Ms JENNY AITCHISON (Maitland) (18:20): I speak today on a topic that I have raised a number of times previously in this House, which is Gillieston Public School. That community of now around 294 students has been growing at an excessively fast rate. The school population has grown by 76 per cent since 2014‑15. It has gone from being a very small, tight rural country school to nearly 300 kids, and that is the problem—we have not had commensurate investment in the school. I asked the education Minister a question on notice and received the answer last week. While there has been a growth of 76 per cent in the school population, the Government has spent only $58,000 on capex in that time. We have a burgeoning number of demountables on the only flat ground, the school playground, so kids are worried they will turn an ankle. That makes it difficult when they are competing against kids from other schools on sports days et cetera, because they are always running either on the slope or in the very small parts of the school that they can run on.

Not only that, but the school has only two permanent buildings. The rest of them are demountables, and the repair and maintenance bill is $705,000. On average, over the past seven years the school has spent nearly double what it spent previously on repairs and maintenance. It just does not make economic sense. Labor pushed the Legislative Council to hold an inquiry into planning and delivery of school infrastructure in New South Wales. Some 119 submissions have been received through that process, with 32 of them coming from this one school. It is a massive outpouring of anger and frustration from parents at the school—and it is not just them. A whole other population of 570 people who live in the suburbs of Gillieston and Cliftleigh, which are feeder suburbs, should have their kids at the school but only 294 of them do. About one in two families actually sends their kids to the school, and that is a problem.

When four of the parents from Gillieston appeared at the inquiry on Monday, they acquitted themselves wonderfully and communicated the issues well. But I do not understand why the education Minister has not prioritised this school for an upgrade. It is not just this education Minister; the former Minister, Minister Stokes, and Minister Piccoli before him did not prioritise the school either. After my election in 2018 I managed to get the dirt floor in the boys' toilets changed and now there is a portable demountable toilet system. It stinks. The kids lose their balls under all the demountables, including the toilets. Infrastructure needs to do something about that. The toilet system has to be pumped out three times a week. On top of that, all the floods and other severe weather events we have had in Maitland have created more problems for this school.

It is just not acceptable in the twenty-first century that a kid who kicks a ball under a demountable at their school might run across a sewage transpiration site because the toilets are not connected to the town sewer. A new development of 600 houses has been approved just down the road, and there are five or six estates in the area. It has gone from an area with maybe 50 to 150 houses 20 years ago to thousands of residents today, and the situation is just not acceptable. I pay tribute to the four parents who turned up on Monday: P&C president Katie Ferguson, Todd Sellers, Simon Rolfe and Sarah Bird, who appeared by video link. I thank them for their articulate way of explaining the problem to the committee. I understand that the committee is going to be coming to Maitland in early June. I have asked them to invite me and the parents so that they can see it. They can attend at school time.

I hear from parents who cannot get a speech pathologist or other learning support person to see their child anywhere other than at the back of a classroom, in front of all their peers, or in the middle of the school playground—hopefully it is not raining—because there is no space in the school. When the school hall does not have accessibility for students with disabilities, that is not acceptable. This is not something we should accept. There is not even a proper gate and fence system around this school, so kids will go running. When I have raised this in Parliament, what has the Government done? Has it built the school fences that it should have built? No, it has not. It has told the kids that they do not need to wear yellow vests anymore; hopefully they will not get lost on the side of the road. I am very pleased that the Treasurer has just walked into the Chamber. After he finishes his speech I am going to speak to him about the 32 submissions I have had about this school and how in the upcoming budget we need action for Gillieston.