It sounds as if Aussie Prime Minister John Howard favours a free market in education, and is doing something about it. The pips - the Philips anyway - are starting to squeak:

PROPHECIES of doom for public education are becoming self-fulfilling. One of our nation’s greatest achievements, a universal education system open to one and all, irrespective of class or religious belief, is being demolished by ideologues intent on destroying anything prefixed "public": public health, public broadcasting, the traditions of the public service and, of course, any vestiges of public ownership.

The young John Howard was educated in the public system. It must have played some part in his brilliant career yet, as prime minister, he lashes out at public schools, slandering them as places of subversion and moral squalor. Little wonder that parents, confused and concerned, remove their kids from the system and send them to independent schools. Just as I started to write this column, I got a phone call from a senior educator with the latest figures. The market share for public high schools? Down to 52 per cent.

In the past 12 months, I’ve travelled all over Australia talking to school principals – hundreds of them, heads of primary, secondary and private schools. And let the record show that even the heads of major independent schools are deeply concerned by the trends. They know that if the public school system is effectively trashed by a combination of "impropaganda" and a turning of financial screws, Australia’s entire education system is imperilled. And that what looks like "choice" will become chaos.

Any Australians with opinions about that?