John-Paul Langbroek cries foul as missed funding deadline locks the gate

THE Queensland government yesterday failed in its last-minute bid to sign up to Labor's school funding reforms.

THE Queensland government yesterday failed in its last-minute bid to sign up to Labor's school funding reforms, accusing the Rudd government of playing politics and using education funding for "base political purposes" in the lead-up to the federal election.

Talks between the two governments broke down yesterday, hours before the Rudd government entered caretaker mode and was unable to finalise any further funding agreements, leaving public schools in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory the only schools in the nation not covered by the new funding model.

Federal Education Minister Bill Shorten accused the Queensland government of not being serious about negotiations in its failure to provide details of the funding it was prepared to commit to the agreement as late as yesterday afternoon.

"It is regrettable that Queensland has still not provided the necessary information . . . that all other states and territories have provided," Mr Shorten said in a letter to his state counterpart John-Paul Langbroek.

Mr Langbroek, who had said the state government would sign up if offered the same deal as signed by Victoria on Sunday, noted Queensland had voiced the same concerns as Victoria, and "Queenslanders will wonder why Victoria got a deal out of it and Queensland didn't".

"We are going to be on the front foot about this, and there's no doubt that federal government is using this for base political purposes," Mr Langbroek said.

"It's been very frustrating for us, the way they've acted . . . We're going to be campaigning for five weeks on why Queensland is not getting as good a deal as Victoria on this."

Mr Langbroek said his government was putting an extra $1.8 billion into education, more than the $1.35bn the federal government was asking it to put in.

In his letter, Mr Shorten says Queensland would be required to contribute almost $2.5bn in additional funding if the commonwealth were to replicate all the factors of the Victorian agreement.

Kevin Rudd said yesterday there was "nothing I would have loved more" than signing up the Queensland LNP government, but that it was about $2.5bn short of its required contribution.

"Given there's been months and months and months of negotiations with Mr Newman's Liberal National Party government in Queensland, why is it left to the last day?" the Prime Minister said.

"It's all very easy to jump out of the blocks . . . and say that 'Oh, by the way, we might be interested in this'. Well, there's a $2.5bn gap and you're about four months late to the action."

Under the agreement signed by Victoria, the state has agreed to contribute an extra $1.32bn over six years, which totals $5.4bn when indexation and growth in enrolments is included.

In return, the commonwealth will contribute an extra $2.5bn, which totals $6.8bn including indexation and enrolment growth.