Education choices sacrificed for power

This letter appeared in The Age today.

THE ALP's announcement that it will provide even more funds to private schools (''Private schools get $200 million pledge'', The Age, 10/11) reveals it to be made up of the lowest-rent form of power-hungry professional politicians, without a shred of vision other than maintaining their own positions of power.

For two years, residents have demonstrated the obvious need for a general-entry high school in Coburg. It is a touchstone issue in the seat of Pascoe Vale and will also play out in Brunswick, where the Greens and Phil Cleary are committed to working towards its establishment. But from the government we get nothing other than weasel words and postures because we live in a safe ALP seat.

The real-politik world of the professional politician renders the choices for my children fewer than for others, simply because of where I live.

The ALP does not represent a more equal society, it represents crass individuals bereft of compassion. The political world has changed in Canberra. It must change in Spring Street in two weeks.

Peter Robertson, Coburg