Wattle Park Kindergarten

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (15:20): I rise on behalf of the Wattle Park Kindergarten community in my electorate who, just last month, were notified that the department would be making some changes to the site from 2026 and would be reducing the Wattle Park Kindergarten—which is currently operating as a full-time site—down to a part-time site. That was a decision that I totally disagreed with, and I have spent the past few weeks talking with parents, families and the governing council of the Wattle Park Kindergarten about what that decision would mean for them, and campaigning alongside that community to reverse that decision and to make sure the Wattle Park Kindergarten remains operating as a full-time site in 2026, and into the future, because it just makes sense.

As I recently pointed out to the minister responsible, demand at the Wattle Park Kindergarten is already exceeding capacity. The Wattle Park Kindergarten is operating at full capacity currently and, indeed, it is turning families away. Based on current registrations for next year, I have been told that the kindergarten, if reduced to a part-time site, would have to decline enrolments to a number of children both from within the catchment area and also from outside the catchment area. So partially closing a kindergarten, which is already operating at capacity and where there is clearly demand, does not make any sense.

Secondly, there are simply no viable alternatives in our local area for these children to go to if this kindergarten was reduced to a part-time site. Neighbouring kindergartens—such as Newland Park, which was partially closed last year; Magill, which I understand the government intends to reduce capacity at from next year; Kensington Gardens Preschool; and McKellar Stewart—are all operating at capacity, I am told. They cannot absorb Wattle Park families nor children from outside their catchment areas.

When a decision like this is made, it really begs the question, 'Where does the department and where does the minister expect these children to go?' Ultimately, what it would mean is that local families and local children will suffer. The decision would mean reduced flexibility for parents and for families, leaving only one option for attendance days. Many families would have faced disruption to childcare arrangements and to work arrangements, and I fear it would have left many without being able to access preschool at all.

Wattle Park Kindergarten is a cornerstone of our community. It has been delivering high-quality early education for decades, and I think partially closing it would have been a severe blow not only to the families in my local area who enjoy the Wattle Park Kindergarten, not only to the employees of the Wattle Park Kindergarten but, indeed, to our wider community as well. It also would have been a decision totally at odds with this government's stated policy outcomes. I thought this was a government that had apparently committed to expanding early childhood education, yet in the eastern suburbs it is the opposite that is happening with cuts and with closures, so it would have been a terrible decision.

Very happily, we have been campaigning over the past few weeks to stop this partial closure of the Wattle Park Kindergarten. I have been dealing with the minister. We have gathered hundreds of signatures on petitions, working with our local community, and I am very pleased to report that the Wattle Park Kindergarten will now continue to operate as a full-time site in 2026. That directly follows the advocacy from not only me but the local community who would have been really severely impacted by these bad decisions that are being made without much reference to the people who are most affected by them. So I will keep campaigning for increased investment in early childhood education in the eastern suburbs, even if the Labor government perhaps might not be so interested in that.