Australian Greens Push for Free School Lunches

Left-wing Greens asks the government to provide free school lunches as living costs soar. Shutterstock

The Greens party in South Australia is calling for free school lunches for students saying it will ease child poverty and cost of living pressures.

Greens education spokesperson Robert Simms said that with thousands of South Australian families living in poverty and the cost of living continuing to soar, the government should be doing everything to provide relief.

“Free school lunches would reduce pressure on parents, improve educational outcomes and ensure that every South Australian child has access to healthy, nutritious food,” Simms said in a statement on Aug. 15.

He said it would help address poverty across the state.

“With so many families doing it tough, now really is the time for the government to back a bold plan like this,” he said.

The move comes after research from Flinders University found that school-provided meals were popular with Australian parents, with 86 percent polled supporting it.

The Greens pointed to the October 2020 study—“Stakeholder generated ideas for alternative school food provision models in Australia using the nominal group technique”—to support the campaign.

Co-author of the study Professor Rebecca Golley said the universal school-provided lunch model could help to ensure all children have access to food at school.

“It could reduce the stigma of children not having lunch or having different types of foods to their peers,” Golley said.

“By children being provided with healthy meals at school, we think it will help children to concentrate in the classroom and support their learning.”

Not Really ‘Free’

While welfare appears desirable to many, the population’s dependence on the government lays down the foundation for an autocratic government, according to the Epoch Times Special Publication How the Spectre of Communism is Ruling the World.

“It is unsustainable, as people want to benefit from free services more than they pay into them,” the authors said.

In May, U.S. schools receiving federal funding for meals were confronted with a new rule that seeks to block funding for schools that don’t follow the government’s gender-identity policies.

The government issued a notice that schools must update their policies to include new protections related to sexual orientation and gender identity.

Organisations that receive federal meal funding must update their policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. They must also investigate complaints of discrimination against such groups to the federal government’s satisfaction.

In the last state election, the Australian Greens also campaigned for free breakfasts and lunches in school, with a bill of $614 million (US$435 million) to be footed by taxpayers.