The education minister, Simon Birmingham, has warned the Coalition could make changes to school funding deals within the current legislation, thereby avoiding a Senate vote which is likely to fail.

As promised in the election, Birmingham met with the state and territory education ministers on Friday to begin talks to change the existing school funding deals in 2018-19 – deals signed with Labor under the 2013 Gonski reforms.

The convention since the 1980s is that the commonwealth and states agree to school funding deals. When Labor implemented the Gonski reforms, the commonwealth legislated the deals to ensure the funding would be uncontested.

Before the election, Birmingham announced a plan to commit $1.2bn for the years five and six of the school education plans – a reduction of $3.9bn compared with Labor’s promised funding.

But after a fiery meeting, Birmingham signalled the commonwealth would not need the states to agree in order to make the changes – a position confirmed by noted education expert Jim McMorrow last week.

“We can work within the current budget because much of the extra spending that Labor promised in 2013 – off in the never-never – beyond the forward estimates was never actually legislated spending so much of that is not actually tied to the legislation,” Birmingham told ABC Insiders on Sunday.



“So we can work within the current budget arrangements but of course I think it is far, far better if we get reforms to ensure we are distributing funding according to need equitably across the states and driving reform in schools.”

Labor, Greens and Nick Xenophon’s party have committed to block any reforms which would reduce school funding promised in the original deals with Julia Gillard.

New South Wales Coalition education minister, Adrian Piccoli, has led the charge against the changes, saying the commonwealth had signed the deal with his state and it would constitute a broken promise not to honour the agreement.

Birmingham has argued that because different states obtained different agreements, it was unfair on some states, such as South Australia and Western Australia whose students get less per head than students in other states.

The Gonski report recommended all students across the country receive the same baseline funding with loadings for disadvantage. At the time the first deals were signed, it was announced the first round of agreements would be the transitional phase designed to bring all states and territories to similar funding levels.

“I hope as we work through this ... [states] concede it is much better to have a model put in place that is needs-based, treats the states equitably, drives reform and will actually support us in getting the changes to the Act to make sure it is a fair deal,” Birmingham said.

The Coalition has yet to put a deal to the states and territories but Birmingham committed to reveal a final agreement early next year. New funding agreements need to be in place by the end of 2017.