Greens spokesperson on Primary and Secondary Education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne, has urged Education Minister Jason Clare to launch an investigation into the governing body to determine if it is fit to be receiving federal funding. 

The move comes after revelations that in 2015, convicted sex offender Peter Cullen Macarthur was on its board when AISNSW investigated a Cranbrook School teacher’s sexually explicit emails to a former student and deemed his behaviour to be “non-reportable conduct”. 

Macarthur held a governance role at AISNSW for 22 years, and is the longest serving board director having held the position from 1982 to 2017, according to public financial statements.

The AISNSW investigates dozens of reportable conduct allegations in its member schools each year, including incidents deemed too serious for individual schools to manage.

‘Reportable conduct’ allegations include sexual offences, child assault cases, misconduct or ill-treatment. 

Allman-Payne said the “shocking revelations” raised doubts over whether the peak body, which governs more than 500 independent schools, ought to continue to receive federal funding. 

“In the decade to 2022 the private schools governed by the authority – including Newington College, SCEGGS Darlinghurst and Scots College – reported combined Federal Government income of more than $13 billion,” she said. 

“It’s bad enough that some of the wealthiest schools in the country continue to have their designer uniforms and gleaming performing arts centres subsidised from the public purse.

“But it’s utterly unacceptable that a body with such a profound influence over the education and wellbeing of thousands of children would allow a convicted child sex offender to remain serving on its board for 22 years…”

An AISNSW spokesperson told the ABC it “accepts that the board was advised in 1995 of Dr Macarthur’s conviction, however this was nearly 30 years ago and the details are lost in history”.

“In their capacity on the AISNSW board, directors have no interaction with children or any involvement with investigations,” the spokesperson added.

But National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds said the authority ought to launch an external, independent review of its governance model and handling of investigations, similar to that which the Cranbrook School board was now conducting.

“Everyone on the board has responsibilities, even if they’re at arm’s length of the investigations, they’re still in a position of authority,” she told the ABC. 

The Federal Government is also investigating the chain of events at Cranbrook which led to the well-publicised resignation of former principal Nicholas Sampson.

Clare has said he wants to ensure private schools were held accountable for the money they receive, and confirmed the education department had written to the Cranbrook board and posed a series of questions to “determine whether they meet the requirements of the Education Act, whether they are indeed a fit and proper person as defined under the act, or whether there’s evidence of a pattern of immoral or unethical behaviour”. 

“Now if that’s substantiated, and there’s an investigation under way, so I don’t want to pre-empt that, then there are powers under the act for the Department to put conditions on their funding or stop that funding altogether,” Clare told ABC radio.

Earlier this month ABC’s Four Corners program ran an exposé on Cranbrook School titled ‘Old School’, exposing new allegations of workplace bullying and sexism and hinting at a determination on behalf of the school’s leadership to shield its internal culture.

Sydney University’s Dr Kellie Burns told EducationHQ that a string of so-called ‘traditions’ persist within some elite all-boys schools that hark from a bygone, sexist era.

Burns warned these are creating fertile ground for deeply misogynist cultures to flourish. 

“…there are traditions and structures in place that have persisted for hundreds of years, that were developed or created at a time when the social norms around respect for women or ideas about sexuality were quite different,” she said.

“They’ve got these traditions and songs and rituals that are actually quite violent, but they’ve persisted under the name of ‘tradition’.”

Cranbrook receives government funding of $6.5 million – $4.6 million from the Federal Government and around $2 million from the State Government. In 2022, it received $62 million in tuition fees.

AISNSW schools are reported to have received more than $13.6 billion in federal funding over the past decade.