Mr PALLAS (Tarneit) — I  rise  to express my concern about the increasingly inadequate state of school transport funding in  my  electorate  in  the city of Wyndham.  The  funding allocated  for  new public  transport  initiatives in the 2012-13  budget  has again fallen  well  short of Labor’s  investment  in public transport  in  our  last 2010-11  state  budget and  where  the  Auditor-General believes the government should be. There  are no  new bus  routes funded in this year’s budget.

This issue has been brought  to my attention by a number of members  of my local community,  many  of  whom  are  greatly  concerned  about  the  impact  of  our increasingly insufficient  bus  services, particularly  on school students.  The difficulty of finding a  bus to catch to school puts students  in  the west at a significant disadvantage.

The  help that  they  would otherwise  get  from  the student  public  transport discount can be irrelevant to many students. The cut to the  number of  students who would be eligible for the conveyance allowance is adding to this difficulty.

Westbourne  Grammar   School,  a   non-denominational  Christian  college,   has approached me  with  serious concerns about  how its students  will  be impacted upon.  The school provides  22  shuttle buses  for  its students because  public transport services  are not available. The principal is concerned  that the new, more stringent application of the guidelines  will leave this unique  school out in the cold  and families being pressured  to reconsider their children’s future there.

This is an equity issue. Schools  in  the growing areas in the west  are  not as well serviced by public transport as others, so  they need  a different  type of transport support.

See Tim’s speech in Hansard here.