You can't give a Gonski if you don't get Gonski

No, they have to come up with a different narrative and policy. Christopher Pyne has given it a shot, and some of what he has been talking about is important, much of it coming from the Grattan Institute's Ben Jensen. He has focused on teacher quality, training and ongoing professional development, drawing on the (often misreported) example of Shanghai. And yes, teachers do need recognition for their work and do need to be treated as a profession. He has also questioned the focus on class sizes, although he needs to explain what is coming across as a commitment to increase them. Try telling that to teachers in disadvantaged schools and in early childhood where small classes are important.

Like most politicians he pitches his suggestions on the assumption that his ideas are new and can't be found in any existing school or system. Who can forget how Bob Carr single-handedly invented homework in the mid 1990s and Kevin Rudd must surely be the father of computers. But his narrative really comes apart on many important issues. In July he dismissed the idea of higher salaries for teachers although he recently changed his tune on that score. Perhaps he discovered that higher teacher salaries really are associated with high school system performance.

His pitch on equity is alarmingly wrong, claiming that "there isn't actually an issue in Australian schools that revolves around equity". He comes to this stunning conclusion by excluding the impact of school socio-educational status. Differences in school SES are created by the school choices of those with money to pay fees - and he certainly won't go find a problem in that. Sure, there are the residualised schools they leave behind, the argument goes - but it is their job to lift their remaining kids and their fault if they don't. Pyne and Gillard are driven by the same script. Says Christopher Pyne: "it's not about equity, it's about the outcomes of our poor students who aren't being given the right education in the first place."

After all, his narrative continues, "the greatest determinants of the outcome of students is the parental involvement in their children's lives at school". In this way he tries to skew the whole family/school equity issue to one of parental involvement which is, would you believe, more commonly found in autonomous schools. Hence, in his view of the world "it's about principal autonomy, it's about the independence that teachers have to teach, it's about governing council control of schools." He scores one of those three correct. As a consequence of all this "that's why in the non-government school systems students tend to perform better".

If Christopher Pyne has read the Gonski review and its contributing research then his statements are deliberately misleading. But it is kinder and probably more accurate to assume that he has not done his homework. Why should he? The education policy trail shows that statements of belief are far more powerful than statements of evidence for politicians of all colour. It is also far easier to find out about Gonski through the eyes of his preferred school system allies, keen to white-ant the findings, the recommendations and soon, the legislation.

In his comments about justice and each school sector's funding share he not only showed ignorance of Gonski but of the very nature of public and private education. School systems don't get a share of funding in proportion to their enrolment and never will. We don't have two comparable and competing systems with equal calls on funding. It is not some neo-liberal's fantasy. What we have is a public system with schools which must be available for all kids – and various private schools which might be available to some if they can jump through the hoops, especially represented by fees. The public funding needs of these two groups of schools are very different.

The shame of the Opposition's antics is that they have the potential to bury the whole school funding problem. What was a school sector-neutral report and the beginnings of a sector-neutral debate and search for sector-neutral solutions is now degenerating into more of the unproductive debate that we have had for decades. The risk that the Opposition faces is that attempts to undermine this important reform process is that there is now a critical mass of opinion and awareness about the issue that might pass harsh judgment on any political party that refuses to face up to the need for change.