Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about Little River Primary School and their out-of-hours school care program. Little River is a community of 750 people, a local shop, a hotel and a small primary school in the electorate of Lalor. I was very pleased to accompany the member for Lalor to visit the school community.

In August this year, staff and parents of the Little River Primary School were shocked to learn that due to the reclassification status of their school to an urban city school, they will lose $16,000 in Commonwealth funding for their out-of-school hours care program. If you took the drive—like I did, with the member for Labor—you would soon realise that this is not an urban city school. If parents at the Little River community are denied access to this critical service because of an erroneous reclassification parents may be forced to change schools or leave the township entirely. This would have a devastating impact on the Little River Primary School and the town itself.

I am calling—as has the member for Lalor—on the government to use its discretionary power to reverse this cut. These families of Little River need this service. I do note that the member for Lalor has written to the government about this on numerous occasions. It is now time for the minister to act. Please respond, Minister. Please change this disastrous decision.