NORWOOD MORIALTA HIGH SCHOOL

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (15:28): I was very pleased earlier today to lodge a petition containing 1,967 signatures of members of the Norwood Morialta High School community. The petition states:

We draw the attention of this honourable house to the plight of Norwood Morialta High School. In this year's state budget the government announced changes to education funding whereby 'multi and dual campus' schools will lose the extra support they currently have to meet their special needs.

Norwood Morialta High School has been a dual campus school since its forced amalgamation in 1993 and has been funded to reflect the greater costs of running two separate campuses. The 2010-11 state budget handed down by the government seeks to remove this support, which will result in funding cuts of more than $620,000 per year for Norwood Morialta High School.

Your petitioners therefore request that the house urge the government to reverse its decision to cut funding to the Norwood-Morialta High School.

It was very disappointing that an education minister, who claims to decry the government's longstanding 'announce and defend policy' of government (as opposed to consult and then decide) would be the one with his hands all over this policy.

In lodging this petition, I particularly acknowledge the work of Gia-Yen Luong, the President of the Student Representative Council, who is in year 11. I think Gia-Yen would make an excellent member for Hartley one day because of the way in which she has taken up the cause of her school. I commend her for that. I also commend Jeff Eglinton, the chair of the school council, as well as the staff, parents and friends, and students who have helped in getting this petition together.

I note that Norwood Morialta High School is not alone in being hit by this funding cut. Yesterday in the house we heard the member for Finniss talk about the issues faced by Kangaroo Island Community Education, which has had $160,000 a year of its funding for special needs cut, based on its multiple campus status, even though it had had that extra funding guaranteed to 30 June 2013 in a letter from the head of the education department.

This morning on the way to parliament I heard on the radio the chairwoman of the Eastern Fleurieu School council talking about the $230,000 a year cut that this education minister has caused to that school, based on the same funding line, even though they had that funding guaranteed to the end of 2011.

The Norwood and Morialta high schools, in 1993, when they were effectively forced to amalgamate by the government, were guaranteed that they would receive extra funding based on the increased needs and complexities that having a multiple campus structure requires. In 2006, the department wished to renegotiate and they did so in good faith. They renegotiated a certain sum of money extra every year until the end of 2011, at which point they would look at it again and see how they were going.

In this year's budget, they have had the rug pulled out from under them as of 1 January next year. In all three cases, the schools have had guarantees of that funding up to a point that has now been pulled out. I note that Jane Whitford wrote an article in the East Torrens Messenger of 28 September in which she succinctly says:

The school says it will be forced to cut at least four staff members and reduce the hours of its school service officers and groundskeeper.

Governing council chairman Jeff Eglinton told the East Torrens Messenger that parents were both 'devastated' and 'concerned' by the news.

It was in relation to this matter that the education minister has on a number of occasions said that there were efficiencies that could be made. We asked him about those in the estimates committee. He first said that the figure of $620,000 was wrong and that in fact the school would lose only $588,000, so, clearly, the school can take great comfort from the fact that they will lose $30,000 less. Nevertheless, the Minister for Education—this champion of the 'consult and then decide' model—said:

What we were going to do (and we are doing this) is work with the school to identify the way in which the school works across the two campuses, because there are ways in which the school works across the two campuses that can create costs for the school, and there are ways of working across the two campuses, in terms of the way in which staff are allocated, that can reduce costs. We want to find ways in which we can work with the school to minimise those costs.

However, they had already come to the result: they have already said that there are going to be $590,000 in cuts, and this is something the member for Hartley picked up. When writing to the minister, she said:

My constituents are concerned about the ramifications this decision will have on the school and its existing structure.

She also said:

I share these concerns and take very seriously the representations being made by local residents and the school community.

The letter was reprinted in the school newsletter. The minister admitted this letter but said that he explained it to the member for Hartley and 'she accepts that explanation'. It is not good enough from the member for Hartley and it is not good enough from the Minister for Education. He has demonstrated a failure of leadership as a minister, and he has demonstrated a lack of ticker. He is clearly unfit for the high office that he holds as the Minister for Education, and he is doubly unfit for the higher office that he seeks to hold.