Carbon tax may put the bite on school tuck shop lunches

Bruce McDougall
August 16, 2012
The Daily Telegraph

PARENTS could pay extra for their children’s lunch at the tuck shop as more than 2000 school canteens are hit by the carbon tax and spiralling power prices.

Canteen operators serving more than 1.1 million students will for the first time be required to account for power usage, with some predicting food prices will be pushed up by as much as 10 per cent.

The slug on canteens comes as schools receive their first electricity bills with carbon tax included and principals warn staff to “try harder to save electricity”.
The July power bill of one large Sydney high school showed a carbon charge of $447.28 separately listed on an account totalling $6088.67.

A teacher at the school said yesterday: “So much for the carbon tax not having an impact … the money will have to come from funds that otherwise would have been allocated to the students.”

But in a move to allay parents’ fears, a spokeswoman for Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the government would respond to any carbon price impacts on schools through indexation of federal funding.

“To help families, the government is providing an average of $10.10 per week in household assistance in the form of tax cuts, increases in pensions and increases in Family Tax Benefits,” she said.

“The government is providing extra assistance to people with school students under the School Kids Bonus.”

P&C officials said there were fears canteen prices would have to be increased.

“We are looking at how we will offset the increase in power (charges) and whether we will have to put up prices,” Central Coast P&C official Sharryn Brownlee said.

The NSW Department of Education said: “The department has not done any modelling of the carbon tax at this stage but we are monitoring its impact.”

Some of the state’s 3100 schools have brand-new canteens courtesy of the Building the Education Revolution scheme. Many may now be forced to replace older equipment with more efficient appliances while some schools such as Merrylands East Public in Sydney’s west have installed solar power.

Mother-of-two Kelly Leaupepe of Roselands in Sydney’s southwest said electrical appliances such as fridges, freezers and pie warmers were essential for canteens.”School canteens should be compensated for any extra charges imposed,” she said.

One canteen operator said new tenders for canteen operations included a utility fee on top of the lease which could be about $100 a week.