Public Schools

Public schools often run on canteen rosters, fundraisers, and parents chipping in for things you'd assume were already covered. Working families expect their local public school to get a fair go, not just what's left over.

There's a Commonwealth fund for upgrading school buildings – classrooms, halls, new equipment – that only private schools can apply for. Public schools aren't eligible at all.

Every time parliament's had a chance to fix that, One Nation MPs have voted no.

• December 2019 – a $10 million hardship fund for schools doing it tough in the drought, after public schools had already been excluded from an existing Commonwealth program. Hanson and Roberts voted no. The vote tied 32 all – if it had gone the other way, those schools would have got the money.
• July 2019 – a Senate motion for a dedicated capital works fund for public schools, the equivalent of the one private schools already had. Hanson and Roberts voted no.
• June 2017 – Hanson and Roberts voted yes on a bill to deliver less funding for public schools.
• February 2017 – Roberts had already voted no on a separate needs-based school funding motion, his third vote against public schools in this same pattern.

Cory Bernardi voted no alongside Hanson and Roberts on both 2019 motions, and Barnaby Joyce voted in the House in 2017 for the Coalition's lower-funding model.

It's all on the public record. See the full record on public schools, with every vote sourced.