Guy’s free school lunches welcome but costs undercooked, says expert

Academics, charities and social service groups have welcomed the Victorian opposition’s election pledge to offer free lunches to all public school students, but one academic says the program could cost double the Coalition’s $300 million commitment.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said on Sunday that if the Coalition was elected it would run a two-year pilot program costing $300 million to provide healthy lunches for prep to year 12 students and guaranteed the program would be extended from selected state primary schools to all Victorian state schools by 2026.

But Southern Cross University education professor Pasi Sahlberg said providing universal lunches in all state schools would eventually cost closer to $600 million per year.

Sahlberg, a Finnish education expert who has advocated for free school lunches in Australia, said a conservative estimate puts healthy lunches at $5 per student per day. If each of Victoria’s 650,000 public school students opted in to the program, it would cost just under $600 million.

Sahlberg said an incomplete study he worked on at the University of New South Wales estimated the cost of healthy lunches in Australia could be as much as $8 per student per day. This would bring the annual cost of the Coalition’s plan closer to $1 billion.

Guy said on Sunday that the plan would cost $200 million a year once rolled out to all state schools.

He said the state could afford his free-lunch pledge because the Coalition would be “reining in Daniel Andrews’ spiralling debt and cutting waste such as the $4.7 billion West Gate tunnel blow-out”. The issue of state debt was raised by dozens of voters surveyed as part of The Age’s Victorian Agenda election series.

Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy says free school lunches will ease cost-of-living pressures.Credit: Scott McNaughton

The Coalition’s proposal is an opt-in program, meaning fewer than the 650,000 public school students could join, reducing total costs. Guy said non-government schools could also pay to join.

“The Healthy Lunches program will take the stress and cost away from parents in providing nutritious food to their children at school,” Guy said.

Sahlberg said that despite the cost, Victoria “should have done this already some time ago” due to the educational and health benefits of free lunches. He said free nutritional meals needed to be a part of the school curriculum to help teach students healthy habits.

“Why it’s not done yet is something difficult for me to understand. I come from Finland ... where we have had healthy school meals since 1943,” Sahlberg said.

Finland, Sweden, India, the United Kingdom and parts of the United States provide free school lunches.

The Victorian opposition has pledged to offer free lunches to public school students.Credit: iStock

Tasmania launched a pilot program this year across 15 schools, while the University of Tasmania found an earlier trial involving 201 students in the state was strongly supported by parents. Ninety per cent of parents said they would like schools to provide a cooked lunch every day.

New Zealand has also begun rolling out free school lunches to fulfil Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s 2020 election promise, but this is not universal and targets the most disadvantaged students only.

Guy said his program would provide cost-of-living relief for Victorian families, who would be able to pick meals approved by a panel of nutrition experts via an app or website. Local businesses and cafes would provide the lunches, he said.

Australia’s latest consumer price index showed annual inflation has reached its highest level since 1990, at 7.3 per cent, with fruit and vegetable prices rising 16.2 per cent.

Lyndon Galea, founder of Eat Up, a charity delivering free food to lunch-less children in 651 schools across Australia, said he was “really heartened” to see the opposition’s proposal but said providing lunches to all public students by 2026 would require “massive infrastructure”.

Galea suggested targeting the most disadvantaged, rather than providing all state school students with meals.

“That’s a big step forward and a costly investment to make when, perhaps, we could look towards these kids – who are in concerning numbers, but ultimately in the minority – who are arriving without food from home,” he said.

“It’s a conversation that we welcomed and encouraged, but I think there’s a little more work that needs to be done more broadly.”

Sahlberg said Australia was one of the richest countries in the world and added: “We should not use the economics of the state as an excuse not to do this.”

Victorian Council of Social Service CEO Emma King said the organisation supported the Coalition’s plan.

King said the Victorian government’s expanded free breakfast program for 1000 of the most disadvantaged government schools across Victoria – which costs $58 million from 2019 to 2023 –was already a “screaming success” that the Coalition pledge could build on.

Countries with school lunch programs

• Finland: Universally free, healthy school meals since 1943.
• India: Largest number of free school lunches in the world.
• France: Many students go home for a two-hour lunch break.
• United Kingdom: School meals targeted to disadvantaged students.
• United States: Some states, such as California, have statewide school lunch programs.
• New Zealand: Pledged by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the last election.
• Estonia: Free school dinners in elementary and secondary schools.
• Sweden: Free lunch in primary and elementary schools.

Food charity OzHarvest’s CEO, Ronni Kahn, said: “We have never seen so many people needing food relief, so any support that helps feed those in need can only be a good thing.”

A spokesman for the state government said it had provided more than 25 million free breakfast club meals to students in 1000 Victorian schools, in partnership with FoodBank Victoria. Lunches have also been given to students needing additional support.

“You can’t trust Matthew Guy’s Liberals. When they were last in government, they cut Free Fruit Fridays, leaving thousands of Victorian kids hungry, and slashed the Education Maintenance Allowance, leaving families up to $300 worse off per child per year,” the spokesman said.

The South Australian and Queensland Greens have called for free school lunches in their respective states. The Victorian Greens did not respond to a request for comment.

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