The saying goes “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” but Labor is determined to ensure it’s the case for Queensland’s school children.
As a fortnight of pre-polling kicks off for the 2024 Queensland election, incumbent Premier Steven Miles has pledged that every school student from Prep to Year 6 would receive free lunches under a re-elected government.
The plan would cost taxpayers $1.4 billion (US$938 million) over four years and would kick in from next year with the possibility of the program being extended into high school.
The move has been criticised by both the opposition and the Greens, who claim Labor copied their policy.
Labor says the plan would save families $1,600 per student per year.
“We all want kids to have the best start in life and they learn best with full tummies,” Miles said.
“It’s universal, to avoid stigmatising the kids that need the food the most, but also to ensure it supports every Queensland family.”
An opt-in system would allow parents to choose to make use of the free lunches for as few or as many days a week as required.
Menus would be created in consultation with dieticians, and there would be access to vegan, gluten-free, and other niche meal options.
National, Greens MPs Criticise Plan
Nationals Member for Hinkler Keith Pitt told Sky News the program would be a “nightmare” for schools to organise.Pitt used the example of Marsden State High School, which has 3,700 students, in questioning how a school could successfully handle that many meals in a 45-minute window, five days a week.
“What they’re trying to do here, is that it’s ‘communism 101,’” he said. “So, they want everyone to rely on the state for a job, they want to rely on the state for their education, they want everyone to rely on the state for the food supply.
“And they want to replace mums, dads, grandmas, grandpas, brothers, and sisters who might make lunches, and help provide them for kids—with public servants.”
Criticism was also levelled at the plan by the Greens, albeit for different reasons.
Greens MP Amy McMahon said their electorates had been offering free lunches for years and highlighted that Labor had only decided to make the offer two weeks out from the election.
A Greens bill for free lunches, introduced in 2021, was shut down by the state government.
Fellow Greens MP Stephen Bates took aim at the “two party system.”
“The shift of Queensland Labor to adopt numerous Greens policies (or float them in the media) shows the power that comes from threatening the two party system,” he wrote on X.
Former Premier’s Concern
The proposal was also criticised by former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman.“It’s not free. It’s paid for by taxpayers,” he wrote on X. “And why should people pay for the ‘free’ lunch of other people’s children?”
Newman said feeding children was the responsibility of parents.
10,000 New Zealand Free Lunches Wasted Each Day
A Treasury report on a similar scheme introduced in New Zealand showed free school lunches led to costly waste.The scheme drew criticism from ACT Party MP David Seymour, who highlighted findings from that report last year.
The Ka Ora Ka Ako school lunches program aimed to provide free meals to 220,000 vulnerable children across the country.
But the Treasury report found around 10,000 meals a day were wasted under the scheme in 2021, a cost of $25 million of uneaten food.
“A loaf of Nature’s Fresh Toast White Bread is $3.80 at Countdown [supermarkets]. $25 million would buy almost 6.6 million loaves. Wasting that kind of money in a cost of living crisis is almost criminal,” the now-deputy prime minister, Seymour, said in a statement last year.
“The vast majority of parents can take care of their own kids. Politicians shouldn’t be taking over the job of parents. It sends the wrong message and undermines personal responsibility.”
