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Tens of thousands of Victorian Catholic school students have been sent home with letters warning their parents against voting for the Greens in next week's federal election.
The Catholic Education Commission of Victoria has circulated the letter to schools in marginal seats, seats where MPs are retiring and electorates where the Greens are hoping for a win.
These include Batman – which the Greens hope to pick up thanks to its rapidly changing demographic– and the Greens-held seat of Melbourne. The letters were also stuffed into school bags in Wills, Corangamite, La Trobe, Bruce, Chisholm and Dunkley.
The Commission's executive director Stephen Elder said in the letter that the Greens' stance on funding for Catholic schools was "highly problematic".
He criticised the Greens' model because in addition to basing funding on socio-economic measures, it would consider a school's resources and its capacity to generate income from other sources including fees and contributions.
"Such a shift would adversely impact many Catholic schools and the potential flow-on effect to fees would undermine our ability to welcome disadvantaged students and their families into our educational community," he said. The letter was distributed on Thursday and Friday as schools broke for the holidays.
Mr Elder also criticised the Greens for seeking to "abolish our ability to hire staff on religious grounds".
"Their education policy explicitly applies this proposal by linking government funding for Catholic schools to 'non-discrimination in the hiring of staff'," he said.
He said this could lead to Catholic principals being forced to employ staff who were critical of their faith. Their plan was an "affront to the religious liberties currently exercised by the Church and our schools."
Mr Elder said there was a "real chance" the Greens could hold the balance of power which could put the major parties' education commitments at risk.
He urged parents to remember that Labor and the Liberals were committed to ongoing and stable funding for Catholic schools.
Greens education spokesman Senator Nick McKim said it was extraordinary that the Catholic Education Commission was advocating for the Liberals over the Greens, when the Liberals refused to fund the final two years of the Gonski school funding agreement.
"The Greens do support that funding, which means under Greens policies, Catholic schools would be significantly better resourced than they would under the Liberals," he said.
He said it was not surprising that Mr Elder, a former state Liberal MP, was attacking the Greens.
"Parents who choose to send their children to Catholic schools are more than capable of making up their own minds on how to vote and do not need a lecture from Mr Elder."
It is not the first time the Catholic Education Commission has intervened in an election – they advised parents not to vote for the Greens in four inner-city seats ahead of the 2014 state election.
