Early Childhood Education

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (15:30): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about the support the government is providing to early childhood education, particularly through grants to our preschools, but first I want to talk about Grug. The Windmill Theatre is an outstanding company with a great history of performing arts particularly designed for young South Australians, and in Grug they have a show that for 10 years has been providing a spectacular introduction to theatre for many young South Australians.

This is Grug's 10^th anniversary performance. It has been touring around 33 cities and six countries, and its 400^th performance is on this season at the Dunstan Playhouse. Because of the arrangements the government has made whereby Windmill Theatre is now intrinsically linked with the education department, we are also very pleased that 130 tickets free of charge and 200 discounted tickets have been provided to schools in lower socio-economic areas.

It is a spectacular body of work. Congratulations to Matthew Crook, who has performed 250 individual performances. This season, he has been joined by Tim Overton and Zoe Dunwoodie. To everybody at Windmill Theatre and to everyone involved in this production, can I say that my two year old gives it her seal of approval. It was indeed the first theatre performance she has seen. Congratulations to Windmill and thank you for the work that you are doing, in particular with all of our schools around South Australia.

I want to take the opportunity to reflect on some of the great advances we have provided to South Australian preschools. This year, for the first time, a $20,000 grant was provided to every preschool in South Australia as part of the Marshall Liberal government's stimulus measures. Preschools, which have historically been overlooked in a number of these school building projects and education building projects, were each provided with $20,000 to do urgent maintenance work.

There is not a preschool that I have visited in the past few months that has not had a great project front of mind, and they have been very grateful for this work. Some of them are doing painting, others are doing tiling, roofing and gardening. There is a range of different things that have been done. Having a $20,000 grant available in order to do the work that they see as a priority has not only assisted the preschools to lift their look or to deal with urgent tasks, but it has also provided many jobs for local tradies, local small business and other people in the workforce around South Australia. This has come at a time when employment has never been more important.

Of the $7.6 million program (380 grants) 62 have already been completed and the other 300 are either currently underway or will be underway before the end of the year. There is a wide range: from Tintinara Preschool, where there is a large solid gazebo, to the Morphett Vale East Kindergarten, which has a kindy painting in the interior, a new sandpit cover and exhaust fans in the toilet.

At the Fairview Park Child Parent Centre, the member for Newland and I were able to see the mural that has been created with the artist. They also have nature play equipment and undertook kitchen upgrades with new cabinets and flooring. There is a wide range of programs. At Seaton Children's Centre in the west, they have repaired a roof, repaired the outdoor environment, fixed plumbing and repaired the lawn.

At Ocean View College, in the member for Port Adelaide's area, they have a new kitchen. On Kangaroo Island, the Parndana Campus—the preschool is on the site where the Deputy Premier went to school for 11 of her years of schooling—have provided outdoor paving and undergone outdoor kitchen repairs, landscaping and internal painting.

There are some very innovative and different projects. At the Margaret Lohmeyer Kindergarten in the seat of Elder, they have relandscaped their outdoor environment, including a new mud kitchen and fairy garden. The Salisbury Park Kindergarten in the member for King's electorate have clear sheeting applied to a shed, they have put a ceiling on the storeroom, replaced the back gate and provided external painting to the building.

In my own electorate—and if the redistribution committee has its way part of the electorate will be going to your electorate, sir, in Heysen—at the Uraidla kindergarten, James Sadler and his team have done a great job installing a hot water service under the art sink, a wall fan, a speaker system, a shade umbrella and outdoor table setting, particularly useful in that community because as with so many other communities around the state the preschool has been able to source these supplies from local suppliers.

At North Ingle, they have built a bike track. At Darlington, they have extended the verandah and improved the playground. At Aldgate, they have the Kaurna garden completed and a Kaurna mural and pergola extension. Sir, if you have not had a chance to look at those already, I am sure you will. At Morgan, they have replaced air-conditioning units. This is just some of the work that has been done in preschools around South Australia.

As Minister for Education with a focus, as the Marshall Liberal government has, on improving early childhood education and opportunities for children's development, these grants are small but really important and have provided a big boost to our preschools right around South Australia.