Growing up in the electorate of Gilmore, my parents chose to send me to St Michael’s Catholic School. Located in an area of limited socio-economic status, it’s one of many independent schools in Australia that likely would not survive without federal funding.

‘State Aid’ for independent schools is one of Australia’s oldest political battlegrounds, and as a change of government heralds another reassessment of schools funding, it is worth reflecting on why this funding was introduced in the first place.

Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the Goulburn Catholic School Strike, when six schools shut their doors resulting in their students presenting themselves to local public schools for enrolment. The result was chaos, only 640 of nearly 2000 students could be enrolled, and even that number completely overburdened the public system.

The basic message was that unless the government provided some money to keep poor independent schools afloat, taxpayers would have to pay far more to cover the full costs of their students’ education.

But the deeper message was that parents have a profound right to choose where they send their kids to school.

This choice is essential to Australia as a pluralistic society. It rewards engagement and breeds innovation. Diversity of thought and ideas is the most important kind of diversity, and the last place we want stultifying sameness is in the realm of education.

The strike acted as the catalyst for Robert Menzies to introduce ‘State Aid’, venturing into a field that had previously been a State responsibility, and paving the way for the system of school funding we have today.

The issue was one with deep roots in Australian history. Outside of Indigenous Australians, the Irish Catholics were Australia’s first cultural minority, and overcoming the sectarianism they faced was the first step towards building a cohesive multicultural society.

Despite generally being members of the working class lacking disposable income, scrimping and saving to run their own schools became essential to Australian Catholics’ identity and a matter of pride. However, with the post-war boom in population and the need for new buildings to teach science, the costs proved too difficult to bear.

Menzies’ adoption of State Aid is sometimes seen as an opportunistic attempt to court votes after nearly losing the 1961 election. This is despite the fact that Protestants were then a majority, and historically many polls had been won by demonising Catholics. Even the ‘Father of Federation’ Henry Parkes had been guilty of this with his infamous ‘Kiama Ghost’.

Menzies’ position on the issue, which he had stated as early as 1943, was in fact based on principle and his views remain relevant to the modern debate. Menzies’ ‘Forgotten People’ were those that worked hard, saved, and saw in their children their greatest contribution to the nation.

Many paid for independent schooling, and ‘it is to the eternal credit of these thousands of people that they have been prepared, for the sake of that deeply held conviction, to pay twice – once as taxpayers for the maintenance of the State schools, and the second time as parents for the maintenance of their children at Church schools.’

This is the crux of the matter. Those that send their children to private schools still fund our essential public schooling system through their taxes – and they do so without redeeming the ‘free’ education for which they have paid. It is little to ask that some money be returned to the private system so that system can survive and flourish.

It is easy to stereotype private schools as the domain of the rich, but Catholic Schools demonstrate that this is not universally the case.

In fact, it is only if public funding to independent schools is cut or abolished that the stereotype will come true. Diversity and choice in education would in that case be reserved for the privileged few.

That would be a tragic result for Australia’s future.

Dr Zachary Gorman is academic coordinator of the Robert Menzies Institute.

Originally published in the Daily Telegraph Print Edition, 15 July 2022. An abridged version also appeared in the Herald Sun.