Victoria is a funny place. One of its quirks is that you can trace the ebb and flow of its governments by reading old car licence plates. For decades, each successive government has sought to stamp its ideological claims on the front and back of residents’ vehicles. There’s been the ‘Nuclear Free State’ slogan and the ‘Place to Be’ one.
The latter was too-obviously far-fetched for even Victorians to swallow, so for 2013–15, there was ‘Stay Alert Stay Alive’. That one might come in handy these days, as Victorians try to avoid both potholes and rampaging African gangs, but truth in advertising is not a noted government virtue, so now Victorian cars sport the questionable ‘The Education State’ slogan.
Yeah, about that…
A group of Melbourne parents say their bayside state primary school is crumbling into disrepair and being neglected by the Victorian government because it sits in an affluent Liberal-held electorate.
The long-running maintenance issues at the 150-year-old Brighton Primary School came to a head this year when the floors in four classrooms and a student bathroom had to be ripped out after being eaten by termites.
The school’s 500-plus students are learning in 50-year-old demountable classrooms just metres away from a busy train line, collapsing brick walls are creating no-go zones and the campus has been refused grant funding to replace its 30-year-old playground for three years running.
It’s easy to mock Victorians for repeatedly voting in Labor governments that wreck the state, but not all of them do. And nobody is as vindictive as a Labor lefty.
The school council says parents believe the school is being overlooked by the state Labor government because it is in an affluent suburb and a Liberal political stronghold. The party’s local state MP described the situation as “reprehensible”.
‘Reprehensible’ is Labor’s middle name.
An analysis by the Age of $17 million in new maintenance funding announced in April for 50 schools shows that about 61 per cent of the money went to schools in Labor electorates and 34 per cent to schools in coalition-held districts […]
The government has announced planned maintenance funding in seven tranches over the past two years for 600 of Victoria’s 1570 state schools, but Brighton Primary does not make the list.
It’s also part of a wider pattern, of a Labor government big-noting itself on education and health, while running both to wrack and ruin. The state’s public hospital is a literally sick joke, where newly built hospitals stand empty while patients die in the corridors of the ones that are overcrowded. The government is also raiding its education funds to try and paper over its economic mismanagement.
The state government secretly ripped $2.4 billion from state schools after delaying by three years its commitment to provide the funding required to pay for the long-promised Gonski education reforms.
The decision was taken despite Education Minister Ben Carroll warning Premier Jacinta Allan and then-treasurer Tim Pallas it would damage the state’s reputation, embed Victoria’s status as Australia’s lowest funder of public schools, and prolong disadvantage and inequities across the school system.
Confidential government documents seen by this masthead show the secret funding loss was signed off by the premier after she chaired a March 2024 meeting of cabinet’s Budget and Finance Committee. The unannounced savings were buried in last year’s budget papers.
The federal government, when it became aware of the decision, reduced the funding it would have otherwise provided to Victorian state schools over the next decade.
Hey, but at least Dan got rid of all the level crossings. One day Labor might even finish the West Gate Tunnel.
Meanwhile, Victoria remains one of the most indebted states in the world, with its state debt edging inexorably to $200 billion.
Tell me this isn’t a Labor government.
