Interactive: How much Gonski money has gone to your school?
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's electorate of New England is among the biggest beneficiaries of additional "Gonski" funding over the past four years and among the likely biggest losers under the Coalition's school funding plan, a Herald analysis can reveal.
Nationals electorates at state and federal level were the biggest winners in the first four years of Gonski funding, receiving on average almost three times the amount that went to their Liberal colleagues' electorates, and more than 1.5 times Labor electorates.
But despite their electorates standing to lose the most from the Coalition's school funding policy, Mr Joyce and the federal Nationals have remained in lockstep with their federal Liberal colleagues on the issue, while NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli has championed the model.
Asked to comment on the Nationals' large share of Gonski funding, Mr Piccoli, a National, said Gonski was designed to go to areas of highest need and make up for historical under-funding which had particularly affected regional areas.
And he slammed the political priorities of the Nationals' federal party leader, Barnaby Joyce.
"I think that the issues that Barnaby Joyce has been prosecuting are off target," said Mr Piccoli, who may lose his long-held portfolio in this week's expected reshuffle.
"The biggest issue in regional NSW is not that there's not enough brands of shotguns to be able to buy or the backpacker tax, it's that our children are underperforming at school - and that's across government, Catholic and independent schools.
"Juvenile detention centres are not filled with kids who went to Riverview and Kings. They're generally from disadvantaged communities that are now the big beneficiaries of Gonski.
"This is so good for regional electorates," he said.
The revelation comes as a deadline for finding a new funding deal looms, with no certainty for schools over how funds will be distributed from next January.
The federal government is planning to slash by around $3 billion the money that was to go to schools nationally for the final two years of Gonski from next year, but faces a hostile Senate and a fight with states including NSW.
The Prime Minister and premiers must reach a new deal before the May budget.
The Herald's analysis of four years of NSW Department of Education data revealed almost $505 million in additional funding has flowed to NSW public schools since 2014 under the Gonski model.
The average received by federal Nationals electorates in NSW over the four years to 2017 was $18.3 million, compared with $11.2 million for the ALP and $6.7 million for the Liberal party.
Schools in Mr Joyce's electorate of New England received almost $21 million in additional funding from 2014-2017; second in NSW only to Parkes, held by Mr Joyce's Nationals colleague Mark Coulton, which received $29.6 million.
The NSW federal electorates that received the lowest amount were the inner Sydney electorates of Wentworth, which received $2.4 million (held by Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull), and three ALP seats: Grayndler (Anthony Albanese); Kingsford Smith (Matt Thistlethwaite); and Sydney (Tanya Plibersek).
Of the 10 NSW federal electorates that received the least additional funding, seven were held by Liberals.
At state level, the biggest beneficiaries are all Nationals electorates, with seven of the top 10 held by Nationals MPs.
The state electorate receiving the smallest funding boost was Sydney, held by independent Alex Greenwich.
On average, Nationals state electorates received $8.8 million, more than twice the $3.8 million average for Liberal electorates and well above the $6 million average for ALP electorates.
Mr Piccoli said he briefed the federal Nationals' party room on the benefits of the model to their electorates when they were in opposition.
There appears to be strong support at the party's grass roots level for the Gonski model, with the Young Nationals putting up successful motions to back it at the party's national conference on at least two occasions, the Herald understands.
Mr Joyce's office said he was travelling to attend the G20 agricultural ministers meeting in Berlin this week and was not available for comment.
The needs-based funding formula was designed to direct additional funding to areas of particular disadvantage and to make up for historical under-funding, giving schools the resources to employ specialists, extra teachers or run tailored programmes.
Remoteness, economic disadvantage and indigeneity attract extra funding per student, which is a key reason Nationals' electorates tend to do so well.
Gonski funding was supposed to sharply increase in 2018 and 2019, after building slowly from 2014 to 2017.
Instead the federal government has committed just $1.2 billion nationally in additional funds for schools for four years from 2018 onwards, considerably less than the $4.5 billion Labor claims it would have delivered under the "full Gonski". The government says Labor never found the money in the budget to fund that policy.
The Liberals lost three Sydney seats that polled strongly on Gonski support to Labor in last year's federal election, suggesting there could be electoral vulnerabilities for the Nationals if the Coalition implements its plan to significantly cut the flow of additional funding to schools.
