Another $15 million for school security
THE $20 million fund for school security has been topped up with another $15 million, much of it likely to be given to Jewish schools.
THE $20 million fund for school security has been topped up with another $15 million, much of it likely to be given to Jewish schools.
Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor announced the program extension at Melbourne’s Beth Rivkah Ladies College on Tuesday.
Joining him for the announcement were ALP incumbent in Melbourne Ports Michael Danby, and fellow Jewish Labor MP Mark Dreyfus, who is re-contesting the seat of Isaacs.
The announcement received bipartisan support, ensuring it would be a done deal whoever becomes prime minister.
“The Government must intervene where necessary to assist schools that have more danger or more risk associated with them,” O’Connor told a school assembly of senior Beth Rivkah girls. “It ensures that those schools are able to dedicate more resources to the primary purpose of education.”
A Liberal party spokesperson confirmed that a formal announcement regarding its own promise will be made by the Coalition in coming weeks.
Like the previous rounds of funding distributed over the past two years, the program will continue to support those schools at risk of racist or religiously motivated attacks.
“This will allow our schools to use education funding for education purposes,” co-chair of the Australian Council for Jewish Schools Nechama Bendet told the minister.
For Jewish schools, she emphasised, spending money on protecting students was “not as a matter of a choice, but of necessity”.
Danby personally thanked the minister for his assistance and praised his party for its commitment to education.
“Brendan, I really appreciate the seriousness with which you and your advisers address this issue,” he remarked.
“If you were looking objectively at the amount of resources either in building classrooms, beautifying playgrounds, funding for some of these schools that didn’t get their correct allocation, like Yeshivah and Beth Rivkah, or programs like the security funding, you’d have to say this was a golden period of government support for all schools in Australia, including Jewish schools.”
Dreyfus commented that a week earlier had been the anniversary of the bombing of a Jewish centre in Argentina, which killed 85 people in 1994.
“I wish that had never happened, but having been to Buenos Aires since then, I can say that I don’t want to see in Australia the kind of security arrangements that every single communal facility — every school, every synagogue, every meeting place — of that very large Jewish community has, I never want to see that in Australia.
“One way in which we can deal with that is the kind of additional expenditure met by the Government for security arrangements in our schools.”
NAOMI LEVIN
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