Thank you to Val Majkus for the link to his scholarly paper by Hinz and Galligan, University of Melbourne.   I've printed the first page of the speech notes - it's not a long paper but eminently worth a few minutes of your time.   You'll find the whole paper here.

The essence is that Gonski's report said leave it to the states.   The High Court says leave it to the states.   But then along comes Ms perpetual fight club - and we have a stoush in which a grovelling photo opportunity becomes the condition precedent to the extra funding. 

The way this Gonski business has been handled is simply rank.   The money is there apparently, it's budgetted for apparently - yet the key determinant as to whether a child's school is funded or not turns on a Premier's willingness to "sign up" for Gillard's "reform".   Oh and that leap of faith that a centralised bureaucracy in Canberra will get it right all of the time.