Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has called the Government's so called 'Choice and Affordability" package a private school slush fund. The fund is part of extra money announced for private schools by the Prime Minister in September, which Senator Faruqi has previously described as "hush money".

I rise to speak on the Greens sex discrimination amendment bill, the Discrimination Free Schools Bill 2018, and I do so very proudly. This is the reason I joined the Greens. We do not accept discriminating against people on any basis. We will not accept and allow discrimination on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or breastfeeding.

Last week I thought I'd woken up in the 1950s. The Ruddock review into religious freedom recommended that the ability for religious schools to legally discriminate against LGBTQI students and teachers be entrenched in federal law. We already know the horrific consequences that such laws have for people in our community. Young people in all schools are receiving the very public message that they are not accepted. LGBTQI students feel they have to live their teenage years in silence and hide their identity for fear of being expelled.

Australian Greens Spokesperson for Education, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has said that the Ruddock Review into Religious Freedom’s recommendation to expand and entrench the right to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ students and teachers is absolutely outrageous.

Senator Faruqi said: “Schools that discriminate against LGBTIQ+students and teachers don’t deserve a cent of public money.

Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale and Education Spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi have today doubled down on their defence of public schools, declaring they "will not be silenced" by a well-funded Private Schools lobby group.

"The Morrison Government has sold Australian students down the river to silence a powerful lobby group ahead of the Wentworth byelection, but the Greens will always put kids in public education front and centre," Dr Di Natale said.

Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has said that the new Education Minister, Dan Tehan, is not up to the job following his threats to withhold education funding to the States if they don’t accept the $4.6 billion ‘special deal’ with the Catholic and Independent sector. The Greens have consistently said that these billions must be diverted to the needy public school sector.

Senator Faruqi said:

Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has called on Labor to join the Greens in working to ensure that the $4.6 billion special deal with the Catholic and Independent schools is redirected to public school funds.

Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has slammed the Federal Government’s announcement today on Catholic and Independent school funding. The Government has announced an extra $4.6 billion for the Catholic and Independent school sectors which the Greens say is a special deal that is just "hush money" for them to stop campaigning against the Government.

Senator Faruqi said:

I've stood as an engineer and a sustainability academic at the front of lecture theatres more often than I've stood up to speak in parliaments. When you're teaching you spend an awful lot of time looking your students in the eye, as you might imagine. Now that I'm spending less time in the classroom and more time in parliament, I often wonder whether many members in this place wouldn't benefit from having to look some students in the eye every so often.

Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has reacted to the latest Grattan Institute Report ‘Mapping Australian higher education 2018’ which shows that growth in professional jobs in Australia did not keep up with the growing number of graduates over the decade, especially in science. It has also found that Commonwealth funding for tuition subsidies will drop for the first time since 2003 and that almost one in four university academics are now casual.