Nature Play

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:13): Supplementary, Mr Speaker: could I ask the minister, in light of her visit to the Gillies Plains outdoor area, how she sees those sorts of areas fitting in in the future?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for the Public Sector) (15:13): Members will be aware that the government made a commitment to investing in nature play outdoor learning spaces for preschools and children's centres. I was very pleased to go and visit Wandana preschool last week to see the site that they've developed. What's so important about what's happening there is that you get the community engaged in the design of the play space outside for the kids, so the community is seeing in their schools the expression of what they want to see for their children which is in itself an absolutely fantastic community building initiative.

What's also important, though, is that you're having children engaging outside not in the old-fashioned way of very rigid play structures but in play spaces that are constructed to allow children's imagination to run free. There is very strong evidence that children being able to be in uneven, wonky play spaces with loose pieces without rules not only improves their physicality, their balance, but also their brains. It is absolutely essential for fully developing their neural pathways that they are able to interact in those ways. And, of course, there is the additional benefit that they are learning to respect, love and cherish nature, and we certainly need the next generation to be paying more attention to the planet than previous generations have.