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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-21 Daily Xml
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Morialta Electorate

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (15:26): It is a great pleasure to rise to talk about some of the extraordinary investment the Marshall Liberal government is putting into schools and preschools around South Australia. I will take this opportunity to reflect on some of the investments in my electorate of Morialta, which are reflected in every other electorate in this state.

In the last budget, this government took the opportunity to provide a grant to every single public educational institution in South Australia. Every school and every preschool in the public education system has benefited. Our preschools have benefited from two rounds of grants totalling $50,000 over the last year and half. They are putting those $50,000 grants to great use in building shade structures, landscaping, kitchen upgrades, tiling, roofing, painting, creating jobs for trades and small businesses in regions and in the suburbs across South Australia and providing a lift to all those preschools.

In addition to that, there have been grants of between $20,000 and $100,000 to every single public school in South Australia for similar purposes, for whatever the priorities are for those schools. There have been grants of $20,000 to schools that already have major infrastructure works underway, going up to $100,000 grants for the larger of the schools that do not have major works currently underway.

In Morialta, we have some outstanding education facilities, and indeed across the public schools and preschools it is just a small number of those 900 grants that have gone out across South Australia, but I want to reflect on some of the great work that has been underway and the sorts of things these grants have enabled. A perfect example is Highbury Preschool, where there has been landscaping and painting, and a new playground or possibly a nature play area is being worked on. At Magill Kindergarten, they are looking at landscaping, creating a new playground or nature play area again.

At Rostrevor Kindergarten, they are replacing storage facilities, replacing flooring and landscaping and also taking the opportunity to put work towards their playground and their outdoor spaces. At Thorndon Park Kindergarten, there has been storage replacement. Athelstone Preschool and Dernancourt Kindergarten are doing important work with these grants too.

These $50,000 in grants for preschools, indeed millions across South Australia, are a unique program because every single one of nearly 400 public preschools, whether they be standalone or school-based preschools, has had the opportunity for this lift. I remember visiting the St Agnes preschool to 7, where the work being done on their playground is going to be very significant. That follows on from the money they spent last year on upgrading their kitchen facilities, which has been very much appreciated not only by the children in St Agnes but also by those in Vista, in my electorate, who will be using that facility in the years ahead.

It is not just preschools that have benefited; the schools have as well. The $70,000 grant Athelstone School received is going towards landscaping, the upgrade of the oval irrigation and wiring—important projects. That is on top of some further funding out of our department's maintenance boost they received last year, when we put forward $75,000 to improve the sewer line condition. I know from having visited that school on a number of occasions the improvement that has meant for the main block of classrooms. The toilets do not provide the same stink in the summer months, which has been tremendously important. It is a world-class school that obviously requires world-class infrastructure and those children deserve it.

At Magill School, the $20,000 stimulus grant went towards landscaping and a kitchen upgrade. That was on top of $140,000 provided last year for perimeter paving replacement and stormwater rectification and, indeed, the $7 million significant upgrade that is currently in the concept design phase. We are looking forward to seeing those plans in the not too distant future.

Norton Summit Primary School in your electorate, sir, although servicing some of my constituents going forward—it had been in Morialta for a long time previously—has a $60,000 grant, and I am looking forward to seeing that put to good use. In addition, they recently spent $150,000 on their bitumen, hard play and perimeter path replacement.

Thorndon Park Primary School has $20,000 on top of their recent STEM works project, and at Stradbroke School there is a $7 million capital works upgrade, which looks fantastic and is going to be tremendous when it is finished. They have also been able to use their $20,000 stimulus grant for an outdoor shade structure.

This government is putting unprecedented funding and resources into our public education system. The extraordinary efforts the Marshall Liberal government is going to to invest in world-class education, both in these infrastructure projects and in maintenance grants, totalling a $1.4 billion record investment, highlight the importance the Marshall Liberal government puts on education. I cannot wait to see the improvement this will provide to lifting our facilities across South Australia.

Time expired.

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