Suttontown Primary School, Road Safety

Mr FATCHEN (Mount Gambier) (15:23): Thank you, Acting Speaker, and welcome to the chair. Today I rise to raise a matter of serious concern in my electorate: the ongoing and increasingly dangerous traffic situation at Suttontown Primary School. This is not a new issue. It has been raised repeatedly for over eight years. In 2018, the then member for Mount Gambier wrote to both the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and the Minister for Education calling for urgent action to address the dangerous conditions surrounding the school. At the time, our local newspaper published an editorial which concluded:

It is a prime opportunity for the new state government to take a proactive approach and implement safety now, before a near miss turns into a statistic.

That was eight years ago. The issue was raised again in this place in 2024, with the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport committing to a review. It has been eight years of correspondence, discussions, reviews and departments from both governments passing responsibility from one to another, and today, we are still talking about the same dangers.

Suttontown Primary School sits alongside Pine Hall Avenue, a designated heavy vehicle route carrying significant freight traffic. We have large B-double trucks travelling past a primary school, a blind rise restricting visibility and young children navigating an environment that is simply not safe. The speed limit is 60 km/h, reduced to 25 km/h when children are present, but concerns remain about motorists failing to slow down.

The school has just 14 parking spaces for over 140 students plus staff. You do the maths of what this looks like at pick-up time. There is no designated pedestrian crossing, with parents forced to park on grass verges and navigate a road with no crossing to drop off or collect their children. To make matters worse, the school is about to be landlocked, with a large residential development under construction around the site. I understand the developer previously approached the Department for Education about purchasing adjoining land, yet here we are, still discussing whether land might be acquired.

I recently wrote to the Minister for Education seeking urgent intervention. In her response this week, the minister advised that the Department for Education is liaising with the City of Mount Gambier and the Department for Infrastructure and Transport about possible short-term safety measures. She also confirmed the department is investigating the potential purchase of adjoining land. What concerned me most was this statement: 'It will, however, take some time to determine whether this option is feasible.'

How much more time does the community need to wait, and what price do we put on the safety of our children? There have been eight years of documented warnings, eight years of opportunities for both parties to rectify this issue. What makes this situation particularly alarming is that there have been recent near misses involving children leaving the school. The school has now resorted to locking its front gates to prevent children from wandering into danger. Think about that: a primary school must now lock its gates because the surrounding traffic environment presents such a serious risk.

I acknowledge that the Department for Education, the Department for Infrastructure and Transport and the local government each have their different responsibilities, but surely the safety of children cannot fall between departmental boundaries. Parents do not care which department controls the road, the footpath or the school boundary: they care that their children can get to school and return home safely, and they have every right to expect that. I am calling for an urgent, coordinated response from all three authorities with clear responsibility, immediate safety measures and a funded long-term solution.

We need action on safe crossings, traffic speeds, parking and the potential acquisition of adjoining land—not another review that sits on the shelf, not another round of correspondence explaining whose responsibility it is not. In 2018, our community warned that action was needed before a near miss became a statistic. Eight years later, that warning is more relevant than ever. My question is simple: who is prepared to take responsibility and fix this problem before a child is seriously injured or worse? We cannot wait for a tragedy before deciding that children's safety deserves urgent attention.