AS the Treasury Minister contemplates where his axe will fall as he attempts to slash £50 million off States spending, a novel cost-cutting measure is giving Australian politicians cause for concern.

Politics ‘Down Under’ is as entertaining as the antics of our own parliament but with more laughs for a population whose distrust of politicians amounts to a national past-time. The good burghers of this little rock could learn well from the Aussies that it is advisable to lace opinions of politics with a tablespoon of healthy cynicism and never to take a politician at his or her word.

Notwithstanding a healthy economy, having escaped relatively unscathed from the recession, like our own dear government Australia is looking to cut public costs. Rather than starting with the big spenders, the guardians of the public purse focused on removing pot plants from politicians’ offices in Canberra.

To Australian MPs’ dismay their beloved potted mates have been removed to save $120,000. This seems rather an excessive amount of money to spend on the odd potted plant no matter how colourful, but it turned out the cash was being spent on a specialist maintenance company who regularly popped into Canberra’s parliament building to water and prune the plants.

The elected representatives from Cairns to Adelaide and from Perth to Sydney were so dismayed to lose their plants – I suppose they could talk to them without being on the receiving end of the famous Australian sardonic wit – that a civil servant was called before a hearing to justify the cost-cutting measure.

During his testimony it emerged that the plants were presenting the Department of Parliamentary Services with something of a problem. As they are government property – and a decision has yet to be taken as to their fate – they have been put into storage. There they will remain while a budget review is carried out to establish whether to keep the plants or sell them off. No doubt the services of another plant maintenance contractor will be required to look after their welfare in the meantime.

The uncertain fate of the Canberra pot plants made yours truly wonder if similar measures were under consideration in the lofty heights of Squirrel Le Marquand House. The climate controls within the maze of offices above Treasury are so high in the winter that if there is a collection of plants sitting warm and snug atop filing cabinets – courtesy, no doubt, of Parks and Gardens – they must be so lush as to have assumed a growth rate of tropical forest proportions.

Joking and my cynical nature aside, £50 million is a lot of money to recoup, though not in a public sector that has seen States spending rise by 40 per cent in five years.

Four years ago this esteemed newspaper mounted a campaign titled Public Purse with the laudable aim of cutting States spending. Hundreds of Islanders submitted suggestions – the majority printable – and these were received by politicians with promises that action would be taken. All that worthwhile exercise proved was that when on the receiving end of promises from politicians and senior civil servants, with notable exceptions, it is advisable to have a very large pinch of salt to hand.

There is one department where £4.7 million could be saved in a flash. For reasons I find very hard to understand or accept, the Jersey taxpayer subsidises the costs of private education for children of Islanders with sufficient incomes to afford the full fees. What is even more incredible is that St Michael’s and St George’s preparatory schools – both of which count among their pupils children of some of Jersey’s wealthiest residents, including multi-millionaires and 1(i)k’s – receive handouts of £400,000 and £180,000 respectively from Education.

Education’s rationale for this Monty Python approach is that the Island’s private and public schools, by providing alternatives to the States’ system, are doing the Island a service by reducing the need to build more schools to educate children out of the public purse.

The clip, clip clop of the hooves of the Python’s hapless highwayman, Dennis Moore, can he heard the length of Mont Millais and Wellington Road as he goes about his perverse redistribution of wealth of robbing the poor to give to the rich.
No wonder private schools are so attractive for parents of Jersey children and the reason why such a high proportion attend private schools – 43% compared to 7% in the UK. If subsidies are to be handed out from the public purse, make sure the money goes where it is really needed by improving the lives of those in genuine need and not bettering the already comfortable lot of the aspiring and middle classes, not to mention the super-rich.

Education’s promise to incrementally cut this unfair subsidy by almost half a million pounds over six years is not enough. They could save that in an instant by ending the ludicrous amounts paid to St Michael’s and St George’s.

Nor should we be taken in by the scaremongering that to remove the subsidies in one fell swoop would lead to a mass exodus that would see the States schools swamped by the children of parents wishing to cut their cloth. If push came to shove most would stay where they were, with the parents happy to pay the increased fees for the kudos of having their children educated privately.

If this Island is to start living within its means it’s about time the appropriate charges were implemented for services given. So let’s start with school fees that reflect what it costs to educate a child outside the perfectly good States sector and allow parents to decide which route they want to take – and at whatever cost to their finances and lifestyles, and not taxpayers’.

A good education must never be the preserve of those who can afford to pay; nor should the average working man and woman be expected to subsidise the aspirations of those who earn considerably more than they.

The £4.7 million could be put to good use in the States schools by helping to provide a better education for the benefit of all children.