A failure to apply the enrolment policy consistently has also led to a patchy system.
Most principals obey enrolment rules, but some indulge in what their peers describe as empire building, or taking too many non-local enrolments - and selecting the most high-achieving ones - to build their own population and prestige. Effectively, that means some schools are robbing others of their best students.But curtailing choice will not go down well with families.
Some schools were already closed to non-locals or siblings due to popularity or space constraints, especially high schools; excluding demountables from the calculation of a school's population cap will put more schools in that category. Out-of-area students will still be accepted at schools that are below their cap, and current students will not be affected.
This would be an easier policy to defend if all public schools were equal. But they are not. Reputation is a spurious way to choose a school, but other differences between public schools are real and worrying to parents.