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Labor leader Anthony Albanese will promise $440 million to improve school ventilation and increase support for student mental health in a pledge to voters to lead a government that learns the lessons of the pandemic by fixing core services.
In a new pitch to woo uncommitted voters, Mr Albanese will present the school funding plan as an example of the way a Labor government would plan better for the challenges of the pandemic when the federal government is under fire over its preparations for the Omicron outbreak.
Anthony Albanese will accuse Scott Morrison of shirking his responsibility to prepare schools for the coronavirus.Credit:Brook Mitchell
The Labor policy will offer grants from a Schools Upgrade Fund to improve air quality, build outdoor classrooms, buy air purifiers and fix buildings in a scheme that could help the party promise support for local projects during the coming election campaign.
A Labor government would also increase spending on children’s mental health with a “wellbeing boost” that offers more counsellors and psychologists as well as money for camps, excursions and sport.
The move sets up a political contest on school safety when the Victorian government is installing more than 50,000 air purifiers in the state’s schools and federal authorities are monitoring the program to see if it could be adopted elsewhere.
With parents anxious about the return to school next week, Labor senses an opportunity to build Mr Albanese’s profile among voters with a message about rebuilding the country and an attack on Prime Minister Scott Morrison for not planning for the Omicron outbreak.
The funding promise will come in a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday that accuses Mr Morrison of shirking his responsibility to prepare schools for the coronavirus and repeatedly blaming others for challenges such as delays to vaccines and rapid antigen tests.
“He promised a national approach in which his government would work with the states – instead he did what he always does: he palmed off his share of the work on to the states,” Mr Albanese says in a draft of the speech.
“The states have done a great job in picking up the slack of the slackest government in living memory. But this is not how it is meant to be.
“Like a heart that gave itself a bypass, this is a government determined to outsource the fulfilment of its core duties.”
Coalition strategists believe Mr Albanese is struggling to define himself among voters after more than two years as Opposition Leader, presenting a challenge for Labor despite the Resolve Political Monitor last week showing primary vote support for the Liberals and Nationals had slumped from 39 to 34 per cent.
Mr Morrison last week pointed to the approval of the Novavax vaccine, the arrival of booster shots for most Australians, the rollout of vaccines to children and the opening of the economy as proof he was leading the country well through the pandemic.
Finance Minister Simon Birmingham emphasised the fall in the unemployment rate to 4.2 per cent, the lowest level since 2008.
“We’ve now got 1.7 million more Australians in jobs than were the case when our government was elected. We’ve got one million more Australian women in jobs and we’re seeing that strength of our economy,” Senator Birmingham said on Sunday.
With Treasurer Josh Frydenberg declaring younger voters were gaining billions of dollars from lower tax rates under the Coalition, Labor treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers said younger Australians had suffered from spending cuts on education, cuts to penalty rates and low wages.
“Josh Frydenberg is collecting an extra $150 billion in tax this year than the last Labor government in 2013,” Dr Chalmers said.
“That’s an extra $4500 more tax for each Australian, and $9600 more for each Australian household.”
While Mr Albanese has narrowed the gap with Mr Morrison when voters are asked to choose between the two as preferred prime minister, Liberals believe this is not enough to give Labor a clear advantage in the federal seats that will decide the election due by May.
Mr Albanese will use his speech on Tuesday to promise a vision that would make Australia a stronger and fairer society after the pandemic.
“What stands before us now is the opportunity to build on the best qualities that characterise Australians, and to fulfil our potential as a people and a nation more fully than at any time in our history,” he says in the draft speech.
“The chance is ours to seize. But it requires courage, and it requires vision. It calls for strong leadership that brings Australians together.
“And it demands government that steps up to its responsibilities and fulfils its most central roles: to act as a force for good, and to change people’s lives for the better. ‘Pushing through’ this pandemic is not enough.
“We need to learn from it, we need to use what the last two years have taught us to build a better future.”
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