KEY POINTS:
National Party leader John Key is considering using private developers to build and own new state schools.
He said such private sector involvement was seriously under consideration for the party's education policy.
"I think it's entirely possible the private sector could build, own and maintain a property which is operated by the public sector," he said.
"It has been done in Australia and has resulted in higher-quality premises at a lower cost to the country."
The private sector owner would have no involvement in running the schools, which would otherwise operate as all other state schools do.
Education Minister Steve Maharey said the idea showed National wanted privatisation. It would "send a chill down the spines" of those in the education sector.
He said it was effectively a vote of no confidence in public education by National and would be a "faultline issue" in the next election.
"I can guarantee that it will not go down well," Mr Maharey said.
"The taxpayer would be paying for a school to be run like a private sector business. That's what people fought against right through the 1990s and there will be total rejection of that by the education system.
"This is a touchstone issue for us. There will be no votes for them in this and we would die in a ditch over these arguments."
Mr Key said the minister was being alarmist. There were no plans to sell existing schools but the arrangement could take the pressure off the state purse as new schools were needed to cater for the growing school-age population.
The Ministry of Education estimates up to 40 new schools will be needed to cater for population growth in Auckland over the next 20 years, including 20 by 2015.
The president of the primary teachers' union NZEI, Irene Cooper, said the idea would make education too uncertain by putting schools under the ownership of private companies with the risk they might later pull out or sell off their investment.
"There may be some savings for the Crown in terms of school building, but it brings huge uncertainty into public education and our children deserve some certainty.
"When it doesn't suit [private owners] any more, they can pull out, and you couldn't run education on that uncertainty."
Ms Cooper said it was relatively new to Australia and "we just don't have enough knowledge to know if it's going to be successful".
Mr Key said the party was yet to consult the private sector to see if there was interest in the idea and whether it was viable.
He had often discussed public-private partnerships for infrastructure. This was already done under Labour in some cases, such as hospital car parks and the North Shore police station, purpose-built by a private company, maintained by it and leased to the police.
He said schools could be made more profitable for private owners by adding on other services such as night schools or a health clinic on the same premises. This had been done in Australia.
Mr Key's comments were in response to a challenge from Mr Maharey last week for National to outline its education plans.
Mr Maharey yesterday accused National of developing "a sort of Tourette's syndrome" over its policies. Mr Key's comments concluded a week in which deputy leader Bill English discussed partial sales of state-owned companies, and health spokesman Tony Ryall admitted he had blundered by not including in a key health discussion document mention of the party's intention to remove limits on doctors' fee increases.
"It seems all of a sudden they can't stop blurting out their agenda," Mr Maharey said.
"There was silence for 10 months and now, all of a sudden, it's 'ask us a question and we will tell you an outrageous answer'.
"I suppose at least they're saying what they're doing."
Mr Key also said he wanted to increase the state funding given to private schools. He said Labour's 1999 cap of $40 million had taken the option of private education out of reach for many families, meaning they had no choice in where to send their children.
He said the current $40 million cap came from a $9 billion education budget, "so whatever adjustment we make will, in the whole scheme of things, be very minor."
The party has also indicated a rethink on its former policy of bulk-funding schools for their operational and staff costs. Education spokeswoman Katherine Rich said it was "not currently in our thinking and is unlikely to be part of the 2008 manifesto".
Mr Key said decisions were yet to be made on reforms, if any, to NCEA and on early-childhood education - including the future of the subsidies in the Government's "20 hours free" scheme for 3- and 4-year-olds.
NATIONAL'S IDEAS
* Let private companies build and own new schools.
* Increase state funding of private schools.
* No more bulk funding of school budgets.
