16 April 2025

The Greens candidate for Cunningham Jess Whittaker has called for free school meals to be rolled out across the country in a move benefiting dozens of schools across the electorate.

The Greens have unveiled a costed plan that would see every public school funded to provide a nutritious lunch to every student. The commitment has been costed at $11.6b and would be in addition to the Greens' promise to invest $85m annually to expand existing free breakfast programs in schools across Australia.

In addition to alleviating cost-of-living pressures, school meals have been shown to improve kids’ attendance, classroom attention, cognition, academic performance, social skills, nutrition and overall health. They’re also a significant preventive action for youth crime, keeping vulnerable kids in school and out of the youth justice system.

The Greens' pledge comes on the back of Griffith MP Max Chandler-Mather using his own parliamentary salary to fund 40,000 free school meals across a weekly breakfast program in four public schools in his electorate.

Jess, a mum and paramedic, said the policy would be a multifaceted boost to the nearly 50 public schools across Cunningham.

"This is an awesome universal program which will benefit dozens of public schools and thousands of public school students in Cunningham," Jess said.

“This program will provide some relief to cost-of-living pressures for families, improve the health and well-being of our kids and help level the playing field for our most disadvantaged students.

"I know as a mum how important it is to send my kids to school with a nutritious lunch. Kids learn better on a full stomach; it improves their attention and helps them to engage and get the most out of school.

This policy extends on the Greens positive plan for public schools, which includes abolishing public school fees and charges to make public schools genuinely free; fully-funding public schools to 100% Schooling Resource Standard in 2026; and an annual back-to-school payment of $800 made to families at the start of the school year for each child attending a public school.

"Every child deserves a free, world-class public education," Jess said.

"Our positive plan for public education would be a massive boost for families and it would be funded by making big corporations pay their fair share of tax."