The NSW Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli has urged the federal government not to abandon the state's most disadvantaged schools after a new report found that Australian society was far less equal than previously thought.
The report, commissioned by the NSW Department of Education, used 12 years of the national household, income and labour dynamics survey of 14,000 Australians.
"We aren't nearly as equal as we like to think," said the report's author Peter Siminski. "The idea of being the lucky country that is full of equal opportunity is looking less and less realistic."
Dr Siminski and co-author Silvia Mendolia from the University of Wollongong found that the ability of Australians to move beyond the socioeconomic status of their family was almost as restricted as those in the US and the UK, which have some of the lowest rates of mobility in the Western world.
A key measurement of inequality is the increase in income earned between generations, according to the HILDA survey.
"Our findings show that 10 per cent higher earnings for a father are associated with a 3.5 per cent higher earnings in the son," said Dr Siminski.
Scandinavian countries, with far more intergenerational mobility, report up to 2 per cent income inequality.
The report's authors argued that the key to a reduction in intergenerational inequality was investment in education.
Mr Piccoli urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to take a close look at the paper's findings.
The federal government has refused to fund the final two years of Gonski funding which would see hundreds of millions of dollars invested in disadvantaged schools, despite its popular polling with the public and Labor's commitment to see the investment through.
The policy has generated deep division between state and federal coalition ministers around the country. Mr Piccoli has repeatedly lobbied his federal colleagues to commit $4.5 billion to the final two years of needs based funding.
"A child doesn't get to choose to be born to parents who are doctors, they don't get to choose to be born to parents who are drug users, it is never the child's fault," said Mr Piccoli.
"We have a responsibility as a society to level the playing field. That is what education is for," he said.
"The Prime Minister has said that his focus is on human capital. We have to give children a better opportunity by investing in their education."
In Federal Parliament last week Mr Turnbull said the government was committed to needs based funding but that the "money first " approach of Gonski was wrong.
Guildford father-of-two David Ghattas said that he had seen first hand the impact that Gonski funding has had on his teenage children.
His son Sarkis and daughter Stephanie attend Merrylands High School, one of the most socio-economically disadvantaged schools in the state.
"My son didn't know what to do with himself a couple of years ago, now he has access to technology programs and support staff. Now he says he wants to be an engineer and my daughter says she wants to be a teacher," said Mr Ghattas.
"Without that funding and support you lose the aspiration to learn".
With Desirée Savage
