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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-08-06 Daily Xml
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Federal Budget

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (15:23): I would like to speak today about the release of my most recent newsletter in which I advertised my next round of listening posts. Throughout August, I will be holding one of my regular rounds of listening posts in the electorate of Taylor. There are seven of these planned over the next coming weeks. Last Saturday actually marked by 40th listening post since I was elected in 2010, and I regularly hold ongoing community forums on topics such as water, community, public transport, seniors, welfare and similar topics.

What people are saying in my electorate is loud and clear: they know the federal budget cuts are going to be hurting them. They are concerned about them. Consistently, all through shopping centres I was at on Saturday afternoon, people approached me. In Paralowie, for example, they were very vocal about the federal budget cuts and how they are going to affect the health system and how they are going to affect particularly older South Australians.

One gentleman had left his job to be a full-time carer of his wife and was worried about the GP co-payment tax, how it would punish his family and his children, and how they should seek the professional advice that they need, particularly as high-end users of the system with the complexity of his wife's conditions.

People were also concerned about the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. One woman approached me in Burton, concerned about how far the federal budgets will go, whether she will be able to get her personal needs met with some of the special products she was requiring, and whether that clarity would be coming through, because it was making a great impact on her mental health.

There are also a number of families in the area, as it is a growing community in the north with many young children. A lovely couple at Paralowie told me about how they were very concerned that the school funding cuts were going to create disadvantage in our schools, separating those children in the northern suburbs from other areas.

For example, the South Australian government is funding an extra $229 million over the next six years for South Australian schools. This compares to $335 million that the federal Abbott government is cutting from our state schools in the same period of time, which is a disgrace to many people in the community who backed the Gonski reforms and wanted them delivered.

In 2018-19, the federal government intends to cut approximately $666,000 from the Lake Windemere B-7 School in my area, which is a school that needs as much support as it can get. It has a magnificent new set of buildings and facilities supported by the state government. In my time as a local member, the school has been largely rebuilt after an amalgamation. That money will have a profound effect on that school.

Over $1 million will be cut from Settlers Farm Campus, which is the school closest to my electorate office. Again, it is a fantastic school but it needs support, not cuts. There will $374,000 cut from Virginia Primary School in the north of my electorate and a further half a million from Burton Primary School. Again, there is a complex community in Burton that needs support.

Nearby Two Wells Primary, which services the students from the Lewiston area in my electorate, will have $426,000 cut from its budget, and $1.684 million will be cut from the Paralowie R-12 School, which is just over the other side of Whites Road in the member for Ramsay's electorate but it serves my electorate as well. Salisbury High—the only other public high school my constituents go to in the local area—has a $1.022 million cut.

It is a shame; it is a disgrace. The people in the north know and are ashamed of what the federal government do and how they are hurting people in the north. This, on top of the Holden closure, makes them distrustful of all governments, but they particularly know that it is the federal government they need to blame and why the state government is delivering on its promises and standing up for them. Shame, federal government.

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