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NSW’s top education official says non-government schools aren’t needed. But is this about education — or a quiet takeover of family authority by bureaucratic power brokers?

When NSW Education Secretary Murat Dizdar appeared on the ABC’s Australian Story — Class Wars (April 7, 2025), he didn’t misspeak.^[i]

He revealed exactly what he believes: Catholic and non-government schools should not exist.

In a follow-up article published on the ABC’s news website, Dizdar said:

“I’m not sure that when you look at the facts around the globe, you need that provision.”^[ii]

This was no policy analysis. It was an open declaration of ideology. The real question isn’t whether Catholic and non-government schools should exist.

It is: What gives bureaucrats like Mr Dizdar the right to ask?

Global Models and False Comparisons

When Dizdar appealed to “the facts around the globe” to question the need for Catholic and non-government schools, he echoed a broader narrative common in Australian education policy circles – one that romanticises the Finnish model without regard for context.

Finland is often treated as a universal solution, when in reality it operates more like a tightly controlled petri dish than a model suited to diverse, decentralised societies.

This narrative has been heavily shaped in Australia by figures like Pasi Sahlberg, whose work promoting the Finnish system has influenced education policymakers and reform debates.

Dizdar has appeared alongside Sahlberg – a former Finnish Ministry of Education official who also held senior positions at the World Bank and European Commission – at national education policy events, including the 2020 SMH Schools Summit hosted by Informa^[iii], where both spoke on school reform and future policy directions.

Sahlberg’s agenda has been explicit. In a 2022 blog post, he described standing on the Concert Hall stage at the Sydney Opera House, addressing 2,000 people, not to speak about education generally, but to advocate for the abolition of private schools in Australia.^[iv]

The movement to dismantle Catholic and non-government school education is not incidental.

It is deliberate, coordinated, and proudly declared.

Finland’s education reforms were state-driven restructures, prioritised and promoted by international institutions far removed from Australia’s historical model of community-based, locally governed education.

By relying on selective international comparisons without reference to Australia’s historical legal and civic structure – which protected family and community roles without centralising control – Dizdar reinforces a narrative favouring bureaucratic dominance of school education, a narrative left unchallenged by the ABC’s partisan journalism.

Murat Dizdar and the Fortian Network

Murat Dizdar is publicly celebrated by the Fortian Network, the alumni association of Fort Street High School, one of the most historically prestigious selective schools in New South Wales.^[v]

Fortian alumni hold a wide range of political and ideological views.

Yet public endorsements by the alumni leadership, amplified by outlets like the ABC, create the false appearance that alumni are united behind a single ideological position.

Rather than questioning how bureaucrats like Dizdar now use public authority to undermine family-directed schooling, the Fortian Network’s leadership appears to reinforce a culture of internal loyalty and professional elevation, honouring those who ascend through political and bureaucratic ranks, regardless of the impact their work has on community governance.

Selective schooling was historically about opportunity grounded in merit and effort.
Today, it risks becoming a self-congratulatory pathway: not to serve families, but to rule over them.

Central Authority and the Historical Assault on Family Autonomy

Murat Dizdar’s remarks channel the spirit of old empires, where central authorities dictated which schools, and beliefs, were permitted.

It’s as if the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1830, which began dismantling legal penalties against Catholics in New South Wales, never happened^[vi].

That Act recognised the rights of Catholics to participate fully in civic life, including education, marking a fundamental step toward religious and educational freedom.

To now question Catholic and non-government schools is not merely a policy dispute. It is an attempt to erase two centuries of legal, civic and Judaeo-Christian progress.

The pattern is unmistakable: dismantle legal recognitions, displace historical memory, and erode the authority of families.

Catholic and non-government schools protect the right of families to direct education and broader autonomy over their private lives.

Bureaucratic control over education is the first front in this campaign. But it is not the only one.

Union Overreach and the Infiltration of Families

Centralisation does not stop at government. The Australian Education Union (AEU), representing employees in government schools, has extended its reach beyond industrial matters into the private lives of families.

Through member services, the AEU promotes preferential referral arrangements for legal services, including wills and family law matters, creating a pipeline of work for preferred law firms.^[vii] This network of financial beneficiaries profits from the personal and painful experiences of union members, turning private family matters into opportunities for financial gain.

Given women represent approximately 72% of employees in government schools (ABS, 2024), and considering the nature of family law disputes, this referral system has disproportionate consequences for male representation and family outcomes.

It inserts union-aligned commercial interests into some of the most sensitive areas of private life.

The union’s involvement in federal family law matters is not incidental.

It reflects a broader trend: embedding political and economic influence deeper into private decisions, expanding the union’s reach from the workplace into the family home.

The result is clear. Private family authority is being absorbed into government systems under the guise of support.

Australia’s Constitution: Authority Assumed, Not Granted

Australia’s Constitution does not grant the Commonwealth Parliament any direct authority over school education. Nor does it authorise bureaucratic departments or industrial unions to assume control over families.

Under Section 51 of the Constitution, the Commonwealth Parliament has specific powers. Education is not one of them.

Section 107 states:

“Every power of the Parliament of a Colony which has become or becomes a State, shall, unless it is by this Constitution exclusively vested in the Parliament of the Commonwealth or withdrawn from the Parliament of the State, continue as at the establishment of the Commonwealth, or as at the admission or establishment of the State, as the case may be.”^[viii]

Importantly, Section 107 protects the legislative powers of the former colonial parliaments, not the administrative machinery that later developed under them.

It preserves the right of elected representatives to make law. It does not authorise bureaucratic departments or appointed officials to invent new powers by administrative convenience.

Beyond the Commonwealth, even state constitutions do not include explicit authority over education.

What has grown instead is the assumption that government departments naturally control school education. It’s an assumption not founded in constitutional text, but built through legislation, political custom and bureaucratic expansion.

These instruments are treated as if they were binding law — even when they are not.

If neither the Australian Constitution nor the state constitutions explicitly assign schooling control to bureaucratic structures, what lies behind consecutive parliaments allowing it to happen?

The High Court and the Recognition of Parental Authority

The Australian Constitution doesn’t hand control of education to the federal government.

And in 2012, the High Court made that even clearer.

In Williams v Commonwealth, the Court ruled that the federal government couldn’t simply create programs for schools by making up its own authority. Spending money didn’t create power the Constitution hadn’t given.^[ix]

The case was simple: the Commonwealth had funded school chaplains through direct contracts without proper constitutional authority. The Court struck it down. It ruled that executive governments can’t sidestep Parliament or invent powers just because they want a program to exist.

That should have been the end of it.

But instead of respecting the decision, governments changed tactics. They stopped trying to take authority openly and started using funding deals, offering states and schools money but tying it to conditions.

The method changed. The ambition didn’t.

Federal control over education couldn’t be imposed by law. So it was bought through grants, agreements, and political pressure, with Gonski funding models and the Australian Education Act 2013, built to lock states and schools into so-called “national” priorities.

Parental authority wasn’t defeated by a legal argument. It was worn down by political deals designed to shift real power away from families and communities and into bureaucratic systems.

Murat Dizdar’s promotion of a single government system follows exactly that playbook.

The goal is to normalise the idea that only government-owned, government-controlled schools are legitimate.

This centralising agenda isn’t pushed by bureaucrats alone. It is openly endorsed by figures like former High Court Justice Michael Kirby, who has publicly attacked federal funding for Catholic and non-government schools, framing them as a threat to “public education.”^[x]

In doing so, he overlooks the long history of discrimination against Catholics, working-class families, and poor communities: families who built independent schools because the government system either excluded them or failed them.

When public figures like Kirby defend bureaucratic monopoly over school education in the name of “equity,” they aren’t protecting families. They are protecting the state.

The goal is not genuine public service. Bureaucratic control over education hasn’t happened by accident. It has been deliberately expanded — through political deals, financial coercion, and a steady campaign to normalise state ownership of education.

Government Monopoly: The Illusion of Uniformity

Through intergovernmental agreements, first COAG, now the National Cabinet, governments have negotiated national approaches to education. But these agreements are political instruments, not binding law.

Federal legislation, notably the Australian Education Act 2013 (Cth) and the ACARA Act 2008 (Cth) has created funding structures and curriculum frameworks. These frameworks do not carry legislative force over states, systems, or schools.

The Australian Curriculum, developed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), serves as a national reference point — not a legal mandate.

As ACARA itself states:

“The Australian Curriculum can be used flexibly by schools.”

And another:

“Each state and territory make decisions about the extent and timing of take-up and translation of the intended Australian Curriculum into the curriculum that is experienced by students.”

And one more:

“Schools develop tailored local curricula that meet the needs of their students either directly from the Australian Curriculum, in some states and territories, or from curriculum documents incorporating the Australian Curriculum, in others.” ^[xi]

Clearly, teachers may adopt, adapt, or reject the curriculum at their discretion. Cross-curriculum priorities such as Sustainability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, and Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, are embedded themes. They are not legally binding.

The so called Australian curriculum is national in name only.

It exists to support a perception of consistency — while operational control remains with states, systems, schools, and individual teachers.

National consistency in foundational education is both achievable and desirable. But bureaucratic centralisation is not necessary to achieve it and is not authorised to impose it.

Dizdar’s promotion of a single system of government-controlled schooling is not about educational coherence. It is about reinforcing the illusion that national curriculum control already exists and must be maintained or expanded.

It doesn’t.

There is no federal law enforcing national curriculum compliance across all schools and no constitutional provision creating control over education at a national level.

Yet, family and community authority is steadily undermined behind the appearance of national consensus.

Local Governance: What Was Lost and What is Being Suppressed

Before Federation, “public education” meant schools that served the public – governed locally, funded through public and private contributions, and open to all families. It did not mean government ownership or bureaucratic monopoly.

Financial support flowed directly between families and communities. Land was secured by local groups, religious organisations, or private trustees, held to serve educational needs, not government expansion.

This model prevailed until centralisation took hold in the Port Phillip District, later Victoria.

Administrative overreach served a deeper objective: the seizure of land, particularly from Irish Catholics.^[xii] Independent schooling was discouraged – centralisation was the carrot.

Today, local governance, through government school councils and non-government school boards, still legally exist. They employ principals and other staff, set local policy, manage funding and retain strategic authority. But too many no longer realise the extent of their autonomy.

They have been conditioned to believe authority rests elsewhere.

Dizdar and his evangelists seek to make centralised control seem inevitable and local governance seem obsolete. The problem is not that autonomy can be taken by law.
It is that autonomy is being surrendered by consent.

The Choice Ahead

The centralisation of education in Australia is not accidental. It is a deliberate political and bureaucratic project — reinforced by public figures, former judges, compliant media, and government-aligned unions.

Murat Dizdar has made that agenda explicit: to question the legitimacy of Catholic and non-government schools, and to normalise the belief that only government-owned, government-controlled schooling is legitimate public education.

Independent and denominational schools face a choice.

They can defend their original purpose, supporting families and communities with real independence – or they can trade autonomy for short-term funding security under conditions that will steadily erode their governance.

Every concession made under the false narrative of “national unity” carries a cost: a slow shift from independence to compliance, from choice to submission.

National consistency in foundational education – literacy, numeracy, civic understanding – is critical to Australia’s security and prosperity.

Australia was founded on Judaeo-Christian principles, carried into law through the rights and protections secured by the Magna Carta.

Those principles were later revered by the American Bar Association. They were championed by Abraham Lincoln, who warned that the philosophy of the classroom in one generation becomes the philosophy of government in the next. We must take heed. Education must not be surrendered to bureaucratic ideology or radical overreach.

Australia’s education institutions, think tanks, and media are not passive observers. They are active drivers of political messaging, propaganda, and falsehoods sold as fact. They have abandoned critical thought, surrendered truth for influence, and treat assumptions as doctrine. This is not ignorance. It is betrayal of their purpose.^[xiii]

The survival of real education and the authority of families over their children’s future depends on recognising that education is not a branch of government.

It is a right, a duty, and a fundamental principle of a free society.

Those who forget this will not preserve education. They will preside over its quiet dismantling.

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Footnotes

^[i] https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australian-story/series/2025/video/NC2502Q009S00

^[ii] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-07/murat-dizdar-australian-story-public-schools/105024016

^[iii] https://smhschools.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Informa-SMH-Schools-P20K02.pdf

^[iv] https://pasisahlberg.com/the-australian-school-system-has-a-serious-design-flaw-can-it-change-before-its-too-late/

^[v] https://fortstreet-h.schools.nsw.gov.au/community/fortians-union.html

^[vi] https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/in-force/acts/roman-catholic-relief-act-1830/001

^[vii] https://news.aeuvic.asn.au/member-advice/getting-the-help-you-need/

^[viii] https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s107.html

^[ix] https://lglegal.com.au/july-2012-high-court-of-australias-decision-in-williams-v-commonwealth-of-australia/

^[x] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-12-02/australians-urged-to-stand-up-for-state-schools/1165512

^[xi] https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/implementation-of-the-australian-curriculum/

^[xii]https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/101471920?searchTerm=port%20philip%20catholic%20schools%20sold

^[xiii] https://ipa.org.au/curriculum/colleen-harkin-discussing-ipa-national-curriculum-research-on-credlin-sky-news-australia-14-april-2025

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Republished with thanks to Cheryl Lacey. Image courtesy of Unsplash.