Greens pitch $10bn plan to make public schools free
The Greens are making a pricey pitch to voters that could save Aussie households thousands per year.


News.com.au
January 22, 2025

The Greens are pitching a $10bn plan to voters to make public schools completely free.   

Australian families fork out hundreds in voluntary school fees every year.

The Greens’ proposal would scrap these fees and give households $800 per child back to school payments.

Greens leader Adam Bandt will formally unveil the plan on Wednesday.

“In a wealthy country like ours, everyone should be able to afford the basics: a home, food, and world-class health and education,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said in a statement.

“Governments are underfunding our public schools and shifting the costs onto parents already struggling with the cost of living.

“We can’t keep voting for the same two parties and expecting a different result.”

The Greens have unveiled a $10bn election pitch to make public schools completely free.

The independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has costed the policy at $2.4bn to end school fees and $7.6bn for back-to-school payments.

The plan would be paid for by taxing big business.


“When a nurse pays more tax than a multinational corporation, something is wrong,” Mr Bandt said.

“Taxing the big corporations to fully fund our public schools, scrapping so-called ‘voluntary’ fees and securing back-to-school payments will be on the table in a minority parliament.

“In the last shared power parliament, the Greens saved families thousands by getting dental into Medicare for kids, and now we want more relief for people doing it tough.”   

Greens leader Adam Bandt says big business would pay for the proposal to make public school completely free.

The Greens are a minor party and cannot form government.

But if Labor returned to govern in minority after the election, per polling and analyst suggestions, the Greens would be an obvious partner for a Labor-led coalition.

This happened with the Gillard government in 2010.

Even if Labor returned to govern in majority, the Greens are key to crossbench negotiations when the government does not have the numbers to pass bills.

Public schools free, why didn't they think of that earlier, oh that's right someone still has to pay and that would be the taxpayers. So cutting through the double speak Australians will still have to pay for education but the greens are going to say it's free and some will believe that. Maybe they will teach the kids that if the taxpayer pays then its free. We don't want parents being responsible now do we, they should be able to buy smokes and spend all day at the TAB.

I may have voted green only  that there support Hamas  and uncontrolled  immigration of Palestinian people into Australia is something I cannot support.

whiteknight wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2025 at 2:30pm:


Who will raise prices to cover the extra tax which will be paid by the consumer.

whiteknight wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2025 at 2:45pm:


If big business don't make money they go broke or to another country and more people end up poor. The quickest way to make more people poor is by killing big business.

whiteknight wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2025 at 2:45pm:



We already have one it is called "the robin bastard tax".

whiteknight wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2025 at 2:56pm:



And the reason for it is?

whiteknight wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2025 at 2:56pm:

But what about all the other taxes that they pay and their overall generation of good for society?