Tanya Plibersek has written to the government demanding it release its plans for a schools funding model to apply from next year after a report that proposals have been discussed in cabinet.
In the letter to Malcolm Turnbull and the education minister, Simon Birmingham, Labor’s education spokeswoman argues that “time is running out” to provide schools with certainty of their level of funding in 2018 and beyond.
The Turnbull government plans to negotiate a new school funding model through the Council of Australian Governments in the first half of 2017.
The new funding plan, which will apply from 2018, will replace agreements the Gillard government negotiated with the states for the fifth and sixth years of needs-based funding.
Labor argues that abandoning the Gonski deals in the 2014 budget amounts to a $30bn cut in projected education funding growth over 10 years. Birmingham maintains that federal schools funding will still increase from $16bn in 2016 to around $20.1bn in 2020.
On Sunday Fairfax Media reported that several schools funding proposals have been discussed in detail during cabinet meetings, although the federal government does not have a final position.
Reports suggest that “overfunded” private schools – those already above the schools resourcing standard – will see growth in their funding shrink to help other schools, although Plibersek has said any savings would be dwarfed by cuts.
“After failing to provide details for more than three years, many parents, teachers and principals are growing anxious about what your government’s intentions are,” she wrote.
Speaking with ABC News24, Plibersek said that schools “don’t know whether they can be employing teachers, or extend the extra teachers they’ve put on because of needs-based funding”.
Plibersek called for the government to release the level of funding for each state and school system, and each individual school.
“Labor is particularly worried about the impact of your government’s cuts on disadvantaged schools,” she wrote.
Plibersek offered to work constructively with the government but said that was only possible with the release of a “detailed and cleared plan”.
Birmingham told Guardian Australia there was “no reason schools won’t be able to continue to support teachers and new or existing initiatives, such as specialist teachers or targeted intervention programs” because funding was still growing.
He said 27 “cosy deals” negotiated by the former Labor government had resulted in perverse outcomes like “a disadvantaged student in a school in one state [receiving] up to $1,500 less federal funding per year than the exact same student would receive in other states in the exact same circumstances”.
On Friday Birmingham cited new figures in the Productivity Commission review of government services report that in the last five years, six out of the eight states and territories were spending less on schools.
“And yet they have the gall to come out and call for even more federal funding whilst their commitment and investment is in fact going backwards.”
Birmingham said the Turnbull government will provide “growth above inflation, above enrolments” and make sure it is conditional on states and territories maintaining their real level of investment and quality reforms.
