A family with two kids in a public school would be almost $2,500 better off every year under the Greens plan to make public schools truly free, and also provide $800 \u2018back to school\u2019 payments to parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a minority Parliament looming and the Greens holding three seats in inner-city Brisbane, the announcement is the latest in the series of the Greens\u2019 \u2018Robin Hood reforms\u2019 that will be put on the table in any post-election negotiations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP will make the announcement today at Coorparoo State School in the electorate of Griffith, alongside Greens spokesperson for Primary & Secondary Education Senator Penny Allman-Payne and Griffith MP Max Chandler-Mather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bold cost-of-living package would see an annual payment of $800 made to families at the start of the school year for each child attending a public school, helping to meet growing out-of-pocket costs like uniforms, technology and school supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in order to abolish public school fees and charges and help reverse the cost-shifting that has occurred under Labor and Liberal governments, additional funding of $2.4 billion over the forward estimates will be given to public schools. This is on top of the 100% Schooling Resource Standard funding commitment previously announced<\/u><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Public school fees, charges and contributions rose 20.58% from 2021 to 2022, and school supplies are set to cost an estimated<\/u><\/a> $694 for primary school children and $1,149 for secondary students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This massive cash boost for working families would be funded by making big corporations pay their fair share of tax. The previously announced Big Corporations Tax frees up $514 billion across the decade to help fund dental & mental health into Medicare, a cap on rent increases & low-rate mortgages, and the Greens\u2019 plan to see the GP for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn a wealthy country like ours, everyone should be able to afford the basics: a home, food, and world class health and education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cParents are forking out thousands on \u2018voluntary\u2019 fees, uniforms and out of pocket costs, but meanwhile 1 in 3 big corporations pays no tax. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGovernments are underfunding our public schools and shifting the costs onto parents already struggling with the cost of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can\u2019t keep voting for the same two parties and expecting a different result. If Brisbane voters return their Greens MPs, they can keep Peter Dutton out and get Labor to act on the cost of living crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen a nurse pays more tax than a multinational corporation, something is wrong. Taxing the big corporations to fully fund our public schools, scrapping so-called \u2018voluntary\u2019 fees and securing back to school payments will be on the table in a minority Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the last shared power Parliament, the Greens saved families thousands by getting dental into Medicare for kids, and now we want more relief for people doing it tough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greens spokesperson on primary and secondary education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPublic school should be free, but families are having to dig deeper and deeper as fees have increased and the cost of uniforms, school supplies and education technology has soared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe situation is so bad that teachers are increasingly having to dip into their own pockets to pay for classroom basics that many families simply can\u2019t afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I was a teacher I regularly spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of my own salary to give my students the resources they needed, and I know parents do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery child deserves a free, world-class public education, and that\u2019s what the Greens are committed to delivering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGetting your child ready for the school year is always a hassle, but it shouldn\u2019t cost thousands of dollars, and our public schools shouldn\u2019t need to rely on the generosity of parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPublic schools typically get more than $400 from parents for each student enrolled – not because they want to charge fees, but because they aren\u2019t adequately funded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWorld-class public education is the foundation of a strong and caring society, and it should be accessible to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greens MP for Griffith Max Chandler-Mather:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFamilies in my electorate of Griffith paid over $14 million in public school fees and charges in 2023. That\u2019s about $500 per child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt a school like Balmoral State High School, parents paid nearly $1,500 in fees per student. At Whites Hill State College it was over $2,000. That\u2019s not the fault of the schools but of systemic underfunding from our governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFamiles here care deeply about their local public schools, but at the moment it\u2019s getting harder and harder to afford even a public education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy is it in a wealthy country like Australia, we let 1 in 3 big corporations get away with paying no tax, but we can\u2019t even provide free public education? Getting your child ready for the school year is always a hassle, but it shouldn\u2019t cost thousands of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A family with two kids in a public school would be almost $2,500 better off every year under the Greens plan to make public schools truly free, and also provide $800 \u2018back to school\u2019 payments to parents. With a minority Parliament looming and the Greens holding three seats in inner-city Brisbane, the announcement is the … Continue reading “Families $2,500 better off under Greens plan for \u201cback-to-school\u201d payments and abolishing public school fees”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31008,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31007\/revisions\/31008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}