Warialda's Busy Bees

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Warialda's Busy Bees (Proof)

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Speakers - Torbay Mr Richard
Business - Private Members Statements, PRIV

WARIALDA'S BUSY BEES
Page: 115

Mr RICHARD TORBAY (Northern Tablelands—Speaker) [10.04 p.m.]: The rigidities of the New South Wales School Staffing Formula continue to be a headache for smaller communities in this State. As I have said before in this House, to lose a teacher because enrolments decline to just one below the set formula at the beginning of the school year is just too inflexible. In country areas, the closure of a service or shut-down of a business can remove a family with school-age children in a flash. Should a new business start up, or a new family with young children arrive during the year, there is no staff adjustment until the beginning of the next school year.

Warialda Public School in my electorate just met its 160 student enrolment in February, and retained its popular principal, Peter Hancock, through a sustained community drive to import new residents. Last year the scenario looked grim, as the drought took hold and many local workers left the district to seek jobs further afield. It is estimated that a 15 per cent population drift in and out of Warialda can be expected most years, but with the drought worsening that lifted to a 30 per cent drift which placed the school in a precarious position.

Over the last 10 years Warialda has struggled with dry times and the withdrawal of government and private sector services. The impact of economic rationalist policies on the local community has been severe. Many young families have left the district, many farmers cannot afford full-time labour, and there has been an aggregation of properties, which also reduces the number of farming families in the district. Towards the end of last year Wendy Mayne, a mother of two school-age children, a partner in a family stud cattle business and a community leader, called a meeting in the town to address the issue of falling school enrolments. Interest was high, and around 60 members of the community attended, including representatives of Gwydir Shire Council who continue to support the initiative.

At that stage enrolments at the school looked like falling to three short of the magic 160 to retain the principal. If enrolments were to fall below 160 the principal would be transferred and replaced by a teaching principal, reducing the staff numbers at the school and placing an increased administrative burden on existing staff. Wendy's group called themselves The Warialda Busy Bees, and they decided to follow the lead of the tiny Cumnock community in western New South Wales. The successful Cumnock experiment, led by Christine Weston to increase enrolments at the town's local school, is well known as the Rent a Farmhouse for $1 scheme. The concept was to offer unused farmhouses in need of repair virtually rent free to families with school-age children, who would undertake the renovations over a prescribed period. A website was set up and recorded 3,000 hits after the scheme featured on A Current Affair. Since that time numbers at the local primary school have doubled, adding a new teacher to the staff and another school bus, and the town has been reinvigorated through the young and dynamic new settlers. The books are now closed at Cumnock as there are no more abandoned farmhouses left to let.

Representatives from Warialda's Busy Bees visited Cumnock, and in November last year they set up their own website to attract newcomers, and searched for empty houses that might be available and suitable for the low rental proposal. Although they were close to the February deadline, the group did attract a family from Toowoomba almost immediately and achieved their purpose of retaining the school enrolments at the 160 level. So far the group has attracted 30 genuine applicants from Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia ready to move to the area. Many of these people have childhood country connections, skills that mesh with the local community, or new skills to add to it. Some local farmers are seeking families who are prepared to live in the empty farmhouses rent free in return for work on the farm.

It is early days for the Warialda scheme to reach its full potential, but I am told that potentially 600 empty houses in the shire could become available for the scheme. This initiative offers an affordable alternative for struggling city families to offer their children a better quality of life and an opportunity to bring new skills to an area that would welcome them. The initiative has my full support, and I believe the Government, in facing such a huge upsurge in the Sydney population, should back the scheme and help to promote it and make it more successful. If people can be diverted from Sydney to the inland to upgrade abandoned houses in an affordable way, to build population and the local skill base, it is a win-win situation all round. I commend the initiative to the House.