sam hawkins, sociology honours, 2013
Post on 19-Feb-2017
27 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
2013
Reworking Neoliberalism:
THE GONSKI REVIEW, EDUCATION POLICY AND SOCIAL
EQUITY IN AUSTRALIA
SAM HAWKINS – 309231159
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours
Department of Sociology and Social Policy
The University of Sydney, 2013
i | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, David Bray, for his help
with structure and editing throughout the whole year. I truly doubt I would have been
done in time without your assistance. Secondly, I would like to thank the Honours staff,
Jennifer Wilkinson and Mike Michael for providing a helpful and engaging
environment to develop our work. I would also like give special thanks to Jennifer for
the time she personally gave up to aid us. Your help over the final weekend kept me
from truly panicking. Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family for all the
support and patience they have provided me throughout the year. Your help and
understanding during times when I was second guessing myself made all the difference
in the world.
ii | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Abstract
In 2011, the Gonski Review argued that all Australian governments had failed to
provide equitable educational opportunities to the nation’s students. In highlighting the
need for Australian education policy reform the Review appears to oppose the
neoliberal-influenced Liberal Party agenda that had fostered these problems. However,
in August 2013, Liberal Party leader, Tony Abbott, committed to implementing the
Review’s reforms should they win office. This therefore raises questions about why
these recommendations would appeal to the Coalition’s political philosophies. This
thesis explains this anomaly using a discourse analysis of the presence of key neoliberal
principles within the Review. The thesis concludes that through the appropriation and
redirection of neoliberal principles, the Gonski Review is able to appeal to the
sensibilities of both the detractors and exponents of neoliberal philosophy. Therefore,
because of the decidedly un-neoliberal nature of its recommendations, the bipartisan
political acceptance this method engenders could also serve to undermine the broader
dominance of neoliberal political governance.
iii | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Contents
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... i
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ ii
Contents ...................................................................................................................................... iii
Acronyms and Abbreviations .....................................................................................................iv
Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1
Methodology ................................................................................................................................ 5
Towards a genealogy of The Gonski Review ............................................................................. 8
Theoretical Context ................................................................................................................... 8
Practical Context ..................................................................................................................... 26
Contemporary Political Context .......................................................................................... 27
Historical Political Context ................................................................................................. 34
The Gonski Review: critiquing neoliberalism from within .................................................... 44
The Gonski Review’s neoliberal foundations ......................................................................... 46
The Gonski Review’s undermining of neoliberal practice ...................................................... 55
The Gonski Review’s adaptation of neoliberal principles ....................................................... 60
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 70
References .................................................................................................................................. 73
iv | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Acronyms and Abbreviations
AIME Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience
BER Building the Education Revolution
CCD Census Collection Districts
CDA Critical Discourse Analysis
CSC Commonwealth Schools Commission
DA Discourse Analysis
DEET Department of Employment, Education and Training
DEEWR Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
EBA Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment
ERI Economic Resources Index
Gonski Review 2011 Review of Funding for Schooling
GFC Global Financial Crisis
LNCP The Liberal and National Country Parties
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development
PISA Programme for International Student Assessment
SES Socio-Economic Status
1 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Introduction
In April 2010, largely in response to nationally declining academic
performances and the failure of the Rudd Government’s Building the Education
Revolution [BER] scheme to slow the decline, the Gillard Labor Government
commissioned a panel, led by businessman David Gonski, to review the country’s
current funding model for education, and establish a series of policy recommendations
for reform. But while the intentions of both the Rudd and Gillard governments were to
address visible deficiencies in Australia’s education system; problems which the
previous Howard Government had fostered, if not produced (Cobbold, 2007), the
conclusions they reached were quite different.
The BER scheme advocated public investment primarily in infrastructure – such
as technological modernisation and architectural expansion – in order to ensure the
capacity of Australia’ education system to meet the demands of the future. An initiative
that, as will be discussed further on, has been utilised multiple times in Australian
education policy. Conversely, the final report of the 2011 Review of Funding for
Schooling, now commonly referred to as the Gonski Review, suggests that the problems
of education funding in Australia are more a question of inequality than simply the
ability of schools to adapt to future demands. The Review brings to light the inherent
inequity of opportunity and outcomes the present funding model has produced, and
makes recommendations for the veritable reconstruction of Australia’s education
funding arrangements. Key recommendations include a significant increase in public
investment, and a model for restructuring financial arrangements to address problems of
distributional inequality, as well as the reorganisation of the sources of public funding
2 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
to ensure equitable responsibility over all levels of government (DEEWR, 2011, pp.
164-183 & 211-212).
One way to interpret this proposed radical departure from the education policies
of the Howard Government is to see it as an undermining of neoliberalism. In this light
the Gonski Review’s proposed reforms could be linked to the implementation of the
carbon and mining taxes as part of wider Gillard Government strategy to reverse the
prevailing neoliberal political climate. Yet, despite the fact that the Review’s
recommendations stand in general contrast to the neoliberal influenced social and fiscal
conservatism promoted by the new Liberal Government (Millane, 2013), in August
2013, then opposition leader, Tony Abbott pledged to honour the Review’s proposals
should they win office (Griffiths, 2013).
This general lack of opposition to the Review by the very political agenda it
serves to challenge raises questions about specifically why the Gonski Review has been
able to engender such acceptance, if not support, when many of Gillard’s other policy
initiatives were met with such staunch resistance. One simple explanation for this
apparent anomaly is that new taxes are easier to demonise than new spending on
education. However, there is another explanation as to why the Gonski Review has
achieved bipartisan support; it makes the case for educational reform through co-opting
and realigning neoliberal discourse rather than through directly challenging neoliberal
principles.
The work of Michel Feher allows us to understand how such a strategy can
work. Feher argues that through the appropriation of the concepts and discourse of the
philosophy one wishes to challenge one is able to appeal to the sensibilities and values
of both the supporters and detractors of that philosophy, and thus engender bilateral
3 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
socio-political support (Feher, 2009). Building on the work of Feher, this thesis
contends that in putting forward an agenda of reform the Gonski Review has
appropriated specific values and principles which allow it to also notionally align with
key rationalities of neoliberalism, and thereby broaden its appeal. In order to
demonstrate how this works, this thesis will undertake a detailed analysis of the
discursive strategies utilised in the Review in relation to the mainstream discourses and
rationalities of neoliberalism.
The first part of this analysis is to ground the Gonski Review within the wider
contexts of global and Australian neoliberalism. In order to achieve this, the socio-
political developments that have informed the funding arrangements of Australia’s
contemporary education system, will be considered in relation to the theoretical
understanding of the principles and practice of neoliberal governance. This will be done
by drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1973; 1998), and Michel Foucault (2003;
2007; 2008), among others, to establish links between the genealogy of the current
arrangements in Australian education funding and the discursive underpinnings of
neoliberal practice.
Once the context of neoliberal influence has been established, this thesis will
conduct a critical discourse analysis [CDA] of the Gonski Review itself, in order to
illustrate its strategic deployment of neoliberal discourse. Utilising the concepts outlined
in the genealogy, the discussion will first show how the inequality and declining
performance the Review holds as being indicative of systemic failures in Australia’s
education system, can be explained through an interpretation of this neoliberal context.
This will also demonstrate how the promotion of strategies that aim to undermine the
4 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
key rationales of neoliberal practice in the Review’s recommendations thereby stand as
a challenge to the wider dominance of neoliberal philosophy.
But Feher argues that any challenge to neoliberalism would be more successful
through the incorporation of neoliberal notions and values. Therefore, this thesis will
ultimately establish just how the Gonski Review appropriates a number of decidedly
neoliberal concepts to both justify the need for, and rationalise the specific details of
policies that would otherwise stand in direct conflict with traditional implementation of
neoliberal philosophies.
In this way, this thesis seeks to explain Abbott’s endorsement of the Gonski
Review as a direct outcome of its appropriation of neoliberal discourse. Therefore, while
the Review’s recommendations are clearly significant for Australia’s education system,
they also speak to a larger potential for the subversion of neoliberal governance within
society more broadly. Furthermore, this strategic redeployment of political values offers
a means to ensure that social change can be more effectively and efficiently achieved in
the future.
5 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Methodology
Despite the diverse range of discourse analysis [DA] methods available critical
discourse analysis [CDA], developed by Norman Fairclough (1989), is perhaps the most
appropriate method for examining the presence of neoliberal philosophy within the
Gonski Review. From the perspective of CDA language is the primary site for both the
expression of political ideologies, and for the distribution of them throughout a
population. Thus, for exponents of this technique the association between discourse and
power, in the Foucauldian sense of knowledge construction (Foucault, 1980), is
particularly relevant to any critique of socio-political interaction.
In this way, despite the acknowledgement of the function of discourse on a
micro-level, CDA is actually more concerned with the social context within which
discourse is produced and perceived, as this allows for the examination of the means by
which power relations are enacted within society. Therefore, CDA seeks to understand
the broader societal currents that inform and establish the ideologies being expressed
within a text (Fairclough, 1995). However, as these links are often rather abstract, CDA
fundamentally relies upon inferential philosophical associations on the part of the
researcher, as opposed to the more structured analysis, and coded patterns of other DA
methods.
Furthermore, while most DA is concerned with the manner in which
interpersonal communication is able to shape social meanings and processes, CDA
systematically relates communications to structural relationships of the broader socio-
political context, in order to establish causal associations between discursive practice
and political philosophy (Fairclough, 1995). Consequently, in contrast to other DA
techniques, CDA is primarily concerned with constructed text rather than face-to-face
6 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
communication (Batstone, 1995, pp. 198-199). When considered in respect to its
epistemological focus on societal power relations, this focus upon constructed text
denotes that CDA is perfectly suited to the critique of political discourse as an
ideological vehicle; the primary focus of this examination of the Gonski Review.
CDA is also particularly useful for the analysis of multifaceted concepts, such as
Feher’s proposal, as the emphasis placed upon the inferential associations of the
researcher allows for the utilisation of numerous disparate techniques in the collection
of discursive data, as well as flexibility in their application (Fairclough, 1989).
However, this lack of a distinct formal method means that the researcher must also
determine an appropriate means to establish and validate the relations of power they
will relate to the text. But while this is an important consideration, it is one that seems
aided by the associations between CDA’s concern with power and the importance
placed upon the function of societal power relations within the work of Foucault (1993).
With this in mind, it seems appropriate to incorporate another aspect of Foucauldian
analysis to supplement the shortcomings of CDA’s flexibility. One Foucault asserts
provides the most accurate and relevant understanding of the complex relations of
power that serve to contextualise a subject within contemporary perceptions (1993, p.
203); namely, genealogical analysis.
Genealogical analysis, as Foucault describes it, draws on the work of Nietzsche
who proposed a critique of contemporary moralities through the supposition that they
develop through the complex interaction between historical power relations (Foucault,
1977). Foucault expanded upon these ideas, contending that it is not simply the
examination of morality that would benefit from such an investigation, but that the
constitution and function of the knowledge, discourses, and even social domains of any
7 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
subject can be better illuminated through an understanding of the influence of societal
and philosophical power relations throughout history (Foucault, 1977, p. 139). As such,
this method serves as an ideal counterpoint to CDA which also seeks to examine the
association between discursive practice and power relations in contemporary society.
In his description of the process of genealogical analysis Foucault distinguishes
between two separate approaches he conceives as being essentially complimentary
methods of proceeding in sociological inquiry. Firstly, Foucault states one should
explore the ‘modern theoretical constructions that were concerned with the subject in
general’ (1993, p. 202). This is an aspect of sociological inquiry that is practically
inherent, as for academic research to be valid one must first ground their work within a
context of theory that serves to inform the conceptual understanding they have adopted
regarding their subject. However, Foucault asserts that genealogical inquiry requires one
to not simply grasp the theoretical understanding of the subject, but to also explore how
the philosophies and processes detailed in the theory relate to the practical progress of
that subject throughout history. As this approach allows for greater insight into the
power relations and knowledge structures which have influenced the development of its
contemporary function and social perception (Foucault, 1993, p. 203).
8 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Towards a genealogy of The Gonski Review
The first section of this genealogy will focus on the theoretical framework of the
Gonski Review; examining the philosophical and academic understanding of the
Review’s intentions and recommendations, and specifically the neoliberal context
within which they are grounded. This genealogy will then go on to relate these concepts
to Australia’s contemporary political history in regards to education, to establish just
how neoliberal influence has directly shaped the context of the Review.
But Foucault asserts that through an analysis of the history of a subject one can
illuminate the complex relations of power that constitute the production and perception
of that subject, and gain insight into the implications of a condition perhaps otherwise
ignored (1993, p. 203). In other words, to further our understanding of the intentions of
the Review, as well as the significance and unconventionality of both the style and
substance of its recommendations, it is imperative to understand the historical
emergence of Australian education policy in regard to funding arrangements. The final
section of this genealogy will thus examine changes to education funding policy in
Australia, as a means of more accurately framing the Gonski Review and its
recommendation within their socio-political context.
Theoretical Context
Despite the political and social attention the Gonski Review has received since
its publication in December 2011 there has been limited academic analysis of the
Review itself in that time. Instead, much of the commentary surrounding the Review
has come from the media; often simply reciting the same style of discursive framing
politicians, and indeed the Review itself, utilise to position their arguments regarding
9 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
education reform within specific conceptual agendas. As a result, it is not possible to
provide a description or critique of the academic literature surrounding the conceptual
intentions or future implementations of the recommendations made in the Gonski
Review.
There is, however, much literature available regarding the development and
impacts of the neoliberal-influenced social and political environment within which, as
will be discussed in the next section, the structural problems the Review seeks to
address have been produced and fostered. Therefore, rather than attempting to provide
any form of analytical exploration of the implementation of the recommendations made
in the Review, it seems appropriate for this examination to instead seek to analyse the
theoretical and practical underpinnings of these proposals.
In order to ground our understanding of these aspects of the Gonski Review we
must examine the literature dealing with neoliberal influence within contemporary
education. Prior to addressing this more specific issue, however, it is crucial to outline
precisely what constitutes neoliberal philosophy, and discuss the various critiques and
criticisms of neoliberal principles and governance that have been made within the larger
theoretical milieu.
Neoliberalism, as it is contemporarily understood, ultimately signifies a
reassertion of the dogma of traditional liberalism regarding the socially and
economically enriching powers of the market economy. The term neoliberalism,
however, was first coined in 1938 by the German liberal scholar Alexander Rüstow to
describe a system of economic governance involving ‘the priority of the price
mechanism, the free enterprise, the system of competition and a strong but impartial
state’ (Mirowski & Plehwe, 2009, pp. 13-14). This was intended as an evolution, or
10 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
theoretical revision, of classical liberalist ideals in response to the perceived failures of
such laissez faire economic practices that had contributed to the financial downturn and
global depression of the 1930s.
As such, it was conceived as a hypothetical “Third Way” between unconstrained
capitalism and restrictive governmental regulation; hence the meaning of a ‘new
liberalism’ (Mirowski & Plehwe, 2009, pp. 14-15). This initial conception of
neoliberalism sought to address the problems of liberalist economic interactions and
allow for the role of government intervention as a regulatory rather than restrictive
influence. However, the formation of the Mont Pèlerin Society by Friedrich von Hayek
in 1947 served to reconceptualise this aim towards something more akin to traditional
liberalism than Rüstow and his colleagues had envisaged.
This divergence occurred largely because while Rüstow had advocated state
intervention to amend undesirable market structures and practices, von Hayek and his
colleagues – most notable of which was influential American economist Milton
Friedman – insisted that the only appropriate role of the state within economic
interaction was the removal of structural barriers to market entry (Hartwich, 2009, pp.
18-19). However, the importance of this distinction between the two philosophies
became less relevant throughout the post-war period when Keynesian welfare oriented
strategies of government intervention became dominant. But when Friedman accurately
predicted the shift towards economic ‘stagflation’ such policies would produce, he
served to undermine the legitimacy of Rüstow’s claims towards the necessity of state
regulation. As such, it was the Mont Pèlerin style of neoliberal philosophy that garnered
political and social support throughout the 1970s (Krugman, 1995, p. 43).
11 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Friedman declared that neoliberal function relies on the ‘elementary proposition
that both parties to an economic transaction benefit from it’. Consequently any
restriction on the freedom of trade would limit those benefits by denying individuals the
opportunity to improve their own position (1962, p. 55). As such, this conception of
neoliberalism is primarily concerned with the promotion of market principles as both a
stabilising and progressive economic and social function. Theoretically, only trade that
produces such benefits would be able to prosper in a truly neoliberal environment as
both parties will seek to maximise their own benefit – utility for the consumer and
profits for the producer. This in turn encourages a competitive market and the
consequential innovation of goods and services to meet such utilitarian demands.
Adherence to such free market principles therefore serves to promote the reduction in
government intervention through the deregulation and privatisation of social services in
the interest of profit maximisation, and to therefore further stimulate such market
interaction for the benefit of the state.
While this privatisation of industry and services, and reduction in government
intervention is designed to encourage economic optimisation, it also has the effect of
encouraging individual responsibility, both economically and socially, for one’s own
well-being. This is justified under the pretext of freedom of choice and personal
autonomy, but consequently serves to promote reductions in social expenditure – which
thereby reduce the social safety-net – to encourage individual responsibility for personal
well-being (Harvey, 2005; Hartwich 2009). But while these elements of neoliberal
philosophy were largely only theoretical before the 1980’s, Friedman’s appointment as
economic advisor to the Reagan Administration in 1981, signalled the increasingly
widespread influence of these principles throughout western political systems – from
12 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Thatcher in the UK, to Hawke and Keating in Australia. Furthermore, the subsequent
economic growth and prosperity that followed throughout the western world reinforced
the political and social acceptance of these philosophies, and ensured they were further
developed and practically applied the world over throughout the subsequent three
decades.
The dissemination of neoliberal philosophy from within economic theory to the
broader social environment, instigated by the political influence of Friedman’s notions
of economic optimisation, is specifically the subject of Pierre Bourdieu’s (1998)
examination of the development of the neoliberal state. But Friedman’s notion of
neoliberal market philosophy was framed as promoting economic efficiency and social
well-being through the systemic encouragement towards innovation and self-
improvement. Conversely, Bourdieu views the impacts of the social acceptance and
promotion of such ideologies as serving to fundamentally undermine this supposed
intent. For example, the function of the free market is said to act to the benefit of all
who take part in it through the appropriate and efficient determination of social demand.
However, the deregulation of these market forces produces a situation akin to a form of
‘economic Darwinism’ (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 102), whereby those with the most
economic capital serve to dictate the bearing of the market.
When this is considered in relation to the removal of the social safety-net, and
the privatisation of social services, it supports Bourdieu’s conception of neoliberalism
as ‘deriving its social force from the political and economic strength of those whose
interests it defends’; the holders of private capital, (1998, p. 96). As the ability of the
poor, or even simply less well-off, to influence market forces is limited, the market
thereby reflects the consensus of only those with the capital to influence it; effectively
13 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
disregarding the wants and needs of those without. This has served to produce a
situation whereby there are increasing disparities in wealth and income across all the
most economically advanced societies. This causes a consequential reduction in the
ability of those subjugated by the system to enact their prerogative of freedom of choice
in regards to their economic decisions – both occupational and commercial. In this way,
these inherent contradictions serve to subvert the individualist intentions of such
neoliberal policies (Bourdieu, 1998).
Likewise, David Harvey (2005) further outlines these principles in his
discussion of the development and growth of neoliberal philosophy, stating that the
inefficiencies and failures of such philosophies are inherently destabilising. For
example, Harvey serves to expand on the contradictory function of neoliberalism
regarding the limitations of the supposedly intrinsic notion of consumer choice. Though
the very point of market principles is to promote competitive practice, Harvey suggests
such Darwinian competition often results in monopoly or oligopoly, as stronger firms
are financially capable of effectively driving out the weaker, and are thereby able to
impose monopoly prices with no competitive incentive not to. This fundamental lack of
consumer choice simply serves to reinforce financial superiority rather than the utility or
innovation the market is supposed to encourage (Harvey, 2005, p. 67).
Furthermore, Harvey views the privatisation of social services as fundamentally
flawed, arguing that it makes no sense to have multiple competing social utility
infrastructures. He suggests that the privatisation of these services creates a ‘natural
monopoly’ whereby the possibilities for profiteering and other publicly exploitative
practices are very real. Moreover, the public has no means to combat these practices
through obligatory market mechanisms as there can often be literally no alternative
14 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
(Harvey, 2005, p. 67). This effect can be clearly seen in the monopoly Telstra has
maintained over the telecommunications infrastructure throughout Australia since its
privatisation.
Harvey also argues that such inherent contradictions are evident in the neoliberal
treatment of market failures. For while neoliberal philosophy promotes the importance
of individual responsibility and the consequential reduction in government intervention,
the adherence to monetarism as the basis of state policy encourages the neoliberal state
to favour the integrity of the financial system, and private institutions, over the well-
being of the population. As such, when economic defaults occur, even if it is private
institutions that have caused them, it is expected that state funds will be used to ensure
the solvency of the financial system. This is at the expense of the public through the
very use of tax-payer funds to stabilise private enterprise, rather than directly ensuring
the public well-being (Harvey, 2005, pp. 70-73).
This practice is hard to rationalise in regards to neoliberal theory since
individual responsibility would suggest that investors should be responsible for their
own mistakes. Yet it can actually be seen as reflective of the neoliberal promotion of
privatisation generally as it is specifically the role of government interventions that have
ensured the continued strength of the pure market economy (Harvey, 2005, pp. 70-73).
In this way, Harvey raises questions about both the legitimacy and actual effectiveness
of such neoliberal governance, as well as the detrimental social impacts these policies
can, and indeed do, produce.
While the issues Bourdieu and Harvey raise are primarily related to the
unregulated function of corporate culture under neoliberalism, these governmental
practices also hold relevance in terms of the neoliberal treatment of education. For
15 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
example, as will be further discussed in the next section, such market principles were
implemented by the Howard Government to directly dictate the federal funding
allocations for government and non-government schools (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p.
171). This system was developed in response to the migration of students from
government to non-government schools, and was styled as a means of ensuring
appropriate and efficient allocation of government resources; much like the intentions of
neoliberal principles.
However, this has served to produce results more akin to Bourdieu’s conception
of the impacts of neoliberal governance, whereby those with the capital to pay private
tuition fees, and thus influence the free market function of fund determination under
these policies, become the primary beneficiaries of those funds (Wilkinson, et al., 2006,
pp. 161-169). Furthermore, this reduction in expenditure within the public sector in
favour of supplementing the income of private institutions has only served to undermine
the ability of government schools, especially those in areas of low income or small
population, to influence the market in order to promote their own needs, and thus to
actually provide adequate education to their students.
Likewise, the Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment [EBA] and other neoliberal
inspired education policies have often failed to account for the historical financial status
of private institutions – instead relying on current levels of income and expenditure. As
such, these funding arrangements also serve to promote the monopolistic practices that
Harvey holds as being a primary source of structural inequality under neoliberalism.
The Hawke Government’s ‘New Non-Government Schools Policy’ for instance,
provided direct funding for the development and expansion of non-government schools.
But while over 250 new private schools were opened in Australia following the
16 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
implementation of this policy, by 1995 the total number of non-government schools had
increased by a total of only 18, due largely to the acquisition and amalgamation of new
schools into already established, and more financially secure institutions (Wilkinson, et
al., 2006, p. 130).
This thereby supports Harvey’s assertion as to the movement towards
monopolistic practices and the consequential undermining of consumer choice;
structurally supporting financial superiority over the promotion of quality or innovation,
or the needs of the public. Furthermore, this direct state support of private institutions
generally reflects Harvey’s understanding of the government promotion of private
enterprise. As although they are not necessarily provided to ensure the solvency of these
institutions, the allocation of these funds, and the philosophies they promote, appear to
be an important factor in the increasing dominance of the private sector in Australian
education (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 130; Cobbold, 2007, p. 18).
But the growth of the private sector within education also carries with it a
number of other relevant consequences. For example, when one considers that it is those
least able to make active choices regarding their education who are being neglected by
these policies, the fact that growing proportions of parents are choosing private
education for their children is particularly pertinent. As an ever increasing number of
people with the resources to influence the market are coming through private
institutions, it will be largely the culture and principles imparted to them by these
institutions that will shape the future dominant cultural, social and political
environments.
This is evocative of Bourdieu’s (1973) conception of “cultural capital”, in that
when there is a social expectation towards the possession of specific forms of
17 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
knowledge, skills, or even basic inheritance, those without these forms of cultural
capital will be systemically limited in their ability to increase their own social mobility.
Bourdieu states that the ‘educational system fulfils a function of legitimation which is
more and more necessary to the perpetuation of the “social order”’ (1973, p. 60).
Therefore, it can be assumed that as the number of students enrolled at non-government
schools has increased, the forms of knowledge and culture that are imparted by the
private education sector have largely become the determining factor in the
categorisation of ideal forms of cultural capital, and thus the perpetuation of the social
order.
If it is the cultural capital imparted by these institutions that effectively serves to
reproduce the dominant social order, it is also important to consider whether it is
specifically for the reproduction of this social order that these forms of culture and
knowledge are being imparted in the first place. For, if the perpetuation of social
divisions and the encouragement towards financial and social advantage is the intent,
this serves to benefit the state, or more specifically those in power within the state, just
as much as any particular individual; a function reminiscent of Foucault’s understanding
of neoliberal governmentality (2007).
Foucault describes the concept of neoliberal governmentality as the ‘art of
government’ (2007, p. 91); deliberately designed to produce socially productive and
obedient citizens, both through forms of discipline, panoptic control and self-
government. This produces a system whereby the state is able to encourage the adoption
of desirable values and behaviours by the instilment within its citizens of forms of self-
regulation, through the promotion of socially productive values and behaviours; a
concept he describes as biopower (Foucault, 2007, p. 24).
18 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
This concept is expanded upon in the work of Nikolas Rose (1999, pp. 167-196),
who suggests that the inscription of self-regulation is achieved at the most basic level
through the individual communities of the subjects of governance. This is because the
community is a key location for the formation of individual subjectivities – through the
production of what Bourdieu terms cultural capital. In this way, governmental strategies
which seek to inculcate desirable values and behaviours through forms of ‘community
development’ are engaged in what Rose terms ‘government through community’ (1999,
p. 176).
In this light, the social promotion of the cultural capital acquired through
communities of private education serves to produce citizens who actively strive towards
goals; namely financial security, that allow them and their children to gain access to
such communities, and thus obtain the desired cultural capital. Through their pursuit of
this neoliberal ideal they serve to strengthen the economic power of the nation within
the global market; benefiting the state, thus reinforcing the power of the ruling class,
and therefore reproducing the dominant social order. Although this implies that it is
only through the communities of private institutions that these principles are imparted, it
is perhaps more likely that they simply represent the epitomisation of this social ideal.
As such, public schools would be likely be encouraged, or in fact mandated, to shape
their students to conform to the perception of what specific knowledge, skills, and
behaviour are supposedly essential for success in contemporary society (Foucault,
2007).
This trend has been empirically demonstrated through sociological research
focussed on the impact of neoliberalism on educational outcomes. Karen Nairn and Jane
Higgins (2007) for example, examine the extent to which neoliberal discourse is
19 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
apparent within student’s discussions about their futures, and their possibilities and
responsibilities within the labour market. Through an analysis of the discourse utilised
by the students in interviews and within their own “anti-CVs” it became evident that
economic motivation, the quintessential neoliberal rationality, was particularly relevant
within the students’ conception of post-school life.
This was characterised by their consistent references to the importance of
material possessions, home ownership, travel, and money in general (Nairn & Higgins,
2007, pp. 266-278). But some also made allusions to other forms of neoliberal
philosophy such as entrepreneurialist individualism, and the fundamentality of the
market; such as one student’s notion of “trading on personality” (Nairn & Higgins,
2007, pp. 272-274). The fact that these philosophies were present, and even dominant,
within the discourse the students’ employed demonstrates their appropriation of the
rationalities of the market economy, and their acceptance of the means by which
expectations regarding their lives are systemically structured. But Nairn and Higgins
also observed influences of neoconservativism, religious and familial motivation, and
even altruism within the students’ discussions. This implies that neoliberal discourse
may not be as pervasive within the production of self as Foucault’s conception of
governmentality would suggest (Nairn & Higgins, 2007, pp. 278-280).
However, the research conducted by Nairn and Higgins focused solely on those
who had not yet truly submitted themselves to the market economy, and in this way the
work of Peter Bansel (2007) serves to supplement their research by examining subjects
who were already part of the workforce. Utilising the individual life history narratives
of young Australian workers as source material for discursive analysis, Bansel sought to
examine the extent to which the discourses of the market and individualism are
20 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
intrinsically connected with discourses of freedom and choice within the subjects’
understandings of social function and structure. Bansel found that principles of
neoliberalism were much more dominantly prevalent within the discourse employed by
the workers than was evident within that of the students studied by Nairn and Higgins.
In fact, Bansel’s analysis highlights the view that their responsibilities as
workers, both to themselves and as economic agents, are those of ‘revision and
improvement’; that the self ‘needs to be constantly worked on and re/produced’ in order
to remain viable in the market economy (2007, p. 297). Bansel is particularly critical of
the implications for the social acceptance of such neoliberal principles. He states that
the oversimplification of the ideal of free choice – in that one’s ability to employ choice
is intrinsically dependent on numerous other social factors often unconsidered by
neoliberal philosophy – frequently produces a false sense of agency which leads to the
failure of the self to adequately manage the burdens of individual responsibility (Bansel,
2007, pp. 297-299).
Glenda McGregor (2009) also examines the impact of neoliberal
governmentality, in the sense of the conformative function of approved and promoted
knowledge structures. Specifically, McGregor sees the pedagogic promotion of what is
deemed ‘socially acceptable’, or at least socially useful knowledge, as producing a
system whereby those students that express resistant, or even simply alternative
perceptions are supressed and invalidated to such a point that they become actively
disengaged with the ‘official knowledge’. Furthermore, she argues that this
disengagement often leads to class disruption, and to them being labelled as rebellious
troublemakers (McGregor, 2009, pp. 347-348).
21 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
In this way, McGregor is similarly critical of the pedagogic and social
dominance of neoliberal philosophy. But her notion of the repressive nature of
neoliberal education also provides an alternative take on the conclusions drawn by
Nairn and Higgins. Perhaps the alternative perceptions evident in the students’
discourse in the research of Nairn and Higgins are suppressed, as McGregor suggests, to
such a degree that they are largely lost when faced with the reality of the individual
responsibilities of the labour market. Thereby reconciling the disparities between the
findings of Bansel and Nairn and Higgins.
Nairn and Higgins, McGregor, and Bansel are all concerned with the impact of
neoliberal governmentality on educational practice, and their findings essentially
support the theoretical assertions that have been considered so far in this discussion. As
the promotion of neoliberal principles of market function and individualised notions of
free choice within education serve to construct ideals of success that are practically
unattainable for those who do not have, and often have no means to attain, the specific
cultural capital deemed of value within the market economy. This then serves to
reproduce, and in many ways intensify, the social divisions that have limited the ability
of those less capable of making active market choices. Furthermore, it serves to
encourage those who are so capable to strive towards the institutions with which these
principles are synonymous. This thereby contributes to both the consistent growth in the
private sector, and the increasing disadvantage found within the public sector; the very
basis of the structural inequalities the Gonski Review seeks to address.
Each of these theoretical critiques and practical examinations of the function of
neoliberalism in society, aid in the illustration of the means by which the contradiction
between neoliberal principles and practice reinforce social divisions and power
22 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
relations, and produce the structural inequality evident within the findings of the Gonski
Review (DEEWR, 2011, pp. xxix-xxxii). But the majority of these discussions also
come to the conclusion, much like the Review itself, that the social acceptance and
perpetuation of these practices and the inequalities they produce are inherently
restrictive in terms of the progress of society, through the social subjugation and
structural neglect of large portions of the population. Furthermore, that due to this
subjugation, neoliberal states are also fundamentally unstable as these contradictions
serve to undermine the onus of individual choice that is promoted by their own
philosophies.
By way of alternative, some of these theorists and researchers call for a radical
departure from neoliberal policies in the name of structural equality and the social good.
Bourdieu, for instance, calls for a state capable ‘of countering the destructive action
which these markets exert… [on society], by organising, with the aid of unions, the
definition and defence of the public interest’ (1998, pp. 104-105). Likewise, Bansel
suggests that the failure of neoliberal philosophies to provide a nurturing environment
for personal and societal development ‘should not be borne as ours alone’ (2007, p.
299). Moreover, he, like Bourdieu, cites the role of organisational collectives such as
unions and alternative political parties in representing the needs of those who may not
be able to ‘make the “right” choices’ (Bansel, 2007, p. 298) – the very antithesis of
neoliberal individualised responsibility and market function.
Despite reiterating this critique of neoliberalism and endorsing a social
imperative to revolt against the currently established order, Michel Feher suggests that
direct confrontation with neoliberal policies is likely to be met with both political and
social resistance. Instead, advocating evolution over revolution, Feher proposes that any
23 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
challenge to neoliberalism should come from within rather than without, by ‘embracing
the very condition that its discourses and practices delineate’ (Feher, 2009, p. 21). Feher
thereby suggests that a more subversive approach to defying neoliberalism may
conceivably be more effective at achieving genuine social and political change than the
direct philosophical challenges posed by the likes of Bourdieu.
To illustrate his argument Feher cites both Marx and Foucault, in their
descriptions of the means by which oppressed social groups were able to utilise the
conceptual frameworks of the political and social systems that were subjugating them in
order to reconstruct the meaning of their respective positions in society (Feher, 2009, p.
22). According to Feher, Marx and Engels showed that the plight of the free labourer
characterised by dispossession and exploitation, came to be improved not by any full
scale revolt but by the utilisation and consolidation of their own labour power – inherent
to the very concept of liberal capitalism – in the form of worker’s unions (Feher, 2009,
p. 22). Similarly, Feher suggests that Foucault’s accounts of the women’s rights
movement, shows that feminists were able to appropriate the stereotypes of what it
supposedly meant to be female, such as greater levels of emotional investment, and
rework these traits as perceived strengths rather than perceived weaknesses of their
gender (Feher, 2009, p. 22). Through reference to these historical precedents Feher
seeks to demonstrate that the most effective way to challenge a powerful dominant
discourse, such as neoliberalism, is from within. Through a strategy which attempts to
rework key concepts to the advantage of those marginalised by that discourse.
Foucault’s account of the formation and rise of neoliberalism itself – namely, the
shift from a focus on full employment and public welfare through state intervention to
the liberation of economic interactions to promote capital accumulation – would seem
24 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
to imply that neoliberal thought was developed largely as a critical alternative to the
Keynesian policies which had led to economic ‘stagflation’ in the 1970s (2008, pp. 216-
217). However, despite the incompatibility of the intentions and practices of these
opposing political frameworks, the birth of neoliberal thought in fact utilised the
concepts of a number of other dominant socio-political ideals of the period which
served to ensure the neoliberal framework appealed to key values of the time;
specifically the fundamental importance of individual choice and freedom (Harvey,
2005, p. 5).
This concept of personal sovereignty, and the implications of social freedom that
are associated with it, had become important within western philosophy as a
counterpoint to the increasingly perceived threats to liberal democracy that were posed
by such political ideologies as fascism and communism. As such, in the appropriation of
these concepts of freedom, neoliberal discourse has been able to tap into the fears and
values of the period, and thereby rationalise the political disparagement of any form of
state intervention as an explicit and deliberate limitation of individual freedoms
(Harvey, 2005, p. 5).
Harvey’s account suggests that even neoliberalism, despite its direct and explicit
opposition to previously prominent Keynesian policies was still only able to gain such
political support and public acceptance largely through its appropriation and redirection
of previously established social values and beliefs. When viewed together this serves to
further strengthen Feher’s assertion that critical engagement from within, rather than
direct confrontation, is likely to be the most effective means of generating a redirection
of social and economic policies. More specifically, Feher argues that this may be most
25 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
efficiently achieved through the re-appropriation of the neoliberal notion of human
capital (Feher, 2009, pp. 25-38).
According to Foucault, the neoliberal concept of human capital is framed as the
accumulation of one’s personal value, which is informed and influenced by numerous
factors, including heritage, knowledge and behaviour (Foucault, 2008). But unlike
cultural capital, which Bourdieu suggests is imparted through the ‘habitus’ within which
one is situated (1973), the accumulation of human capital is fundamentally informed by
investment in the self. Moreover, while cultural capital is deemed valuable only in the
context of specific forms of knowledge and practice, one’s accumulation of human
capital is of value to the degree to which one is able to both employ and build upon that
which one already has (Foucault, 2008, pp. 230-233). As such, the emergence of the
neoliberal notion of human capital embodies the reassertion of individual agency into
the process of capital accumulation.
In the context of the neoliberal focus upon choice and personal responsibility,
this conception of human capital implies that although each individual may not be
imbued with inherently equal characteristics, principles or heritage, every person should
have the equitable ability to accumulate human capital, and thus increase their own
personal value, in equal measure if they so choose. However, despite this implication,
the accumulation of human capital is still fundamentally a function of investment, and
thus requires some initial form of capital – financial of cultural – in order to invest. As
such, the neoliberal promotion of privatisation and profitability, combined with the
widening wealth disparity and social divisions the focus upon individual responsibility
precipitates (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 97), serves to ensure that accumulation of human
capital is not a right shared equally among all, and it is precisely this inherent inequality
26 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
of opportunity and outcomes by which the Gonski Review delineates the need for a
veritable reformation of school funding in Australia.
With all of this in mind it becomes easier to appreciate just how the problems
that the Gonski Review seeks to address are fundamentally a product of the
neoliberalisation of education policy, and how the recommendation of policy reform can
be interpreted as a critique of neoliberalism. But following the insights of Feher, the
argument of this thesis is that the Review’s recommendations are carefully framed
within the discourse of neoliberalism rather than presented as a direct rejection of
neoliberal precepts. Through adopting concepts such as human capital the Review seeks
to redirect educational policy through the appropriation of neoliberal concepts rather
than through the kind of blatant oppositional discourses advocated by critics like
Bourdieu (1998) and Harvey (2005).
Practical Context
Considering the recommendations of the Gonski Review are designed to address
distinct deficiencies in the outcomes of Australian students it is important to understand
how the current educational policies have emerged as a result of earlier governmental
interventions. Therefore, the contemporary political climate of neoliberal influence that
concerned Bourdieu, Harvey, and Foucault (1998; 2005; 2008), and has inherently
shaped the context of the Gonski Review, will be discussed first. Then a more
traditional chronological examination will follow to examine how the Review fits into
the historical debates over education funding in Australia.
27 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Contemporary Political Context
It is commonly thought that the Hawke and Keating governments brought
neoliberalism to Australia in imitation of policy directions pioneered by Ronald Reagan
in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom (Dibley-Maher,
2012). However, in many ways the roots of neoliberal rationale in Australian education
policy could be seen earlier, under the government of Malcolm Fraser. For example,
Fraser’s implementation of ‘New Federalist’ policies which were aimed at reasserting
the responsibilities of state governments in regards to their traditional roles, such as in
education, in many ways represents the initial foundations for the development of
neoliberalism in Australia. This reassertion of state authority can been seen as akin to
the reduction of central governmental responsibility inherent to neoliberal philosophy,
in that the states were thus responsible for their own well-being rather than being reliant
on collective administration.
Furthermore, although Fraser did not specifically reject the policy innovations
implemented by the previous government of Gough Whitlam, he reaffirmed that the
responsibility of government schools was that of the state governments, while
concurrently maintaining that the federal government had a responsibility to provide a
basic guaranteed subsidy for the benefit of every student (LNCP, 1975). This implied,
given his government’s commitment to fiscal restraint and principles of ‘New
Federalism’, the federal support of non-government schools at the direct expense of
their support to government schools.
This proved true, and the Fraser Government implemented policies of
calculating rates for recurrent grants for non-government schools by an average cost of
education in government schools, while also steadily increasing payments made to non-
28 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
government schools through the six-level Subsidy Scheme developed before Whitlam’s
dismissal. Consequently, this saw funding for non-government schools rise markedly
throughout the remainder of the 1970s. Moreover, funding for other Schools
Commission programs during this period largely remained constant. Except in 1980
when the total funds made available for Schools Commission programs was cut by
approximately $38 million – much of which came from the public sector – with general
recurrent grants for non-government schools then receiving increases in 1981 (CSC,
1979, p. 33; 1980, p. 27).
In 1981, Fraser replaced Schools Commission Chairman Ken McKinnon with
the publicly Catholic Dr Peter Tannock. This appointment was criticised by government
school supporters due to the belief that Tannock would likely provide more support for
the interests of non-government schools. While this may not have been the specific
outcome, the trend of steady increases in federal support to non-government schools
continued, to the point that in the lead up to the 1983 federal election the Opposition
ALP under Bob Hawke made equitable education funding reform a signature element in
their policy platform (Smart, et al., 1986, p. 65).
The intention to implement a more equitable funding distribution between
government and non-government schools was supported by the Hawke Government’s
implementation of the Participation and Equity Program in 1984. This program aimed to
improve measures for retaining students through to the end of secondary school with the
allocation of an additional $71.5 million for use by schools, particularly within the
public sector (CSC, 1983, pp. 33-36). Likewise, they pledged to reduce Commonwealth
funding to high-resource non-government schools in 1984, and promised to further
29 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
increase federal resources to government schools throughout the early years of their
government (Smart, et al., 1986, p. 66).
However, despite the implementation of many of these policies the general
political direction of the Hawke/Keating Labor Government was to follow the previous
Liberal government agenda, especially in regard to economic policy. For example,
although they had proposed the reduction in funding for non-government schools, the
Hawke Government’s guidelines for the Schools Commission for 1985 stated that ‘the
right of parents to choose non-government schools is widely recognised in Australia’
(CSC, 1984, p.4); foreshadowing their intention to at least continue general recurrent
grants to non-government schools. In fact, Hawke’s new funding package for the years
1985-1988 did not actually include any phasing out of grants to non-government
schools, and instead all grants were maintained to at least 1984 levels (CSC, 1984, pp.
60-61). Furthermore, the 1985 guidelines also included a section titled ‘New Non-
Government Schools’, containing information on the government’s intention to support
the further expansion of the non-government schools sector – which had already grown
considerably under the support of the Fraser Government – through further grants for
construction and expansion projects (CSC, 1984, p. 73).
Despite this, federal support for government schools did indeed actually rise
over this period, and the Hawke Government established a scheme in 1985 for the
determination of funding for non-government schools based on the need of the school
rather than the per-capita basis that had persisted throughout the Fraser era. This was
achieved through categorisation into one of twelve funding categories utilising school
expenditure and school income, or Economic Resources Index [ERI], data (DEET,
1993, p. 51). Yet, Hawke’s reforms did little to actually redirect the changes made by
30 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
the Fraser Government. For example, the distinctions between the funding
responsibilities of the states and the Commonwealth created by Fraser’s implementation
of ‘New Federalism’ remained largely in place, with the majority of the increased
federal involvement in education occurring within the non-government sector. As such,
the expansion of the non-government sector had only been further supported under
Hawke, and this trend was continued by Keating who in 1992 committed an additional
$160 million in federal funding to non-government schools from 1993-1996 (DEET,
1993, p. 51).
The degree of direct support provided for private educational institutions
underlines the extent to which the Labor Governments of this period adopted neoliberal
principles. These principles were also evident in the dissolution of the Schools
Commission in 1987 in order to streamline the governmental process of education. As
well as in the government’s push towards a national curriculum which would in effect
prioritise specific areas of knowledge deemed to be of use. This latter proposal is
reminiscent of Foucault’s previously discussed conception of neoliberal
governmentality and biopower (2003, p. 243) in so far as the government intervened to
ensure that specific knowledge and values would be imparted through schools in order
to shape citizens for the perceived requirements of productivity and national
development. In this way, the Hawke and Keating Governments established the
groundwork for neoliberal educational policy environment that was subsequently
extended by the Howard Government, resulting in the problems the Gonski Review now
seeks to address.
Of the reforms to education policy made by the Howard Government some of
those with the most specific impact to the reinforcement of neoliberal principles were
31 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
the suspension of the ‘New Schools Policy’; due to it being perceived as prohibitively
restrictive and inefficient in its distribution of funds to non-government schools. As well
as the removal of the funding cap that had been placed on schools above ERI Category
6 under Labor; which effectively removed the limits of government support to private
institutions (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 151). Likewise, Howard promised the allocation
of an additional $19.5 million to non-government schools in the lead up to the 1996
federal election. This was to ensure established schools would retain their same level of
funding for at least one year, and new schools established after 1990 would be eligible
to receive funding increases, even if they were assessed as belonging to a higher ERI
category than before. Furthermore, the Coalition also promised a 10% increase in
recurrent grants to non-government schools to reflect the substantial increase in the
proportion of students both attending and remaining through to Year 12 at non-
government schools that had occurred throughout the previous two decades (Wilkinson,
et al., 2006, p. 151).
But perhaps the most pertinent of the Howard Government’s policy reforms was
the complete repeal of the ERI category scale and the implementation of the Enrolment
Benchmark Adjustment [EBA]. The ERI category scale established by the Hawke
Government, which had measured the income and expenditure levels of individual
schools, was abolished in favour of a socio-economic status [SES] scale for funding
categorisation to begin in 2001. This model, rather than measuring the actual SES of the
students’ parents, instead measured the SES of the Census Collection Districts [CCD] of
the schools’ students. While it may have been promoted by the Howard Government as
‘a more transparent and objective measure’ being based on ‘independent data’ that was
‘consistent to all schools’ (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 161), this policy failed to account
32 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
for the historic financial status of schools, thereby ignoring the actual resources of
historically wealthy institutions. What’s more, in preparation for the 2005-2008
quadrennium it was revealed that the SES scores of many schools had changed since
their last assessment. But while schools that scored lower received increased funding,
the Howard Government provided a guarantee to preserve the funding schools that
scored higher received until their new funding level reached that amount through
inflation (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 169).
While the implementation of the SES scale had the effect of promoting the
privatisation of education through the overt support of the non-government sector, the
implementation of the EBA on the other hand, served to promote this neoliberal
sensibility through the reduction in support to the public sector. The EBA works on the
premise that due to the steady migration of students from government to non-
government schools state governments are actually saving money on education.
Therefore when state enrolment data reveals a student increase in the non-government
sector, that state or territory is considered to have saved a notional amount, 50% of
which is deducted from its Australian Government general recurrent grant. Since its
implementation the EBA has been “triggered” in five states, for a total deduction in
federal funding for government schools of $134.2 million in 2006 alone (Wilkinson, et
al., 2006, p. 171). In this way, while the EBA served to promote the neoliberal
privatisation of education it also had the additional influence of allowing market forces,
based on a rationale of consumer choice, to guide governmental policies through
determining the actual allocation of funds within Australia’s education system.
But while this increasing dependence on market principles in education policy
was promoted as providing better educational outcomes due to the efficient allocation of
33 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
resources, these principles have in effect served to exacerbate the social inequity of
educational outcomes. According to the 2003 Programme for International Student
Assessment [PISA] Technical Assessment, Australia has the largest range of
educational outcomes of all the top ten performing countries (Cobbold, 2007, p. 21).
This means Australia has produced an education system that produces high outcomes
with low levels of social equity. The trend to privatisation has seen this inequality
primarily impact the government sector where the majority of disadvantaged students
actually attend. In the longer term, these social divisions and inequalities will be
reproduced resulting in forms of systemic inequality which Bourdieu saw as the
inevitable outcome of neoliberal policies (1998).
For example, there has been a 38% increase in non-government school
enrolment since 1986, with 22% of that occurring under the Howard Government.
Furthermore, due to the implementation of the EBA this has seen the proportion of
federal funds to government schools pale in comparison to those provided to non-
government schools, with private institutions receiving an average of $1,584 per
student, compared to the public sector’s $261 per student. As a result, the number of
non-government schools in Australia has increased by 214 (168 of which were under
the Howard Government), with 95% of these being independent institutions, while the
government sector reported closures of 186 schools throughout the same period
(Cobbold, 2007, p. 18).
Despite the theoretical assertions to their efficacy it is clear that the application
of neoliberal principles to education has resulted in more rather than less inequality. In
fact, through implementing policies of privatisation and market logic governments have
actively promoted the development and reproduction of inequalities, to the specific
34 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
detriment of those most powerless to challenge it; and it is precisely the inherent nature
of this inequality, as well as the symbolic governmental, and indeed social,
condemnation of those who cannot afford private education the Gonski Review is
seeking to address.
Historical Political Context
The examination of the contemporary socio-political environment that has
informed the Gonski Review serves to reinforce the connections between the
inequalities present within the findings of the Review and the inequitable function of
neoliberalism as discussed within the work of Bourdieu, Harvey, and Foucault (1998;
2005; 2008). But while this is an important association to grasp in regards to the context
of the Review, this examination is also concerned with the means by which the Review
serves to redirect neoliberal principles rather than challenge them directly, in a manner
in line with the suggestion of Feher as to the most effective means of subverting
neoliberal dominance (2009). With this in mind it is important to consider that Feher’s
proposal stands in contrast to the suggestions of a challenge to neoliberalism posed
within more direct critiques, such as those of Bourdieu, which often call for a distinctly
oppositional approach to socio-political reforms. In fact, it is precisely in this
unconventionality that Feher’s proposal aims to succeed where more direct challenges
fail; by appealing to both sides of the bipartisan divide within contemporary politics
over the efficacy of neoliberal principles.
Likewise, just as the Gonski Review has been inherently shaped by the influence
of neoliberal governance, so too had these neoliberal policies been similarly informed
by the vestiges of the numerous philosophies and strategies that had preceded them. As
such, it is important to examine the historical progression of Australia’s education
35 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
policy as an analysis of these changes allows one to accurately evaluate the evolution of
Australia’s education system, and how these developments have contributed to the
current arrangements. Furthermore, this type of analysis also helps identify just why the
unconventionality of the recommendations made by the Gonski Review are so
pertinent in regards to their bipartisan acceptance, and therefore the impact these
recommendations could have on the way in which we view the practicality of social
policy reforms in the future.
Formal education in Australia during the early periods of colonisation was
practically non-existent; there was no mention made towards it in Captain Arthur
Phillip’s Commissions of Instruction (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 2) and the British
Government at that time had no interest in the education of children from outside the
gentry, and particularly not the children of felons (Austin, 1961, pp. 1-3). As the
colonies progressed, however, and there was a steady increase in children of settlers and
freed convicts, a number of institutions – charity schools and orphanages, for the most
part – were established under the direction of the Anglican Church and were run with
minimal funding and support from the local colonial governments (Wilkinson, et al.,
2006, p. 3). These schools served to provide basic education to children of the poor in
accordance with the teachings of the Anglican Church, and in England individual
schools were commonly directly run by, and named after, the parish church (Lawson &
Silver, 1973).
In Australia however, following a Commission of Inquiry in 1826, the
Commission’s secretary, Thomas Hobbs Scott, devised a scheme whereby state fund
reserves were to be set aside in order for Anglican schools and churches to be founded
throughout the colony. This led to the establishment of the Church and School
36 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Corporation; a government supported organisation which was endowed with one-
seventh of the new lands of the colony for the sole and specific use by the Anglican
Church for religion and education (Austin, 1961, pp. 10-11). This was the first instance
of formal governmental involvement in education in Australia, predating the
establishment of state grants to National Schools in Great Britain in 1833 by more than
five years (Lawson & Silver, 1973).
However, in the wake of the British parliamentary passing of the Roman
Catholic Relief Act in 1829 there were political moves within Britain and its colonies
to limit the privileges and power of the Anglican Church. In Australia this led to public
campaigns against the Church and School Corporation on the grounds of religious
equality, and the eventual dissolution of the organisation in 1833 in favour of state
funds being directly distributed to all major denominations based on population size
(Gregory, 1951, pp. 5-9). Despite the general public support for this denominational
system there was significant and continued criticism of its inefficiency, as there were
often numerous religious schools competing for patronage in certain areas while in
other, often rural, areas no schools were available at all. As such, in 1847, under the
recommendations of the Legislative Advisory Select Committee formed in 1844,
Governor Charles Fitzroy established, primarily in rural areas, numerous non-sectarian
schools based on the model of the Irish National system. As well as two education
boards, both a National and a Denominational Board, to provide formal governmental
supervision for the administration of both school systems (Austin, 1961, pp. 46-49).
These reforms were largely in response to the global rise of liberalism
throughout the previous century, and the gaining of public support in European nations
and their colonies regarding the importance of the equality of the individual – a
37 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
principle inherent to liberal philosophy. However, the continued evolution of these
principles throughout the nineteenth century, and the view of government intervention
as infringement upon individuals’ freedoms that is associated with liberalism, led many
to believe that the most efficient means for the State to provide equitable treatment for
all regardless of individual affiliations was to limit, and even withdraw, the financial
assistance it provided to non-government organisations, specifically religious bodies.
Education, on the other hand, was increasingly viewed as the means to create the
equitable social landscape liberal philosophies promoted. Therefore, as education was
required to serve the needs of the nation, schools should be the responsibility of the
State rather than that of the Church. Many proponents favoured a system whereby
religious content provided in schools would be the same for all students, but when the
churches could not compromise for such a system the only solution was the
establishment of secular state schools and the virtually blanket withdrawal of state aid to
non-government schools by the end of the century (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 4).
Despite vocal criticism from certain religious quarters, this model for the
financial management of state and private schools as distinctly separate, which had
developed throughout the Australian colonies during the nineteenth century, remained
largely unchanged during the periods of Federation and most of the twentieth century
(Austin, 1961, pp. 194-195) The abolition of state aid to non-government schools and
consequent shift towards state run education was founded in liberal principles of
individual equality. This represents the first in a sequence of policy transformations
generated in response to changes in the dominant political discourses which have
shaped the administration of education funding in Australia throughout the twentieth
century.
38 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
The second significant shift in governmental education policy came in 1945
when opposition leader Robert Menzies sparked the first major debate in Australian
Federal Parliament on the subject of education. This led to a period of steadily
increasing federal interest and involvement in education throughout the following two
decades, culminating in 1964 when the Commonwealth, under then Prime Minister
Menzies, passed the States Grants (Science Laboratories and Technical Training)
Act; an act that set the precedent that informed the Rudd Government’s BER scheme in
2010.
Prior to this intervention, formal governmental funding for education had
remained strictly a state government responsibility. Although Prime Minister Ben
Chifley – on the suggestion of Menzies – had previously utilised Section 96 of the
Australian Constitution to provide the states with money for education programs, the
specific allocation and distribution of these funds had still remained the sole power of
the states (Smart, 1978, pp. 15-17). However, in 1956 the Australian Academy of
Science published a report which expressed concern over the distinct lack of scientific
expertise that existed in Australia in the wake of the large global technological
progressions – such as Sputnik – that had occurred throughout the preceding years. In
direct response to this perceived crisis in Australian education the legislation passed in
1964 provided for direct federal assistance to schools for use in the construction and
maintenance of formal science facilities. Most significantly, the science and technology
bill provided equitable grants to government and non-government schools alike in order
to ensure scientific development across the nation. This marked a major turning point in
the history of state aid in education financial aid to non-government schools had been
abolished in Australia over a century earlier (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 19).
39 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
While the establishment of direct federal grants in 1964 may have been
instigated by the observable failure of the Australian school system to produce globally
competitive scientific minds, the push towards federal involvement in education had
largely been building since the close of World War II. The population boom of the
twenty years following the war was more substantial than the capacity of the states to
meet the increased demand for, or sustain the quality of, education. This decline
prompted parent and teacher groups to organise a series of National Education
Conferences promoting the responsibility of education as a national issue (Wilkinson, et
al., 2006, p. 22). But more significantly, the 1964 legislation was representative of the
national, and even global, adoption of Keynesian influenced social welfare principles
throughout the post-war period. In the years following 1945 numerous social security
measures were passed, including provisions for pensioner, disability, and
unemployment benefits. Finally, in 1947 Federal Parliament passed the Social Services
Consolidation Act, ensuring that by the end of the decade the Australian welfare state
was well established to provide a comprehensive social safety-net (Herscovitch &
Stanton, 2008, p. 55).
This broad national increase in state aid, particularly in regards to new funding
for hospitals run by private and religious institutions, prompted appeals from the
Catholic School System for similarly equitable treatment by the state governments
throughout the period (Hogan, 1978, pp. 31-32). In 1963, the NSW ALP Conference
passed a resolution requesting the NSW Government to provide assistance to any school
deemed to have inadequate or non-existent science facilities. This request served to
reinforce the social and political importance of equitable welfare and social service
40 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
schemes and created a political precedent for the legislative reintroduction of state aid to
non-government schools the following year (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 31).
This initiative was followed in 1968 by the introduction of the States Grants
(Secondary Schools Libraries) Act which, like the previous grants, provided direct
federal support to both government and non-government secondary schools for the
construction and maintenance of school libraries (Smart, 1978, pp. 75-76). However,
the legislative precedent that had been established by the federal science and technology
grants proved not to be limited to federal legislation and in the four years between the
implementation of the science and library grants schemes, most state governments had
also begun providing direct assistance to non-government schools. This assistance
included loans and interest repayments on capital building works and, most importantly,
the provision of uniform per-capita recurrent grants for all non-government schools
(Smart, 1978, p. 77).
Moreover, in 1969 the federal government passed the States Grants
(Independent Schools) Act which authorised the provision of federally funded per-
capita recurrent grants for non-government schools. On top of this, in 1971, following
the report of the National Goals Sub-Committee, Prime Minister William McMahon
implemented the first general-purpose capital aid scheme for both government and non-
government schools. But while he pledged an increase in direct federal assistance to all
schools of approximately $80 million, some $60 million of that was specifically
allocated to non-government schools. As such, by 1974 a combination of state and
federal funding was to cover up to 40% of the cost of education for students in non-
government schools (Smart, 1978, pp. 101-102). This saw the annual provision of state
aid to non-government schools increase drastically; a little over $5 million had been
41 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
provided in the 1968-69 financial year, but this had grown to over $70 million by 1973-
74 – 80% of which was provided in general federal recurrent grants (Wilkinson, et al.,
2006, pp. 39-40).
Despite the formation of the Interim Committee for the Australian Schools
Commission in 1972 under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, which aimed to address
growing concerns over inequality in Australia’s school systems, the model of school
funding developed throughout the post-war period, of per-capita recurrent grants and
direct federal involvement in education funding, really only developed further through
his government. In fact, as has already been discussed, it wasn’t until the Liberal
government of Malcolm Fraser that the third major shift in Australian education funding
– under the influence of neoliberalism – truly began. However, Whitlam himself had
been a general supporter of state aid to non-government schools, and of the increased
$660.1 million that was made available to all schools by the Commonwealth during
1974 and 1975, over one-third was specifically allocated to non-government schools
(McKinnon, 1984, p. 107).
When all of this is considered in relation to the contemporary developments
previously discussed, it indicates just how the funding issues addressed by the Gonski
Review have been produced. These inequitable and illogical arrangements have been
produced accumulatively as each major shift in Australian political discourse has
merely addressed perceived failures of the previous system rather rethinking the
fundamental policy framework on the basis of genuine public need.
The initial withdrawal of state aid to non-government schools in the 19th
Century, for example, was informed by the rise of social liberalism and the principle of
universal equity, but the effect of this policy shift was to deprive large portions of the
42 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
largely underprivileged denominational sector of much needed funding (Hogan, 1978,
pp. 31-32). Likewise, the subsequent reinstatement of funding to non-government
schools under Menzies, was in response to the perceived scientific illiteracy of the
Australian population and the need to address this deficiency across all sectors of the
education system. But this served to create a precedent for government funding within
the private sector that is still at work today, and has thus laid the foundations for the
fundamental inequity the Gonski Review is aiming to address. Lastly, the neoliberal
shift towards privatisation and market mechanisms, with which the Review is mainly
concerned, was developed as a means to address the stagflation that had occurred under
Keynesian strategies of economic management. Each of these shifts were framed as
distinctly oppositional to the policies they seek to replace, often suggesting that they are
in fact remedying the structural failures or limitations of the previous socio-political
philosophies, with relatively little regard for the social implications of their
implementation. As such, they have each in some way shaped the context of the Gonski
Review, just as they were inherently shaped by the philosophies and policies that
preceded them.
But while governmental policy reforms have historically been tied to these shifts
in political discourse, there has not been any such major realignment to have informed
the recommendations made in the Gonski Review, as neoliberal principles seem just as
dominant and pervasive today as they ever have been. However, the actions of the
world’s leaders in response to the fallout from the global financial crisis [GFC] in 2008
may be able to illuminate a possible explanation for these reforms. In order to limit the
impact of the market failure that occurred, governments all over the world began
implementing economic stimulus policies to bolster the market and support
43 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
employment. The Obama Administration in particular provided billions of dollars of
public funds to ensure the solvency of numerous financial institutions. But as Harvey
(2005, pp. 70-73) points out, despite the intrinsic contradictions to neoliberal
philosophy that are implicit in the necessity of government intervention to ensure
market stability, this action actually supports the neoliberal commitment to monetarism.
Thus, government intervention in this context is read not as an attack on neoliberal
philosophy but rather as a measure required to ensure the strength of the market and
thereby guarantee the continuation of neoliberalism.
Likewise, the Gonski Review does not frame its recommendations as being in
opposition to any specific political discourse, as has been the historical trend in
governmental policy reform. Instead, while the Review does call for a revaluation of the
current system of education funding it does so through the utilisation and redirection of
the discourse and principles of these neoliberal philosophies rather than a rejection of
them. In a manner reminiscent of Feher’s strategy, and in line with the governmental
response to the GFC, the Gonski Review is thus able to address the issues of inequality
currently impacting Australia’s school system through reframing existing neoliberal
principles without the need to promote a direct critique of the dominant political
discourse.
44 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
The Gonski Review: critiquing neoliberalism from within
The genealogy laid out in the previous chapter suggests that despite its claims to
innovation, efficiency and individual freedom, neoliberalism engenders fundamental
social inequities. This is because the reproduction of predominant social structures and
hierarchies serves to reinforce and intensify the economic, cultural and geographic
divisions between sectors of the population. This then limits the social potential of those
unable to assert themselves within the market. Thereby limiting the potential for broader
social progression due to the increasing authority of those with market power, and the
consequential devaluing of alternative social perspectives, which reinforces the
reproduction of the dominant culture.
In terms of education policy in Australia, the neoliberal ascendency of the past
three to four decades has seen a consistent increase in government support to non-
government schools and the general promotion of the interests of private institutions,
particularly in regards to federal policy. These policies have largely been implemented
in terms of market determination, in that consumer choice is assumed to represent
overall consumer preference and thus dictate the most efficient allocation of
government funds. As such, this increased support to private institutions has come at the
direct expense of the public sector, which only serves to further limit the market power
of the underprivileged, for whom public education is not a choice but often the only
option.
With these problems in mind, it is reasonable to assume that the Gonski Review
would be concerned with attending to these same issues regarding the impacts of
neoliberal pedagogic policy; in so far as the socio-political context within which the
Review has been established is still primarily one dominated by neoliberal discourse
45 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
and practice. As such, the first section of this discussion will seek to demonstrate
precisely the extent to which the failures of education policy the review panel was
formed to address are in fact the very same impacts of neoliberal governance touched on
in the theory discussed in the previous chapter. Moreover, by establishing a clear link
between the failures of the previous funding arrangements and the theoretical critiques
of neoliberalism posed by the likes of Bourdieu and Foucault, the second section of this
examination will seek to demonstrate just how the Gonski Review positions its policy
recommendations in opposition to the conventional application of core neoliberal
principles.
But the key argument of this thesis is that the Gonski Review develops a critique
of neoliberalism from within, rather than through a direct attack on its core principles as
is commonly proposed. Therefore, the final section of this chapter will discuss the
means by which the Review frames its proposals within the discourse of neoliberalism
itself. Specifically, how these proposals function in the same manner as proposed by
Feher (2009), as a means of gaining social and political support from the established
agenda for its recommendations for reform. In order to do this, this discussion will
examine the discourse utilised within the Review to frame the deficiencies of the current
funding arrangements and justify the recommendations it proposes. In this way, it will
seek to establish how the rationale employed by the Review is in fact largely grounded
in the very same principles of individualism, investment, and equity of opportunity as
the neoliberal policies, and entire philosophy, it serves to undermine.
46 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
The Gonski Review’s neoliberal foundations
In order to establish the link between the critiques of neoliberalism and the
educational problems the Gonski Review was designed to address, it is necessary to
examine both the political impetus behind the Review’s commission, and more
importantly the findings of the Review itself. For instance, the opening of the Review’s
executive summary states that ‘over the last decade the performance of Australian
students has declined at all levels of achievement’, leading to a marked decline in
Australia’s international performance position. In 2000 only one country outperformed
Australian in reading and scientific literacy and only two in mathematical literacy. But
by 2009 six countries were placed higher in reading and scientific literacy while twelve
outperformed Australia in mathematical literacy (DEEWR, 2011, p. xiii).
Furthermore, the Review goes on to contend that this decline in Australia’s
academic performance is further undermined by the significant, and growing, gap
between the highest and lowest performing students. Drawing on the findings made by
the Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] (2005; 2009), the Gonski
Review affirms that this performance discrepancy is considerable in relation to the other
highest performing OECD countries, with a ‘concerning proportion of Australia’s
lowest performing students… not meeting minimum standards of achievement’
(DEEWR, 2011, p. xiii).
This problem of the inequitable function of Australia’s education system, and
the practicalities of its impacts, represents the predominant focus of the Review’s initial
chapters. For example, the Review outlines multiple common factors which contribute
to the production of these inequitable outcomes; including, socio-economic status
[SES], geographical location, indigeneity, and English language proficiency (DEEWR,
47 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
2011, pp. 113-122). The SES of a student’s parents for example, largely correlates with
the academic potential of the child, with one in four students from the lowest quartile of
PISA’s prosperity index performing below the proficiency baseline in Australia
(DEEWR, 2011, p. 114). Furthermore, the performance discrepancy between students
from the highest and lowest quartiles was found to be equivalent to almost three years
of schooling. Correspondingly, the most economically disadvantaged students are close
to 20% less likely to attain secondary or tertiary qualifications than those from higher
socio-economic backgrounds – 56% compared to 75%, and 17% compared to 35%
respectively (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 113-114).
Likewise, the academic performance of indigenous students indicates an average
performance discrepancy of approximately two years of schooling between the
indigenous and non-indigenous populations. Mean academic outcomes of the
indigenous population fall significantly below the national average, and at only 45%
secondary completion, even below the average of the entire OECD (DEEWR, 2011, p.
116). Furthermore, a student’s English language proficiency is an even more influential
determinant of academic outcomes. As English proficiency, for both English and non-
English speakers, determines one’s ability to comprehend tasks, and what is required of
them. Refugee students with limited English are more than twice as likely as those with
English proficiency to perform below the minimum standards, making them the highest
risk category for individual poor performance (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 117-118).
However, geographic location can have perhaps the most considerable impact
upon the academic outcomes of Australian students, with 81% of metropolitan students
attaining secondary qualifications compared to only 67% in regional areas and 64% in
remotes areas. But while these outcomes may not appear as significant as the
48 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
disadvantage experienced by other sectors of the population, they are troubling because
it is not simply individual student outcomes that are impacted by geographic location
but the outcomes of entire schools and regions (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 121-122).
But the Review goes on to outline the complex interactions between these
factors of disadvantage; in that the experience of one factor of disadvantage will
commonly be accompanied by, or even the result of, one or more other factors of
disadvantage. For example, the influence of indigeneity on all other factors is
particularly significant. The Review states that ‘indigenous students are over-
represented in all categories’ of academic disadvantage (DEEWR, 2011, p. 123),
indicating a systemic failure to address the pedagogic needs of indigenous communities
on a national level. But these impacts are also pertinent in regards to other sectors of the
population for whom the relationships are not necessarily so distinct. Non-English
speaking immigrants will often find it harder to both secure and retain employment and
thus are at a higher risk of also belonging to the sector of low-economic status.
Likewise, as has already been discussed, the SES of a student’s parents is indicative of
their academic potential, and particularly literacy (DEEWR, 2011, p. 114), indicating a
distinct correlation between SES and English language proficiency within the findings
of the Gonski Review.
With these practical issues in mind, the Review goes on to detail the structural
inadequacies of Australia’s contemporary education system in regards to the impacts of
disadvantage of opportunity on student outcomes (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 111-126). For
example, these discrepancies are especially significant when viewed in regards to the
levels and sources of funding for government and independent schools. While current
enrolment in government schools is approximately 2.3 million students nationwide,
49 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
non-government independent schools enrol only 490,000 students, and denominational
schools account for just over 700,000 (DEEWR., 2011, p. 45). Yet despite this, the
Federal government has provided the private education sector with more than $36
billion from 2009-2013, while only approximately $18 billion was provided specifically
for government run education over the same period – with additional funds totalling
nearly $25 billion made available to most schools through deliberately targeted national
partnership programs (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 39-42).
While this represents only a portion of the total funding for schooling provided
accumulatively through all levels of government, the federal allocation of funds
represents 15% of net recurrent funding for government schools, while 75% of non-
government schools’ funding comes from federal resources (DEEWR, 2011, p. 49).
Moreover, this represents 42% of the non-government sector’s total income, just shy of
the 43% received from total private sources (Keating, et al., 2011, p. 11). Likewise, as
has been discussed in the genealogy chapter, federal funding for non-government
schools is allocated on a model of the socio-economic demographics of the students’
communities and total enrolment levels rather than either the economic needs of the
school itself or, more specifically, the levels of funding received through fees and
donations (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 71-85). This means that government schools receive a
total of approximately $120 billion from all levels of government to cater to over 2.3
million students, while the private sector’s total income, including donations and other
funds, is over $114 billion despite enrolment totals less than 1.2 million students; only
half that of the public sector.
Consequently, in a manner distinctly in line with the neoliberal advocacy of
institutional privatisation, non-government schools often receive vastly more total
50 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
funding per student than those in the public sector (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 105-112), and
are therefore able to provide more opportunities for student development. Furthermore,
when viewed in relation to the disproportionately high levels of socio-economic
disadvantage within government schools (DEEWR, 2011, p. 9), this indicates a system
similar to the inequitable consequences of neoliberalism described by Bourdieu (1998).
Whereby those with the adequate resources, and/or pre-existing cultural capital, to gain
admittance to private institutions are better able to build upon their capital than those
without; a direct limitation on the opportunities available to many who desire them.
This is ostensibly the very antithesis of the equitable implications of neoliberal
responsibility, and as such is directly in line with the self-contradictory nature of
neoliberal principle and practice as discussed by Bourdieu, Harvey, and Foucault (1998;
2005; 2008).
These systemic failures of the current funding model form the basis for the
political impetus towards the Review’s aim of education policy reform, but they also
bear the hallmarks of the critiques of neoliberalism posed by Bourdieu (1998) and
Harvey (2005). For example, with approximately 20% of government school students
classified as disadvantaged compared to the estimated 6% of those who attend non-
government schools (DEEWR, 2011, p. 211), the reduction in funding to the
government sector is akin to Harvey’s suggestion as to the systematic removal of the
social safety-net under neoliberal governance (2005, p. 3).
Moreover, the Review explicitly states that there is a clear and ‘unacceptable
link between low levels of achievement’ and influences of socio-economic disadvantage
(DEEWR, 2011, p. xiii). When these types of discrepancies are considered in relation to
the removal of the social safety-net, the outcomes support Bourdieu’s assertion that the
51 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
continued strength of neoliberal governance stems precisely from the fiscal dominance
of those whose interests it represents - holders of private capital – at the expense of
those it does not. This then reinforces the clear correlation between economic capacity
and social potential in a neoliberal society (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 102).
In this way, the findings of the Review are also indicative of the subjugation of
those without economic capacity within a strict market culture as detailed by Bourdieu
(1998, p. 96). When governmental interventions are based on market mechanisms a
citizen’s expression of preference is dictated by their economic decisions. But this
mechanism depends upon the capacity of the citizen to be able to make such choices in
the first place. Thus the reduction in government support for public education represents
a reduction in the ability of the ‘capital-poor’ people or institutions effected, to actually
enact their prerogative of consumer choice, and therefore influence the market.
Likewise, this inherent lack of options is also pertinent in relation to Bourdieu’s
conception of cultural capital (1973). With the expansion of private education, there is
an influx of people with both the economic and cultural capital that is required in order
to gain admittance to the private sector. As a result, private institutions come to be
viewed as the characteristic representatives of the ideal forms of cultural capital, and
thus symbolically signify the means to achieve success. Therefore, the inability to
access these institutions acts as an intrinsic limitation on the economic and social
potential of an entire segment of the population; a function Bourdieu holds to be
fundamentally contradictory to the individualist intentions of neoliberal philosophy
(1998, p. 96).
On the other hand, the Review also notes that despite the persistently high levels
of inequality found within Australia’s education system compared to most other high
52 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
performing nations, the levels of equity within Australian schools has actually improved
since the 2000 and 2005 PISA assessments (DEEWR, 2011, p. 106). However, while
this may initially appear to be a positive trend in Australia’s academic outcomes, this
change can actually be largely attributed to a distinct drop in performance at the top end
of the academic spectrum rather than any improvement in performance at the bottom
(DEEWR, 2011, p. 106). When this is considered in regards to the impacts of SES on
academic performance and the increasing enrolment numbers in the private sector, this
is indicative of a decline in the academic proficiency of those of high SES, and thus a
failure on the part of the private education sector to deliver the quality and innovation
that a market-based system is supposed to provide according to neoliberal philosophy.
In this way, the overall decline in Australia’s academic outcomes over the past
decade is suggestive of Harvey’s account of the production and impacts of monopolistic
corporate function under neoliberal governance (2005, p. 67). Because, despite the fact
that private institutions are not the only possible option consumers have in their
academic choices, they have come to represent within the public sphere the only means
of acquiring the necessary cultural capital to achieve social success. Thus, the private
sector no longer strives towards the innovation and efficiency in pedagogic practice that
should be expected of them within a market structure, as high academic performance is
no longer the commodity that these institutions have a symbolic monopoly over. Rather,
they have in essence largely become purveyors of cultural capital, and as such are no
longer required to produce students with the same level of high performance in order to
remain competitive within the market. Instead, they are relying upon the fact that the
service they offer is ostensibly unavailable through any other means. Thus their
practices cannot be effectively challenged through obligatory market choices; just like
53 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
the ‘natural monopoly’ Harvey discussed when he applied his analysis of corporate
function to the privatisation of other public services under neoliberal governance (2005,
p. 67).
With the social desire for cultural capital thus effectively eclipsing the desire for
academic proficiency, it is also important to note the symbolic impacts the current
funding arrangements may be having upon the public valuation of these outcomes. For
instance, the distinct delineation between the responsibilities of the state governments;
that are primarily responsible for their own public sectors, and the federal government;
that is the primary provider of governmental support to the private sector nationwide.
This constitutes a symbolic promotion of the interests and values of private institutions
over those of the public sector on a national scale; in line with the promotion of
privatisation generally within neoliberal discourse. As such, this signifies to the public
that Australia, on a collective level, fundamentally supports the interests and principles
of private institutions, and of the privatisation of social services generally. Thereby
symbolically endorsing the forms of cultural capital that these institutions represent.
Furthermore, when the symbolism of these delineated responsibilities is considered in
relation to the actual reduction in funds to the public sector that occurred under the
Howard Government it only serves to further reinforce this perception (Wilkinson, et
al., 2006, p. 171).
The majority of the structural arrangements the Gonski Review highlights as
problematic relate to policies implemented by the Howard Government. For example
the Review provides a comprehensive breakdown of the function of the currently
utilised SES scale for funding level determination implemented by the Howard
Government (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 71-85). The Review stipulates that the
54 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
implementation of an SES scale is potentially the most appropriate measure for the
purpose of fund determination, as this ensures that funding is directly related to the need
of individual schools. Moreover, the Review also suggests that the current arrangements
serve to provide an efficient and unintrusive means for schools and governments to
manage the complex nature of fund determination without distorting the incentives
towards private investment. A consideration that is indicative of the influence of
neoliberal principles of reduction of government responsibility and endorsement of
privatisation within the current arrangements (DEEWR, 2011, p. 85).
However, the Review concludes that there are also fundamental flaws in the
implementation of these policies. For example, the community based SES measure
currently used is subject to substantial inconsistencies in the appropriate allocation of
funds. In that there is significant potential for error due to distinct variability in
household SES within most Census Collection Districts [CCD]. Additionally, the
disregard of the actual schools’ economic capacities serves to further compound these
discrepancies (DEEWR, 2011, p. 85).
Likewise, although it wasn’t specifically discussed in the Review, the Howard
Government’s implementation of the Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment [EBA] can be
similarly seen as representative of the problems the Gonski Review is aiming to address.
Since its introduction the EBA has been “triggered” in five states, and has consequently
prompted a significant reduction in federal funds to government schools during this
period, with $134.2 million redirected to the private sector in 2006 alone (Wilkinson, et
al., 2006, p. 171). As such, the implementation of this policy can be seen as the essential
factor in the production of the inequitable funding arrangements detailed within the
55 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Review; the continued increase of support to private institutions at the direct expense of
the needs of the public sector.
But when considered together the Howard Government’s EBA and SES scale
policies can also be viewed as characteristic of the fundamental principles of neoliberal
discourse. For example, the formulaic SES scale necessitates lower levels of
government intervention through the removal of bureaucratic processes in favour of
functional efficiency (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 169). Likewise, the EBA serves to
promote the interests of private institutions over the public sector through the systematic
redirection of publicly allocated funds to private institutions, as well as the adherence to
market principles in the determination of these allocations (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p.
171).
The Gonski Review’s undermining of neoliberal practice
In so far as these policies can be seen as fundamentally representative of
neoliberal discourse, the Review’s explication of their inherent faults and its
recommendation for far-reaching policy reform could be interpreted as a functional
opposition to the practice of neoliberalism.
To start, the Review utilises the data on systemic inequalities to criticise the
focus of the current policies, stating that Australia currently ‘lacks a logical, consistent
and publicly transparent approach to school funding’ (DEEWR, 2011, p. 49). Then, in
somewhat of a condemnation of the neoliberal philosophy that informs the current
methods, the Review recommends a comprehensive increase in funding for Australian
schools on a collective basis. But the Review doesn’t just recommend an increase in
funding, it also stresses the necessity of a more equitable distribution of total funds
56 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
between the public and private sectors in order to meet the increasingly unfulfilled
needs of many disadvantaged students, who are primarily located within government
schools (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 164-183; pp. 211-212).
These principal recommendations reflect the inherent challenge to neoliberal
governance posed within the proposals of the Gonski Review. For example, the broad
increase in funding for education stands in direct contrast to the limitation of
governmental responsibilities fundamental to neoliberal discourse. Likewise, this can
also be seen in the Review’s promotion of more transparent and equitable distribution
arrangements to ensure socio-economic capacity is not a determinant of academic
potential. In fact, such a proposal seems more akin to the welfare strategies of post-war
Keynesianism (Herscovitch & Stanton, 2008, p. 55) than to the emphasis on individual
responsibility and market-based solutions favoured by the advocates of neoliberalism.
The challenge to neoliberalism is reinforced when one considers the Review’s
modeling of its proposed national resource standard for fund determination. This model,
based on 2009 enrolment data, estimates that the funding increase should be
approximately $5 billion dollars accumulatively from all levels of government; an
increase of over 15% on 2009 funding totals (DEEWR, 2011, p. 208). Also, that over
three quarters of these additional funds would be designated for the government sector
in order to ensure each school, regardless of location, size, or SES, is funded equitably
according to the resource standard (DEEWR, 2011, p. 209). This is primarily due to the
concentration of educational disadvantage within government schools, and the
previously discussed possibility for non-government schools to receive greater levels of
funding than they are actually entitled to. As such, these proposals are not only
suggestive of an intensification of government responsibility and a consequential
57 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
reduction in individual responsibility, but they are also reflective of a commitment to
socialised resource distribution that appears inimical to the free-market principles of
neoliberalism.
The Review goes on to propose that the new resource standard should be
overseen and managed by an independent National Schools Resourcing Body which
would ensure appropriate recalculations are made every four years and oversee the
distribution of funds to ensure sustained equity across all sectors (DEEWR, 2011, pp.
191-193). This system would require transparency and comprehensive administration
from all parties – parents, schools, and government bodies – in the consistent collection
of accurate enrolment data. Most significantly, implementation of this recommendation
would overturn the SES fund determination scale, in favour of a more detailed and
nuanced method of calculation (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 169). The Howard
Government’s implementation of the SES scale favoured efficiency of process in order
to limit the need for administration and thus public spending. However, the function of
the new resource standard would promote efficiency of outcome, in the appropriate and
effective determination and allocation of funds, in spite of the increased government
costs this process would incur (DEEWR, 2011, p. 209).
While the new resource standard would see broad increases in funding largely to
the government sector, the Review also proposes a new system of fund level
determination for non-government schools that would effectively serve to limit the
levels of government funding many of the more wealthy schools would be eligible to
receive. Unlike the current SES scale which uses the socio-economic demographics of
the students’ communities and the tuition fees charged by the school to determine
appropriate fund allocation, the new scale would consider the level of all ‘private
58 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
resources a school is capable of raising for itself rather than [simply] the private income
that it actually receives’ (DEEWR, 2011, p. 177).
Under the new scale historically wealthy schools would be expected to utilise
the private funds of the institution in order to maintain their resource level, rather than
being reliant upon government funding to supplement their tuition fees; thereby
undermining the endorsement of private interests intrinsic to the current neoliberal
policies. Furthermore, a school’s resource capacity would be measured through a more
specific census measure, such as an upper level of CCDs’ income, or possibly even a
direct measure of the SES of the students’ parents (DEEWR, 2011, p. 177). This would
therefore require a more comprehensive administrative approach than the current SES
scale, and thus more government spending than the broad CCD measure currently
employed.
Moreover, while the increased $5 billion allocated for education funding indeed
represents a reversal of neoliberal principles in its endorsement of government
responsibility and spending generally, the Review’s proposals regarding the appropriate
sources of these funds represent an entirely different aspect of this challenge. For,
although the federal government has, for some time, been the principle source of
funding for non-government education in Australia, the total contribution the federal
government currently makes to education is only $54 billion, or roughly 30% of the
total public contribution (DEEWR, 2011, p. 49). Conversely, the Review advocates
higher levels of central government involvement in the distribution and management of
education funding particularly in regards to the public sector. With over 30% of the
proposed increase in funding, which is primarily allocated to government schools, to
come from federal resources (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 179-181).
59 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Additionally, this proposed increase in federal involvement would be especially
great within remote or disadvantaged areas where individual districts, schools, and
students may be eligible to receive additional funding directly from the federal
government on a case by case basis (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 193-194). This promotion of
direct federal involvement can be seen as reinforcing the challenge to the reduction in
government spending and promotion of privatisation the runs throughout the Review.
But it also stands in direct contrast to the current function of more separately
administered state government responsibilities – representative of the neoliberal
tendency towards the reduction in central responsibility over collective support.
Principles that have been present within the Australian education system since the
implementation of the Fraser Government’s “New Federalist” policies, which served to
revert many federal governmental responsibilities back to the states, over three decades
ago (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, pp. 77-106).
Each of these recommendations serve to highlight the means by which the
Gonski Review stands in opposition to the fundamental principles of neoliberal
discourse. Yet, when one considers the scope of these proposals in relation to the
previous implementation of the Howard Government’s EBA policy, the
recommendations serve to emphasise perhaps the most pertinent aspect of the entire
challenge. The distinct and deliberate move away from market function in Australia’s
education system. For the EBA relied upon enrolment data to represent market choices,
and thus determine the most efficient allocation of resources. But this system largely
failed to account for the socio-economic limitations of those unable to make market
choices, and thus did not distribute much of this funding appropriately. Instead, it
60 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
largely served to respond to the market influence, and thus preferences, of only those
with economic capacity (Wilkinson, et al., 2006, p. 171).
On the other hand, the proposals of the Gonski Review seek to guarantee
equitable funding across all sectors of education, and from all levels of government, in
order to ensure economic capacity is not determinant of academic potential. In this way,
the Review’s recommendations represent a fundamental move away from the market
function of the EBA’s fund determination. As such, they serve to diminish the
importance of financial superiority to education quality, through the employment of
higher levels of government regulation and administration in education funding.
The Gonski Review’s adaptation of neoliberal principles
With all of this in mind it is easy to recognise just how the Review’s
recommendations stand as directly oppositional to the general principles of reduced
government intervention, free market interactions, privatisation and the promotion of
individual responsibility, that are fundamental to neoliberal discourse. However, despite
clear associations with the combative means by which theorists such as Bourdieu (1998)
and Harvey (2005) challenge the principles of neoliberalism, the manner in which the
Gonski Review’s recommendations are framed suggests a more nuanced approach than
one might initially suspect given the bearing of the actual proposals. In fact, the Review
employs a range of conceptual rationales that are often associated with the interests and
values of neoliberal governance. In this way, the Review evokes Feher’s (2009) strategy
to appeal to the conceptual sensibilities of both supporters and detractors of neoliberal
principles, and thus gain bilateral support for the reforms it proposes.
61 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
This appropriation of neoliberal concepts and principles to frame its analysis and
recommendations is apparent even throughout the preliminary discussions regarding the
context of the Review. In fact, the introduction to the executive summary opens by
stating that ‘high-quality schooling fosters the development of creative, informed and
resilient citizens who are able to participate fully in a dynamic and globalised world’
(DEEWR, 2011, p. xiii). Furthermore, the introduction goes on to conclude that
‘funding for schooling must not be seen simply as a financial matter, rather it is about
investing to strengthen and secure’ the future of all Australian students and the nation as
a whole (DEEWR, 2011, p. xiii). These two statements show that far from directly
critiquing neoliberal views of education, the Review is untroubled by associating its
agenda with the endorsement of concepts like the accumulation and employment of
human capital and the function of neoliberal governmentality (Foucault, 2007; 2008).
While these are not the only similarities between the proposals of the Review
and principles of neoliberal discourse, they are perhaps the most conspicuous. The
conceptual associations with Foucault’s notion of the function of neoliberal
governmentality for instance, is particularly prominent within the discourse employed
throughout the Review. Foucault describes the process of neoliberal governmentality as
a system whereby the state is able to encourage, and even enforce, desirable values and
behaviours, by the inscription within its citizens of a form of self-regulation through the
social promotion of such values and behaviours (2007, p. 24); and this is precisely the
means by which the Review frames the need to improve Australia’s education
outcomes. For instance, the importance of education is framed in terms of the benefits it
provides individuals, such as ‘higher levels of employment and earnings, better health,
longevity, [and social] tolerance’ (DEEWR, 2011, p. xiii). Yet the Review goes on to
62 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
affirm that these positive outcomes are in fact more pertinent in regards to one’s ability
to ‘actively participate in society, and contribute to Australia’s prosperity’ (DEEWR,
2011, p. 32); indicating that these outcomes are relevant not just for the advantages they
bring individuals, but also in terms of their benefit to the state.
In fact, the role of education in producing the types of citizens required by the
nation in order to meet its own ends – a form of social control Foucault titled
‘biopower’ (2007, p. 140) – is detailed precisely when the Review outlines the
implications for Australia’s declining academic performance. The Review states that
‘people without the skills to participate socially and economically generate higher costs
for countries’ through their increased likelihood towards disadvantage and illness and
thus requirements for government assistance and intervention (DEEWR, 2011, p. 108).
In this way, the Review’s recommendation for increased investment in education is
framed not so much as Keynesian-style strategy to reduce socio-economic inequalities,
but rather as a form of neoliberal governmentality, designed to serve the interests of the
nation by avoiding even higher costs to government in the future. In the longer term, a
better educated population will alleviate demands on welfare and public administration,
as citizens become increasingly adept at governing themselves.
In a similarly neoliberal fashion the Review highlights the need for more
cooperative and flexible funding distribution arrangements between the federal, state
and local governments. The Review states that incrementally and individually
implemented changes to funding roles will allow this system to account for the
‘differences between the states and territories…, as well as the capacity of different
jurisdictions to fund growth’ (DEEWR, 2011, p. 180). This endorsement of flexibility in
the funding process serves to reinforce the neoliberal principle of individualism, as the
63 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
specific needs and resources of different states and districts would then be recognised
and accounted for to ensure efficiency and equity in the funding process rather than the
more blanket, per student loadings of previous policies. Likewise, this promotion of
individualist flexibility is also relevant in terms of the individual needs of schools and
students, particularly in regard to disability. Whereby the Review proposes individual
grants should be directly provided to students, schools, and districts on a case by case
basis. As opposed to the targeted programs of the Howard Government which
effectively treated all members of any particular social category as inherently the same
in terms of need (DEEWR, 2011, pp.183-185).
Moreover, the Review endorses the direct involvement of local communities in
the administration and development of both schools and students, further reinforcing the
promotion of individual responsibility for one’s own, and their children’s outcomes. For
instance, it details the importance of parent and community engagement and
involvement in schooling for the improvement of academic outcomes, especially for
disadvantaged students. The Review states that community involvement in education
‘encourages positive attitudes towards school, improved homework habits, reduced
absenteeism, and can enhance academic achievement’ (DEEWR, 2011, p. 144). This
promotion of community involvement to enhance educational outcomes is an example
what Nicholas Rose (1999, p. 176) terms ‘government through community’; an element
within the repertoire of neoliberal governmentality which seeks to mobilise community
engagement in order to lessen the need for direct governmental intervention.
Additionally, the promotion of individual responsibility is also evident in the
stance the Review takes on the responsibilities of parents and school communities
within private institutions. Stating that any measure of needs based funding within the
64 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
private sector should fundamentally ‘preserve incentives for parents to invest in the
education of their children where they choose to and are able to do so’ (DEEWR, 2011,
p. 177). In this way, the Review at once emphasises the rights of individual freedom in
one’s choice of educational institution, as well as the responsibilities of those who
choose private education to provide adequate contributions to their children’s education.
Furthermore, this emphasis on personal responsibility is reinforced through the
proposed possibility of fund determination in non-government schools relying upon the
SES of student’s parents, rather than the more collective means of the average of their
CCDs (DEEWR, 2011, p. 177).
But the Review also promotes the involvement of parents and local communities
in the operation and culture of all schools, through the suggestion that it is in fact the
parents and communities who know best what individual schools and students require in
terms of the application of funds and the design of the learning environment (DEEWR,
2011, p. 220). As such, the Review is able to concurrently promote the flexibility and
efficiency of operation which neoliberal principles aspire to produce, as well as the
individual responsibility for education outcomes intrinsic to community engagement.
Furthermore, the Review’s encouragement of community engagement also
extends to the promotion of the philanthropic involvement of the local community. The
Review details the benefits of financial philanthropy on student outcomes, and the
importance of donations to the current levels of funds available to the non-government
sector. However, it is quick to note that this is not the only means of philanthropy that
can, and should, be explored by educational institutions within all sectors. For example,
the Review suggests that schools and communities should seek the involvement of
citizens from various professional backgrounds to supplement the knowledge of
65 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
teachers, as well as impart specific expertise through career information, or the running
of classes in their areas of interest (DEEWR, 2011, p. 199).
Similarly, drawing on the results of the Australian Indigenous Mentoring
Experience [AIME] which partners university students with indigenous high school
students, the Review also suggests that appropriate community members should be
encouraged to act as mentors to students, particularly within areas of disadvantage. This
recommendation is based on the remarkable success of the AIME program which has
seen 25.1% of students progress through to university, compared with the national
average of only 3.2% of indigenous students (DEEWR, 2011, pp. 200-201). The
endorsement of community involvement and philanthropic activity in funding and
enhancing the school system evokes neoliberal principles in so far as it can be seen as
relieving some of the responsibility of the state by promoting individual accountability
for the outcomes of one’s community.
As the preceding discussion illustrates, the Review draws upon a number of key
neoliberal principles in framing and justifying many of its major recommendations. But
perhaps the most significant deployment of neoliberal discourse within the Review is its
consistent reference to the fundamental function of education as an investment. The use
of this word automatically carries connotations of several neoliberal principles: from the
investment one must make in oneself through accessing education to develop one’s
portfolio of human capital, to the investment of the state in the education of its citizens
to encourage economic productivity and social cohesion.
However, notwithstanding the range of contexts, the references to investment are
fundamentally framed, in all these instances, as investments in the future potential of
Australia’s students. In fact, the Review states specifically that ‘returns on educational
66 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
investment are particularly high for children from disadvantaged backgrounds’
(DEEWR, 2011, p. 108). Importantly, this suggests that the form of capital that
education provides can be enhanced and employed regardless of the cultural valuation
of the specific knowledge that constitutes it, or the “habitus” within which it is
imparted. This is the fundamental difference between Bourdieu’s notion of cultural
capital which is categorised as functional based upon its social valuation (1973), and
Foucault’s conception of human capital which is categorised as functional based on the
extent to which one is able to employ and build upon it (2008).
But this association between the significance of investment as described by the
Gonski Review and the utility of human capital in Foucault’s analysis, is relevant to this
discussion due to Feher’s assertion that the re-appropriation of the concept of human
capital is critical to an effective subversion of neoliberal discourse (2009, pp. 25-38).
Feher states that ‘challenging the neoliberal condition from within, that is, embracing
the idea that we are all investors in our human capital… could thus be a way of
relaunching the politicisation of the personal’ more in line with the welfare regimes of
the post-war period (2009, p. 38). With Feher’s proposal in mind, when one considers
the conceptual correspondences between the Review’s promotion of investment and
Foucault’s conception of human capital in relation to the increase in funding for public
education, this appears to be precisely what the Review seeks to achieve.
Just as Feher suggested, through the appropriation of the principles of human
capital the Gonski Review is able rationalise the recommendation of increased
government intervention due to its simultaneous emphasis on the importance of
investment for the future, which consequently serves to reflect neoliberal principles of
capital accumulation. For example, by framing education as an investment, educational
67 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
attainment thus becomes the means to increase one’s own potential. As such, investing
in that potential remains inherently the responsibility of the individual to ensure they
effectively utilise the financial investment made by the state to maximise their own
potential returns. Furthermore, this emphasis on investments and returns also serves to
promote the necessity of economic productivity to individual social status. As such,
those who strive for educational attainment are working to shape themselves to be ‘able
to adequately participate in the workforce and contribute as productive citizens’
(DEEWR, 2011, p. 211), and thus contribute to the progress of the state.
Through the incorporation of these elements of neoliberal discourse within the
rationale for its recommendations, the Gonski Review is able to promote the need for
more socialised funding arrangements and government involvement in education while
still maintaining conceptual links with the neoliberal principles it seems to challenge.
Furthermore, it serves to ground the Review within the neoliberal framework of
investment in human capital accumulation, and the endorsement of individualist
flexibility to improve the efficacy of investment in student outcomes, and thus stimulate
economic productivity.
In this way the Review can be seen as encapsulating the fundamental themes of
Feher’s strategy. While appropriating a range of conceptually compatible neoliberal
values it is able to encourage the adoption of an education system reliant upon large
government interventions, while still promoting community management and individual
responsibility for education outcomes, and is thus able to appeal to the sensibilities of
the very cause it seeks to transform. The Review has thus been able to defy neoliberal
logic while utilising neoliberal concepts, through the suggestion that investment in the
accumulation of human capital is the responsibility of the state, the community and the
68 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
individual all at once. Furthermore, the Review is able to reinforce the social need for
these reforms in the context of the preservation of neoliberal values of equity of
opportunity and the state’s fundamental need for economically productive citizens. This
is underscored by positioning this responsibility in relation to the recent failures in
Australia’s academic outcomes and the subsequent implications this has towards the
supposed equity of the neoliberal market mechanism that has informed many of the
current policies.
By framing the rationale for the proposed reforms in such a manner the Review
is able to enhance the public endorsement and political implementation of its reforms
without explicitly challenging the conceptual foundations of the dominant neoliberal
discourse. In this way, the Review has avoided the perils of adversarial confrontation in
order to achieve political and social endorsement on a bipartisan level. But what is
perhaps most interesting about the associations between Feher’s proposal of an
evolution of neoliberal policy and the utilisation of neoliberal discourse within the
Review is the fact that Feher proposes this as a means to undermine the foundations of
contemporary neoliberal conceptions of self and society, rather than simply the function
of a single institutional sector (2009, p. 21).
With this in mind it would be reasonable to question the extent to which the
Gonski Review could be seen as endorsing a broader social challenge to neoliberal
philosophy. As such, when one considers the contemporarily accepted notion of
education as an instrument for social change at a foundational level (Freire, 1995), the
Review’s challenge to the neoliberal influence of current education funding policies
begins to be more indicative of these broader social implications Feher envisaged.
69 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Freire suggests that through the removal of racial, economic, and cultural
divisions within the structure and practice of our education system, it is possible to
diminish the spectrum of human difference that serves to subjugate and devalue whole
sections of the population through the breakdown of these divisions within the social
perspectives of the next generation (Freire, 1995, p. 47). Thereby, when one considers
the fact that through the appropriation of neoliberal principles the Gonski Review
possesses the means to ensure widespread social and political support for major reforms
– the very basis of Feher’s proposition – its recommendations begin to appear more like
the far-reaching social change that both Freire and Feher had in mind.
70 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Conclusion
The aim of this thesis was to examine the Gonski Review from multiple
perspectives in order to situate the findings and recommendations of the Review into a
more nuanced understanding of its social, political and economic contexts. The
approach utilised in this discussion built upon Foucault’s genealogical method in order
to account for the complexities of influence at play within the realm of educational
policy in Australia (Foucault, 1993). For example, the practical context of the Review
was established through an analysis of the development of the education funding
policies currently in place. These policies were considered in relation to the theoretical
work of Bourdieu (1973; 1998), Harvey (2005), and Foucault (2007; 2008), among
others, in order to illuminate the associations between the development and impact of
such policies and the rationales and practices of neoliberal governance.
Building on the work of these theorists this thesis develops a genealogical
analysis to show how the current problems of education funding in Australia have been
developed through consistent political reforms designed to address the deficiencies of
the previous systems rather than public welfare. Additionally, how Australian education
policy has become enmeshed with neoliberal governance through a 40 year process,
beginning with Fraser’s implementation of the “New Federalist” policies. This
ascendancy of neoliberalism within education policy has resulted in the further
exacerbation of inequality in educational outcomes. To address these inequalities the
Gonski Review proposes the implementation of policies designed to reduce inequity and
disadvantage through increased government spending targeted more strategically to
address individual educational needs. Therefore, in advocating policies that challenge
71 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
the traditional practice of neoliberalism, the Gonski Review can be seen as offering a
fundamental challenge to the actual function of neoliberal governance.
The nature of this challenge, however, is for the most part neither adversarial nor
direct. Rather, this thesis contends that the Review disguises its challenge by utilising
many key principles of neoliberal discourse to rationalise and clarify its proposals for
reform. This is evident in the associations that have been laid out between many of the
Review’s proposals and the practices of neoliberal governmentality, as discussed by
Foucault (2007) and Rose (1999). But perhaps the most pertinent of these neoliberal
allusions is the consistent reference within the Review to the primary role of education
as an investment - both in the future of the individual and the nation. This understanding
of education is grounded firmly within conceptions of human capital which Foucault
(2008) has shown to be a fundamental principle of neoliberalism.
In conclusion, instead of direct confrontation with neoliberalism the
Review deploys a strategy of ‘critique from within’; which is to say, that while its
recommendations challenge key precepts of neoliberal practice, it mounts this critique
from within a modified discourse of human capital. In short, the Gonski Review
positions itself in such a manner as to be able to appeal to the philosophical sensibilities
of both supporters and detractors of neoliberal rationale. In adopting this strategic
approach, the Review appears to endorse Feher’s (2009) view that since neoliberalism is
too dominant to challenge directly, the most effective option for promoting social policy
change is to speak from within a neoliberal discursive framework. Thus, despite the
specifics of its recommendations standing as a challenge to key aspects of neoliberal
governance, the Review has nevertheless, as Abbott’s endorsement indicates (Griffiths,
2013), been successful in securing bipartisan support for the implementation of its
72 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
policies. When this is considered in relation to the work of Freire (1995), it becomes
apparent that the widespread acceptance and successful implementation of these
proposals does not just have implications for the future of neoliberal practice in
education, but also for the possible redirection of neoliberal discourse within society
more broadly.
73 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
References
Austin, A. G. (1961). Australian Education 1788-1900: Church, State and Public Education in
Colonial Australia. Melbourne, VIC, AU: Pittman.
Bansel, P. (2007). Subjects of Choice and Lifelong Learning. International Journal of
Qualitative Studies in Education, 20:3, 283-300.
Batstone, R. (1995). Grammar in Discourse: Attitude and Deniability. In G. Cook, & B.
Seidlhofer, Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics (pp. 197-213). Oxford, GB:
Oxford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1973). Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction. In R. Brown, Knowledge,
Education and Cultural Change: Papers in the Sociology of Education (pp. 71-112).
London, GB: Tavistock.
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of Resistance: Against the New Myths of Our Time. Cambridge, GB:
Polity Press.
Cobbold, T. (2007). The Great School Fraud: Howard Government school education policy,
1996-2006. Professional Voice, 5(2), 17-22.
Commonwealth Schools Commission. (1979). Triennium 1979-81. Report for 1980. Canberra,
ACT, AU: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Commonwealth Schools Commission. (1980). Triennium 1979-81. Report for 1981. Canberra,
ACT, AU: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Commonwealth Schools Commission. (1983). Report for 1984: Response to the Government
Guidelines. Canberra, ACT, AU: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Commonwealth Schools Commission. (1984). Funding Policies for Australian Schools.
Canberra, ACT, AU: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Commonwealth Schools Commission. (1984). Report for 1985: Response to Government
Guidelines. Canberra, ACT, AU: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. (2011, December). 2011
Review of Funding for Schooling. Retrieved from Department of Education,
Employment and Workplace Relations:
http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/Documents/Review-of-Funding-
for-Schooling-Final-Report-Dec-2011.pdf
Department of Employment, Education and Training. (1993). Annual Report 1992-1993.
Canberra, ACT, AU: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Dibley-Maher, P. (2012). Friend of Foe? The impact of the Hawke/Keating neoliberal reforms
on Australian workers and the Australian public sector. Brisbane, QLD, AU:
Queensland University of Technology.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London, GB: Pearson Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis: A Critical Study of Language. London, GB:
Pearson Education Limited.
74 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Feher, M. (2009). Self-Appreciation; or, The Aspirations of Human Capital. Public Culture,
21:1, 21-41.
Foucault, M. (1977). Nietzsche, Genealogy, History. In D. F. Bouchard, Language, Counter-
Memeory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (pp. 139-164). Ithaca, NY, US:
Cornell University Press.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge. New York, NY, US: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1993). About the Beginnings of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Two Lectures at
Dartmouth. Political Theory, 21:2, 198-227.
Foucault, M. (2003). Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France 1975-1976.
London, GB: Picador.
Foucault, M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977-
1978. London, GB: Palgrave Macmillan.
Foucault, M. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978-79.
London, GB: Palgrave Macmillan.
Freire, P. (1995). Pedagogy of Hope. New York, NY, US: Continuum.
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago, IL, US: University of Chicago Press.
Gregory, J. S. (1951). Church and State Aid in Victoria: A study in the development of secular
principles of government as revealed by the abolition of State aid to religion and
denominational education in Victoria. M.A. Thesis, University of Melbourne.
Griffiths, E. (2013, August 2). Tony Abbott says Coalition will honour Gonski school funding
plan for four years. Retrieved from ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-
02/coalition-to-support-gonski-school-funding/4861102
Hartwich, O. M. (2009). Neoliberalism: The Genesis of a Political Swearword. St Leonards,
NSW, AU: The Centre for Independent Studies.
Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Herscovitch, A., & Stanton, D. (2008). History of Social Security in Australia. Family Matters,
80, 51-60.
Hogan, M. (1978). The Catholic Campaign for State Aid: The Study of a Pressure Group
Campaign in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory 1950-1972.
Sydney, NSW, AU: Catholic Theological Faculty.
Keating, J., Annett, P., Burke, G., & O'Hanlon, C. (2011, June). Mapping Funding and
Regulatory Arrangements Across the Commonwealth and States and Territories.
Retrieved September 2012, from Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood
Development and Youth Affairs:
http://www.mceecdya.edu.au/verve/_resources/Mapping_Funding_and_Regulatory_Arr
angements_-July_2011.pdf
Krugman, P. (1995). Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of
Diminished Expectations. New York, NY, US: W. W. Norton & Company.
75 | S a m H a w k i n s – 3 0 9 2 3 1 1 5 9 1 0 / 2 0 1 3
Lawson, J., & Silver, H. (1973). A Social History of Education in England. London, GB:
Routledge.
McGregor, G. (2009). Educating for (Whose) Success?: Schooling in an Age of Neo-
Liberalism. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(3), 345-358.
McKinnon, K. (1984). Meeting Needs: Seven Years' Hard Labour. In I. Palmer, Melbourne
Studies in Education 1984 (pp. 107-108). Melbourne, VIC, AU: Melbourne University
Press.
Millane, E. (2013, September 17). Ageing population missed by Abbott's ministry. Retrieved
from ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-17/millane-ageing-population-
abbott-ministry/4963116
Mirowski, P., & Plehwe, D. (2009). The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal
Thought Collective. Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press.
Nairn, K., & Higgins, J. (2007). New Zealand's Neoliberal Generation: Tracing discourses of
economic (ir)rationality. Internation Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20:3,
261-181.
Programme for International Student Assessment. (2005). PISA 2003 Technical Report. Paris,
FR: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
Programme for International Student Assessment. (2009). PISA 2006 Technical Report. Paris,
FR: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
Rose, N. (1999). Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Port Chester, NY, US:
Cambridge University Press.
Smart, D. (1978). Federal Aid to Australian Schools. St Lucia, QLD, AU: University of
Queensland Press.
Smart, D., Scott, R., Murphy, K., & Dudley, J. (1986). The Hawke Government and Education
1983-85. Politics, 21:1, 63-81.
The Liberal and National Country Parties. (1975). Education Policy. Canberra, ACT, AU:
Liberal Party Federal Secretariat.
Wilkinson, I. R., Caldwell, B. J., Selleck, R. W., Harris, J., & Dettman, P. (2006). A History of
State Aid to Non-Government Schools. Canberra, ACT, AU: Department of Education,
Science and Training.
top related