Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has confirmed that agreements have been reached with Western Australia on disability care and with Victoria on schools funding, clearing two major hurdles as speculation continues about when he will call the federal election.
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This comes as Education Minister Bill Shorten said that an election would be called "some time very soon," lending weight to reports that Mr Rudd would pull the trigger for a September 7 poll.
On Sunday morning on his way to church, Mr Rudd announced he had reached a deal with WA on DisabilityCare Australia that will include two pilot projects.
The Prime Minister said he had spoken to WA Premier Colin Barnett on Saturday night.
"WA is now going to participate in the DisabilityCare Australia scheme," he said.
"I thank the WA Premier for getting on board with our national approach."
He said there were some "unique features" to the WA scheme but has not yet provided details.
The first stage of DisabilityCare launched in July. Until today, all other states and territories had signed on to the scheme except WA.
Mr Rudd also announced that he had spoken to Victorian Premier Denis Napthine on Sunday morning and that Victoria had agreed to sign up to the Better Schools funding deal. Victoria now joins NSW, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT who have already signed up.
"As of this morning we have reached agreement and Victoria will now sign up to the Better Schools Plan for Australia and that is a really good outcome for the school kids of Australia and the school kids of Victoria," Mr Rudd said.
Victorian schools will receive an extra $12.2 billion over the next six years under the agreement reached with the federal government. The Commonwealth will contribute $6.8 billion over six years and Victoria will contribute $5.4 billion.
On Sunday in Melbourne, Mr Shorten said that calling of the election was not hinging on the Victorian schools announcement.
"That's the prerogative of the Prime Minister," Mr Shorten said of the election date.
He said the plan guaranteed “six years certainty” for parents of children at government and non government schools.
"We are very pleased that even when we know there’ll be an election called sometime very soon, we know that, we are very pleased that the Victorian government has stepped away from the politics and said 'listen, we think that Labor’s deal is a good deal," he said.
Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said if the federal government offered Queensland the same deal on school funding as Victoria, then he would sign it today.
"I'm prepared to stay here at Parliament House and sign up today on behalf of Queensland," said Mr Langbroek, who was in Brisbane.
Queensland had been refusing to sign up to the Better Schools funding deal despite long negotiations with Mr Shorten.
But Mr Langbroek was persuaded to change his mind on Sunday by Victorian Premier Denis Napthine's announcement that the Rudd government had agreed to let Victorian schools set their own direction – a significant concession on the original deal.
A spokeswoman for Mr Shorten on Sunday welcomed the move by Mr Langbroek.
Earlier Mr Shorten, who went to Queensland last week to try to convince the state to sign up to the schools funding, said Queensland was on a "frolic of its own and did not want to put its own money up the way the other states had.
"I'm pessimistic about Queensland to be honest," he said.
Earlier this weekend, Mr Rudd and Mr Shorten had indicated that negotiations with Victoria on schools funding were not going to plan.
"We thought we had an agreement in recent days, now they seem to be playing politics with Tony Abbott and not willing to agree. At least I don't know what the precise outcome of that is going to be,’’ Mr Rudd said on Saturday.
On Saturday, Mr Rudd appeared to hose down reports that he was about to call election for September 7, saying that he was "busy in the business of government".
Mr Rudd identified negotiations with both WA and Victoria as two key pieces of business left to deal with before the government went into caretaker mode.
He also singled out negotiations with New South Wales on environmental assessment procedures. ‘‘Now, these three negotiations haven't reached conclusion yet, so we have a few things to attend to yet and so therefore on your question, I've made no determination whatsoever in terms of the date of an election,’’ he said.
Mr Rudd is in Brisbane on Sunday morning with no public events planned. His office has not confirmed where he will be on Sunday afternoon.He has until Monday to call an election for September 7, although as recently as yesterday indicated he still planned to attend the G20 Summit on September 5-6 in Russia.
"It’s my intention to be in St Petersburg but I’m very mindful also of the other challenges which lie ahead of us as well," he told reporters from Brisbane on Saturday.
The Victorian news on schools funding follows a surprise backflip by the Coalition on Friday, when it pledged to match Labor's schools offer "dollar for dollar" without forcing them to contribute money or cede control over their schools.
Despite previously vowing to scrap the school funding reforms unless there was national agreement, Mr Abbott pledged to match the extra $2.9 billion in funding committed by Labor over the next four years in a bid to neutralise education as an election issue.
Until Sunday, NSW was the only Coalition-led state to have signed on to the funding deal. Queensland, WA and Northern Territory are still resisting the federal government's calls to sign up to the Better Schools plan.
With Jewel Topsfield and Jonathan Swan
