Christian Porter’s Old Private School Got $7 Million From JobKeeper Last Year

Yet another private school has been found to have received millions in JobKeeper last year. This time, it’s Hale School, the Perth alma mater boasting Christian Porter and Ben Roberts-Smith as graduates.

Hale is one of the oldest private schools in Western Australia, with annual fees of up to nearly $27,000.

JobKeeper was meant to ensure battlers kept their jobs; not to help expensive private schools turn a multi-million dollar surplus https://t.co/2HXF6xtSLn #auspol

— Andrew Leigh (@ALeighMP) July 21, 2021

Hale’ annual report stated it was given $7.45 million in JobKeeper in 2020, according to The Guardian. This is despite the school making over $8 million in surplus at the same time, and offering parent fee discounts.

The school did not respond to media when asked what the now-axed Government subsidy was spent on, or whether it would pay any of it back.

Hale joins the ranks of other private schools in the spotlight for pocketing JobKeeper with a profit, including Adelaide’s Trinity College, King’s in Sydney, and Melbourne’s Wesley College.

It’s believed the overall sector would have gained hundreds of millions of bucks from JobKeeper and other COVID support schemes, with few schools actually reporting a deficit, The Guardian said.

This is the Liberal Party philosophy of private education where it showers money on its own schools
The top end of town puts the governments we always seem to have to have into office & this is one of the perks. Its one on many corrupt & manipulative behaviours from a bad lot.

— mick dundee (@rambotrader) July 22, 2021

“The Government has chased after people in some of the nastiest ways possible with Robodebt, [but] the same hasn’t been applied to the JobKeeper program,” Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters said on Tuesday, when local school Girton Grammar was thought to have made profit from JobKeeper as well.

Universities were largely excluded from JobKeeper last year, contributing to over 17,000 jobs being shed, and billions of revenue lost during the pandemic.

I work at a public university. We lost staff and were not eligible for jobkeeper, and incurred a significant deficit. Private universities got jobkeeper 🤔

Hale private boys’ school in Perth received more than $7m in jobkeeper, and recorded an $8m surplus https://t.co/Q7taufvgal pic.twitter.com/5oyzaTCvKn

— Daryl Adair (@DarylAdair) July 21, 2021

An elite Sydney golf club and Harvey Norman also came under fire for not paying back JobKeeper, despite also making millions in profit at the peak of COVID last year. Companies such as SEEK, Nine, and Dominoes on the other hand announced they’ll pay theirs back, according to NewsCorp.

The Government dished out $90 billion in total before cutting the wage subsidy in October last year, with calls on the rise for more transparency as to how recipients spent the dosh.

(Image source: Hale School)