‘‘Following negotiations with Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory the government has secured a national agreement on school funding,’’ Mr Abbott said. As a result, the Abbott government will inject a further $1.2 billion into schools over the next four years. Education Minister Christopher Pyne and Prime Minister Tony Abbott address the media at Parliament House. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen This was money that Labor had earmarked for three jurisdictions, but had to withdraw because they did not sign deals with the previous education minister Bill Shorten. Mr Abbott said the Coalition had identified $1.2 billion worth of cuts to cover the new spending. The cuts would be revealed when the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook was released later in December, the Prime Minister said. Monday’s announcement was the Coalition’s third backflip on education policy within the past six months.

Throughout its term in opposition, the Coalition, and in particular then shadow education minister Christopher Pyne, had referred to the Gonski scheme as a “con-ski”. But during the election campaign Mr Abbott and Mr Pyne shocked many when they announced they would match Labor’s school funding program dollar for dollar for the next four years and that no school would be worse off under an Abbott government. Mr Abbott used the campaign announcement to nullify education as a policy weakness for the Coalition, allowing him to say he was on a “unity ticket” with Labor on education. Then, last week, Mr Pyne described Labor’s education funding deals as a “shambles” and said the Abbott government would match the deals for only one year. But the Education Minister would not repeat his pre-election promise that no school would be worse off under the Coalition. After a week of damaging headlines, in which even the NSW Coalition government attacked the Abbott government for its broken promises on education, Mr Abbott and Mr Pyne reversed their position once again.

''What the Commonwealth is doing means that no school, state or territory can be worse off because of the Commonwealth’s actions,” Mr Pyne said during Monday’s press conference. NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell welcomed the government's reversal, writing on Twitter that it was a “great decision on education by PM. Demonstrates he listens & ... will work with the states on national issues. ”Mr Abbott promised on Monday that he would stick to the exact terms of the deals already struck with NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, but suggested the new deals struck with Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory would come with no requirements that the states and territory guarantee funding. Loading

“We would certainly regard it as very poor form for the states to reduce their funding because they're getting extra funding from the Commonwealth,” Mr Abbott said. “[But] we don't want to micromanage the states. We don't want to try to run public schools out of Canberra, and that was the problem with the original deal that the former government did.”