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Christopher Pyne to propose new school funding model for 2015 Christopher Pyne's funding model 'quick and dirty': Gonski panel member
(35 minutes later)
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, is working on a new school funding model to be implemented in 2015 after scrapping the Gonski agreements that states, territories, the Catholic and independent sectors reached with the previous federal government. The education minister, Christopher Pyne, has not given himself enough time to create a fair and equal new school funding model and will come up with something “quick and dirty”, says Carmen Lawrence, a member of the committee that reviewed school funding and helped come up with the Gonski model.
Pyne would not commit to a needs-based funding model, which would see disadvantaged schools receive more money. Nor would he guarantee that no school would be worse off under his government’s education funding model in 2015. Pyne is working on a new funding model to be implemented in 2015 after breaking a pre-election promise and scrapping the Gonski agreements with states, a territory and the independent and Catholic school sectors made under the previous government.
“I will propose a new school funding model from the commonwealth which will be flatter, simpler, fairer to all the states and territories and equitable between students,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. Before the election the Coalition said it was on a “unity ticket” with Labor over school funding, but in a media conference on Tuesday Pyne declined to commit to a needs-based funding model, or to promise that no school would be worse off.
Pyne has backed away from the Coalition’s pre-election pledge that it was on a “unity ticket” with the Labor government when it came to school funding policy after announcing he had discovered that three of the agreements the former government had reached – with Victoria, Tasmania and the Catholic sector – had not been finalised. “I will propose a new school funding model from the commonwealth which will be flatter, simpler, fairer to all the states and territories and equitable between students,” he said.
Pyne rejected suggestions that he was breaking an election promise, saying he was still committed to the same amount of funding money, just not the Gonski funding model. Lawrence, a former Western Australia Labor premier, was on the panel that reviewed school funding and delivered the report under its chairman, David Gonski. She said Pyne had not given himself enough time come up with a replacement model.
“We said before the election we would have a no-strings-attached school funding model in time, the commonwealth would put the money it wanted to put in and whether the states and territories put the money they wanted to put in would be a matter for them. I never supported, and said so many times, the Labor party’s attempt to essentially insert the commonwealth in state and territory schools,” he said. “It’s hard to anticipate the direction he is going in but if by a ‘flatter’ funding model he means the same amount of money going to schools regardless of need then it is a step backwards,” she said.
Pyne indicated that the Coalition government might return to the Howard government’s school funding model. “It is not clear what he is proposing other than ‘if Labor did it then it must be bad’.”
Before the 7 September election, Pyne said: “Schools need the certainty and states need the certainty to know that whether they vote Liberal or Labor, they will get exactly the same amount of money.” Lawrence said Pyne was politicising the schools funding model when there was a “serious inequality” problem in Australia’s education system.
She said the Gonski panel was made up of a variety of people from different backgrounds and political values, and the panel was unanimous in recognising the inequality problem.
“Pyne has said nothing which says he understands how serious the social inequality problem is in schools,” Lawrence said.
“The funding model he comes up with will be quick and dirty, he can’t possibly create a proper schools funding model in that time.
“He can build on material we have collected but reaching a fair outline in three months seems impossible – but I don’t think that is his objective anyway.”
Lawrence said if the decision was made to “junk” the entire Gonski funding model then political motives had to be involved.
Pyne said he had found a $1.2bn blackhole in Labor’s school funding commitments, but the hole he was referring to was reported in August when the pre-election economic and fiscal outlook was released.
It listed $1.2bn put aside for Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland as savings because they had not signed up for Gonski funding.
Pyne rejected suggestions he was breaking a pre-election promise, saying he was still committed to the same amount of funding, just not the Gonski model.
“We said before the election we would have a no-strings attached school funding model in time, the commonwealth would put the money it wanted to put in and whether the states and territories put the money they wanted to put in would be a matter for them. I never supported – and said so many times – the Labor party’s attempt to essentially insert the commonwealth in state and territory schools,” he said.
Pyne indicated the Coalition government might return to the Howard government school funding model and said he would not use any kind of committee, panel or review to help develop the new funding model.
NSW and South Australia warned the federal government against walking away from the Gonski funding model on Monday and their calls to keep the funding arrangements were backed by Tasmania, Victoria and the Catholic schools sector.
Queensland joined the chorus on Tuesday, with treasurer Tim Nicholls saying he expected the commonwealth to deliver on promised funding.
"It's about $1.9bn over the forward forecasts and we're continuing to negotiate with them about the best way to get that money and get it into the schools," he told ABC radio.
"What we really want to talk about now is making sure we can get as much of that money into the schools and not into administration."
Before the 7 September election, Pyne said: “Schools need the certainty and states need the certainty to know that whether they vote Liberal or Labor they will get exactly the same amount of money.”
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