Poor smokers should not get burnt for Gonski

Thanks to a concerted and well-resourced campaign from teachers unions and vocal support from NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli, the ‘Gonski’ school funding model is back on the agenda. Advocates for the ‘I Give a Gonski’ campaign want nothing less than a full implementation of the model devised but never fully funded by the previous Labor government. Budget projections show this would mean an extra $7 billion a year in federal funding in 2019-20 from current estimates, and ever-increasing amounts thereafter, as well as substantial state and territory funding increases.

Federal education minister Simon Birmingham yesterday confirmed what his predecessor Christopher Pyne announced last year – that federal funding would increase from 2017-18 but that it would not necessarily hit ‘Gonski’ levels. However, the minister also said that the federal government will still require a guarantee from states and territories to maintain or increase their own funding to schools and be accountable for the use of the extra federal funds.

As far as many people are concerned, more money for schools is always a good thing. They are not concerned about where the money comes from and how the amounts are calculated. But yet to be answered is how such large school funding increases will be paid for when budgets are already stretched past their limits. Reports this week that if elected the federal Labor party would consider yet more tax hikes on cigarettes to fund the ‘Gonski’ model beggar belief.

It seems intuitively defensible to tax something ‘bad’ to fund something good, but it’s not that simple. So-called sin taxes are usually introduced to induce behaviours that have positive health effects. A tax hike on tobacco that has the effect of forcing people to quit or smoke less will mean less tax revenue and therefore less Gonski money. Smokers are predominantly low income earners. If the tax hike does not affect smoking rates, and the expected revenue is raised, it will be yet another case of taking from the poor with one hand and giving it back with the other.