Ah. Gotcha! 
Spending cuts? That's what they're saying. I wonder if this lot will cop any?
Look, I know I rabbit on & on about government funding of private schools at the expense of public schools, but this is an outrage!:
Exclusive Brethren schools to get $10m subsidy
Gerard Noonan and Michael Bachelard
January 21, 2008
THE secretive Exclusive Brethren religious sect is to receive more than $10 million from the Federal Government this year, despite Prime Minister Kevin Rudd having described it as an extremist cult that breaks up families.
The money will be paid to five schools run by the Brethren. The largest, in the north-western Sydney suburb of Meadowbank, known as M.E.T. Meadowbank, will receive $4.3 million. Over the next four years, the schools, which operate across many campuses, will collect almost $50 million in subsidies.
An additional $502,000 was secured by the Brethren under the previous government's now defunct Investing in our Schools program, which allowed grants for projects costing less than $75,000. These grants faced only cursory scrutiny. Mr Rudd and Education Minister Julia Gillard have said Labor would retain the Howard government's controversial private school funding scheme for at least the next four years.
The SES (socioeconomic status) scheme transfers money to all non-government schools based on the relative wealth of the area where parents of students at each school live. The scheme does not take into account what facilities a school has or what fees are charged.
The Brethren schools are Melbourne's Glenvale, with campuses at Glenroy, Lilydale and Melton; Oakwood at Glenorchy in Tasmania; Woodthorpe Drive Secondary School in the West Australian town of Willeton; Agnew school at Norman Park, Queensland; and Melrose Park School at St Marys in South Australia.
There is also a "super-campus" at M.E.T. at Meadowbank, which is the head office for NSW campuses at Armidale, Campbelltown, Cardiff South, Cowra, Goulburn, Kellyville, Leeton, Orange, Ryde, Tamworth, Condobolin, Katoomba, Darkes Forest, Albury, Young and Wagga Wagga.
NSW Greens MP John Kaye, a critic of the private school funding system, said the Rudd Government was caught by its promise not to change the former government's subsidies formula.
"Funding of the Brethren schools is growing at a massive rate," Dr Kaye said. "Our analysis shows that from $7.4 million in 2005, (funding) is on track to blow out to $10.1 million in 2008.
"Sooner or later someone in government has to have the honesty to say that there is something deeply wrong with public funding of schools that refuse to enrol children who are not members of the sect."
Last week The Age finally received, after 14 months of attempts under freedom-of-information laws, access to letters of support that the Brethren sent to former prime minister John Howard. The sect is under investigation in Australia and New Zealand for election funding irregularities. This includes the transfer of $370,000 into the Howard government's election campaign in 2004. ...<cont>
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/exclusive-brethren-schools-to-get-10m-subsidy/2008/01/20/1200764082369.html
