Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We're here talking about Labor's motion on the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. Well, I think it should be called the 'Better and Fairer Schools Agreement for Our Cities'. As the member for Monash rightly pointed out earlier, your postcode does impact your education outcomes, and that's felt no more than in country and outback South Australia.

In the electorate of Grey I have the most primary, middle and senior schools in the entire country—146 schools, to be exact. I'd like to thank the hundreds of teachers and community volunteers who support those schools each and every day. The school isn't just the teachers and the students that make it. It's the bus driver, it's those who run the canteen, it's those who take the kids to sports games on the weekend. So thank you for all that you do for your local communities.

There's also a huge gap in early childhood education in the regions. Again, the electorate of Grey has the worst access to child care in the entire country. We are at 150 out of 150. Only around two-thirds of families have access to early childhood education, to child care. The reality is that with Labor's inflation-driven cost-of-living crisis you need two incomes to raise a family. So if you're in a small town and you're a small-business owner and you're trying to grow your business, it is very difficult—near on impossible—to attract young people to your community. Indeed, young people leave because there is no access to child care and it forces a parent to stay at home.

It is the same with tertiary education. If you want to be a doctor, if you want to be an engineer—if you want to do anything other than nursing—you've got to go to Adelaide. We have one brilliant tertiary site in Whyalla, in the electorate of Grey, but of course Whyalla is a five-hour drive from Ceduna; it's a six-hour drive from Coober Pedy. Again, you've got to go to Adelaide for an education. That's why Grey has the fourth-lowest tertiary education outcomes in the entire country.

Getting back to child care, you might not know that it's state election time in South Australia. I should call Premier Malinauskas the mayor of Adelaide, because if you do live outside of Adelaide you appreciate that you live in the state of Adelaide, not the state of South Australia. We have the worst access to child care, and he's been out spruiking new centres. Well, fantastic if you live in Kadina, Quorn or Kimba, but what about those in Port Broughton, Crystal Brook, Tumby Bay, Cummins, Wudinna and Wilmington? There are so many communities in the electorate of Grey where there are gaps in child care. I'd like to thank the Regional Childcare Desert Advocacy Project and the 23 councils that are advocating for early childhood education in your communities.

Regional families in my electorate are being absolutely crushed by this Labor government's cost-of-living crisis. The financial pain isn't limited to just power bills, grocery bills, health costs and insurance premiums. The pain is being felt in the education of our children, from our littlest learners right through to our school leavers. The lack of support for our regional independent schools is tangible. These are not elite institutions. They are vital community hubs serving the bush. Yet under this government they are forced to pass on soaring costs. While inflation sits at about 3.8 per cent, costs for non-government schools have surged by 5.4 per cent. Why? It is because, unlike government schools, where taxpayers absorb the blow, independent schools must survive the market. When energy prices skyrocket, when insurance premiums rise and when this government piles on red tape, these schools have no choice but to ask families to pay more. Parents are ultimately paying the price for Labor's inflation. Families in regional Australia are making immense sacrifices to educate their children, yet they are being punished by a government that offers no transparency or relief.

A 2022 Mitchell Institute study confirmed this. It is causing parents to leave the workforce, and there are regional staff shortages. Beyond this, fresh analysis from the Parliamentary Library paints a devastating picture. In September 2025 more than 3,624 childcare services were charged above the fee cap, almost double the June 2022 figure of 1,889 services. The government's hourly rate cap sits at $14.63, yet more than 37 per cent of services are forced to charge more.

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