Tuesday, 30 May 2023

Schools payroll tax

Jess WILSON (Kew) (19:16): (207) My adjournment tonight is for the Treasurer, and the action I am seeking is an immediate reversal of the government’s plans to tax independent schools. Last week’s budget made clear that the state of Victoria has severe fiscal challenges, but it is not right for the government to target independent schools to shoulder the burden of budget repair. It is incredible this tired Labor government has resorted to taxing schools – taxing education – to pay for its wastefulness and economic mismanagement.

This tax disproportionately affects families in the electorate of Kew, families that work hard every day to send their kids to a school of their choice. If you are a family with kids at an independent school or hoping to send your children to an independent school, it could cost your family an extra $1000 per child every single year. This tax will disproportionately affect the independent girls schools in my electorate. It will cost each of the 110 schools on the government’s hit list more than $1 million a year on the government’s own numbers. While schools have received scant detail from the government directly about this new tax, schools are telling me it is either cut teachers or pass it through to parents in higher school fees.

It will also make programs such as scholarships designed to support access, diversity and inclusion harder to fund. This tax demonstrates that the Labor government does not value the wonderful contribution that independent schools make to our state, nor the importance of school choice for families across Victoria. It demonstrates that Labor does not understand that independent schools help take the burden off our government schools. The notion of a hit list of independent schools required to pay millions of dollars in extra taxes is one which is designed to divide people, make education more expensive and make it harder for parents to send their children to a school that reflects their faith and their values.

The very idea that it would be at the sole discretion of the minister to draw up a list of which schools will be targeted and which ones will be exempted, with little to no parliamentary oversight, is sadly par for the course for this government, which for years now has shown flagrant disregard for transparency. As we have seen from the legislation tabled today, the government is claiming only 110 schools will be affected. The legislation makes it clear, however, that any independent school can be put on the school’s tax hit list at the stroke of a pen by the minister. With rising debt, this is no doubt just the beginning. Which schools are next? Your local Catholic primary school?

The hardworking families of more than 370,000 Victorian students are at risk of paying the price of Labor’s incompetence. I am acutely aware that the budget repair task we face in this state is enormous, but taxing independent schools and families that choose to send their children to them is not the way to mend the deficit. Under a Liberal government taxes will always be lower, they will always be fairer and we will always do a better job of managing the state’s finances. We will repeal this new schools tax, and I call on the Treasurer to reverse his decision to implement it.