Wednesday 28 October 2026
S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (19:51): I rise in support of the Education and Children's Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2026, which delivers on several important commitments made by the Labor government at the recent election. The bill is about making public education more accessible, supporting working families and making better use of the facilities we already have in our schools. It addresses some of the practical challenges families face every day, while also creating more opportunities for children to learn, participate and stay active outside the classroom.
As the member for Gibson, I hear regularly from families about the cost of raising children, the pressure of balancing work and family responsibilities, and the importance of having access to good local facilities. One of the key measures in this bill is expanding out-of-school-hours care (OSHC) at our public primary schools. For most families, the school day finishes well before the working day does. Parents and carers need reliable arrangements that allow them to get to work, meet their commitments and provide for their families, knowing their children are safe and well cared for.
Nearly 12,000 children aged between five and 12 already access OSHC at South Australian government primary schools every day. These services play a key role in supporting families, but we know that access is not always available where or when it is needed. When families cannot secure a place in before or after-school care, it can affect a parent's ability to work, increase their hours or return to employment, all while having a wider economic impact. It can also mean that children miss out on opportunities to spend more time with their peers, develop new interests and build confidence in a familiar school environment.
Our government is committed to making OSHC available at a further 68 public primary schools over the next four years. This is a significant increase in capacity. When my eldest child started at our local primary school, I was concerned to discover there was no vacation care program available for families during school holidays. I knew how difficult it was for working families trying to balance their employment responsibilities with caring for their children, particularly when you note the 12 weeks of school holidays and the four weeks of annual leave—and if there are two working parents, that is still only eight weeks of annual leave, which falls well short of covering care.
I joined with one other parent to campaign for a program to be established, and I am pleased to say that the program we worked to establish a year later continues to operate today. I also served as chair of my children's out-of-school-hours care committee for 10 years, which gave me a deeper understanding of the work involved in running these services and the important role they play in supporting working families.
I saw firsthand how much parents rely on reliable, accessible care and how these services provide children with a safe and welcoming environment to spend time with their friends, build relationships and take part in activities outside the classroom. These experiences have shown me that OSHC is about more than simply covering the hours before and after school or during the holidays for vacation care. It is an essential support for families.
The second major reform in this bill is the abolition of materials and services charges for public school students from 2027, delivering on the government's commitment to make public education free for all South Australian children. South Australian parents are currently paying the highest public school fees in Australia, and for families with more than one child, these charges can add up to a substantial expense at the beginning of every school year, alongside the many other costs associated with raising children. Families will save a combined $64 million in 2027 alone, including the existing $200 rebate per student. For a family with one child in primary school and another in high school, the savings will average more than $1,000 a year.
Importantly, the government has made clear that no school will be worse off under this arrangement. The materials and services charge makes up only a small part of a school's overall funding, with schools receiving support through a range of state and federal funding streams. Additional funding also recognises the different needs of school communities, including educational disadvantage, socio-economic circumstances, students with disabilities and First Nations students.
The abolition of these charges is part of a broader effort by the Malinauskas Labor government to ease cost-of-living pressures on families. We have doubled the Sports Vouchers Plus program to provide two $100 vouchers per school-age child, extended the program to music lessons and committed to extending it to young people aged 16 to 18. We have also made public transport more affordable for students through the $10 student Metrocard, providing 28 days of travel or 25ȼ per trip. For eligible families on School Card, free laptops for students in years 7 and 10 will also continue under the existing arrangements with current income thresholds maintained.
The third key measure in this bill concerns making school facilities more accessible to the wider community outside school hours. Our public schools are an important part of the communities they serve. They provide places where children learn and grow but their facilities can also offer significant benefits to local sporting clubs, community organisations and families when they are not being used for school activities. Across our suburbs, school and community clubs need access to more places to train, play and hold activities. In fact, I could name multiple sporting clubs across Gibson that are in need of more playing space.
Many of these groups rely on volunteers who work hard to keep their clubs operating and provide opportunities for people of all ages to participate. Finding suitable facilities can be difficult, particularly as communities grow and demand for sporting and recreational spaces increases. Making better use of existing school facilities is a sensible way to respond to that demand. Public schools belong to the community and where facilities can be made available safely and practically outside school hours, there is a strong case for opening them up to broader community use.
The government will establish a $13 million fund over four years to upgrade school facilities and make them more suitable for community use. These upgrades will help improve access while reducing the practical and administrative burden on schools. This is something I have also considered in my own electorate particularly through my campaign commitment to deliver a new school hall for Brighton Primary School. From the outset, provision for that hall included making it more accessible to community groups outside school hours, recognising that school facilities can serve a much wider purpose than their day-to-day educational use.
The level of support for this approach is clear, with the neighbouring sporting clubs providing letters of support for the school hall proposal. These clubs understand the value of having additional local facilities available for training, activities and community events, and the benefits that shared spaces can bring to the wider community. In fact, the school hall at Brighton Primary at the moment is right in the middle of school and, if you access it in the dark to attend a yoga class, you have to walk right through the school grounds. The design for the new school hall is to have it right on the roadside, so that community groups do not have to actually enter the school and can immediately access the hall, which I think makes it safer for everyone in our community. I believe this is a sensible approach to planning school infrastructure.
When we invest in new facilities, we should consider how they can deliver the greatest possible benefit to students and the broader community. With appropriate arrangements in place, schools can remain focused on their core educational responsibilities while also helping local clubs and organisations access the spaces they need. A centralised booking system will also help schools and community organisations coordinate access to facilities. This is a really useful part of the reform, because making facilities available is not simply a matter of unlocking the gate. Schools need clear arrangements that protect students, staff and school property while allowing community groups to book and use spaces without placing unnecessary demands on already busy administration teams.
I commend the Malinauskas Labor government for delivering on these election commitments and for continuing to invest in public education, working families and our local communities. I support the Education and Children's Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2026 and commend it to the House.
