Labor preparing for all-out assault on Coalition over school funding backflip
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Version 0 of 1. Tony Abbott remains defiant over his government’s decision to rewrite the school funding system next year, saying he “very strongly” denies abandoning his election promises. As Labor prepares for an all-out assault on the government over the David Gonski-inspired reforms during the final fortnight of parliamentary sittings of the year, the prime minister said: “There has been no broken promise and there will be no broken promises under this government.” Abbott and his education minister, Christopher Pyne, are set to face pressure during question time on Monday afternoon, with an opposition source describing the school funding backflip as “manna from heaven”. Abbott and Pyne has refused to recommit to their pre-election promise that no school would be worse off over the next four years, insisting that individual allocations would be the same in 2014 and the total budget for all schools collectively would be matched over four years. An entirely new funding system will now be drawn up to apply from 2015, despite pre-election assurances the Coalition was on a “unity ticket” with Labor on school funding. Pressed on the post-election shift on school funding during a radio interview on Monday, Abbott said: “I dispute very much ... that there is a difference between our post- and pre-election statements.” Abbott told 4BC he was “absolutely determined” to keep his commitments and maintain faith with the Australian people because “we don’t want to be like the former government”. Australia needed a school funding system after 2014 that was “national and fair”, he said. Abbott accused the former government of taking $1.2bn out of schools funding “in virtual secrecy before the last election”. This money had been budgeted for the conservative-led governments of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory but was removed because they did not sign up to Gonski deals before the election. The loss of the funds was reported in the media on 13 August – more than three weeks before the election – and disclosed in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook document. While the new government has now earmarked $230m extra for the three non-signatory jurisdictions to cover next year, it is unclear what the total pool of funding will be beyond 2014 when the government replaces the Gonski-inspired formula with a yet-to-be-devised system. Signatory states fear they will lose money earmarked for them as a result of a redistribution of funds to include Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Labor spent years developing the new needs-based funding model, calculated on a base amount of funding per student plus loadings targeting categories of disadvantage. In a prelude to Monday’s parliamentary attack, Shorten accused Abbott of only declaring a “unity ticket” with Labor on school funding before the election to minimise a damaging political debate. “The Abbott opposition deliberately wanted to shut down this major point of difference by saying you can vote Liberal and you get the same deal as Labor. The Abbott Coalition has broken their promise, they've lied,” Shorten told the ABC on Monday. The parliamentary showdown comes a day after Abbott insisted he never vowed to maintain the same money for each school. His argument that the promise was "plural" – matching total funding for all schools – comes despite the education minister, Christopher Pyne, declaring before the election: "You can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school." Abbott also told voters on 2 August that he would end uncertainty by "guaranteeing that no school will be worse off over the forward estimates period" – a reference to the four-year budget cycle. In an interview with the conservative commentator Andrew Bolt on Sunday, Abbott focused on his broader commitment to match Labor's total funding for schools over four years. He insisted his promise to match funding did not apply to each individual school, in an apparent concession that the government's decision to rewrite the funding model after 2014 could lead to winners and losers. "Well I think Christopher [Pyne] said schools would get the same amount of money, and schools – plural – will get the same amount of money. The quantum will be the same; in fact we're going to put a little bit more in," Abbott said on Ten's Bolt Report. "We are going to keep the promise that we made, not the promise that some people thought that we made, or the promise that some people might have liked us to make." The announcements have sparked anger from state and territory governments that signed a funding agreement before the election, with the NSW Liberal premier Barry O’Farrell and his education minister Adrian Piccoli leading criticism of Pyne’s treatment of states. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |