Old boys’ legal questions to Newington College over co-ed plan

A high-powered delegation is lobbying Newington College leaders to block girls from enrolling at the school, outlining potential legal obstacles.

A group of ‘Old Newingtonians’ has outlined potential legal obstacles to the contentious plan by the Sydney GPS school to transition to a coeducational college within a decade.

A high-powered legal delegation has lobbied Newington College leaders to block girls from enrolling at the elite private boys’ school.

A group of “Old Newingtonians” outlined potential legal obstacles to the contentious plan by the Sydney GPS school to transition to a coeducational college within a decade.

College leaders were told that families who had paid a $5000 non-refundable enrolment fee to join the 160-year-old boys’ school might have recourse under Australian Consumer Law.

Potential legislative hurdles were also raised, given that the Council of Newington College was incorporated through a NSW act of Parliament in 1922.

Nearly 1000 parents, students and old boys have signed a Change.org petition denouncing the coeducation plan that blew into a storm of protest when it was announced on Monday.

“If you want to go to a co-ed school, then move,’’ states the petition signed by 972 students.

Newington College Council chairman Tony McDonald yesterday said the college “is gladly engaging in constructive dialogue with the community’’.

Newington College Council chairman Tony McDonald. Picture: newington.nsw.edu.au

But he dismissed The Australian’s questions about legal concerns as “speculative and not matters we could responsibly be drawn into’’.

“The majority of our community shares our excitement about the future direction of the school and the benefits this will deliver to current and future students and families,’’ he said.

One prominent Old Newingtonian is Justice Richard White, a judge of the Court of Appeal at the Supreme Court of NSW.

When asked if he had met with college leaders this week, his associate replied that “Justice White has no comment to make’’.

Critics of the co-ed plan include a “devastated’’ Robert Millner, a captain of industry who chairs New Hope Group, Brickworks Ltd and investment house Washington H. Soul Pattinson.

Ian Webster, a publisher and grazier, has also criticised the school’s break with tradition and warned the school does not have space to accommodate new classrooms and sporting facilities.

The prestigious Uniting Church school has already received hundreds of applications for girls to attend the college, which charges up to $38,884 a year in tuition fees.