Opposition must firm up its funding scheme

TONY Abbott unveiled his own PNG-style solution yesterday.

As Kevin Rudd adapted one of the Coalition's policies for dealing with asylum-seekers turning up in boats, the Opposition Leader adopted the same basic position as Labor on school funding in an attempt to checkmate the federal government on the issue.

Abbott's announcement was about politics, not policy; the school funding reforms were an electoral boon for Labor and the debate had become mired in the money, casting the Coalition as the bad guys withholding dollars from schoolchildren.

Abbott has also finally clarified the Coalition's position on school spending, much to the relief of schools.

The Coalition has variously said the nation can't afford the Gonski reforms; that it would spend more money on schools than Labor; and now that it will match Labor's investment.

What the Coalition is yet to address is how it would distribute the extra money. It is walking away from the funding model proposed by Labor - and signed up to by NSW, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT - and only indicated it will develop a new model in line with the Gonski principles of base funding plus loadings for disadvantage.

Labor's funding reforms are tied to a complete overhaul of school funding, allocating money based on the characteristics of their students rather than the number enrolled, as under the existing system.

The new funding model pools for the first time federal and state funding for all schools, government and non-government, which will be allocated money on the same basis. It ends the discrimination against new private schools, which are funded on a different and less generous basis than other private schools, which are paid more just for having been around longer.

And it sets out predetermined funding increases for the next six years, rather than the yearly adjustments in indexation that occur at present.

Labor's model also includes a safeguard to ensure the extra money the commonwealth invests ends up in schools.

By requiring state governments to provide one-third of the additional money required under the new system, the federal government puts a floor under state education budgets. There is nothing in the Coalition's plans to prevent state governments using the extra federal money to fund their own budget cuts.

The Coalition must address these issues to offer a comparable policy or it will only repeat what it has accused Labor of doing: throwing money at the problem.