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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-11-23 Daily Xml
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SCHOOL AMALGAMATIONS, WAITE ELECTORATE

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (15:27): The state Labor government is closing schools and childcare centres across my electorate, and my constituents are not very happy about it. I want to talk first about the proposed school closures and amalgamations at Mitcham Primary School and Mitcham Junior Primary School, and Belair Primary School and Belair Junior Primary School, but I also want to talk about the forced closure of the Panorama TAFE Child Care Centre in Boothby Street, Panorama in my electorate.

It was my pleasure this week to table petitions from the Mitcham school community. I declare that my son goes to Mitcham and my wife is on the school council, so I speak not only as the local member but as a concerned parent. I also tabled a petition from Belair Primary School and Belair Junior Primary School. There were 418 signatures from the Mitcham school community and 170 signatures from the Belair school community. They are not very happy.

I am calling on the government today not to close and then force an amalgamation of these two schools. The kids do not want it, the parents do not want it and the community does not want it. You are taking $340,000 out of these school communities in the name of efficiencies. You are already gaining efficiencies by the fact that these schools chose to collocate. If they were already separate you would be maintaining two sets of grounds and facilities. You are already making savings, but the government seeks to yet make further savings.

The result will be that senior staff, teacher positions and SSO positions will be lost, and the schools will be worse off. I say to the government: don't close and then amalgamate these schools unless there is a benefit. There is no benefit. No family will be better off. This is part of a plan to save $8.2 million from the education budget to pay for Labor's own financial mismanagement, where we have seen millions wasted on frolics in Puglia, infrastructure projects that have gone over budget, 15 ministers when surely we need fewer, an army of media minders and staff, and various other frolics around the state. They now seek to pay for these things by cutting education.

The parents that I have spoken to about this fail to see a single benefit or advantage in their school closures. I want to congratulate the organisers of the Belair school protests. I attended a meeting there on Tuesday 13 September and have spoken with Stephen Madigan, Hasmik Anassian, the treasurer of the Belair Schools Governing School, and Dannii Armfield. I also met with them at my office. I attended a similar meeting against the amalgamation at Mitcham school on 24  October. Liesl von der Borch and all members of the governing council were present, along with parents. I attended a rally of the Save Our Schools group on Friday 14 October in Elder Park. I have written to then minister Weatherill about this: I really do not want to see these schools closed over the Christmas period; it would be a travesty; please reverse the decisions.

It does not stop there because the government has also announced, almost by stealth, the closure of the TAFE childcare centre at 58 Boothby Street, Panorama, giving parents as little as five weeks to find alternative arrangements, which is outrageous. I have written to minister Tom Kenyon on this, asking that he delay the decision at least until Easter next year to give the families time to find alternative care for their children.

I attended a meeting about this at the childcare centre on 15 November. It was a very angry meeting. The parents, quite rightly, were very upset. I will not run through their names, but the minister knows who they are because they have written to him as well. Five to six-week notice of the closure on the eve of Christmas has thrown families into turmoil. One mother who is employed as a nurse and who has three children at the centre indicated to me that she would need to leave the workforce because of the decision.

Parents are finding it extremely difficult to find vacancies. At least get children's services working with these families to try to find them places, or listen to approaches that have been made to the minister about relocating all the children and the families as a group to an alternative centre. This is just another example of a government making kneejerk decisions—a government that is not listening and is not consulting—announcing the closure of this childcare centre and then defending it.

Education in the seat of Waite is in distress. I hope that we are not going to see the schools amalgamated at Mitcham and Belair, and then the decision defended after Christmas, or perhaps the decision made while people are on holidays—an absolutely disgraceful act. I hope we are not going to see this wonderful childcare centre in Boothby Street have its families and children literally thrown out onto the street on Christmas Eve. I appeal to the government: have a heart, reverse these decisions, and please take action.

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