Voters in marginal seats across NSW are set to abandon the federal government over its refusal to fund the final two years of Gonski funding, a new poll shows.
Polling of up to 4000 voters in six marginal seats, undertaken by ReachTEL on behalf of the NSW Teachers Federation, found that up to three times as many people believed the federal government should continue funding Gonski as those who opposed the funding model.
It is the first poll of the key education issue ahead of the expected election on July 2.
The needs-based funding model directs taxpayer dollars to schools in low socio-economic areas. Funding the final two years of the reforms to 2018, at the cost of about $4.5 billion, has been Labor policy since January.
The issue has driven a wedge between federal and state Coalition ministers in the lead-up to the federal election. State ministers have been urging the federal government to match Labor and commit to funding the last years of the six-year plan.
Voters in the bellwether electorate of Eden-Monaro overwhelmingly support the Gonski reforms.
The plan has an approval rating of up to 60 per cent. More than 30 per cent of respondents said that if the reforms were not continued in the budget, they would be less likely to support the Coalition.
Up to 36 per cent of Liberal voters polled in the seat supported the reforms.
That is despite the government's refusal to embrace the model since it was abandoned by former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2014. The seat is currently held by Liberal MP Peter Hendy, on a margin of less than 4 per cent.
The pattern is replicated across the surveyed electorates. More than 50 per cent of voters in Dobell, Gilmore, Lindsay and Macquarie support Gonski funding, with those opposing the reforms numbering fewer than 17 per cent. All are held on margins of less than 5 per cent.
Voters in the redistributed seat of Page also support Gonski.
The poll comes after the stalemate over schools funding continued at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in March, with no commitment to future funding from the federal government despite a $2.9 billion hospital funding boost.
The federal government had proposed giving states full control of school funding to neuter the Gonski debate, but the idea was roundly rejected by all but one of the nation's premiers.
A separate Essential Media poll released on Tuesday found that idea had failed to gain traction with the public, with only 29 per cent approving Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's intentions to hand over responsibility for public school funding.
In March, NSW Premier Mike Baird showed the first signs of compromising on the Gonski funding agreement by giving the federal government the option of stretching out funding over four years, reducing the immediate burden on the federal budget.
"We are not asking them to spend money they don't have," Mr Baird said. "You have to be reasonable in what you are proposing. There are difficult decisions to be made in terms of the ongoing sustainability of the federal budget."
On Wednesday, the NSW Teachers Federation President Maurie Mulheron said the poll results show the public clearly backed the funding model.
"We know that students around the state are getting enormous benefit from the investment of extra funding coming to our schools," he said.
