Healthy Harold is the mascot for Life Education Australia, the largest independent health and drug education provider for children aged between three and 17 years old.



A spokesperson for the Department of Education and Training confirmed to BuzzFeed News the government's $600,000, three-year grant agreement with Life Education would expire on July 1 and not be renewed.

"No further funding has been committed beyond 1 July 2017," the spokesperson said.

Life Education applied for $1.5 million over the next three years to grow the Healthy Harold program, but was rejected.



There was no reason given for the Healthy Harold program being defunded, but an official from the Department of Health told Senate Estimates there was a lot of competition in the drug education market and other schools programs would be receiving the money.

The department was unable to name any of these programs.

Life Education CEO David Ballhausen told BuzzFeed News he was gutted by the news, and was still processing the ramifications for Healthy Harold.