(Australia Twitter)-Prime Minister Julia Gillard says education and training will be the budget's top priority, as she unveiled a new plan to help thousands of students with disabilities.
A week out from the federal budget, Ms Gillard visited a Canberra primary school to announce a $200 million plan for more speech and occupational therapy, technology, teacher aides, health professionals and specialised curriculums.
The payment -- varying from $8100 for experienced teachers to $5400 for those starting out -- would be based on NAPLAN test results, lesson observations and parental feedback.
No new details about the policy were released yesterday but Mr Garrett said the intention was to clarify the government's commitment to the scheme ahead of next week's budget.
She recognised that she had "a lot of hard work to do as prime minister".
"We've got a lot of hard work to do as a government and we'll get on with doing that work," Ms Gillard said.
Australian Primary Principals Association president Norm Hart said they welcomed additional investment in teaching but had concerns about the way the bonus scheme would be calculated.
All public and private schools that teach disabled students will be eligible for a share of the money, which will flow from early next year until mid-2014, when new school funding arrangements begin to take effect.
Mr Abbott said the funding was a "small step towards addressing a very big problem"
Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said the government was mistaken in thinking a one-off bonus was the right approach in retaining good teachers and addressing staff shortages.
"It is not a long-term solution to the problems we have," he said. Mr Gavrielatos said a similar scheme in the US "failed spectacularly.
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