Month: January 2026

As families struggle with rising back to school costs, the Greens have called on Labor to adopt their $800 back to school payments plan, and bring forward their funding commitments for public education to offer direct cost of living relief to families.

A new study from Finder released on Wednesday found parents are spending thousands of dollars on back to school costs each year, including from ‘voluntary’ fees in public schools. On average, it costs $2,847 to send a child to primary school per year, and $5,310 in secondary school. Almost 1 in 3 families in Finder’s study say they can’t afford back to school costs and will have to go into debt, use last year’s supplies/hand me downs, or they kids will go without.

Around 1 in 6 Australian children are now living in poverty (or more than 950,000 children), according to the 2025 Child Poverty in Australia Report (pg8).

Over the next decade, public schools in Australia will be short-changed by $34 billion in funding, despite the government’s claims of fully funding schools. 

Shortfalls in public funding mean parents continue to pay thousands of dollars in fees and classroom expenses just for their kids to attend public school.

At last year’s federal election, the Greens took a plan for $800 back to school payments made to families at the start of the school year for each child attending a public school, to help meet growing out of pocket costs, and a $6.8 billion plan for full funding to save public schools, funded by making big corporations pay their fare share of tax.

The rising cost of public education and increasing child poverty rates show that existing cost of living support is not enough.

Greens spokesperson for Primary and Secondary Education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“Back to school costs are just getting higher and higher every year because Labor and the Liberals are short-changing public schools by billions and shifting the costs onto parents.”

“Australian families should be able to expect a free public education, instead they have ever-higher fees and charges and extensive back to school shopping lists that can add up to thousands of dollars.”

“With 1 in 3 big corporations paying no tax, and almost a million children in Australia living in poverty, something is seriously wrong.”

“When I was a public school teacher, like so many of my colleagues, I regularly spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to dip into my own salary to give students the resources they need, and I know parents do the same.”

“If Labor wanted to stop families from having to pay thousands in school fees, they would implement full funding of schools now, and help struggling families with $800 direct cash back to school payments as the Greens plan has proposed.”

“Every child deserves a free, world-class public education, and that’s what the Greens are committed to delivering.

New quarterly data today shows ‘a landlord’s market’ where rents are yet again at record highs in nearly every capital city in Australia, with Sydney topping the list at $800 a week.

With rental vacancy rates at record lows, Labor’s policies are incentivising wealthy property investors which push property prices up further, and rents are skyrocketing as a result.

The Greens say rather than fueling the housing crisis, Labor should come up with policies that actually deliver affordable housing.

Greens spokesperson for finance, housing and homelessness Senator Barbara Pocock:

“Record high rents across the country are further proof of a housing crisis out of control. People on low and middle incomes can’t afford to live where they want to or anywhere near where they work.

“Renters are literally paying the price for a landlord’s market. While renters reach the limits of what they can pay, the Government gives tax breaks to wealthy property investors. How is that fair?

“This is a system stacked against younger generations and people who haven’t won the intergenerational housing lottery. 

“For decades, successive governments have turbocharged house prices and driven up rents, putting billions of dollars in the pockets of property investors, property developers and the banks. 

“The Government’s $181 billion tax breaks for wealthy investors – via the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing – are locking out first home buyers and forcing rents to skyrocket. They have failed to build public housing.

“This government needs to treat housing as a human right instead of giving billions of tax breaks to wealthy property investors.

“Labor needs to introduce rent caps and invest directly into building good quality homes and renting them to people who need them at prices they can actually afford.”

Today’s announcement that the Lower Murray, including the Coorong and Lower Lakes, will finally be listed as ‘critically endangered’ under Australia’s environment laws is welcome, but  long overdue. This critically endangered listing must now drive urgent, practical action to restore the Coorong and Lower Lakes, prioritise the delivery of the promised environmental water, and uphold First Nations cultural and spiritual connections.​

Senator for SA and Greens spokesperson for the environment and water, Sarah Hanson-Young:

“Decades of over extraction and corporate greed have left South Australia’s River Murray in peril. This listing must be a turning point.

“The listing is long overdue and enormously significant, but with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan due to expire, the new plan must urgently address the critically endangered Lower Murray and Coorong.

“For years, South Australians, First Nations communities, scientists and river communities have been warning that the Murray and the Coorong are being bled dry by upstream over-extraction, corporate greed, and the growing impacts of climate change.

“This listing should mean tougher scrutiny on new irrigation and industrial developments, stronger protections for our waterways and threatened species, and an end to upstream decisions that starve the Coorong and Lower Lakes of the fresh water they need to survive.

“To ensure the health of the river, the full 450 gigalitres that has been promised to South Australia in environmental water must be delivered.

The Victorian Greens are shocked and appalled by reports that an Islamic community leader has been assaulted and racially abused after he and his wife were allegedly forced off the road by perpetrators in Dandenong South.

The reported attack comes amid a disturbing rise in anti-Muslim hate and racially motivated violence across Victoria, with community leaders warning that these incidents are becoming more frequent, more visible and more dangerous. 

The Victorian Greens spokesperson for Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism, Anasina Gray-Barberio, has unequivocally condemned the alleged attack and said urgent action is needed to address the rise of racially motivated hate crimes across the state.

Victorian Greens spokesperson for Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism, Anasina Gray Barberio: 

“Reports that an Islamic community leader and his wife were attacked and driven off the road are shocking and deeply disturbing. 

“This was not an isolated incident. Anti-Muslim hate is rising, driven by white supremacist and far-right extremists who are becoming more emboldened, more organised and more violent. This kind of hatred festers in silence and inaction where it turns into violence and it cannot be ignored. 

“These targeted and disproportionate acts of violence on Muslim-Australians demand more than hollow words, we need urgent and comprehensive action from this Labor Government, so all Victorians are safe, irrespective of their faith, creed or background.”

The Victorian Greens say that new data revealing that Melbourne unit rents have hit an all time high is more proof that Labor’s screwing renters by refusing to implement rent controls. 

With unit rents now sitting at $580 a week, matching house rents for the first time in more than a decade, apartment renters are being forced to pay more for smaller homes with less security, in what’s been labelled a blatant ‘landlord’s market’.

It comes as Melbourne’s rental vacancy remains below 2% leaving renters competing in overcrowded inspections and forced to accept homes that don’t meet their needs and in unfair power dynamics with landlords that leave them paralysed to assert their basic rights out of fear of a massive rent increase. 

Without rent controls, the Greens warn the rental crisis will continue to worsen in Victoria. The ACT remains the only jurisdiction in the country where rental affordability is improving, after rent controls were introduced with the Greens in shared government.

The Victorian Greens spokesperson for Housing and Renting, Gabrielle de Vietri said that apartment rents spiralling is not accidental and that Labor’s special treatment for property developers and investors is why they’ve not intervened while the rental crisis has worsened. 

Victorian Greens spokesperson for Housing and Renting, Gabrielle de Vietri: 

“Labor’s chosen to screw over renters to give special treatment to property developers and investors. Make no mistake, if it’s a landlords market, it’s because Labor’s chosen it to be that way. 

“Four out of five renters in Victoria have copped an unaffordable rent increase in the past two years. Labor has watched and done nothing to make renting more affordable.

“The ACT has shown that rent controls work. It’s the only place where rental affordability is improving. We did it there, and there is no reason Victoria can’t do it too.”

The Opposition was not provided with the legislation prior to the Prime Minister’s announcement. Later today, we will be given the opportunity to review it and will do so carefully. 

We are deeply sceptical of the Prime Minister’s decision to introduce a single bill that will attempt to cover multiple complex and unrelated policy areas, for example issues of speech are clearly separate from the ownership and management of firearms. 

As is so often the case with this Prime Minister, he is squarely focused on what he perceives to be his political interests, not the national interest. This is a political decision, aimed at fostering division – not creating unity.

Just days ago, the Prime Minister was dragged kicking and screaming to a Commonwealth Royal Commission, which is why Australians are right to be cautious when he preaches cooperation but does not practice it.