Grievance Debate

SCHOOL AMALGAMATIONS

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:17): Today we heard an announcement that was no surprise to those of us who have followed the way that this government has operated over the last 10 years. I think the current Premier, Mr Weatherill, described it well when he said it is a government all about announcing and defending; yet, he promised that he was going to do things differently. I believe 'debate and decide' was the way the new Premier was going to operate as Leader of the Government in this state when he took over the reins after the Night of the Long Knives in July when the former premier, Mr Rann, was told by the shoppies union that they no longer required his services as leader of the Labor Party. I suppose you can understand his surprise when he was in the job for so long that he probably did think that he was in charge—he forgot it wasn't him, it was the shoppies union—but I digress.

The minister's announcement today was no surprise to those on this side of the house and to many of the frustrated parents who have been involved in the debate, the protests and the so-called review panels that were set up to review the government's 2010 decision—which was the first education budget of Mr Weatherill, the then education minister and now the Premier—where he cut $100 million from school budgets in that budget. A sum of $100 million was cut by Mr Weatherill in his first education budget and, of that, $8.2 million was to be saved by forcing the amalgamation of, then, 78 schools.

I congratulate Julie Caust from Modbury High School for the tremendous campaign which she started and which I helped facilitate that forced Premier Weatherill to backflip on the forced amalgamations of primary schools and high schools, but it did not stop the Premier and minister Portolesi continuing on with their forced amalgamation of the 42 junior primary and senior primary school campuses.

Of course we all know that it was nothing but a charade. FOI documents proved to us that the cost of this charade, paying ministerial appointees to sit on these committees, was $375,000. We know that that was not a problem for the education department because there is a handwritten note on those FOIs that says, 'Don't worry about the $375,000 because we will actually be saving $6 million a year not $4 million a year from these forced amalgamations.' Overnight they found an extra $2 million so they could throw $375,000 out there to run the charade and let people, let parents and schools—

Mrs Redmond: Have their say.

Mr PISONI: —have their say, to go through the motions of letting people believe that they do care, that they do want to hear, that they are not the same as Rann. They are a different government. They are not the same as Rann. They want to listen. I can tell you that the difference between the Rann government and the Weatherill government is that Mr Rann made a decision and then he defended that decision. Mr Weatherill makes a decision and then he hires consultants and defends that decision. That is the difference between the Rann government and the Weatherill government, and the decision that we see today by the education minister confirms that there was no such intention of listening to what these schools had to say.

This was all about a direction from Treasury, from the Sustainable Budget Commission, which identified these savings, not as educational outcomes for students, not as educational tools, not as an educational item in the budget, but as a budget measure to help bring in the ever-increasing deficit that this government has delivered over the last 10 years here in South Australia.

Parents in South Australia will understand that they cannot trust the Minister for Education and they cannot trust the Premier in the promises they make. When they say they are consulting it means they are just covering their backsides. Just remember that, people of South Australia. You cannot trust what Premier Weatherill and minister Portolesi say when it comes to reasons for cuts in education.

Mr WILLIAMS: I just want to point out to the house that the government does not have a minister on the front bench, and I think that—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Hon. M.J. Wright): There is no point of order. The member for Little Para.