The federal education minister hopes to start negotiations to overhaul funding for schools across the country at a meeting with his state and territory counterparts in Adelaide tomorrow.
Simon Birmingham says the 27 different models in place have left a completely inconsistent approach, paying different rates for identical students based on where they live in Australia.
He says he wants to ensure equitable reforms to guarantee children in the future get the learning experience in the classroom they need to succeed.
But he faces considerable scepticism.
The meeting in Adelaide will be a chance for federal education minister Simon Birmingham to come face to face with his state and territory counterparts in his home city.
He says he wants to gauge what changes to the Gonski needs-based, school-funding plan they will accept and which ones they will not.
The Gonski plan suggested a level of base funding to all schools and further targeted funding to disadvantaged students to reduce inequality and performance gaps.
The four-year plan will run out at the end of 2017.
Labor had hoped it would run for six years, but the Federal Government now wants to replace the 27 different Gonski agreements with a simpler model after the current plan ends.
Senator Birmingham says he wants to fix what he calls the "corruption" at the heart of the Gonski funding model.
"It was Ken Boston, a former head of education departments in South Australia and New South Wales and one of the architects of the Gonski report who, in fact, said recently and wrote recently that the models put in place corrupted the Gonski report, because we have 27 different models in place. So it's not my word, it's a word that actually one of the authors of the Gonski report has used. But it is a representation of the fact that, far from having a nationally consistent approach to funding, we have a completely inconsistent approach. We didn't get the Gonski report. We actually got the (Bill) Shorten model, and the Shorten model pays different rates for identical students based on where they live in Australia."
Senator Birmingham has released Federal Government analysis of the current Gonski model in the lead-up to the meeting.
It suggests 30 per cent more funding goes to schools in Tasmania compared with those in Western Australia with the same needs.
That includes for Indigenous, disadvantaged or disabled students.
The analysis suggests they receive differing amounts based on their home state or territory, with a difference of more than $1,500 per student between the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
But Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says the Government is not telling the truth and just wants to take money away from schools.
His deputy, Tanya Plibersek, says any inequality is a result of agreements signed with the states under former Coalition education minister Christopher Pyne.
"Now, Simon Birmingham can't say that the way to fix inequalities in school funding between states is to make the cuts he's talking about. Yes, over time, greater matching up between states and territories is fine. But remember, the reason we have different deals in different states is because Christopher Pyne gave less money and expected less transparency and accountability when he became education minister."
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says students' studies should not be turned into a political plaything.
"We are steaming ahead to a funding cliff, set down by Tony Abbott, set down by the Abbott Government, and we need to walk back. We need to make sure that we have a needs-based funding model, a fully needs-based model."
South Australian education minister Susan Close says her state's schools are already burdened by the Government's decision to drop the final two years of Labor's funding model.
"We always worry that South Australia will get ripped off.* We know at the moment that the extent of that is $335 million. I don't know what Minister Birmingham is proposing, because I'm reduced to watching the media and listening to the radio to find out what his proposition is."
State ministers will meet their federal counterparts again in December.
It is hoped a final agreement can be reached in the first half of next year.
