Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Tuesday 26 November 2013
'No, I've studied the Gonski model closely and I have to get on with the job of being education minister'
Education minister Christopher Pyne presents a bill in the House of Representatives. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP for Guardian Australia
The federal education minister says he is too busy to sit down with an expert panel and have its needs-based school funding model explained to him.
Nor does Christopher Pyne want to get into a slanging match with his state counterparts over the Gonski school funding reforms.
"That would be unseemly," he told ABC radio on Tuesday.
Pyne said the government would "stick with what it's got" for the 2014 school year but after that he wanted a "flatter, simpler, fairer structure".
There was no reason for any state or territory to assume they would get less money over the next four years, he said.
Asked whether he was prepared to sit down with the Gonski panel and have them explain their funding model, Pyne said he was too busy.
"No, I've studied the Gonski model closely and I have to get on with the job of being education minister."
Pyne said a needs-based funding model was a very good principle, but precious funds were being spent on regulation and prescription rather than on schools.
