Sydney Opera House's home state host more auctions than its southern counterpart, including one week where Sydney topped Melbourne by more than 100 auctions. But Victoria is not backing down without a fight as experts predict that the state will triumph to retain its auction title long-term – despite having less auctions scheduled than New South Wales in coming weeks. research arm PropTrack is expecting 509 auctions in Melbourne and beyond this week and 518 in Sydney and surrounds. Next week, there's 833 homes set to go under the hammer in Victoria and 840 in New South Wales. The week after is expected to have 863 Victorian auctions and 884 in the Sydney Opera House's home state. PropTrack senior economist Anne Flaherty said the numbers pointed to New South Wales having stronger seller sentiment than Victoria. 'This is slightly surprising, because we typically see Victoria as the auction capital of the country,' Ms Flaherty said. In October, PropTrack research found that Victoria had the nation's weakest seller sentiment with just 14 per cent of property owners surveyed believing it was a good time to sell – likely as a result of underperforming home prices in 2024. 'I think we could see that start to turn around later in this year, but it certainly seems like, compared to the rest of the country, the seller sentiment tends to be stronger in other places,' Ms Flaherty said. Melbourne's median home price, including houses, units and apartments, rose 0.2 per cent to $778,000 in March, after reaching $774,000 in February. Real Estate Institute of Victoria director Adrian Butera, who is also a managing director at Compton Green in Melbourne's inner west, said that much like the AFL, auctions worked well across Australia but remained a Victorian institution. 'I don't think a couple of weekends will be enough to lose or take away the crown, we'll let them have it for a weeks,' Mr Butera said. 'Victoria will continue to hold onto the auction title, there's no doubt in my mind.' He has noticed rising interstate interest in Victorian homes, including through buyers' advocates. 'Any suburbs that have a sub-$1m median house price will see investors and buyers active,' he said. 'For example, a period house in Footscray or West Footscray, there's not a lot of them but they are there – you show that to a Sydney buyer and that's unbelievably good value.'
