School funding policy in Australia not only promotes educational equity in some ways but also creates substantial between-school resource inequalities due to its embrace of market ideologies. School funding policies are designed to promote school choice and competition, based on the assumption that they are both a right and an effective lever for improving educational outcomes. School funding is used to create an educational marketplace with varying 'price points', leading to the acceptance of a two-tiered system of basic provision via the public sector and enhanced provision for those willing to pay via the private sector. Political commitment to making school funding more equitable has been largely absent. Marketisation is the mechanism by which schooling maintains its capacity to reproduce social inequality without evoking class-based discourse or anxiety.