
The Australian | 27 April 2011 Under the Constitution, responsibility for education resides with the states. And so it was that the states were the primary funders of higher education until 1975, when the Whitlam government negotiated the transfer of funding responsibility for higher education to the Commonwealth. But the Whitlam deal wasn't particularly strong on detail and in this case the settlement with the states was financial rather than constitutional. It has been a source of growing annoyance to the commonwealth that, while it pays most of the bill, the states retain their constitutional prerogatives in regard to higher education. It is through this prism … [Read more...]