Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My family has always believed in the power of education. When I track my family history through generations, from Eastern Europe through to Great Britain to the colonies of Australia, America, New Zealand and Southern Africa, my family's prosperity is dependent on the portability and importance of education. I stand here today as a strong advocate for the expansion of education infrastructure across the country and in particular in my electorate of Macarthur and other outer metropolitan areas.

The statistics from the high school certificate last year in New South Wales are unequivocal: if you live in a wealthy postcode with affluent suburbs around you or if you go to a private school or a selective school, your chances of doing very well in the HSC are much higher than if you attend a comprehensive school in the local area. That is a tragedy. It's an inequity that needs to be addressed.

Macarthur's population continues to grow at a massive rate—the fastest in the country. We have farms being turned into suburbs, it seems, every week. We are now the largest electorate in the nation because of our population. This has massive implications for our local school infrastructure and other infrastructure as well. With the New South Wales state election this week, the issue of the lack of schools and education placements in our region is rightfully coming under the spotlight.

Almost on a daily basis, my electorate office receives calls, emails and walk-ins from constituents frustrated over the lack of schools and placements in their area. This is particularly concerning for those families whose children require special needs placements—children who have special needs such as autism or intellectual disability or even physical needs such as cerebral palsy. There are far fewer placements for the population, so children often have to travel large distances to get special needs placements or be placed in inappropriate schools that don't have the resources to deal with their special needs. It is really concerning to me as a father but also as a paediatrician.

I've seen the power of education for children with disability as transformational over the decades I've worked in paediatrics. One school in particular, Passfield Park School, located in Minto, was literally falling down. There'd been arguments from families for years about the need to rebuild the school. Myself and the local member for Macquarie Fields, Anoulack Chanthivong, worked extremely hard to finally get the education minister, Sarah Mitchell, to agree that the school needed to be bulldozed and replaced. This was after years of inadequate facilities for kids with severe disability. Kids in wheelchairs couldn't access classrooms. There were no lifts. There was mould throughout the leaking roof. And there were no appropriate audio-visual resources. We fought for many years for this to happen, but finally the education minister came to the table and we have now rebuilt Passfield Park School. The difference it has made to those children and families is incredible.

Whilst I'm thankful to Minister Mitchell for her work on this matter, her government has simply not done enough for the remaining thousands of children, both current and future, that require classrooms, teachers and school supplies. Oran Park School has three times the children in it that it was designed for, with over 40 demountable classrooms—incredible! There is no parking, even for the parents who want to drop kids off at school in the morning. Parents are directed to send their children to schools far away in areas that, we must remember, have very poor public transport. I hear all the time from families that these children are really distressed about the many hours they spend travelling just to get to school.

There's currently a community run campaign in my electorate of parents wanting a new public high school within the Gledswood Hills and Gregory Hills areas. They should not have to campaign for this. This is a need and something that people in other areas have, yet the children in these areas don't have a high school and have to travel large distances. Sally Quinnell, the Labor candidate for Camden, has been campaigning for this for several years, yet nothing has happened. Gledswood Hills Public School, which opened in 2020, has parents staggering pickup times because of a lack of transport opportunities and a lack of parking to pick their kids up from school.

Education, I think, is a silver bullet for the future of our children. In the last 12 years under the New South Wales Liberals, there's been a complete failure in the electorates of Macarthur and beyond. (Time expired)

House adjourned at 20:00