Opinion: Mark McGowan Government’s education cuts a tough lesson in governance

It would be difficult to locate a more futile government document than the one released by Education Minister Sue Ellery prior to last Christmas.

“Education savings measures to help contribute to Budget repair,” read the media statement on December 13. “This has not been easy, but tough decisions have had to be made to get WA’s finances back on track.”

The ink had barely dried on the $64 million plan to cut costs when, one by one, the hit list began to unravel.

“Getting the balance right: education savings measures reversed,” read a media release 29 days later, on January 11.

The New Year brought the start of the humiliation as people power and political necessity pushed the Government into a corner.

“The McGowan Government has decided to reverse a number of education savings measures in an effort to strike the right balance between responsible financial management and quality education services,” read the backdown statement in January.

Tough and necessary one minute, striking the right balance the next.

Since then, almost everything Premier Mark McGowan and his minister trained their sights on in education has either avoided assassination or been able to limp off with a leg wound.

Fair to say the public has witnessed more Nadia Comaneci than Jason Bourne.

But to fully understand the misfires on education, it is worth revisiting that December 13 document to ponder, in no particular order, which cuts remain, which are in ruins and what on earth was the State Government thinking.

“Six camp schools run by the Department of Education will close,” trumpeted the pre-Christmas statement.

Strike one. The school camps are staying open after the most recent of all the backflips.

Fairbridge WA will be contracted to take over the camps and paid $250,000 to help keep the children’s camping experience up to scratch.

But when you read on, you will see why Fairbridge needs every cent of the Government’s contribution.

“The original intention was to save money and we’re saving a significant amount of money, but the community still gets to access the services it values,” Ellery said earlier this month.

The next question, already posed by the Nationals, is how will Fairbridge sustain these camp schools given they all operate at a loss, which tallied almost $5 million last year.

The Goldfields camp alone had an operating deficit of almost $900,000 in 2017.

Bridgetown lost $709,271, Dampier $554,201, Pemberton $451,404, Point Peron $627,487 and Geraldton $581,775.

“This is a win-win,” the minister said of the new $3 million savings deal.

Time will tell.

“Schools of the Air, will also close,” said the December 13 statement.

Strike two. Everyone knows how that ended. The minister and McGowan caved in to a Save Schools of the Air campaign and lost $14 million of its banked $64 million in savings.

It was a terrible piece of political judgment not to appreciate, rightly or wrongly, the iconic status and community sentiment that Schools of the Air enjoyed.

The error mirrored the Government’s complete mis-step in trying to relocate Perth Modern School.

But the December 13 termination list went on and on.

“Residential accommodation in Moora and Northam will close,” the statement said. “Both have been underutilised for some time.”

Strike three. Northam was saved in the array of January backflips — leaving a further $1.05 million hole in the cuts — and the Federal Government came to the rescue of Moora on September 3.

By stumping up the $8.7 million refurbishment funding, Canberra probably saved the McGowan Government from another backdown.

The financial intervention has also robbed the Opposition of continued mileage on the Moora issue.

“That is the solution we have come up with,” claimed the Premier in Parliament last week. “Members opposite seem to hate that now. It is hard to keep them happy. We resolved the issues of Moora Residential College using Commonwealth money. It paid for it.”

The Federal Government’s decision probably had more to do with its own parlous situation and the need to sandbag some safer Liberal seats ahead of the next election.

Continuing down the already threadbare list of original savings we come to the intake of level-three classroom teachers and the State Government’s decision to place the program on hold until 2020.

Strike four. The $1.5 million cut was reversed.

Strike five involved the decision not to shave $6.2 million from the funding of gifted and talented programs at 18 schools across WA, as promised in that fruitless December 13 media statement.

To recap, more than $23 million in savings was lost in all the flip-flopping, but the Education Minister is still trying to spin a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Reporter:Did you get your judgment wrong and take the wrong advice? It’s all very confusing and a bit spaghetti these education cuts?

Ellery:We needed to make significant savings. Every agency was asked to identify those savings.

Reporter: Have you been frustrated though that you’ve come up against these schools and communities and most of the decisions have been reversed or amended?

Ellery: People feel strongly about education and I would expect nothing less. People feel strongly about their children’s education and I would expect them to feel passionately about these things.

Reporter:You said people are passionate, so why didn’t you see the writing on the wall?

Ellery: We made some tough decisions and we knew we had to make tough decisions.

But in the end the Government was not tough enough to stand by its decisions and was foolish to entertain them in the first place.