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Rural and Regional Community Services Budget

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Speakers - Cansdell Mr Steve; Hodgkinson Ms Katrina
Business - Matter of Public Importance

      RURAL AND REGIONAL COMMUNITY SERVICES BUDGET
Page: 1417

      Matter of Public Importance

      Discussion resumed from an earlier hour.

      Mr STEVE CANSDELL (Clarence) [7.30 p.m.]: I support the matter of public importance on community services in country New South Wales that was brought before the House by the member for Burrinjuck. Country New South Wales lacks services in many areas, such as health, dental health, mental health and public transport. It would not take long to deal with public transport services because there is very little public transport in country New South Wales. However, pensioners who use CountryRail are penalised with booking fees.
      I want to refer to preschools. As much as the former Minister for Community Services, Reba Meagher, tried to obtain adequate funding for preschools in New South Wales, the funding fell miserably short. Preschool fees in Queensland, Victoria and other States are about $8 dollars per day. In New South Wales, even after the last round of funding, preschool fees are about $30 to $35 per day with maximum funding. That is why there is only a 60 per cent participation rate in preschools in New South Wales compared with 90 per cent in other States. The New South Wales Government should be ashamed. We should all be ashamed to be members of Parliament in a State where our preschools are inadequately funded and attract only a 60 per cent participation rate.
      Educators talk about the difference between young children who have not attended preschool and those who have a preschool background. Last year a teacher at Grafton told me that some kindergarten children have never held a pencil or pen. They have never sat in a structured, organised group. They do not know to put up their hand to ask to go to the toilet. They lack any social skills. Every year in my area, because of the lack of funding, we hold a fundraiser called Pedals for Preschools. It has three aims: one, to raise awareness in the community of the plight of preschools; two, to raise money, particularly through corporate sponsorship; and, three, to influence Government and Opposition policy. Leading up to the last election, we influenced the Opposition. However, we were unable to adequately influence the Government. Unfortunately, former Minister Meagher, who was sympathetic and I believe passionate about her role, could not convince the Treasurer or Treasury to provide adequate funding.
      One of the preschools in my area is located at Tabulam near an Aboriginal community. Parents drop their children off at the preschool in the morning, but they never pay the fees. The preschool teachers have to make a decision. Do they take the children back to the mission where they may be abused, not fed, or not properly looked after or do they feed them and look after them for the day? They look after them and forgo the fees. But the preschool charges other families the top rate; otherwise it cannot afford to keep its doors open. There are 16 preschools in my area. Many are in small communities that do not have day care centres.
      The Government underfunds preschools in New South Wales and hopes that families go to a federally funded day care centre, where the rates are $2.50 or $3.00 a day. Those centres receive adequate Federal funding. Many of them are businesses. ABC Learning Centres is listed on the stock exchange and is a money-making facility. People tend to enrol their children in the day care centres and the preschools close down. That lessens the burden on the State Government. Although city people can go elsewhere, many small communities only have a preschool. At Copmanhurst preschool, six or seven children attend one day a week because in the low economic structure of the society families cannot afford to pay fees of $30 a day. In the past our preschools have relied on community funding and support. They want Government support from now on. [ Time expired.]
      Ms KATRINA HODGKINSON (Burrinjuck) [7.35 p.m.], in reply: I thank the Minister for Community Services and the member for Clarence for their contributions to the debate on this matter of public importance. Many issues have been raised pertaining to country community services, such as isolation, the need to travel long distances to access services and the lack of basic recreational and educational facilities in country areas. We have heard about families who desperately need support services to keep their families together. I am particularly cognisant of the statements made by the member for Clarence this evening and his concerns about the Government's predilection to favour child care centres over community-based preschools.
      Members on this side of the House have raised this concern for a number of years in this place. It is cause for concern because of the importance of preschools in the early formative years. Statistics support that fact. I do not need to give details about that because the facts speak for themselves. Funding for New South Wales preschools is at record low levels compared with funding provided by every other nation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. That is a cause of much shame for New South Wales and the Minister for Community Services. He skimmed over it in his contribution to this matter of public importance debate and displayed an arrogance that I have not seen him display before. That attitude is certainly not appropriate for a Minister in charge of the Community Services portfolio, because it is too important to country communities, which have been missing out in so many ways.
      I met with one of my local area commanders shortly after I was given responsibility for this portfolio and he raised concerns about the very real and increasing level of domestic violence facing women, particularly those in rural areas. Our scantily resourced police officers are often called out to deal with domestic violence issues in the middle of the night in country communities. They do not want to deal with those issues, and it is a huge problem that is not being addressed by this Minister or his department. During private members' statements this afternoon the member for Cessnock gave a very heartfelt and emotional contribution about what has happened to his community and how it took until Thursday for some homes to be reached by Department of Community Services staff. He was very scathing of that performance. He wants an explanation from the Minister, as do I. I call on the Minister to explain why the response time was so poor for that constituency.
      Department of Community Services staff and people under their jurisdiction in country communities are facing many issues, and some of the problems are at the front line. As has already been mentioned, preschools have attracted very inadequate funding, and that issue should have been properly addressed in this budget, given the surplus. However, it is continually glossed over by the Government. We need those services in country communities to be maintained because they play a vital role. The fact that foster carers have been banned from having support persons in conferences is another significant issue that I have not heard the Minister address. Only one-quarter of child protection notifications in New South Wales are followed up. That issue is raised regularly with me by various organisations involved with Community Services across the State. Foster carers, preschool volunteers and private service providers will have no confidence in this Department of Community Services budget, which has few initiatives and a lack of transparency.
      The Council of Social Service of New South Wales expressed its disappointment and stated that property tax cuts will undermine spending on key services. So much could have been done for community services. It also stated that the budget has totally failed to overturn years of neglect of basic services such as dental health and physical aids for people with a disability. Overall, the budget is disappointing for the people of New South Wales.
      Discussion concluded.


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