Abbott matches Labor school funding
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has promised to honour school funding agreements entered into under Labor’s Better Schools plan.
Abbott told reporters in Melbourne today the government had been using school funding as a political wedge.
“We want to end the uncertainty by guaranteeing that no school will be worse off over the forward estimates period,” Abbott said.
“So we will honour the agreements that Labor has entered into, we will match the offers that Labor has made. We will make sure that no school is worse off.”
A Coalition government would ensure commonwealth schools funding committed by Labor for school year 2014 will flow to all states and territories irrespective of whether they have signed a deal with the Gillard or Rudd government, Abbott said.
It would amend the Australian Education Act to ensure the states, territories and non-government sectors keep authority for their schools, he said.
And it would match the commonwealth funding for schools committed by Labor over the next four years.
“As far as school funding is concerned Kevin Rudd and I are on a unity ticket,” Abbott said.
He says Labor has made a mess of their attempts to deliver the reforms by entering into four different funding models with four different jurisdictions – New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.
Labor has also negotiated deals with two major non-government school bodies but has not managed to secure any agreement with Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory.
The Coalition would work “cooperatively and constructively” with all states and territories to negotiate a fair and sustainable national funding model, Abbott said.
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Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the coalition announcement would end uncertainty about school funding.
“You can vote Liberal, or you can vote Labor, and you’ll get precisely the same funding envelope regardless,” he said.
Pyne said that as part of its funding proposal, the opposition would scrap sections of the Better Schools plan that gave the federal government control over state, territory and non-government schools.
“Rather than trying to control every aspect of the operations of schools from Canberra, we will dismantle in the Australian Education Act those sections that would give the commonwealth overarching control of school systems whether they’re government or non-government around Australia,” he said.
