BEFORE I was elected to parliament, I spent 10 years teaching at high schools on the North-West Coast.

I grew up in Wesley Vale, just out of Devonport, in a farming family who valued education.

I was sent to Hobart for my secondary and university education.

I returned home, but most people from the North-West who got a university degree didn't. The graduate exodus led to the perception that encouraging education would result in losing your children to Hobart or to the mainland.

The Australian Greens say plans to increase student fees while ripping $2.4 billion away from universities would hurt an already struggling sector in Tasmania, and clearly demonstrates how the Abbott government has got its priorities wrong.

Coalition MP's have indicated support for the Kemp-Norton review, which earlier this month recommended giving taxpayer funds to private institutions, abolishing targets for supporting disadvantaged students, and covering a drop in government contributions with an increase in student fees.

The Australian Greens will fund 2235 new teachers in disadvantaged government schools as part of a $1 billion scheme to relieve the pressure on teachers and schools and lift Australian educational achievement.

Australian Greens leader Senator Christine Milne said as many as a third of all government schools would get an extra teacher to help reduce teacher workloads, with another $20 million a year for teacher mentoring and professional development.

To help all Australian children stay healthy, we must teach them how to grow, buy and cook good food. Nothing beats hands-on learning at school.

Pressure in our daily lives is seeing good life skills like knowing how to choose, prepare, cook and store nutritious food become less well-known.

We need to foster a culture of knowledge and pleasure in growing, choosing and cooking healthy food among our children.

The Australian Greens have a $46.5 million plan for teaching kids what they need to know about food including funding up to 800 new school kitchen gardens and ensuring healthy eating and nutrition is part of the national curriculum.

"One of the best things we can do to help our children lead a healthy life is to teach them about food - how to grow it, choose it, buy it, cook it and store it," Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said.

Christine Milne joined Triple J Hack to talk global warming, uni funding cuts, compassion to refugees & more.

The Australian Greens have released their fully costed paid parental leave scheme today which is designed to support Australian families and help women stay in the workforce.

Read the full plan: Balancing Work and Family, Better Paid Parental Leave.

"Labor's scheme scrapes together the bare minimum without superannuation whilst Tony Abbott's plan is inequitable," Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said.

Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne has rallied students at the University of Tasmania in Hobart to oppose Labor's $2.3 billion university cuts.

Senator Milne, who met with Tasmanian university students today, said the Greens would stand strong in the Senate to oppose any moves to cut university funding.

"Labor's dumb uni cuts, supported by Tony Abbott, will hurt Tasmania even more than other states. The good news is they have not been legislated so we can make this election a referendum on university funding," Senator Milne said.

The Australian Greens today launched a new plan to boost university funding by 10 per cent - or $1.474 billion - over the next four years to improve the quality of higher education.

The Greens proposal, which has been costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office and is calculated on base funding levels prior to Labor's $2.3 billion budget cuts, will be gradually phased in from 2014 to 2017, applied at a rate of 2.5 per cent per calendar year from 1 January next year.