Coalition welcomes Gillard back-flip

The Coalition welcomes the Gillard Government’s back-flip on a key Gonski Review recommendation of a uniform national funding system for all schools, said the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne.

“The Gonski review suggested the current system of several funding models across sectors and States was overly complicated and lacked transparency,” Mr Pyne said.

“Gonski proposed that from 2014 every student be funded to a uniform benchmark across all sectors. Today the Prime Minister indicated the Government was planning to introduce a system very similar to the existing funding arrangements,” he said.

“In her press conference today, Ms Gillard indicated there will be different funding systems for the Catholic, Independent and State systems, which sounds virtually identical to what we have now.

“I welcome this shift, because it suggests the Government has finally come to recognise that every sector has different needs and a one size fits all approach will not work.

“We have already seen from media reports the Government plans to have similar funding guarantees in place for the independent sector that exist under the current SES funding model.

“This adoption of funding guarantees must be particularly galling for Schools Minister Peter Garrett who has characterised this element of the SES model as being deeply flawed.

“These changes do call into question how Labor can deceptively claim to ‘Give a Gonski’ when with each passing day the key recommendations of the Gonski Review are abandoned,” Mr Pyne said. 

March 26, 2013