Victorian Education Minister James Merlino has attacked his Federal counterpart over a letter demanding an agreement be reached regarding schools funding.
Mr Merlino publically released a letter he received from Dan Tehan, the Federal Education Minister. In the letter, Mr Tehan warns Mr Merlino that the Federal Government would be unable to provide funding to private and public schools for early 2019 unless a fresh deal was agreed to before the 7th of December.
Mr Merlino called it a āclumsy and unprecedented threatā.
However, Mr Tehan has responded saying that the letter was released āfor political purposesā and that Victoria was the only state that was casting doubt over negotiations regarding education funding.
He said that no other education minister has brought up a problem with the letter and that he thinks Mr Merlino āwants to play politicsā.
The Government was already close to finalising a funding deal before announcing a 4.5 billion funding boost to the private school sector.
That announcement has put funding negotiations into shambles and Mr Merlino said in a statement that because Mr Tehan was still new in the role as Education Minister he ādoesnāt understand where negotiations are up toā.
He added that Mr Tehan was āessentially holding a gun to the head of states and territoriesā and that if he was really concerned about education he would āprovide fair funding for every childā instead of inventing solutions āthat pit one sector against the otherā.
Tanya Plibersek, Laborās education spokeswoman, said that the Government was using ābully boy tacticsā and that āthis is a new low even for Scott Morrisonā.
She added that āParents and teachers are right to be furiousā.