2 weeks Ago By Fraser Barton
Flipping toasties with kids at a Brisbane park, the Greens have turned up the heat on their plan to provide free school meals. Login or signup to continue reading Party leader Adam Bandt, Senator Penny Allman-Payne and prominent MP Max Chandler-Mather were out on a warm but wet morning at Hanlon Park in Greenslopes, meeting with families over freshly made tomato and cheese toasties. Mr Chandler-Mather already runs a free breakfast program across four schools in his Griffith electorate, funded from his parliamentary salary.
The initiative has served 40,000 free breakfasts across Griffith with the help of volunteers. "Kids can't learn if they're hungry - simple as that," he said. "The Greens will tax billionaires and big corporations to make sure that every single kid in this country goes to school with a good meal in their belly.
" At a cost of $11.6 billion across four years, Mr Chandler-Mather said the Greens' plan to provide free lunches at every public school paled in comparison to tax handouts for property investors in the next decade, valued at $176 billion. Existing free breakfast programs at schools across the nation would also be expanded under an $85 million annual investment, the Greens said.
"All the Greens are saying is every kid deserves that opportunity, and if it means $11 billion and a little less in big profits for Gina Rinehart and the big corporations, so be it," Mr Chandler-Mather said. While the Greens leader, Mr Chandler-Mather and Senator Allman-Payne pushed their free lunch policy, the trio left journalists hungry on other election topics during a brief press conference. Mr Chandler-Mather faces a battle to retain his seat after Queenslanders turned away from the Greens at the state level in October's election.
Recent polling suggests Labor is on track to form majority government at the May 3 election. Mr Bandt said any improvement in the government's fortunes was because of the rising green vote. "Between (Anthony) Albanese and Peter Dutton, it's the battle of the band-aids," he said.
"At the moment, it's not only what those polls are reflecting, but it's what people are telling us as well. "The economists and the experts are now calling it out too. They're calling out dumpster fire policies from Labor and Liberals .
.. and I think that's part of the reason you're seeing those results in those polls.
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