Simon Birmingham issues school chaplain challenge to Bill Shorten
Education Minister Simon Birmingham has challenged Bill Shorten over whether he would cut funding for school chaplains.
Education Minister Simon Birmingham has challenged Bill Shorten over whether he would cut funding for the school chaplains program after Labor frontbencher Clare O’Neil dismissed it as a “niche concern” of Liberal MPs caught up in a “culture war”.
About 3000 schools have signed up to the National School Chaplaincy Program and seven schools in Ms O’Neil’s electorate of Hotham in Melbourne are part of the scheme, including three government schools and four Catholic schools.
The program provides up to $20,000 a year for schools in metro areas to employ a chaplain, and up to $24,000 a year for those in regional areas. It provides pastoral care services and promotes activities from breakfast clubs to the provision of community support to staff and parents.
The government committed an extra $247 million over four years to renew and continue the program in last week’s budget, with an analysis of the NSCP prepared for the Education Department finding it was supported by parents and principals.
Senator Birmingham told The Australian yesterday that Labor needed to clarify its position, warning that ALP frontbenchers were more excited in “pushing political agendas in schools than backing initiatives like school chaplains that have been shown to positively help children”.
“With an election looming, more than 3000 schools across the country don’t know whether Bill Shorten is going to cut funding for their school chaplain let alone what other political agendas he might foist on them,” he said. “The Opposition Leader needs to make his position known immediately.”
Speaking on Sky News on Friday, Ms O’Neil said school chaplains was not a “first order issue” in terms of education funding and accused the government of pulling $17 billion out of the schools system. “If the government wants to try to play some sort of culture war through school chaplaincies, they can go right ahead,” she said.
“I’m not interested. I’m interested in the education of the kids who live in my electorate”.
“This is a kind of niche concern of the few people who are making up the Liberal partyroom”.
In the lead-up to the budget, Senator Birmingham received more than 1000 letters of support for the program, including from Labor MPs. Sources said these MPs included Anne Aly, Matt Keogh and Lisa Chesters.
A 2017 report found the program delivered on its objectives of supporting student “wellbeing”.
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