‘Nearly laughed out loud’: Why free lunches won’t work

Besides showing the utter desperation of Steven Miles to keep his job, his free lunches plan is even more impractical than state-run petrol stations and electricity companies and shows a lack of understanding of schools, writes Kylie Lang.

There are enormous issues compromising the standard of education offered to Queensland kids, and slapping a few pieces of bread together won’t fix them.

I nearly laughed out loud when I read Premier Steven Miles’s plan to fork out $1.4bn on free school lunches for every state primary school student.

Besides showing the utter desperation of Mr Miles to keep his job, it is a plan even more impractical than state-run petrol stations and electricity companies.

And it shows a lack of understanding of how schools and their communities operate, in much the same way as his 50 new bulk-billing GP clinics idea.

I absolutely agree that kids need good nutrition to maximise their learning.

This has been proven in studies around the world.

But children also deserve state-of-the-art classrooms, teachers who are paid appropriately for the work they do and do not suffer burn-out, and increased government funding for a whole range of things.

Premier Steven Miles makes a sandwich with his daughter Bridie, 10, on stage at the Labor party’s campaign launch on Sunday. Picture: Adam Head

Pat Murphy, president of the Queensland Association of State School Principals, says the government’s “priorities are wrong”. I agree.

He points to stalled negotiations over a new school resourcing standard dictating how much government funding state and private schools receive.

State schools continue to fall below funding levels recommended in the 2011 Gonski Review.

Mr Murphy says $1.4bn is more than the total grants given to all Queensland state primary and high schools in a year.

Labor estimates the free lunch scheme will save households about $1600 per child a year.

But how does Mr Miles expect all of the 326,000 children to benefit?

Many schools in remote areas do not have tuckshops, or even local cafes, to prepare the sandwiches.

Who would be roped in to feed these kids – volunteers, or more people on the public payroll that we taxpayers fund?

Will he set up lunch preparation hubs that would need to meet industry standards on food safety – and if so, has that been costed? I think we all know the answer to that.

We do not need a bigger bureaucracy. We need schools to become more autonomous so they can meet the unique challenges of their communities.

A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t cut it.

Back in 2021, when the loopy Greens proposed the same free food concept, Labor slapped it down, saying it would not address root causes of hunger and inequality.

Yet now, it’s an idea Labor is keen to “borrow” and wants us to support.

It’s short-sighted, unworkable and a complete misdirection of money from where it is needed most. I grade it an F.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail