School Buses

Mr PISONI (Unley) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Can the minister advise why her department gave multiple school bus contracts worth more than $4 million to a Queensland company before her department's review of school transport services has been completed and tabled?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:37): The school transport policy review has been in train for some time under fairly constrained terms of reference in terms of maintaining existing resources. We have done a survey and are working through what the people who are using the bus service experience, what they find good about it and what they would like to see changed, and, as I say, within quite constrained circumstances of not changing the resourcing, looking at what might be different. That has been undertaken for some time and is nearing its conclusion.

Separate to that are the business arrangements that the department enters into from time to time to ensure that the service continues to be provided. I do not have any detail in this chamber about that particular contract, so I can't confirm whether that took place or not, but it would appear to me to be entirely separate. The review is looking at the status of the various elements of the transport policy and the experience of the users rather than saying whether or not we will continue with a particular service while that is taking place.