Gonski a fight over false figures and never-never funding The Gillard Government just makes up another number - as it did with the "10,000" rorted 457 visas - to flog a scare: Labor's central claim that Abbott's opposition to Gonski's changes will cost schools $16.2 billion over six years is based on the extrapolation of a hypothetical and is still not justified or explained. School Education Minister Peter Garrett has confused the education funding debate by arbitrarily announcing funding growth to be 3 per cent for the next six years, airily claiming this is standard budgetary practice. What's more, his claim the budget papers "clearly show" this fall to 3 per cent is plain wrong - they say "had" they fallen to this level, a hypothetical. Paul Kelly is right to warn Abbott about the poor politics of picking a fight over school funding with not just Gillard but a Liberal premier: Abbott visited NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell and tried to persuade him not to sign up. O'Farrell, backed by his cabinet, rebuffed Abbott. O'Farrell told Sky News" Australian Agenda on Sunday "the existing funding formula is broken" and "unfair." A direct repudiation of Abbott. But Abbott cannot slide into office just promising to do Labor things, but better. Spending is out of control. He cannot sign up to spend as much as Labor. But Kelly says he shouldn't worry - the real spending hit only comes in his second term: The budget boasted an extra $9.8 billion from the national government for schools across six years. But only $2.9bn falls in the next four years of forward estimates. The bulk comes in 2017-18 and 2018-19, well into the second term of any theoretical Abbott government. Yet these ballpark numbers grossly exaggerate the new funding. Across the forward estimates Labor is redirecting to Gonski funds a series of five national funding plans worth $2.1bn. So the extra Gonski money is more like $800 million across four years. That's no revolution. The Gonski funds come very slowly. Yet they do come.