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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-02-26 Daily Xml
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School Zoning

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (15:19): Last week, the Marshall government—without any warning, without any consultation, without any notice—ripped the heart out of the western and south-western suburbs. You cannot imagine the hurt and pain that parents feel knowing that the plans that they had made and the future that they had planned for the most important thing they hold dear in their lives—their children—have been completely ripped out of their hands by a government that I think played a stupid undergraduate game of politics, thinking that they could just deny the people of the western and south-western suburbs access to two of the most prestigious and sought-after public schools in South Australia.

I am a lucky beneficiary of an education at Adelaide High School. The reason I went to Adelaide High School is that I was born in the western suburbs and grew up in the western suburbs, and Adelaide High School is as close to the western suburbs as any other institution could be. It is of, from and part of our community and our culture. I cannot tell you the number of people I meet in my electorate who have grown up in the area, bought a home in the area and aspire to send their children to a school that they went to. Why? Because it is a great community. That is the great thing about public education: we have schools that people really want to try to get their children into because of the quality of the education.

The member for Badcoe and I have been inundated by parents and children who are concerned about this decision. We have also been inundated by people who have seen the property values of their homes dramatically decreased. I met with a family who made a decision to buy a home in Torrensville. It is the largest investment of their lives. They made a decision that they would buy in Torrensville, where property prices were dramatically increasing, because they like the area, they like the amenity of the suburb and the schools zoned for that suburb were Adelaide Botanic and Adelaide High School.

These two parents were scientists. The largest investment they have made is in their schools and in their homes, and the reason they want a public education for their children is that they believe in public education. Just imagine the hurt that family felt that night when this minister so callously decided to rip them out of the zone without warning, then, to add insult to injury, began to invest millions of dollars, unannounced, in other schools to increase their capacity for their policy decision to have year 7 in high school but did no such thing for the people of the western suburbs. It is heartbreaking.

The thing about the Liberal Party is that, in this undergraduate move where they think that the only victims are in Labor seats, what they do not realise and have not yet contemplated is the innate sense of fairness that South Australians have in their DNA. No South Australian I have spoken to, whether they are affected or unaffected, thinks that the decision made by the Premier, his education minister and every member of the government is fair, nor do they think it is equitable, nor do they think, quite frankly, it passes the pub test.

In fact, any right-minded South Australian, when hearing of this decision, knows what it is: it is blatant politicking. The people of South Australia will not put up with it. I say to the people who are not affected, who are zoned for Norwood Morialta, who are zoned for Brighton, who are zoned for Unley High School, who are zoned for Henley High: if they can do it to us, they can do it to you. If they can just change the zone with a stroke of a pen without any consultation, there is nothing stopping them from doing it to other communities.

This is a policy disaster for the government. This policy disaster was done on the run because of their policy and poor planning to put year 7 into high school. They did not budget for it. They did not plan for it. They have co-opted money that the Minister for Education and I put into the budget for a massive upgrade of our schools and they have taken that money to implement their policies. But it does not go quite far enough because they cannot deny what we already announced to families on upgrades to schools, so they are simply changing the zones.

On Sunday 3 March at 9.30am at Thebarton car park, South Australians will march to Adelaide High School to do two things: to show our protest about how unfair this is and to show the proximity to the suburbs that have been excluded. The member for Badcoe and I are just the beginning of this campaign. We are not running this campaign. Parents are, families are, the kids are, and the government will pay for this decision.

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