CONCLUSION
Australia is not investing a comparable amount of its GDP on schools as it did in the early eighties. If GDP expenditure was at 1983 levels, there would be at least $5 bn more for schools.
Real expenditure has increased slightly for schools overall, due mainly to steadily increased federal expenditure. State/territory expenditure is not keeping up in real terms.
Federal expenditure is increasingly directed towards private schools and state/territory expenditure is exacerbating this bias.
Federal budgets, and particularly the 1999 budget, considerably exacerbate this trend. In 1996 public schools received 54 cents from the federal government for every $1 that was spent on private schools. In 2003 it will get only 42 cents. Simply restoring it to the 1996 level would give public schools $800 million more!
Given federal government intentions, without major changes in the pattern of state/territory expenditure public schools are going to be much worse off, both in real terms and relative to private schools.