Figures prepared by the Department of Education reveal that Tasmania is set to lose up to $300 million in real education funding if we don’t strike a new education funding deal with the Commonwealth.
This is because the former Labor/Green Government didn’t actually sign Tasmania up as a “participating state” under Gonski 1.0 in 2013, signing only a Heads of Agreement.
This means, that unlike NSW who did formally sign up and therefore has a legally binding deal with the Commonwealth, we do not.
So the fact is, unless we can strike a new education funding deal with the Commonwealth, we have no deal.
Our initial analysis shows that in the Government sector alone, this could equate to a $300 million dollar loss over the 10 year period.
Another possibility is that the Commonwealth Government is forced to go back to the existing agreement and the non-participating states (including Tasmania) get the dregs of the budgeted funding pool, while the participating states – such as NSW – get substantial increases.
While we will always fight for more education funding for our state, the reality is this is currently nearly $200 million of real money on offer under Gonski 2.0, and we are not going to turn that down.
Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Education and Training
