Mr BAYLEY – Minister, most people broadly understand that the Budget has been reverse-engineered to achieve a surplus at the end of the forward Estimates, modest as it is at $5 million, but it’s been reverse engineered. There are a lot of line items which don’t have funding in the forward Estimates. A couple of them are the school lunches program and 26Ten, raising literacy for adults and numeracy for adults. Why is it that there is no funding in the forward Estimates for these programs? Is it your expectation that they continue? If not, why are they being cut?
Ms PALMER – There’s different reasons. I think you mentioned 26Ten? Fantastic organisation and they were funded for a program and I believe that funding ends at June 2026. That was for a specific program, but what we’re doing at the moment is through Libraries Tasmania, we are doing a body of work about the next adult literacy strategy. That’s looking at what are the programs that we have in this space, what are the outcomes, what’s working, where should we be investing and that strategy is being developed now. Once we get that strategy, that will guide us in what are the best ways for us to see outcomes across adult literacy. That’s just one example of why you would see that there isn’t a continuation of a program that was meant to finish at 2026 anyway.
Mr BAYLEY – It sounds like there would be a commitment to ongoing adult literacy programs of some description?
Ms PALMER – Yes, absolutely.
Mr BAYLEY – Is that captured in the budget in the forward Estimates anywhere?
Ms PALMER – That would be funding that would have been in a previous budget that’s now being used to develop the adult strategy.
Mr BAYLEY – The strategy but not the program in the forward years?
Ms PALMER – The strategy.
Mr BAYLEY – But not the program?
Ms PALMER – The strategy. Because part of the work that needs to be done is looking at what we have been doing, what’s working really well, what could we tweak or invest more that will get better outcomes, or what are some of the areas where perhaps we haven’t seen those outcomes. I think that’s just a good operation and a good way to make sure you don’t just keep doing what you’ve always done.
Mr BAYLEY – I appreciate the review, but there’s an intention to maintain a program of some description?
Ms PALMER – Yes, we are putting together now what is our strategy for adult literacy.
Mr BAYLEY – And the school lunches?
Ms PALMER – That has been funded through to the end of the school year for 2026. It’s always hard with school things because we work on a calendar year, not a financial. That’s now got funding through to the end of 2026. I just want to seek some advice.
So to get specific about the school lunch program. Because that has grown, which is fantastic in the way that it has grown, it is now going to be delivered to 60 school. The cost of that is beyond a grant that can be given. So we actually have to go out to tender for that program and that’s because the funding’s up around $14 million for that. That’s too big for there just to be a grant, which is what we were able to do in the beginning with school lunches.
Mr BAYLEY – But is there money in the Budget to continue that program?
Ms PALMER – There is money in the Budget to ensure that the program we have right now runs through to the end of 2026. The work needs to be done to go out to tender and then we will progress from there. I think our government has an excellent track record of our belief in the benefits of healthy school lunches. We also know that perhaps more and more in the community we are seeing food insecurity in communities where we haven’t seen before. We know that not only is it fantastic for ensuring that children have food to eat in those 60 schools that are part of the current program, but also, we hear anecdotally the difference it makes for how children are settled in school, and we’ve seen that with the breakfast program.
