The NSW Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, has warned that the "most significant education reform in 40 years" is under threat after the Victorian government took the "extraordinary" step of refusing to commit to critical funding for public schools.
Mr Piccoli said he feared the worst for the needs-based Gonski funding model after the Labor Education Minister in Victoria, James Merlino, backed away from the national agreement and has not committed his state to the final two years of funding.
NSW was the first state to sign up to the Gonski reforms, and has repeatedly stressed its commitment to the full six years, despite its federal Coalition counterparts refusing to guarantee funding for the final two years when the bulk of money would go to the most needy schools.
Victoria has changed its laws to allow more money to flow to private schools in a significant step away from the Gonski model, which said that linking funding of private schools to public school funding was a "backward-looking approach".
Under the new legislation, Catholic and independent schools in Victoria will receive at least 25 per cent of the state government funding given to public schools.
Mr Piccoli said it was "astounding" that Victoria would pass the legislation and it would leave the door open for the federal Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, to permanently walk away from the final two years of Gonski.
"I am absolutely gobsmacked that a state Labor government in a state as big as Victoria would undermine the most significant education reform in 40 years," Mr Piccoli said.
"What we need is the states being strong together because that would be the best case against the Commonwealth."
Mr Piccoli and the Premier, Mike Baird, have led the charge nationally in pressuring the federal government to stick to the signed agreement that was struck when Julia Gillard was prime minister.
But in a statement, Mr Merlino dismissed Mr Piccoli's criticisms and said his government was committed to the Gonski reforms and "would not let Tony Abbott off the hook".
"Given that the NSW Liberals and Nationals voted to support massive cuts to TAFE earlier this year – forcing fees to rise dramatically from January 2015 – I certainly won't be taking any lectures from them," Mr Merlino said.
He said the final two years of Gonski would be "the subject of future budget considerations".
The NSW opposition education spokesman, Ryan Park, said NSW Labor was "a strong supporter of the Gonski reforms" and was committed to ensuring the full six-year deal was rolled out across NSW schools.
Mr Park said he did not support the changes to Victorian legislation, which would see private schools receive funding regardless of their need.
One of the architects of the Gonski model, Ken Boston, said the changes in Victoria would deliver "inequity and under-achievement".
"In advance of the recent Victorian election, the then opposition presented itself as the champion of Gonski," Dr Boston wrote in The Age.
"The legislation it has now passed is the antithesis: sector-based, needs-blind, top-down, politically driven, and ensuring that the 'fair go for all' envisaged by Gonski will not be achieved."
The Save Our Schools spokesman, Trevor Cobbold, said the Victorian government had joined the Abbott government in "sabotaging" the Gonski agreement.
"It is very revealing that the first legislative act of the new government in education is to secure funding arrangements for private schools that reject the Gonski needs-based funding principle. It says something about its school funding priorities," Mr Cobbold said,
