Many people were angry that the chaplaincy program received a funding boost when the government's funding for the secular Safe Schools Coalition (SSC) anti-bullying program was exhausted in June 30 last year.

Coalition MPs and the Australian Christian Lobby opposed the SSC anti-bullying program which was launched in 2014 and was adopted by more than 500 schools across the country.

The Safe Schools Coalition went all but unnoticed for two years until, in early 2016, conservative media outlets and politicians hitched themselves to a campaign by right-wing Christian lobby groups against the program.

"Appalling that the government is still spending a quarter of billion on Chaplains in schools when we still aren’t funding the full original Gonski, or even a proper Safe Schools program," Greens MP Adam Bandt tweeted on Tuesday night.