NSW plans a de facto confiscation of private school property, by Sam Lock.

Private schools could be forced to share their multimillion-dollar facilities with public school students under a radical new plan.

The proposal — pushed by Education Minister Rob Stokes — encourages Australia’s most prestigious schools to open up their sports and arts facilities to ensure the best facilities can be used by all students regardless of their school.

Access to playing fields, swimming pools and gyms, along with theatres and libraries would be under the new proposal and may require tweaking the Education Act to come into effect. …

Some of the nations top private schools charge fees of up to $40,000 a year, with many fee-paying parents unwilling to back the proposal.

However, Mr Stokes said the pay-off for private schools was in community goodwill when they wanted to expand. …

NSW P&C President Susie Boyd said she would welcome the change in private schools being opened up to public students, adding if private schools refused to open up to their community, they should be denied further funding.

This would undermine the notion of private property, like in fascism (the state tells you exactly what to do with “your” property) or communism (there is no significant private property, the state owns it all).

Private property and strong property rights allow a society to grow wealthy, because people try harder. If you can’t keep what you make, why bother? Countries with poor property rights are invariably poor.

So what is NSW doing? Under a “”right-wing” government, no less?

The strategic problem for the private schools is that nearly every private school in Australia accepts government money, in return for which the Australian Government gets to set their curriculum. Almost no Australian school is free to teach what it thinks best — it must teach what the Government tells it to teach, or lose government funding. The government funding is substantial, typically around $10k per year per pupil. Without it the school is noncompetitive, cost-wise.

Now some politicians have come up with the bright idea of letting more voters use their property. Where will it end? Karl? Anyone?

A reader responds:

This is similar to the elitists’ assertion that all countries belong to everyone, so migration is a human right.

The NSW govt is saying the private schools belong to everyone.

How would you feel if the government proclaimed your property now belonged to everyone? Or belonged to you, so you had to look after it, but anyone could use it?

via John Ray