Naracoorte Special Education Facility

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:29): My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the government fund a special education facility within the Naracoorte community? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: During the government's country cabinet visit to MacKillop, the Naracoorte South Primary School highlighted that students with additional learning needs don't have the option of attending a special education setting within our own community. To do this, they currently have to do a 200-kilometre round trip to Gordon Education Centre in Mount Gambier.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (14:29): I thank the member for MacKillop for his question and for his advocacy on this really important issue. I remember very well the country cabinet meeting that we had last year in Naracoorte, a very well-attended country cabinet community forum where the principal from Naracoorte South Primary School stood up in front of what was a very big crowd and asked a very important question.

Obviously, as a minister at these things, when difficult questions are asked of you sometimes you wish it wasn't so, but I have to say that the principal of Naracoorte South Primary School has my respect for being courageous enough to stand up in front of that crowd and on behalf of her whole community to fight for better services for kids with disability in regional areas.

We know it is tough. As someone who grew up in a country school, I remember well the tyranny of distance and what it means particularly for vulnerable people in terms of getting the specialised services they need. I think I was quite honest in my response on that day to both the member for MacKillop, to the audience and to the principal of Naracoorte South Primary School when I said that there is certainly a gap there at the school in the area, which means that families who have young ones with a disability, who would ordinarily require and should have the support of specialised disability services within the school, have to travel a long distance, as the member for MacKillop said, which is not ideal.

The complexity that we have in regional areas, particularly in some of South Australia's regional areas where we have relatively small populations but very large distances, means it can be really hard to get the kind of critical mass of students you need to make a model work. That is an excuse I am not going to use. It is not an excuse I used at the forum and it is not an excuse I used to the principal of the school either, because the truth is it is just not good enough and we need to do these things better.

I committed on that occasion, as did the chief executive of the education department there at the forum, that we would find a way. That work has started. I am pleased to give a short update to the member for MacKillop about what we have done. The first meeting occurred quite early after that community forum, I think as early as November. The second round of meetings occurred in February and there are more meetings that will occur this Friday.

We are looking at what we can do to get the numbers across the area that we would need in order to find a model of care at the school. The department and I remain confident that we can find a way of doing it. It will be tricky. It will probably end up being something that we have not done before in the public education system, but there are real upsides to that outside the positive impact it will have on the member for MacKillop's community. If we can get that model right there, for what is a relatively small number of kids with disability, then there is no reason we can't roll that out further into other parts of the state where we see the same issue with service provision.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to update the member for MacKillop on what we are doing. I hope that I can come back to this place in the not too distant future and talk about a positive outcome for young people with disability in that area. I will be very pleased to keep the member for MacKillop up to date as we go.