Wednesday, 31 May 2023

City of Manningham Catholic schools

Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (17:33): (220) My matter tonight is for the Minister for Education, and it concerns the government’s plans to introduce payroll tax on a number of independent and Catholic schools in the City of Manningham. The City of Manningham is full of many people who are aspirational people – Australians who have worked very, very hard to get their families ahead and to give their children the best education they can for themselves and in their lives. In the City of Manningham many new communities, particularly Australians who have migrated from overseas who work very, very hard at two or three jobs to scrimp and save to get their kids ahead, certainly value their children’s education as much as they can, and they will pay what they can to send their kids to schools in Manningham that will, under the current draft strategies, fall under the government’s new payroll tax regime.

I am particularly focusing on the schools of Marcellin College and Whitefriars College. These are not schools that the government has identified as top-end schools – the top end of town or whatever the government’s class warfare language is. These are hardworking Catholic schools that provide education to kids predominantly in the City of Manningham, right across through Wonga Park, through Bulleen, to Doncaster, Templestowe, Doncaster East, Warrandyte and Donvale. These schools are fed by a lot of Catholic primary schools like St Charles Borromeo or indeed St Gregory the Great, who are also now worried that they may come under attack and have to pay payroll tax under this government’s disgraceful regime to target our Catholic school system and independent school system.

So the action item I seek from the Minister for Education is very, very clear: exempt Marcellin College and exempt Whitefriars College from this ridiculous attack on Catholic and independent schools and allow those communities who live in the City of Manningham to get ahead and to give their kids the education they have worked so hard to give them.