Question Without Notice No. 141 asked in the Legislative Council on 22 March 2018 by Hon Martin Aldridge
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
141. Hon MARTIN ALDRIDGE to the Minister for Education and Training:
I refer to the minister's media statement on 13 December 2017 titled ''Education savings measures to help contribute to budget repair'' and specifically the fifth paragraph of the statement, which states —
Six camp school sites run by the Department of Education will close. These are not the core business of education and there are other government and commercial providers of similar services.
(1) Which camp schools will close?
(2) What is the explanation for retaining the Broome camp school given the minister's statement that these are not the core business of education?
(3) What is the operating deficit for each of the seven camp schools for the last five years?
Hon SUE ELLERY replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question.
(1) From 2019, the Department of Education will no longer operate six camp schools. These are Bridgetown, Dampier, Geraldton, goldfields–Kalgoorlie, Pemberton and Point Peron.
(2) The Broome camp school caters for students from the most remote and isolated Aboriginal communities.
(3) Operating deficits from the camp schools from 2013 to 2017 are listed below. This does not include expenditure incurred centrally, on behalf of schools or depreciation costs.
The rest of the answer to (3) is in tabular form, so I seek leave to have it incorporated into Hansard.
Leave granted.
The following material was incorporated —
School | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
Bridgetown Camp School | -$434,934 | -$478,267 | -$659,202 | -$592,015 | -$709,271 |
Broome Camp School | -$492,566 | -$722,856 | -$915,003 | -$867,220 | -$1,026,161 |
Dampier Camp School | -$514,153 | -$591,003 | -$675,368 | -$544,234 | -$554,201 |
Geraldton Camp School | -$359,507 | -$386,362 | -$551,227 | -$566,205 | -$581,775 |
Goldfields Camp School | -$505,569 | -$438,499 | -$808,814 | -$800,718 | -$898,884 |
Pemberton Camp School | -$406,501 | -$423,734 | -$543,766 | -$455,922 | -$451,404 |
Point Peron Camp School | -$376,946 | -$602,552 | -$573,450 | -$825,051 | -$627,487 |
Total | -$3,090,176 | -$3,643,272 | -$4,726,831 | -$4,651,365 | -$4,849,183 |