Wednesday, 19 February 2025

 Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:42): As of today, the school saving bonus has saved Victorian families $123 million on the cost of school camps, books and uniforms. That is $123 million that is sitting now in families’ household budgets because of the support we have provided with these back-to-school costs. To break that down even further, more than 220,000 students started school recently in brand new uniforms thanks to the school saving bonus, 120,000 kids got the books that they needed to start school and 130,000 students will head off on their camps and excursions this year with the support of the school saving bonus.

Of course, even better than that, and I saw this myself at the school uniform shop in Bendigo – no, Liam Neeson was not there – there were parents there with their school saving bonus, knowing they had extra money in their pocket because they had the support of our government. For example, in the electorate of Bentleigh, McKinnon Secondary College topped the state with a massive $760,000 in savings for families, Alamanda K–9 College in the Point Cook electorate has saved more on new uniforms than any other school in the state, and when we welcome the new member for Werribee next week we will be able to say that Manor Lakes P–12 has saved nearly $550,000 in support.

We invest in schools. We do not cut vital support like the education maintenance allowance and Fresh Fruit Friday. We back families and we back working people with these back-to-school costs, because we understand that this is the support families need right now from their government.