ABC The World Today

E&OE...............................

Hon Christopher Pyne MP:  Well the current funding model that the Government has proposed is a ‘conski’ not a Gonski.  They are in fact making savings in education in what they’ve announced yesterday because they’re taking money from Peter to pay Paul.  They’ve reduced funding to apprenticeships, traineeships, universities, Laptops in Schools programme and they’ve redirected funding for low-SES schools, teacher rewards, teacher quality and Literacy & Numeracy.

Alexandra Kirk: But the Government is proposing  a 4.7 per cent increase in funding?

Pyne:  No they’ve set an indexation rate of 4.7 per cent from the Commonwealth but in fact the current average indexation rate over the last ten years is 6 per cent so what the Government is proposing is a reduction on the average indexation rate for the last ten years so the schools and states, the Catholic and Independent systems are being gypped by the Government’s model as proposed yesterday.  If indexation is set at 4.7 per cent the Government proposal then that would be a real decrease over time in comparison to what the Coalition is offering of around 6 per cent under the current model.

Kirk: So are you proposing then to actually put more money into education than the Government promised yesterday which was $14.5 billion over six years?

Pyne:  I think it’s fair to say that if the Coalition is elected states like Western Australia, South Australia and the ACT will be better off and it depends very much on whether New South Wales and Queensland have billions of dollars of extra funding to put into their school systems as to whether they will be better off.

Kirk: But by your own measure you’re saying those states will be better off?

Pyne:  Well only if the New South Wales and Queensland Governments have billions of dollars to put into a new school funding model.  Whereas if we stick with the current model we know that every school will be better off under a Coalition Government.

Kirk: The states that sign up by the 30 June, the Prime Minister’s new deadline, if you win the election would a future Coalition Government honour those agreements?

Pyne:  If the Gillard Government can’t get all the States and Territories to sign up at COAG on Friday, her school funding model is dead in the water.

Kirk: Why?

Pyne:  Because you couldn’t possibly fund a uniform national system with different systems in every State and Territory.

Kirk: But the Government has previously put up a health agreement and some of the states did sign up at the beginning and others didn’t.  The agreement didn’t fall over.

Pyne:  We’ve had a uniform school funding model for decades in Australia across all the States and the Commonwealth.  It would be more convoluted, more complex, less fair, less transparent, if the Government cannot get agreement from all States and Territories and certainly if the Coalition is elected and there is some states operating under different models we will not honour those agreements.  Now if all the states and territories sign up on Friday there will be a new school funding model.  But certainly if the Coalition is elected and there has not been a national uniform model adopted we couldn’t possibly proceed in the future with different states operating under different models.  Education is not like health.  We’ve never operated that way.  We’ve always had a nationally consistent model and we will not have different states operating under different models.  And no state should sign up thinking that they will have that agreement honoured if the other states do not.  So it’s all in or none in.

Kirk: And then if you’re elected and not all states have signed up, you’d reverse the changes?

Pyne:  Well look let’s wait and see.  These are all hypothetical.  The truth is there is a COAG meeting on Friday, the Government has dropped this bombshell on the states and territories yesterday and given them five days to consider it.

Kirk: Well they’ve given them longer.  They’ve given them until the 30 of June.

Pyne:  It is a disgraceful way to govern the country.  It is why, of course, the Government is in so much trouble electorally because everyone can see that they are hopelessly incompetent. But let’s wait and see what happens at COAG before we start determining what a Coalition Government would or wouldn’t do.

ENDS.