Category: MIL-OSI

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

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About the energy incentive

The small business energy incentive helps businesses improve energy efficiency and save on energy bills.

Businesses with an aggregated annual turnover of less than $50 million can access a bonus 20% tax deduction for the cost of eligible assets and improvements that support more efficient use of energy.

The incentive applies to eligible expenditure on assets between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024 (the ‘bonus period’).

The incentive also applies to eligible expenditure on improvements to existing assets you incur during the bonus period.

Up to $100,000 of total expenditure will be eligible for the incentive, with the maximum bonus tax deduction being $20,000.

The bonus deduction is separate and additional to other deductions you would ordinarily claim under tax law.

Eligibility

The following criteria must be met to access the small business energy incentive.

Your business needs to meet the standard aggregated annual turnover rules (with an increased $50 million threshold).

The expenditure you claim must be deductible to your business under other provisions in the tax law.

For expenditure on eligible assets during the bonus period, you must both:

• first use or install ready for use the asset for any purpose
• use or install ready for use the asset for a taxable purpose.

For most entities, this means that if you first use or install an asset for any purpose before 1 July 2023, you can’t claim a bonus deduction for the cost of the asset. This is the case even if you don’t use the asset for a taxable purpose until the bonus period.

For improvements to existing assets, you must incur the expenditure during the bonus period.

Find out if you’re eligible for other bonus deductions at Small business skills and training boost.

What you can claim

The bonus deduction is available for eligible expenditure on depreciating assets and improvements to assets that increase the energy efficiency of your business.

Depreciating asset

The bonus deduction applies to expenditure on a depreciating asset that you both first use or install ready for use for any purpose, and install ready for use for a taxable purpose, between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024.

A depreciating asset may be eligible for the bonus deduction if it uses electricity and when one or more of the following apply:

• there is a new reasonably comparable asset that uses a fossil fuel available in the market
• the asset is more energy efficient than the asset it’s replacing
• if it isn’t a replacement, it is more energy efficient than a new reasonably comparable asset available in the market.

Available in the market means that you could have readily purchased the comparable asset either locally or on the internet in the same period.

A depreciating asset may also be eligible if it’s an energy storage, time-shifting or monitoring asset, or an asset that improves the energy efficiency of another asset.

A depreciating asset can be a second-hand asset but the comparable asset must be available in the market as new.

Expenditure eligible for the bonus deduction may include, but is not limited to, expenditure on:

• electrifying equipment (for example, installing a reverse cycle air conditioner in place of a gas heater)
• upgrading to more energy efficient appliances and equipment (for example, energy efficient refrigeration systems)
• installing time-shifting devices which allow electrical appliances to operate at off-peak times
• replacing a diesel engine with an electric motor
• installing a Virtual Power Plant enabled battery system.

Where the expenditure is partly for private purposes, work out the bonus deduction with reference to the business-related portion of that expenditure.

If your business is registered for GST and the expenditure is not GST-free, calculate the bonus deduction on the amount of expenditure less the GST amount claimable as an input tax credit.

Example: claiming the bonus deduction for an eligible depreciating asset

A Co Pty Ltd (A Co) is a small business entity. On 30 October 2023, A Co purchases and installs a refrigeration system at a cost of $1,100 (GST inclusive) to replace an old refrigeration system. A Co is registered for GST and entitled to a GST credit of $100.

Using the electricity consumption information provided by the manufacturer, A Co compares the electricity consumption information of the new refrigeration system to the old one. The rate of energy consumption for the new refrigeration system is lower compared to the old system.

The expenditure on the new refrigeration system is an eligible depreciating asset as it’s more energy efficient than the asset it is replacing. A Co can claim a bonus deduction of $200 (20% of $1,000).

Depreciation deductions that A Co can claim for the cost of purchasing the new refrigeration system are not altered by the bonus deduction.

End of example

Improvements

In addition to newly acquired depreciating assets, improvements to existing depreciating assets may also be eligible for the bonus deduction. Expenditure on eligible improvements needs to be incurred between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024 to be eligible.

An improvement to a depreciating asset is eligible if it:

• enables the asset to only use electricity, or energy that is generated from a renewable source, instead of a fossil fuel
• enables the asset to be more energy efficient, provided that asset only uses electricity, or energy generated from a renewable source
• facilitates the storage, time-shifting or usage monitoring of electricity, or energy generated from a renewable source (for example, a battery that stores electricity).

Example: claiming the bonus deduction for an improvement to an eligible depreciating asset

B Co Pty Ltd (B Co) is a small business entity. On 15 July 2023, B Co purchases and installs 10 variable speed drives that it fits to existing electric motors that it owns and uses in its business for a cost of $55,000 (GST inclusive). B Co is registered for GST and entitled to a GST credit of $5,000. The variable speed drives enable each motor to run more efficiently.

The expenditure on each variable speed drive is an eligible improvement to a depreciating asset. So B Co can claim a bonus deduction of $10,000 (20% of $50,000 – expense less the GST credits).

Depreciation deductions that B Co can claim for the cost of the existing electric motors ($50,000) are not altered by the bonus deduction.

End of example

Cap on the bonus deduction

The maximum amount of expenditure eligible for the energy incentive is $100,000. This means that the bonus deduction is capped at $20,000 per entity.

Energy efficiency

You can use any reasonable basis to determine if an asset is more energy efficient than another asset. For example, you can refer to the electricity consumption information provided by the manufacturer to compare assets.

We will generally accept any reasonable basis for this, including an assumption that a new asset will be more energy efficient than a very old asset (for example, one manufactured before energy efficiency ratings were in place).

You can also check out energy.gov.auExternal Link for advice on energy saving opportunities. Energy ratings are one of the tools you can use for comparing the energy efficiency of appliances. The Energy Rating CalculatorExternal Link includes a star rating to compare different models – the more stars a product has, the greater the energy efficiency rating.

Record keeping

In line with general record keeping requirements for taxpayers, you should keep records that confirm the expenditure claimed and explain how you compared different assets when upgrading or making improvements. Any electronic records must be in a form we can access.

Depreciation and the instant asset write-off

If your business has an aggregated annual turnover of less than $10 million, you may be eligible to claim both the instant asset write-off and the energy incentive in the 2023–24 income year.

The bonus deduction is equal to 20% of eligible expenditure on assets or improvements, with the maximum bonus deduction being $20,000. This applies regardless of how you calculate your deduction for the cost of the asset or improvement (whether immediately or over time).

What you can’t claim

You can’t claim the bonus deduction for:

• assets and expenditure on assets that can use a fossil fuel (except if that use is merely incidental such as where an asset uses an oil-based lubricant)
• assets and expenditure on assets which have the sole or predominant purpose of generating electricity (such as solar panels)
• capital works
• motor vehicles (including hybrid and electric vehicles) and expenditure on motor vehicles
• expenditure allocated to software development pools
• financing costs, including interest and borrowing expenses.

You can’t claim the bonus deduction if a balancing adjustment event occurs to the asset during the bonus period, unless the event is an involuntary disposal (for example, the asset is lost or destroyed).

Research and development tax incentive

If your business is entitled to a research and development (R&D) notional deduction under the R&D tax incentive program, you are only entitled to the notional R&D deduction and not a deduction under other taxation law. Your bonus deduction is still claimed based on what that other deduction would have been.

You can claim both the bonus deduction and the R&D notional deduction. The bonus deduction will not affect the amount of the R&D notional deduction. The R&D notional deduction amount is the actual expenditure amount, not the expenditure amount and the bonus deduction amount.

When you can claim

You generally claim a deduction in the income year the expenses are incurred.

For depreciating assets first used or installed ready for use during the bonus period, you must claim the bonus deduction in the income year in which the asset is first used or installed ready for use, which must also be the income year the asset is used for a taxable purpose.

For improvements made to existing assets, you must claim the bonus deduction in the income year in which the expenditure on the improvement is incurred.

An entity with a substituted accounting period may claim the bonus deduction across more than one income year, provided the eligible asset was first used or installed ready for use, or the improvement cost was incurred, during the bonus period.

The maximum amount you can claim as a bonus deduction under the energy incentive is $20,000. If you can claim the bonus deduction across more than one income year, then the maximum amount of the bonus deduction you can claim in a subsequent income year is reduced by any amount claimed in the previous income year. This ensures that the $20,000 cap on bonus deductions applies equally to businesses with normal accounting periods and with substituted accounting periods.

How to claim the energy incentive

To correctly claim the bonus deduction in your tax return, see:

Early balancers – how to claim

If you have a substituted accounting periodExternal Link and you’re an early balancer, you may need to claim the bonus deduction in your tax return 2024–25. If you’re using the 2024 form, use the tax return instructions for 2024.

If you’re using the 2025 form, choose from the following options:

• Individuals
  • Claim the bonus deduction in the Business and professional items schedule 2025 at item P8 Expense reconciliation adjustments – label H.
  • Use Worksheet 4 – Reconciliation statement to work out your total expense reconciliation adjustment at item P8 – label H.
  • In worksheet 4, enter the bonus deduction amounts to the primary production or non-primary production columns at row t.
• Partnership
  • Claim the bonus deduction at item 5 Expense reconciliation adjustments – label B.
  • Use Worksheet 1 – Reconciliation statement to work out your total expense reconciliation adjustment at item 5 – label B.
  • In Worksheet 1, enter the bonus deduction amounts to the primary production or non-primary production columns at row T.
• Company – claim the bonus deduction at item 7 Reconciliation to taxable income or loss – label X Other deductible expenses.
• Trust – claim the bonus deduction at item 5 Expense reconciliation adjustments – label B.
• Attribution Managed Investment Trust – claim the bonus deduction at the Other deduction label of the AMIT Schedule.
• Attribution Corporate Collective Investment Vehicle sub-fund – claim the bonus deduction at your ordinary deduction label.
• Self-managed superannuation fund – claim the bonus deduction at item 12 Deductions and non-deductible expenses – label L1 Other amounts.

Source: Airservices Australia

I would first like to pay respect to the traditional and original owners of this land, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, to pay respect to those who have passed before us and to acknowledge today’s custodians of this land. I also extend that respect to any First Nations people joining us here today.

Introduction

Three weeks ago, the Reserve Bank Board cut interest rates for the first time since 2020. Naturally there is a lot of interest in what lies behind the Board’s decision-making process. Today I want to shine a light on three key inputs to the process, how they interact with one another and how they fit together to support the Board in its decision making.

The first is our view of how changes in the cash rate affect the economy. The impact of policy changes takes time to flow through the economy; looking at the response of banking credit flows to interest rate changes, which many here today know intimately, clearly highlights this. So policy decisions today shape inflation and employment outcomes in the future.

This necessitates a forward-looking approach to meeting our mandate. Policy decisions require both a view of the outlook for the economy and an understanding of how policy is likely to affect that outlook. That helps the Board set the cash rate to give the best chance of achieving the RBA’s objectives over time.

The second is how we form our view of the outlook – our baseline forecast – and how it responds to incoming data. When we talk about being ‘data dependent’, we are referring to the way we update our view of where the economy is and the outlook. The implication of continuously updating our view on the outlook means we also continuously update our policy advice to the Board; the future pathway for the cash rate is not predefined.

Finally, I will say a bit about the Board’s approach to setting policy under uncertainty. In practice we are uncertain about both the outlook for the economy, and the effect of monetary policy, and this complicates policy decisions. Under uncertainty, policy depends on more than just the central forecast – judgements about the risks and uncertainties matter too. That’s why, as we have discussed on a number of occasions recently, it’s important to consider alternative possible pathways for the economy and how policy would have to respond.

Monetary policy is forward looking …

Central bankers and macroeconomists often say that monetary policy impacts the economy with a lag.

So, if inflation moves away from our target, or employment falls below full employment, monetary policy cannot immediately offset those moves. Instead, central banks have to look ahead. Ideally we would know when and by how much the economy is going to move away from our targets in the future. Knowing this, we would calibrate policy today to prevent this from happening, and the economy would stay at full employment and inflation at target.

In practice of course, this isn’t what happens. We can’t foresee shocks, and even in times of relative calm outcomes are rarely (if ever) exactly as we expect. The economy and our understanding of it is always evolving and our models, analysis and judgements aren’t perfect; we don’t have a crystal ball and even if we did it would be very cloudy.

Despite this, given the lags in monetary policy transmission, we always have to forecast how we think the economy will evolve, and set policy now so that we expect to achieve our mandate once any policy change has had time to have its effect. In practice, as I will explain later, policy decisions also take account of uncertainties about the outlook. We put significant effort into identifying and understanding the risks around the baseline forecast, and the Board explicitly considers such risks in its decision-making.

… because there are lags in transmission

It is important, then, to understand how policy changes affect the economy. In a speech in 2023 my colleague Christopher Kent set out the RBA’s view of how monetary policy works, and how the sequence of increases in the cash rate up to that point had affected the Australian economy. I plan to use the same framework to explore the lags in transmission, so let me briefly summarise it here.

When the cash rate changes, the first step in transmission is that other short and longer term market interest rates and other asset prices (including the exchange rate) adjust, more or less straightaway. Then these changes affect economic activity and ultimately inflation through a number of ‘channels’:

• Cash flow: lower interest rates flow into households’ disposable income; borrowers pay less to service their debt, and savers earn less on their deposits.
• Savings and investment: a decrease in saving and borrowing rates typically encourages people and businesses to borrow, invest and consume more, and save less.
• Asset prices: A cut in interest rates typically encourages investment in assets, resulting in higher house, equity and other asset prices. Higher household wealth tends to increase household consumption.
• Credit: Lower interest rates can increase the flow of loans to households and the availability of external funding to businesses.
• Exchange rate: a decrease in interest rates can contribute to a depreciation of the exchange rate, making imports less competitive and exports more competitive, leading to stronger growth. Higher import prices also directly increase inflation.

Macroeconomists often talk about expectations, and whether or not an interest rate change is partially or fully anticipated by financial markets, households and businesses is an important determinant of the size of each transmission channel. If the change is fully anticipated by financial markets then we may see little if any change in asset prices and the exchange rate, which limits the size of the exchange rate and asset price channels after the decision. Households and businesses may also start to adapt their spending and investment decisions ahead of a change in the cash rate, but they typically respond less than financial markets prior to the policy decision.

Overall, then, the size and timing of the impact of policy changes through these channels varies.

Take the cash flow channel as an example. Some variable loan and savings rates change quickly, as we saw following the Board’s latest decision. Households in aggregate have more interest-sensitive loans than deposits, so lower interest rates increase household disposable income. That prompts higher spending by borrowers, though households typically adjust their spending by less than the changes in their incomes in the short run. For those with fixed-rate mortgages, cash flows remain unchanged until loans roll over, though they might start adjusting their spending in anticipation (Graph 1).

Or consider the exchange rate channel. All else equal, an interest rate cut in Australia lowers the relative rate of return on Australian assets compared with overseas. This typically leads to a depreciation of the dollar, making exports cheaper and imports more expensive. However, while the exchange rate adjusts immediately, the volume of traded goods responds more gradually. Domestic businesses will have existing contracts to purchase goods from overseas, while foreign buyers are similarly committed to purchasing Australian products at previously agreed prices. If there is a trade deficit this price effect may exacerbate it. But as these contracts come up for renewal, and as firms and consumers adjust their purchasing behaviour, there will be a gradual increase in the volume of exports and a decline in imports, leading to an increase in net trade over time.

So far I’ve been discussing the direct channels through which cash rate changes impact the economy; these start working immediately, though they take time to fully play out. But there are also indirect spillovers, such as the impact of spending decisions by businesses, households, and importers on employment and income. For example, a business might hire new workers for an investment project that is made viable by a rate cut, boosting household income and spending. This ripple effect can amplify the direct impact of policy and may occur quickly or over time. Recent research suggests these indirect effects could be a major part of the transmission mechanism.

While identifying these channels helps us think through how monetary policy operates, in practice they operate at the same time and there is no precise way to isolate or quantify the contribution of each one. Nevertheless, one simple way to build intuition about their relative roles is to look at how the components of GDP evolve after a change in monetary policy.

To do this we can use a model of the economy – here I will use MARTIN, the RBA’s main macroeconomic model, to illustrate the transmission of a reduction in interest rates.

There are a number of helpful insights from the decomposition shown in Graph 2:

1. The immediate GDP response to lower interest rates is relatively limited – it takes time for everyone to adjust
2. In MARTIN it takes 9–12 months for a loosening in monetary policy to have its peak effect on economic output.
3. The effect from total investment is an important channel over the first year, with dwelling investment in particular responding relatively quickly compared with business investment, whose response builds fairly gradually. Intuitively this makes sense – businesses might immediately be encouraged to invest more by higher valuations and cheaper credit, but it takes time to get projects off the ground, and some businesses will wait to respond once they see an increase in the demand for their goods and services from consumers.
4. Changes in imports and exports also play an important role in driving the initial response of GDP, at least according to this particular model. This highlights that the exchange rate channel is important and operates relatively quickly compared with other channels; if overseas holidays become expensive, households tend to quickly switch to vacationing at home and vice versa.
5. The response of household consumption to lower interest rates is initially small but grows over time. This suggests the ‘cash flow channel’ – which should start working quickly – plays a minor role in the overall transmission mechanism, as the boost from lower debt payments is offset by reduced interest income on deposits. The slow response likely reflects the indirect effects of transmission channels and households’ tendency to smooth their spending changes.

While it takes about nine months for the cash rate to have its biggest impact on GDP, the peak effect on inflation is estimated to take nearly twice as long (Graph 3). This could be because it takes time for an increase in demand to affect the hiring decisions of firms and the job search decisions of households, which then ultimately feed into price setting. Or it may simply reflect some ‘stickiness’ in prices.

This tells us that – according to MARTIN at least – the decisions we make today will have their largest effect on economic output at the end of 2025, and on inflation in mid-2026.

Monetary policy is always data dependent …

So to set policy we need an estimate of how changes in the cash rate affect the economy and a view of the outlook for the economy – a forecast.

As forecasters, we essentially try to do two things. First, we try to understand the state of the economy now. Second, we use models based on economic theory and capturing historical patterns in the data combined with our judgement, to extrapolate from the current state of the economy into the future.

In both cases this comes down to our understanding of the data – both quantitative information such as official ABS data, surveys and financial market data, and qualitative information such as liaison. Extracting reliable signals from noisy data and forming a coherent economic picture is challenging. New or revised data can alter our view of the starting point or how the economy might evolve. As things constantly change, we continuously update our views with new information.

In recent years many central banks have described their policy setting as ‘data dependent’. Rather than meaning that policy responds mechanically to particular pieces of data, we are data dependent in the sense that incoming data affects our view of where the economy is today and the outlook, and this in turn influences the path for policy. At times of heightened uncertainty about how the economy is responding to shocks – for example, during the pandemic and the immediate aftermath –central banks may put a higher weight on real time data relative to baseline forecasts and models. But these weights change over time, as conditions evolve and we learn more about how the economy is responding; policymakers must always take a forward-looking view on the outlook. So, how does this work in practice?

… because data informs our view of the outlook

To give a sense of how we draw this information together into a forecast, I am going to use the example of our household consumption forecasts.

In our most recent Statement on Monetary Policy (SMP), one of our key judgments was that household consumption growth had started to recover in line with the pick-up in real household incomes. This judgement was informed by analysis of a range of timely indicators – such as the ABS Household Spending Indicator, and credit and debit card spending indices – which suggested that consumption growth had picked up in the December quarter.

But was this just a temporary pick-up as financially squeezed households concentrated their spending around Black Friday and other sales? Digging further into the data suggested there was more to it than that (Graph 4). Not surprisingly, spending on the types of goods that tend to have significant sales, such as household goods and clothing, did grow strongly in the quarter. However, we had also seen a modest lift in household disposable income from the middle of 2024, and discretionary spending not impacted by sales (e.g. eating out) also showed signs of picking up, which suggested a genuine improvement in underlying momentum. Information from our liaison contacts also supported this assessment.

Our read of the data is a crucial input to our forecasts. In fact, one way to think about the forecast is that it captures and projects forward what we think is signal from the latest data, while disregarding what we think is mostly noise.

The outlook for consumption is only one part of the forecast, and we spend considerable time thinking about how different assumptions impact different sectors, and how these interactions might magnify or offset one another. But underneath it all, the links between data, forecast and policy sits at the heart of us saying that policy is ‘data-dependent’.

Policy under uncertainty

As I set out earlier, the link between our forecast and the Board’s policy decision is not mechanical. It is not as simple as constructing our central forecasts, then working out what the Board needs to do with the cash rate to meet its objectives.

The main reason for this is that there are always risks and uncertainties around the central forecast; the baseline pathway is just one of a vast number of possible outcomes. Board decisions are always made in an uncertain environment, which means thinking about the distribution of risks around the central forecast. One of the things we are focused on right now is US policy settings, the impact of these on the global economy and how this flows through to activity and inflation here in Australia; we have been using scenarios, analysis and judgement to assess the policy implications.

As the Governor and Deputy Governor have both indicated recently, the February decision reflected a judgement by the Board that it was the right time to take some restrictiveness away, but the Board were more cautious than the market about prospects for further easing.

In all of this, the RBA uses a range of timely indicators to form its economic forecasts. These data help to distinguish between temporary fluctuations and more sustained trends, informing policy decisions. The RBA’s policy decisions are made in the context of various risks and uncertainties. The Board considers a wide range of possible outcomes and uses scenarios, analysis and judgment to assess the implications of different policy paths, ensuring a balanced and forward-looking approach. This is why being forward looking is not in tension with being data dependent.

Source:

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia

18 March 2025

There’s a stark choice facing voters this year thanks to the major parties’ radically different views on teaching and learning and, critically, how schools should be funded.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe says the choice is between Labor’s vision for fully funded public schools where teachers and students have the support they need or a Dutton government that plans to tell teachers what to teach and how to teach it and deny them the support and resources they need. Peter Dutton claims “ideologically driven advocates” have too much influence over what is taught.

“Kids are being indoctrinated from preschool where all sorts of woke agendas are part of the curriculum … it then progresses … all the way through to high school. And there are a lot of teachers there who are masquerading as teachers, but who are really either climate zealots

or other social issues that they’re obsessed with,” he says.

By contrast, Minister for Education Jason Clare celebrates the work of teachers, telling Parliament:

“Everything they do helps our kids to aim higher, to work harder, to be braver and to believe in themselves.”

Prime minister Anthony Albanese too has praised teachers and educators, saying: “Hardworking, dedicated educators who have slogged hard through the terms, through the years, all of them working to make sure that holding open the doors of opportunity is not a lofty ideal, but a lived reality – and an Australian tradition.”

He describes public schools as an essential part of the fabric of Australia and recognises that “education is the single most powerful weapon we have against disadvantage. And it’s the single best investment we can make in our nation’s future”.

Labor’s groundbreaking pledge

In January, the prime minister made a landmark commitment to deliver full funding of public schools.

In agreements struck with Victoria and South Australia, he guaranteed to lift the federal share of public school funding from 20 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) to 25 per cent.

The SRS is the minimum level of funding schools require to meet the needs of all students.

State and territory governments are required to fund the remaining 75 per cent of the SRS and remove clauses in previous agreements that allow them to count non-school costs of $2 billion a year as part of their share of funding.

With NSW signing on in March, the federal government is aiming to finalise agreements with every state and territory to deliver full funding to the minimum standard of 100 per cent of the SRS by 2034.

Haythorpe says full funding will mean guaranteed funding increases for schools over the next decade, allowing for the employment of additional teachers, more small group and individual support for struggling students and more support for teachers inside the classroom via additional education support workers.

It will also mean more specialist support in schools such as counsellors and speech pathologists.

“We’ve been campaigning for more than a decade for schools to be funded to 100 per cent of the SRS, which was the original recommendation of the Gonski review in 2011,” says Haythorpe. “The Albanese government’s commitment is testament to the efforts of teachers, principals, support staff and community members who have worked tirelessly to deliver it.”

The government has also made serious inroads in addressing the teacher shortage crisis, announcing teaching scholarships of up to $40,000 to new undergraduates and payments to teaching students during their practicums, in addition to tuition-free teaching degrees and HELP debt reduction.

Coalition conservative agenda troubling

The Coalition has never expressed support for the full funding of public schools. It has not responded to requests for clarification on its position before this edition of Australian Educator was finalised.

“You can’t trust the Coalition on school funding,” says Haythorpe.

“The last time they were in government, they promised to honour school funding agreements but then ripped them up and cut $14 billion from public schools in 2017,” she says.

“Scott Morrison struck agreements with state and territory governments in 2018 that saw only 1.3 per cent of public schools fully funded by 2023. By contrast 98 per cent of private schools were funded at or above the SRS.”

New official data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority highlights the disparity between public and private school funding.

Private schools are receiving 27 per cent more recurrent income from all sources per student than public schools.

The capital expenditure gap is also increasing. In 2023, it was 2.1 times more than public schools, up from 1.5 times more in 2021.

Stark differences in teaching and learning

The major parties’ ideas about teaching and learning are also diametrically opposed.

Dutton has consistently attacked teachers, questioning their professionalism and claiming children are being indoctrinated in schools.

The Coalition’s plan for schools includes overhauling the national curriculum, mandating explicit/direct instruction in every classroom and introducing a behaviour curriculum for students.

The Albanese government’s schools funding plans are tied to reforms including a Year 1 phonics and numeracy check to identify students who need extra help, wellbeing programs including access to mental health professionals in schools, high-quality and evidence-based professional learning and new initiatives to improve the attraction and retention of teachers.

Greens call for end to private school funding

The Greens have called for full funding to 100 per cent of the SRS for public schools by July this year. Their election commitments also include a capital fund for public schools and additional funding of $2.4 billion for public schools so fees can be abolished. Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt says governments are underfunding public schools and shifting the costs onto parents.

This article was originally published in the Australian Educator, Autumn 2025

Source: Australian National Party

Source: Australian National Party