Preschool Active Learning Environment Initiative Grants

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:45): My question is to the Minister for—

Members interjecting:

Ms BEDFORD: I am just waiting—Education and Child Development. How will the new DECD grant continue to promote children's outdoor activity and health development?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (14:45): I was so pleased, late last week, to be able to go along to a kindergarten at Netley, a preschool, with Roger Rasheed to make an announcement about a grant to all public preschools in this state. Roger Rasheed, as people know, is not only an outstanding athlete but has continued to be a very loud advocate for our physical activity and sporting activity for kids in this state, and is no mean supporter of the glorious Port Adelaide Football Club.

An honourable member: Hear, hear!

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Thank you, sir. The program that Roger and I have discussed, and I was very persuaded by his arguments, is to ensure that children at a very young age are starting to engage in physical activity and particularly sporting activity. He pointed out that if we leave it until school for children to have the hand-eye coordination, the balance and so on to be good at sport, if we leave it too late—because for some children regrettably their parents have not encouraged them to develop those skills—then they reach an age before too long when they are intimidated by the fact that other kids are better than they are.

They are conscious of it and it puts them off, and that may put off a future sporting star to represent the state, represent the country, but it also potentially puts kids off from a lifetime of being healthy and active, and that is what we all want for our children. I know, amongst my own group of friends, I was the one who did not play any sport. Wendy played netball, Vicki and Liz played hockey and I didn't, and I regret that I wasn't more sporty and more active, and I became, just as Roger warned, conscious of not being skilled. In fact, when I was at the Netley Kindergarten, I was nervous that someone might ask me to have some kind of interaction that would involve catching a ball and throwing it back neatly to Roger. Fortunately, I ducked that.

I was absolutely delighted to be able to provide this support because we know that our kids are going to live for a long time if they start off well. We want our children to live long and happy lives, to prosper and to get a good education so that they are able to be a part of this emerging and sometimes frightening new economy, but that involves giving them what they need when they are young and not relying all the time exclusively only on parents being able to do that. It is so important for me that we are able to get into every single public preschool to make that offer.

What we are doing is we are allowing the preschools to have some discretion over how they spend the money because some already have some pretty good sporting equipment. So, we are saying, 'If you have already got that kind of sporting equipment, have a look at nature play, make sure that the kids are getting out, a mud kitchen, a fire pit to toast marshmallows. Maybe it is actually that your teachers aren't confident in how to teach these skills.' Just watching Roger interact with the kids, he knows all of those methods to get the children interested and to get them engaged, so making sure that the teachers are alert to that within the preschool system. So, a good program, a great South Australian who suggested it to me, and I am really very positive that this is going to make a real and lasting difference to our kids.