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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-28 Daily Xml
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TAFE SA Urrbrae Campus

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:39): I rise to speak on the matter of the 2018-19 announcement concerning the impending closure of the TAFE SA Urrbrae campus. This is the second time I have spoken on this matter in the chamber, the first was during my recent second reading speech on the Appropriation Bill.

During that speech I spoke about an online petition established by Elly Potter, a passionate horticulture student at the Urrbrae campus, who is here with us today along with John Zwar, a retired teacher at Urrbrae, and other supporters and campaigners, in particular Kate Chattaway, branch head of the Mediterranean Garden Society, and Sonia Green. I thank them for attending today.

Elly has done an absolutely remarkable job with the Change.org petition, which I have with me and which I will be tabling at the conclusion of my speech. In a few short weeks the petition has amassed more than 3,000 signatures, an absolutely outstanding effort in anyone's language and an indication of the strong community campaign against the campus' impending closure.

The campaign to prevent the closure of the TAFE SA Urrbrae campus has certainly gained pace since the government's announcement to shut it. The Change.org petition has been supplemented by a hard copy petition—garnering around a thousand additional signatures and growing—that urges the government to reverse its decision and retain TAFE SA Urrbrae at its present site, continuing to offer courses now and into the future. I encourage South Australians to sign the hard copy petition, available at places like Beaumont House, nurseries and garden clubs throughout the city.

The Nursery and Garden Industry of South Australia (NGISA) has also publicly shared its shock and alarm at the decision to close the Urrbrae campus, and has written to the Minister for Education to express its overwhelming concerns. Other industry stakeholders have followed suit. I have also written to the minister urging him to reverse the Marshall government's rash decision.

Today, I take a step further and invite the minister to accompany me on a tour of the unique and impressive sight, a tour I undertook three weeks ago, so that he can see for himself, just as I did, how special the site is. The TAFE SA Urrbrae campus is unique in Australia because of its setting alongside Urrbrae Agricultural High School and the Urrbrae Wetland, opposite the Waite—the Hon. John Dawkins may have to help me here—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: Arboretum.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: —Arboretum, the Waite Agricultural Research Institute, SARDI and CSIRO.

I was impressed by the significance of the site with its composition of flora, designed to be a living, breathing outdoor school providing the highest quality horticultural education. SA-Best will not let this exceptional and internationally known and envied site be jeopardised by an ill-advised decision. Elly's petition reads as follows:

Hi, I'm Elly and I'm a Diploma of Horticulture student at TAFE SA. Like others working in SA's horticulture industry, I'm totally gobsmacked by the Marshall government's recent decision to close Urrbrae TAFE campus.

This beautiful purpose-built campus is the heart of horticulture education in South Australia. Closing Urrbrae will damage SA's $3 billion horticulture industry, which needs skilled workers to expand. I'm really worried about the future of our wonderful industry.

But it doesn't have to be this way. The Marshall government can still secure the future of South Australian horticulture by merely withdrawing its decision to close TAFE. Our industry needs stability to grow jobs in the future—without the threat of thoughtless cuts that hurt our next generation of leaders.

Studying at Urrbrae has been fantastic. The facilities and training I received on campus helped me gain the skills I needed to get into the industry and start my own garden maintenance business.

Horticulture can't be taught in a classroom alone. At Urrbrae we learn to prune grapevines and fruit trees in the campus vineyard and orchard. We get our hands dirty propagating plants in the campus nursery and study water quality at the Urrbrae Wetland. We learn to identify and cultivate hundreds of different plants growing on campus and how to treat pests and encourage beneficial insects. The Waite Arboretum—next door to the Urrbrae TAFE—is our living tree catalogue, with thousands of different species growing under local conditions.

With all these great facilities on our campus why on earth would the state government want to harm our industry by shutting down Urrbrae TAFE? These facilities cannot simply be moved to another campus. And to rebuild them would take years of work and buckets of money.

It makes absolutely no sense.

I'm passionate about our wonderful industry and I'm not going to give up until we get our campus back.

Steven Marshall can secure the future of South Australian horticulture by immediately withdrawing his decision to close Urrbrae TAFE.

With these powerful words from Elly, I seek leave to table the document.

Leave granted.

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