GAWLER AND DISTRICT COLLEGE

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Can the minister inform the house about the new Gawler and District College which opened its doors for the first time last week?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:36): I thank the member for Taylor for her question. I know she has a number of students in the northern part of her electorate who are just as excited as she is about the opening of the new Gawler and District College.

This is a new $11.9 million school, and it has come about because of the hard work of parents, key community members and staff from the Department for Education and Child Development. This new school was built on the grounds of the former Gawler High School and brings together the school communities of nearby Evanston Primary School, the Evanston Preschool and Gawler High School into a one-stop birth to year 12 facility.

Uniting these communities and realising the vision of what can be achieved through this sort of amalgamation is not an easy process. It is a mammoth leap of faith by parents, but they worked with and put their trust in a team from Department for Education and Child Development. The results speak for themselves. Whilst some—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister, will you be seated. The member for Unley, I call you to order. Minister.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Whilst some might label people who undertake this important work as 'unwanted bureaucrats', this government knows this has not been an easy task. I want to thank everyone involved, including the new principal, Gerri Walker, and preschool director, Christine Townsend. I also want to acknowledge the enormous amount of effort the member for Light and our new Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, who has done what a good parliamentary representative should do, and that is stand side by side with his local communities helping them and supporting them through this voluntary amalgamation process.

We now have a new school which I am pleased to advise currently has 1,000 enrolments for 2013 and can cater for up to 1,200 students. There is a new children's centre, new reception to year 12 facilities, upgraded secondary school learning spaces, and it is worth noting that this is the 27^th new children's centre. The college allows families to access a range of early childhood and education services in one place, including preschool, occasional care, health facilities, primary and secondary schooling.

I had the delight of visiting this great new facility at Gawler on day 2 of this school year. I was not surprised, sir, that a rather excited local member had got there before me: he was there on day 1. With constructions starting in November 2011, the local community has been well served by the team from the department who oversaw a very speedy construction period.

The Gawler and District College is just one of the many brilliant schools we have in our public education sector. It is disappointing when you hear people talk down what is an excellent system. I can say that claims that we have fewer students in our public schools are not correct. Statistics show that we have more students who want to come to our government schools. According to the ABS—

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The minister has ventured into comment about the number of students in public schools. The question was about a particular new school that had opened in Gawler, nothing about the numbers of students in schools.

The SPEAKER: Member for Davenport, I thought you were about to criticise my Crvena Zvezda stopwatch. I am glad you are not.

Mr Pederick: Is it working?

The SPEAKER: Yes, it is. The minister will wind up.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Thank you, sir. We have almost 600 more full-time students in public schools in 2012 than in 2011.

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order, Mr Speaker. She has just dealt with that matter. You asked her to wind up. She is again repeating the same offence, just going straight on to offend—

The SPEAKER: That assumes, member for Bragg, that I upheld the point of order. My adjudication was to ask the minister to wind up.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Thank you, sir. As I said, this stands in stark contrast to what occurred in 2001 to 2002 when almost 3,000 students left our public schools.

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: No. Minister, there are children starting high school today who have no consciousness of there ever being a state Liberal government and so what they did is of little relevance. The Leader of the Opposition.