Greens begin week-long ‘retain Brisbane bender’ with promise for free school lunches
Greens leader Adam Bandt will spend his week in Queensland, seeking to sandbag the party’s three seats of Griffith, Ryan and Brisbane and announcing the Greens would push to establish a free school lunches program in the next term of parliament.
Party insiders say this election is a test for the Greens, since it has had limited previous experience fighting to retain marginal lower house seats at elections.
“Adam is going on a retain Brisbane bender,” the party insider said.
The Greens believe they are on track to hold Max Chandler-Mather’s seat of Griffith and Elizabeth Watson-Brown’s seat of Ryan.
The seat of Brisbane held by Stephen Bates remains a three-cornered contest between the Greens, Labor and the Liberals, and the result on voting day may come down to preference flows as to whether the Greens can hold on — though the party is hopeful of a win there too.
Adam Bandt will visit Queensland to help shore up Greens-held seats there. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
In a sign of how close the fight may be, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton spent his Monday in the three Greens electorates, with both Ryan and Brisbane held by the Coalition until 2022.
Greens serve up ‘free lunch’ scheme
Mr Bandt will spend Tuesday in Griffith with Mr Chandler-Mather, who will “flip jaffles” at a barbecue event with school children, spruiking an $11.6 billion plan to guarantee every child in public schooling has a free lunch available to them.
Since he was elected in 2022 Mr Chandler-Mather has used his generous MP salary to pay for a weekly breakfast program in four public schools in his Griffith electorate.
The party says his office has served 40,000 free school meals since 2022.
Max Chandler-Mather is fighting to retain his seat of Griffith. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Now the party wants to spread that across thousands of schools at an average cost of $7.20 per meal, which is based on the costs of the Tasmanian School Lunch Project.
The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that would cost about $11.6 billion in the measure’s first two and a half years and $48 billion over the decade.
Mr Bandt said the cost of living relief was not a “band-aid” offering, but something that could last.
“Imagine sending your kids off to school and knowing they would get a nutritious lunch, and one you didn’t have to pay and prepare yourself,” Mr Bandt said.
“Teachers report kids who get a good meal concentrate better and learn better, and it’s a huge relief for parents as well.
“We’re getting reports from teachers that they’re dipping into their own pockets to cover many essentials for students in the classroom because many parents are struggling to make ends meet.”
Mr Bandt added the Greens wanted to pay for school kids’ lunches, while the Coalition was promising to subsidise lunches “for CEOs”.
‘We take nothing for granted’
After spending Tuesday in Griffith, Mr Bandt will then head to Ms Watson-Brown’s seat of Ryan on Wednesday before ending his week in Mr Bates’s seat of Brisbane.
The Greens leader said the party was not expecting an easy fight.
“I know after I first got elected in Melbourne in 2010 the major parties threw everything at it to try and get the seat back, there were preference arrangements between Labor and Liberal and they came at it,” he said.
“By having MPs in Brisbane [it] has delivered $3.5 billion extra for public and community housing, won people the right to disconnect … but we take nothing for granted.”
The Greens hope to negotiate on a number of key policies they have put forward if the government is forced into minority at the May 3 poll.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ruled out governing in coalition with the Greens, and may be able to secure confidence to govern without the Greens if the party falls just a few seats short of a majority.
Even if Labor is able to secure a lower house majority, it will still have to negotiate with the Greens in the Senate over the next parliamentary term.
High on its agenda is for dental services to be included in Medicare, the establishment of free and universal childcare, an end to native forest logging and winding back tax concessions to property investors — specifically negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts.
Since there is no such thing as a free lunch, the party says it would fund its policies by raising hundreds of billions from large companies and billionaires.
