White Flight - From where? To where?

“It’s time that fantasy opinion is replaced by sensible analysis of the facts” said Independent Education Union of Australia Federal Secretary Chris Watt.

“The first step in this is to put the facts on the table and stop dealing in visions of the past that never existed” he said.

“The proposal by the parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs, Laurie Ferguson, for a review of the system of housing refugees across a broader spread of suburbs instead of being concentrated in small areas and thereby avoid marginalizing communities is sensible.”

“What is nonsensical is to have a contribution to the debate that seeks to introduce a trojan horse in the form of the school funding debate” said Mr Watt

“We have the suggestion that non-government school funding is tantamount to “state-sponsored segregation, which was just exacerbating class, religious and ethnic divides” according to Mr Gavrielatos from the AEU”, he said “which ignores for example the 150 years of Catholic education in this country”.

“There are monocultural public schools in largely ‘white’ areas and multicultural private schools.  It is primarily about demographics not the public/private divide.”

“Catholic schools like St Joachim’s Lidcombe have 85% of students from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) and over 42 nationalities” said Mr Watt.

“St Therese’s Lakemba has 295 students from 24 nationalities and 95% are NESB, St Patrick’s Kogarah 82% NESB, Sacred Heart Cabramatta 98% NESB”

“There are Islamic schools with kids from 40 different nationalities in Sydney, with almost all of the 1750 students at Malek Fahd from NESB”.

“Similar is true across all Australian States” he said.

Contact

Chris Watt                   0419259143                Dick Shearman                       0414234156

Federal Secretary       02 6273 3107              Federal President                   02 9779 3200

                                                                        NSW/ACT Branch Secretary