THE FEDERAL Labor Government has committed a further $15.1 billion in an effort to stimulate the economy and drive national reforms in a new funding deal with the states and territories.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the new spending package agreed yesterday by the Council of Australian Governments would generate 133,000 jobs over four to five years.
ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope welcomed the Federal Government's spending commitments, saying the ACT Government would receive an extra $200 million over the next four years to support health and education service delivery.
The spending package is significantly more than the $11billion initially put on the table by the Federal Government, with the figure being negotiated up by at least a couple of billion at yesterday's meeting.
Mr Rudd said the Federal Government would be able to fund the new deal and still maintain a ''modest'' budget surplus.
A new $64.4billion health funding agreement for the states and territories includes an annual escalation clause of 7.3 per cent, up from 5.3 per cent under the Howard government. The states and territories had sought annual increases of 9 per cent, but expressed considerable satisfaction with the outcome.
The Council of Australian Governments agreed on a new $42.4billion national education agreement, a $3.6billion increase over the previous funding arrangements.
''A core condition for this new partnership ... is in bringing about a new era of public transparency in the reporting of schools and their performance across the nation'', Mr Rudd said.
Agreement was also reached on a national partnership program to boost teacher quality.
Mr Rudd said there needed to be a new emphasis on leadership in public schools ''so that school principals become change agents for the future, particularly those schools that are in the most disadvantaged parts of Australia''.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the new agreements would stop a decade-long slide in federal health funding, while Victorian Premier John Brumby said he was pleased the additional funding was tied to specific, measurable outcomes. ''In other words, more money in, more treatments going out ... more patients being treated'', Mr Brumby said.
Mr Rudd pointed out that over the past year the Council of Australian Governments had reduced 96 specific purpose payment agreements down to just five, ''driven by a rigorous commitment to the measurement of the actual outcomes, outputs, results that we achieve through these agreements''.
''This is one of the largest reforms to the structure of Commonwealth-State relations that we have had in the recent history of federation'', Mr Rudd said.''
South Australian Premier Mike Rann contrasted yesterday's outcomes with his experience under the previous federal government.
''What happened today could not have happened 18 months ago because the issue of health care reform was banned from discussion at COAG meetings'', he said.
The Australian Education Union welcomed the additional funding for schools, but said it fell ''well short of what we had hoped for''.