Election 2025: Greens ‘exclude’ Catholic schools

More than 70 per cent of parents from government, private and Catholic schools expect faith-based schools to operate within their ‘values and ethos’ and believe staff should support that position.

National Catholic Education Commission executive director Jacinta Collins.

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Parents increasingly believe faith-based schools should expect staff to support the “ethos” of their institution, which Australia’s peak body for Catholic education says does not align with the “discriminating policies” of the Greens.

According to a survey of more than 3000 parents commissioned by the National Catholic Education Commission, 72 per cent of parents from government, private and Catholic schools expect faith-based schools to operate according to their “values and ethos” and believe staff should support that position.

NCEC executive director Jacinta Collins said the findings were “contrary to suggestions that faith-based schools were discriminating and consistent with the trends of (increased) faith-based school enrolments”.

In the last decade, Catholic education has grown by 8.2 per cent.

The Greens had “policies that would unfairly discriminate against our students, many of who are socio-educationally disadvantaged,” Ms Collins said.

“There’s a small rump of ideological views that non-government schools, especially faith-based schools, shouldn’t exist, and currently we see that playing out within the Australian Greens’ school education policies.

“On one hand they accept the existing funding arrangements with the Gonski Schooling Resource Standard, but then they top it up with several other initiatives that exclude students in non-government schools.”

Catholic schools serve 42 per cent of students in the lowest socio-educational groups, compared to the government’s 57 per cent. In the past decade, there has been a 161 per cent growth in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student enrolments.

Ms Collins said the Greens’ $11.6bn policy for free lunches at every public school “completely isolated and excluded” non-government schools.

“As some of the commentary has highlighted, wealthy families in public schools would benefit from this sort of initiative and highly disadvantaged students, especially … in those areas where we operate the only school in a community, would be excluded.

“Some of our mostly Indigenous student communities, where we already run things like breakfast clubs and nutrition programs, wouldn’t see 1c of that support.”

The Greens also want to end public school fees and provide $800 back-to-school payments.

Greens spokeswoman on primary and secondary education, Penny Allman-Payne, said public education benefited all Australians.

“People of faith should be free to practise their religion without fear of harm or prejudice, including sending their children to faith schools,” Ms Allman-Payne said.

“Public education benefits all Australians, and our policy focus is on ensuring that public schools are fully funded, have the infrastructure that kids deserve, and are completely fee-free.”

She added that there was strong support for the Greens’ plan to roll out free school breakfasts.

“We make no apologies for our deep and unwavering commitment to fully funding all schools,” she said.

“Former Labor senator Jacinta Collins is more concerned with attacking the Greens for supporting public schools than she is about lowering fees at Catholic schools.”

The NCEC’s election campaign is focusing on Greens’ Queensland seats of Brisbane, Ryan and Griffith, as well as Wills and Macnamara in Victoria, where the Greens’ positions are “not well understood” by parents. Given the potential for a minority government, it was “very important we remind people”, Ms Collins said.

“Many of our families would feel some level of support for Greens policies around climate or some social issues, but they’re completely unaware of their policy position around school education and their ideological focus on a view that schooling should just be delivered by the public sector.”