Now it's serious: ATO move on Brindabella Christian College should sink board

Is this the end for Brindabella Christian College?

Unlikely, given it has more than 1000 students enrolled, but the ATO’s move to wind up the operator, Brindabella Christian Education Ltd, should mean the end of the current board that has led the school to the brink.

The Tax Office does not do this sort of thing lightly. It is a last resort after a long period of negotiation and when it becomes clear that any re-payment scheme cannot be maintained.

This should be the catalyst for the scales to fall from the school community’s eyes and seek new leadership because that will be the only way that things will change, given the board’s record going back many years.

It is high time the community saw accusations of an ideological and anti-Christian conspiracy against the school for what they are – a distraction and deflection from the real issues.

The Tax Office court action should also be enough to finally convince ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry and the federal education department to bring the school into line and demand that the current board go.

The governments’ understandable unwillingness to see the school close – where would all these students go? – has allowed BCEL to continue thumbing its nose at temporal authority and call their bluff.

It has a long history of ignoring ACT planning rules, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers and court costs and stretching the financial limits to not just keep operating but expand, despite assurances that it wouldn’t on its small Lyneham footprint.

All the while not meeting its obligations to employees to pay their PAYG tax instalments. That bill, at last count 18 months ago, was more than $5 million and counting.

Late payment of staff super has also been a regular occurrence, landing it in the Fair Work Commission last year.

BCEL’s own financial statements show a million-dollar deficit and total liabilities of $27 million, including current ones of almost $21 million. But that is only for the year ending 2022, submitted in September 2023.

Subsequent financial reports and annual statements to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission remain overdue.

Ms Berry might have more up-to-date figures, but given the seriousness of the Tax Office’s action, they probably have not improved.

The statement does list total assets of $37 million in its favour, which would satisfy creditors, but at the cost of losing the school.

The board might somehow manage to cut a deal with the Tax Office and carry on, but based on previous behaviour, that would be a risky proposition.

The best result for the school would be for a new entity to take over, reform its governance and financial practices and restructure its debt.

It is in the taxpayers’ and the community’s interests that the federal Education Department, the ACT Education Directorate and their ministers step up.

Late yesterday Ms Berry did issue a show cause notice to the school but what that actually entails we don’t know.

Brindabella Christian College may be a private school but it is worth restating that it receives $10 million a year in public money and, as such, is answerable to government.

From an educational perspective, the school is successful and need not close, but those responsible for its parlous position should be shown the door.