Public Funding of Private Education is Unconscionable

Chris Bonnor AM is a retired secondary school principal and author.

Chris was co-author with Jane Caro of The Stupid Country: How Australia is dismantling public education, (UNSW Press, 2007). He is a contributing author to the Centre for Policy Development’s More Than Luck: Ideas Australia Needs Now, as well as a regular writer and commentator on education issues.

Dr Kevin Donnelly is one of Australia’s leading education commentators and author of Why Our Schools are Failing (2004), Dumbing Down (2007) and Australia’s Education Revolution (2009).

Kevin has written over 400 articles in the daily media and professional journals and appears regularly on radio and television, both state and national. He taught English for 18 years in Victorian government and non-government secondary schools and has been a member of state and national curriculum bodes, including the Year 12 English Panel of Examiners, the Victorian Board of Studies and the Discovering Democracy Programme.

Kevin’s PhD thesis argues the case for a liberal/humanist view of education, stressing the importance of cultural literacy and education being impartial and balanced. Currently, Kevin is Director of Melbourne-based Education Standards Institute. When growing up in Broadmeadows, Kevin was a member of the Eureka Youth Movement.

Amanda Vanstone is a former senior Australian politician.

Amanda was also Australia’s ambassador to Italy from June 2007 to May 2010. She was a Liberal Senator for South Australia from 1984 to 2007, and held several ministerial portfolios in the Howard Government, including Minister for Immigration and Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs from 1996 to 1997.

Born in Hamilton in western Victoria in 1953, Shane Maloney is one of Australia’s most popular novelists. His award-winning and much-loved Murray Whelan series – Stiff, The Brush-Off, Nice Try, The Big Ask, Something Fishy and Sucked In – has been published around the world. 

In 1996, The Brush-Off won the Ned Kelly Prize for Crime Fiction. In 2004, Stiff and The Brush-Off were made into telemovies starring David Wenham as Murray Whelan. In 2009, Shane Maloney was presented with the Crime Writers’ Association of Australia Lifetime Achievement Award.

Beatrice Duong is a year 11 student at the John Monash Science School in Clayton.

Beatrice wishes to further a career in biomedical research. Apart from the sciences, she has a strong interest in public speaking, music, drama and soccer. Beatrice has debated since year eight, and has since gone on to captain her debating team, competed in multiple tournaments and been involved in the 2010/2011 Victorian State Schools' Squad and Team.

Andrew Elder is a Year 12 student at Scotch College.

Andrew has a broad range of interests, including rugby, rowing, drama, music and debating. He’s debated all through his school career, culminating in 2010, when he helped lead his school team to win the Victorian B Grade championships, and was selected in the Victorian schools debating team, which was a runner-up at the national championships. As the youngest of five children, passionately arguing his point comes naturally.