Christopher Pyne attacks Catholic schools' 'dishonest' campaign against Gonski 2.0

A senior Turnbull minister has blasted Catholic schools for running a dishonest campaign against the federal government’s new school funding plans.

Christopher Pyne, who used to be the education minister but now looks after defence industry, said he had not had a single email, phone call, letter or visit from a constituent complaining about how the government plans to change funding arrangements for Catholic schools.

“I am quite disappointed in the Catholic education system nationally for running a campaign, using their parents’ money, that is dishonest and is trying to keep in place a system which is not fair to all Australians,” he told Sky News on Sunday.

While Pyne may not have had any calls, the sector is mobilising its 100,000 staff and families of its 770,000 students in a large-scale campaign to let MPs know they are unhappy with the funding plan.

The National Catholic Education Commission has warned MPs and senators should expect the phone calls and letters from parents and principals to continue rolling in en masse.

The government plans to pump an extra $18.6bn into schools over the next decade and bring the commonwealth funding arrangements to a single national, consistent needs-basis.

Pyne pointed out that plan would see Catholic schools getting an extra $1bn over the next four years and average annual funding growth of 3.7% over the decade.

“I don’t think the Catholics are going to get away with pretending that they have been dudded when they simply haven’t,” he said.

But in some areas the funding to Catholic schools is going backwards – administrators in the Australian Capital Territory, for example, say their schools will cop a 1.8% cut over the next decade.

The Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor said his party was more inclined to believe Catholic schools over the government’s assertions when it came to funding.

“This is a big divide now between the government and the Catholic education office and the government needs to reconcile some of these concerns, particularly when it’s contrary to the needs-based support,” he told Sky News.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has previously said that not all parents who send their children to Catholic schools are wealthy and they should not be “punished” for their choice.

Despite Tony Abbott’s warning that the Gonski 2.0 funding plan would face “vigorous” debate in the Coalition party room, it passed with only a handful of Coalition MPs raising objections.

The education minister, Simon Birmingham, has said the government will not give in to “bullying” from any state or school sector because any special deal would unravel the principle of needs-based funding.

Compared with current levels, the Gonski 2.0 policy delivers funding growth of 5.2% per student per year on average for government schools for the next four years; while Catholic schools get 3.7% per student per year and independent schools get 4.4%. But, compared with funding trajectories in legislation and needs-based funding agreements with the states, the policy cuts $22bn over 10 years.

On Sky, Pyne also defended Australia’s relationship with Donald Trump’s administration, saying the US president hadn’t had an “even break” since the moment he announced his candidacy and there was a “feeding frenzy” against the Trump administration by the media in Washington.

He said the Australian foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, had been attending a United Nations meeting in the New York and has reported the US-Australian relationship was in “very good standing”.