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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOOL TRANSPORT POLICY

Mr PISONI (Unley) (16:35): I move:

That this house urges the government to take action to review the Education Department's 'school transport policy', specifically the restrictions placed on both government and non-government students' access to departmental school buses.

If we look at the current policy in South Australia, students attending non-government schools are permitted to use existing school buses to travel to those schools provided—and this is the crunch here—that the buses are not involved in additional travel to visit a non-government school. If we look at what happens in metropolitan Adelaide when it comes to transport policy for school students, whether you are a government school student (whether you go to a government primary school or high school) or whether you go to a non-government primary school or high school (whether that be an independent school or a Catholic school), you get a student concession card for the bus.

When it comes to metropolitan South Australia, this government, the Labor government, treats students in non-government schools in the same way it treats students in non-government schools. However, beyond the metropolitan boundary there are conditions on non-government schools that are different to those conditions for those that wish to attend government schools. That is why I have asked the government to review the policy for both government and non-government schools.

If you look at what happens in other states, in Western Australia for example, for a rural student attending a mainstream school criteria apply, and they include enrolment at the nearest appropriate school and regularly attending school. However, then you go to the definition of the nearest appropriate school, and it is defined as:

Government school, one that provides appropriate year of study for the student, or a non-government school, one that provides an appropriate year of study for the student and also provides an appropriate religious denomination or ethos for the student.

It is an important difference between what happens in Western Australia and what happens in South Australia. It is unfortunate that minister Rankine has ruled out any such review. It is interesting that the first thing that the minister raised as a justification for ruling out the review was cost: 'Where is the money going to come from?' Not, 'Let's have a look at how we are running the education system, and let's see if there is a fair equity between regional South Australia and metropolitan Adelaide.' No, 'It's going to cost too much money. Where is the money going to come from?' Well, how do you know? You have not had the review. Let's look at what they are doing in other states.

For mainstream schools in New South Wales they approve travel on Monday to Friday between home and to where the student is enrolled. Again, it does specify that it does not extend to school excursions, attendance at multicampus schools or work experience, for example, but it does extend to TAFE students, providing you are under 18 years of age as of 1 January in the year of application. Many of the students in regional South Australia that may be attending TAFE in year 12 would be eligible under this policy, but they are only an afterthought under the current South Australian policy, the Labor policy, that we have now. They need to be enrolled full-time for a minimum of 20 hours a week.

Again, that is fair enough. If you have a student that is in fact committed to that TAFE course and they are not employed—and again, that is fair enough because, if you are employed, then there would be the expectation that you can make your own way, but this is another point of difference between what the Labor government is doing here in South Australia and what has been the norm for decades in parts of regional South Australia where they have a higher regard for the non-government sector than does this government.

We know that the South Australian policy has been in place for quite some time. The government will argue that there have been Liberal governments that have not changed it, but I remind the government that, by the time of the next election, Labor would have run the education system and the school bus system here in South Australia for 33 of the last 44 years. They have done it in very good times.

Time expired.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (16:41): A number of years ago, when I was graduating from Western Teachers' College as a technical studies teacher, the last presentation was given to us by the inspector of schools, Mr Longbottom (I cannot remember his Christian name), and he was telling us what a wonderful job we were going to do as teachers, and he went on and on and I fell asleep. I had been posted to Salisbury north-west technical high school, as it was then named, which was just around the corner from where I lived in Salisbury, which was pretty convenient. I was woken up by the senior lecturer in technical studies, the late Jack Peake, who told me that I had been posted to Port Augusta High School.

The Hon. J.D. Hill: For falling asleep?

Dr McFETRIDGE: Yes—what do you get if you walk out? That was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because, first, I met my wife in Port Augusta, and we have been married for 40 years now, and I also got my school bus drivers' licence. In those days it was the big old Bedford buses, vinyl seats and certainly no thought of a safety belt. They were all manual buses, you had a lever on the side where you push the hand out that signalled either a right-hand or left-hand turn. I am not that old—we actually had indicators not long after that on a newer bus. This was in the early 1970s.

I drove the school bus out to Stirling North and out to what was then the Davenport Aboriginal Mission. It was an interesting experience being on the school buses, providing transport for not only high school kids but also for primary school kids. There were kids who went to church-based schools in Port Augusta at the time, and I think occasionally—I cannot remember accurately how many times we did it—we carried those kids, knowing that they were going to go on to the church schools that were close to Port Augusta High School. We did not drive them there—they got off and just walked around the corner.

It was happening unofficially back then. When I was driving the school bus at Minlaton it was an old crash box school bus. If you have ever driven a crash box vehicle, there is no synchro at all—you have to get your gear changes just right. If I did crash one the kids would say, 'Oh, Mr Mac, don't worry, we'll pick that one up on the way back', as the gears crunched through as we changed gears. Driving the school bus out to Curramulka and Brentwood to pick up the kids—there were no private schools, it was all state schools.

The service provided to country people, particularly by the big yellow school buses or the white Link SA buses now, is absolutely vital. The cost of running a motor vehicle with fuel costs today is quite expensive and we will talk about that also in relation to the PATS motion before the house. The division between state schools and private church schools and other non-denominational schools is not one we should be talking about when talking about getting kids to school. Let us make sure we get those kids to schools.

Certainly the non-government schools are not freeloading off the state in any way, shape or form. I think in the 1960s there was a move to cut all funding to non-government schools in Victoria, and the Catholic Archbishop said to the then minister for education, 'Well, we'll just shut our schools—you can have the whole lot.' There was a pregnant pause and they quickly decided that that was not a good idea, that they should be supporting non-government schools. Here again we should be supporting the non-government schools—not necessarily taking over every kid who wants to travel to a non-government school on public school buses, but we should be at least being a bit conciliatory and pragmatic about it.

It is not the kids' fault that they live where they live and their school is positioned where it is. Our job as members of parliament, our job as legislators in this place, is to give every child every opportunity—which is a term used quite a bit in this place—so, surely, putting them on the school bus is something we should be looking at. I am not saying we go to the extent of providing extra school buses, but we certainly should be trying to facilitate it wherever we possibly can.

I note that the modern school buses now have individual seating, not the old bench seating. They have seatbelts on them. They travel at quite high speed with much better brakes than we ever had. They are a very safe form of transport, so why would you not want the children to be on the safest form of transport as well as one that is taking them from where their parents, in most cases, are dropping them off, straight to the schools or close by in the case of non-government schools?

If they go past a non-government school, they can certainly drop them off there. I think, if it was just around the corner, it would not be unreasonable for them to walk there as a group. This needs to be recognised as something that is a little bit of common sense. It is not a political die in the ditch issue, surely, for a government. It is not going to cost them a lot. You are running the bus already. The bus is on the way, so let them get on the bus.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (16:46): I support this motion from the member for Unley. I do not see any justification for discriminating against children who attend a non-government school. I have taken an interest in what happens in the Murray Bridge area. I think that if the bus is going to a departmental school in that area, then I see no reason why the children who attend the Lutheran school, the Catholic school, or whatever, cannot access that bus. I am sure that, with a little bit of common sense and a bit of wisdom, the bus service can cater for everyone. Just harking to the motion briefly—

There being a disturbance in the Speaker's Gallery:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry to interrupt, member for Fisher. Could I just remind the person in the gallery that you are not allowed to use cameras with a flash.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: It wouldn't have been a very nice photo, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: I notice that the previous motion that the member for Frome was promoting really overlaps with this one. I think it is a very modest request from both members and, in this case, the member for Unley, to review the school transport policy. It is not a radical request: it is asking that it be reviewed. One would hope that, in any good administration, they are constantly reviewing what they do to make sure that it is relevant and contemporary.

I would like to just quickly raise some related points about the school transport system. There was an article in the Southern Times last week where the parents at Moana Primary School were asked, I think, to contribute $10 a head so the school bus could have seatbelts. I notice that article said that, out of the 486 school buses, 360 have seatbelts, which obviously means the rest did not.

I do not think it is unreasonable that, whether you are transporting children purely to a DECD school or you have got private, independent or Catholic schoolchildren on board, that the buses be equipped with seatbelts. I commend the government for gradually phasing in buses with seatbelts. I think there has been a significant improvement in recent times in the quality of the buses provided in terms of the safety of the children, so that is a great advance.

I will just come back to the point of this motion. I do not think it is unreasonable to request a review and I think that, where possible, unless there is some strong compelling reason, the buses should cater for children whether they are attending a government school or a non-government school.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (16:50): I rise to wholeheartedly support the motion of the member for Unley, that this house urges the government to take action to review the education department's school transport policy; specifically, restrictions placed on government and non-government students' access to departmental school buses. This is an issue that is relevant all over the state and, very particularly, in the electorate of Stuart.

We have an issue with this right now with regard to the Burra-Farrell Flat-Clare area. It has been in the local media and members may be familiar with it. Kids from the Burra-Farrell Flat area have been going on the state school bus into the Catholic school at Clare, and everyone has been very happy with that arrangement. That arrangement has come under great pressure, and I would like to commend the Liberal candidate for the electorate of Frome, Kendall Jackson, who has worked on this issue with David Pisoni, the member for Unley, as the education spokesperson on the issue, and with myself and others.

This is a very real issue. As the member for Morphett has just said, in the scheme of things it is a very small incremental additional cost to allow this to happen, to ensure that there is space on the bus for those kids—and I do acknowledge that when there is space it is already okay for them to get on the bus. However, I think it would take no extra planning and minimal extra money to ensure that there is space; in the grand scheme of things it would probably save some money, because the cost of the bus for those students would be far less than the cost of attending the public school, which the taxpayer would have to meet. So in the long run that is probably a saving for the education department.

School buses are always an interesting and often a complicated area of discussion. We would all remember many issues raised about air conditioning, about seat belts, and about a whole range of other things. I actually learnt to drive on a school bus, as it happens.

Mr Whetstone: As you do.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Well, I actually learnt to drive on a tractor first, just to get things going, but my first experience learning how to drive was actually refuelling buses in a car park. It was not on the road or anything like that, but they were the first on-road motor vehicles that I learnt to drive on, school buses. I actually had a school bus licence shortly after that, and in my summer holidays I drove kids to and from summer camp, so I perhaps feel an extra connection to this issue.

However, let me say that in the electorate of Stuart this is a huge issue. I would not want to place very, very small country schools under any additional pressure by virtue of the fact that, potentially, any children from anywhere could hop on a bus and it would take them to any other school. I would never advocate that things go that far but, certainly, giving people flexibility and options, giving them the ability to go to the school of their choice, is completely sensible, and asking that the school transport policy be reviewed makes great sense.

It also makes great sense in light of the debacle that we had 1½ to three years ago, with regard to the renewal of school bus contracts. For those people who may not be familiar with country areas, school bus contracts are actually incredibly important small businesses. There are an enormous number of people in country South Australia who operate school buses for the education department, and they provide a fantastic service. We have a local person in a local area driving a privately-owned bus contracted to the government, and they have come under great pressure in recent years as well.

While this motion from the member for Unley focuses on restrictions placed on government and non-government student access, I think it could also consider a wide range of issues with regard to school buses. The rearrangements and contracts that we have seen lately that amalgamated a lot of contracts for arguably no saving actually did a lot of damage to businesses and country towns and arguably did not improve the service at all either.

The issue regarding school access interestingly is something that Kendall Jackson knows about first-hand. She knew this first-hand as a student growing up in the district when her parents had to face this issue. She knows about this issue first-hand now as a mother and a parent of four kids of her own going to school. She has been wrestling with this at a very personal level, and I commend her for trying to address this issue on behalf of her community. She cannot fix the difficulties that her parents had and it may well be too late to fix some of the difficulties that she has as a parent herself, but she really wants to get this fixed on behalf of her community, as do I.

There are 42 schools in the electorate of Stuart: three are Catholic schools and every other one is a state government school. All of those schools work incredibly hard to do the best they can, the catholic ones and the state schools, the teachers, the staff and the SSOs. Everybody all the way through to the maintenance people do the very best they can for the students in a caring and a learning capacity and also with regard to fulfilling their very important obligation as one of the most important institutions in these small towns. The investigation into the school transport policy will be very important in ensuring that all of those people working very hard in the schools can continue to do so on behalf of their communities for decades to come.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:57): I, too, rise to support the motion put forward by the member for Unley. I thank him for bringing this matter to the parliament because it has been an ongoing issue in my electorate for some time. I might also add that I acknowledge the member for Frome's motion as well because there are elements there that I think also need to be reflected in this issue regarding school transport.

Some of the issues that I have had to contend with in my short time as a representative state member have particularly related to the Barmera Primary School, which had its school bus service cancelled, or cut, under the current Department of Education and Children's Services. That service had been running for about 29 years. Obviously, in the regions, a school bus service is vital for the existence of a school. It is also there as a conduit for getting students from outreach properties to school to make sure they get an education. I know that in some circumstances if there is no conduit—being a bus service or a car pool—children just do not attend school.

As I said, the Barmera Primary School bus service obviously left a lot of students without a means of transport to get to and from school. The service was used not only for getting children to school and getting them home, but also for school excursions and the like. It was an impact felt not just by the students that were being picked up and dropped off at school but the 241 students who actually attended the school. The department, through its incompetence, allowed the service to be cut, and that has had a huge impact on that small regional school.

It really does seem to be that, with the eligible bus service, students who live anywhere inside the five kilometre radius of a school are not eligible to get on the bus. In many instances, that bus service is in operation and it picks up students that are outside the five kilometre radius of the school, but it has to pass the homes of those students that would need a bus service, even if they are just within the radius. That bus goes straight past those students. It is not there to pick them up because it does not fit that five kilometre radius. I think that is outrageous that a bus that is half empty will not stop and pick up because of the guidelines, the rules that the Education Department has set down.

The department knew that those students in Barmera were not eligible for pick-up but allowed their service to continue during the drought, removing the service subsequently once the drought had passed. That created a huge upheaval for the students. It created a huge uncertainty for parents. One minute we have one set of rules, the next minute there is another set of rules. It threw the school into turmoil. I met with teachers and parents on regular occasions trying to get some certainty back into how those students were going to get to school, and eventually it was sorted out. It was the small-mindedness of those making the decisions that leaves these students high and dry.

Another example is the Swan Reach school. Being an Area school, it picks up a lot of students from far and wide and brings them into that school. Everyone here knows that area schools have to work within a system. I have one particular student who lives 20 metres within the five kilometre exclusion zone. That student is a disabled student. He is in a wheelchair and yet he was denied the use of a school bus.

The school bus had a ramp, and what the parents were having to do is to take the student outside that 20 metre exclusion zone so that that student could get on. That bus had a ramp and that handicapped student was able to use the bus but, sadly, the bus ramp only worked occasionally. On some days they would pick up the student and they would have to drive to school with the ramp extended and there was no provision for that bus to have that ramp repaired or fixed because that student lived within the five kilometre radius. Again, it is the small-mindedness that really does beggar belief. They are little issues that regional students, regional families and regional schools are dealing with, sadly, way too often.

We also have had some issues raised by the member for Unley about non-government school children not being able to fully access the bus service, as opposed to government school children. Non-government school children are only able to use the buses if the buses do not have to travel any additional distances to get to non-government schools.

The Education Department should be about getting kids to school. It is not about branding them whether you are a private school or a public school or what sort of a uniform you wear or what colour shoes you wear. It should be about a service that provides kids with assistance to get to school so that they can get an education and they can be part of the school system. They may only travel further than the nearest government school if there is sufficient space on the bus, but if there is no additional cost to the department I am sure that parents would be willing to stump up some of the cost to be part of that school transport system.

It is about that bipartisan agreement in getting kids to school and that is what the school bus services should be about. We continually see the department looking at the bottom line—at the dollar value. I accept that, but in regional schools it is about being proactive in getting your kids to school, and that is how the department should be working.

Again, it is really a bit of a 'them' and 'us' situation. Sadly, I do not see too many of those DECD buses delivering kids to school here in metropolitan Adelaide. The big issue that we are dealing with is regional South Australia. It might be that the bureaucracy, perhaps even the minister, might need to get out and look at the circumstances where some of these kids have to get on buses in the dark to get to school. They get off the buses at night in the dark because that is what they have to do to get to school and be part of the system.

I guess some of the problems that are being experienced by schools about the size of the bus fleet contracted by the government are determined by the number of students in government schools. Why are buses being sent out with empty seats just to meet department regulations? This has left school students and parents at a loss. It is leaving them at a disadvantage.

As an example, I have Victorian school buses coming into my electorate, picking up South Australian students and taking them back into Victoria to go to school because they are prepared to pick up the kids so that they are putting up the numbers in their Victorian schools. They are prepared to be proactive to get students out of South Australia into Victorian schools. The South Australian education department has to pull kids to pickup areas whereas, in Victoria, they go to the gate and pick up the kids and take them to school.

There is the difference between the Victorian government that is proactive trying to put kids into school and the DECD department that is just being small minded and narrow minded and not working within. The member for Fisher has highlighted an issue that was brought to my attention and that is that we have got the education department now asking for parents to pay for seatbelts to be put into their kids' school bus. I think we really need to have a good look at how the system is working.

Time expired.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (17:07): I, too, rise to support the motion of the member for Unley. I also acknowledge that the member for Frome has raised this issue with a similar and parallel motion in this house. I would welcome a review particularly. Many of the country members who have spoken in this place have highlighted that it seems to be an issue particularly for regional areas. Certainly, it was one of the very first issues that was brought to my attention as a new member in this place, as the new member for Flinders. We have nowhere near as many schools as the member for Stuart has in his electorate—I think 47, was it?

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: Forty-two.

Mr TRELOAR: Forty-two—but, certainly, in the seat of Flinders we have over 20 schools. Three of those schools are non-government schools. There is a Lutheran school in Ceduna, another Lutheran school in Port Lincoln and also a Catholic school in Port Lincoln, along with the many high schools, primary schools and area schools scattered throughout the district.

The issue that was brought to my attention was the very fact that has been highlighted a number of times here today and that is students whose parents had made a choice to send their children to a private school—a school outside of the education department—but who actually lived on farms or in country areas out of town. The current DECD policy relating to school buses in particular I am going to quote, because I think it is important. The quote is:

Students attending non-government schools are permitted to use existing school buses to travel to those schools, provided that the buses are not involved in additional travel to visit the non-government school. Primary and secondary school students attending non-government schools [and] who reside 5 kms or more by the shortest most practicable route from the nearest appropriate Government school, have a right to use existing bus services to travel to that Government school. Non-government primary and secondary students may also travel past or away from a government school but such travel is subject to there being available room on the bus, and there is no additional cost to the department.

When I approached the education department with concerns of parents who had made the choice to send their children to private schools with this very issue—that there was not a seat available for them on the bus—this particular policy was quoted to me.

I must say the education department in my experience at a local level around Port Lincoln did their very best to accommodate the request of the parents, but of course they are constrained by this policy, and that is what the motion is all about: to review the policy and hopefully come up with a more equitable arrangement for those students not attending education department schools.

Another issue that is very much related to school buses and seat availability is that of preschool children. I give the example that was brought to my attention from the Miltaburra Area School. Miltaburra is in between Wirrulla and Ceduna. I do know the school well. It is one of two schools that we have parked in between two communities, but the issue is around preschool children also not necessarily being able to gain a seat on a school bus because of seat availability.

It is particularly critical in those sparsely-populated areas with relatively small area schools which are really struggling to maintain a critical mass of students. Parents obviously want their children to have the opportunity for preschool education. They want equal opportunity for their children, along with all the other children in the state, as far as education goes.

It turns out that, if there are not available seats on a bus for a preschool child, that parent actually has to drive by car to take their preschooler to the area school campus so that preschool can be attended. This can be many kilometres in some instances, and Miltaburra and Karcultaby are unique in that they do not have a township adjoining them, so it is in fact a special trip. There is actually a disadvantage, I guess, to those families who are attempting to access vital preschool education but without access to school buses.

The other thing, of course, is that there is no public transport in country areas so, once again, for children who live in a rural setting in a regional district, the only way they are going to get to school usually is via a school bus. The government have traditionally funded school buses to transport children to their own schools. Of late, more and more, we are seeing private contractors being given contracts to do the same job and of course that has been fraught with difficulties as well.

Going back to Port Lincoln again, I spoke to one of the local contractors just last week and asked him how his bid for the contract was going—it is a contract he has had for some years now—and he informed me that he was not even going to bother to make a bid for the contract. It was just too difficult and too onerous and, in fact, he had better things to do.

On asking him what the education department was going to do about those contracts, he suggested to me that they would probably run their own school buses, so we are back to running those traditional yellow school buses—those yellow school buses that in fact transported me to school for many years from where we lived on the farm, and I must say all the action was up the back of the bus.

Ms Bedford interjecting:

Mr TRELOAR: No, I kid you not. If you wanted to be amongst the action, you went to the back of the bus, and all sorts of fun things happened there. Many jokes were told; homework was done; cards were played, in fact.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: Tennis balls thrown.

Mr TRELOAR: Tennis balls thrown, apples, fruit thrown—cake thrown, even. As much as I hate waste of food of any kind, there was a bit of food thrown around on our bus.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: No-one has responsibility as a small boy.

Mr TRELOAR: That is right. Of course, the younger children always sat at the front and, as you progressed through your school years, you got closer and closer to the back of the bus, where eventually—and I am talking 40 years ago, so bear with me on this one, and I know this is relevant to the next motion—once you got to the senior years and you were far enough up the back of the bus, there was the occasional cigarette smoked. Heaven forbid! There was no air conditioning, so the windows were open and the driver rarely, if ever, knew. I do not know if that happened on the member for Morphett's Minlaton bus run or not.

Dr McFetridge: They wouldn't dare.

Mr TRELOAR: They wouldn't dare. It was a lot of fun. If I can beg the indulgence of the house, another thing that I recall from my bus travels on a yellow school bus—bus No. 353, I think, or perhaps No. 433 in the early days—was that often on a wet winter's day we did not actually make it to school because the roads were so wet. There were wet wires and bog holes.

I remember my dad coming out one day with the Chamberlain and towing the bus through the creek, so all those things happened. The Cockaleechie bus always had to leave early if there were heavy rains and the creek was rising. A message would come over the PA that the Cockaleechie kids had to assemble, get on the bus and get home. I was always very envious of the Cockaleechie kids because they had a creek that came down and they often got to go home early, but it was a lot of fun.

My point is that it is such a vital service, especially in the country regions where there is no public transport. There are no other options for rural-based children to get to their regional centres and go to school. So, I would implore the government to undertake this review. Issues have been raised today about equity, fairness and the importance of choice in education. I think nobody would dispute that parents should have the choice and, if they do, they should be provided with an equal opportunity for transport.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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