I pay taxes in good faith, believing they contribute to funding education: my children’s education, the community’s and my own, as a lifelong learner. My children will also pay taxes, as they enter the workforce, for the same reason. Why should we then have to pay fees for TAFE (and University) courses on top of the taxes we already pay? This is an unjust double taxing system that flies in the face of all principles of equity and access. Education, to the highest level an individual can attain is a right, not a privilege. It is tragic and a disgrace that the very government trying to introduce fees at TAFE level (a system that replaced the old Technical Schools and caters mostly for kids who can’t cope with mainstream academic schooling) belongs to the very party who, in the seventies, abolished all tertiary fees and championed the belief that education should be available, freely, to all individuals who seek it. Yet, this despicable betrayal of social justice by this government is no surprise – it simply mirrors what Dawkins did with his White Paper under the Hawke government, when he re-introduced fees through the HECs system! Let’s not kid ourselves, Labor doesn’t stand for social justice and equity – it isn’t brave enough to do so!

Patrizia Bertozzi, West Preston, 05 MAR 2010 09:22

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