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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-11-28 Daily Xml
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Better Schools Funding

Ms COOK (Fisher) (14:54): My question is for the Minister for Education and Child Development. How are South Australian schools already benefiting from the Better Schools Funding and how would they be affected by the proposed changes to funding from the federal government?

Mr GARDNER: Point of order, sir: standing order 97 doesn't allow hypotheticals.

The SPEAKER: No, there are actually proposed changes by the federal government; they are not hypothetical.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (14:55): Again, very briefly, the bottom line is that we missed out on $210 million for all of our schools, but the good news for South Australian schools is that not only are we standing up for them and fighting for them but also, because we have stuck to our end of the bargain, we are able to spend money on our schools that is going to make a significant difference to the quality of education being provided.

In the last question, I explained that we were providing additional funding to non-government schools—to independent schools and to Catholic schools—but also we are of course spending a significant amount of money on our public schools because we have maintained our commitment to what is known as Gonski. Examples are 154 more special places for special options for students who have disabilities; 10 additional behaviour coaches to provide therapeutic interventions; 11 attendance and engagement social workers; 51 more wellbeing leaders, previously known as counsellors, in primary schools to make a difference to the quality of the education and the experience of our students; and the $67.5 million that we are spending on literacy and numeracy interventions.

None of that would be possible without our commitment to Gonski, and imagine what we could do if we had the similar existing commitment from the federal government. If the commitment that we signed had been maintained, imagine what schools could spend. Imagine the number of teachers and SSOs that they could employ to assist students. But, no, they are going to be unfortunately significantly short of what had been agreed to be the amount required for a world-class education.

I will give an example at random. The electorate of Norwood, soon to be known as Dunstan, looks like it will be about $3.5 million—

An honourable member: It already is Dunstan.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: —excuse me, Dunstan—worse off, including East Adelaide School losing some $647,000 that it was supposed to get, that it was agreed it would get and now will not be getting because of the federal government. The schools in the member for Morialta's electorate will be some $1.5 million worse off, including around $744,000 from Stradbroke, and these are just some public schools in these electorates that are missing out. Bear in mind that so too are the independent and the Catholic schools missing out.

So we will stand up for our schools, not because it is a dollar figure that we have pulled out randomly as thinking would be nice to have but because some time ago we agreed what was required for a quality education for our students—

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: —and we stuck to our side of that bargain and the federal government has abandoned us.

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is called to order and he is warned.

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