AAP
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has challenged the states and territories to commit to a three per cent rise in school spending each year, ahead of the federal budget.
The government is banking on a "Labor values" budget focusing on jobs and growth, with education at its heart, to resuscitate its flagging standing with voters ahead of the September 14 election.
Following an "appalling" week for the party, Ms Gillard headed to Perth on Tuesday and visited a Catholic school, ahead of a community cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Her visit coincided with a Newspoll showing Labor's primary vote down four points to 30 per cent in the past fortnight and the opposition up six points to 50 per cent.
If an election were held now Labor would face an eight per cent swing which, based on 2010 preference flows, could cost it around 35 seats and deliver a landslide victory to coalition leader Tony Abbott.
Labor is now counting on a deal with the premiers and territory leaders at April's Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting to give it a vote-winning education policy.
Ms Gillard said it was becoming clear in talks with education officials ahead of COAG the states were cutting schools funding.
"Those cutbacks not only hurt directly but they actually affect the indexation funding formula for the future," she said.
"So I've got a clear message to state governments around the nation, and that is to stop the cutbacks and it's also to properly index their funding for the future. They should be offering an indexation arrangement of at least three per cent for the future."
Ms Gillard said she didn't need a poll to tell her voters were appalled by last Thursday's extraordinary events, which began with Simon Crean's call for a leadership spill and ended with Kevin Rudd declining to challenge.
Four senior ministers - including the sacked Mr Crean - moved to the backbench, forcing Ms Gillard to reshuffle her ministry.
"For us that week is over. The government has always had a sense of purpose - now it has a sense of unity," she said.
Campaigning in the western Sydney seat of Chifley, Mr Abbott said the coalition was taking nothing for granted.
"The Labor party are hopeless at government but they are brilliant at low politics and that is why we will be working hard every single day between now and the election," he told reporters at a fruit market.
Ms Gillard will attend Wednesday's community cabinet meeting in the marginal Perth seat of Hasluck, held by the Liberals.
Labor holds three of 15 seats in WA and is likely to contest another two - Hasluck and Swan.
New cabinet minister Gary Gray, who holds the WA seat of Brand, believes Labor can recover and pointed to the party's predicament in late 1992 under Paul Keating.
"What the Labor party did was retreat to its own core values, produce its own policy framework and win in 1993," he said.
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