Mrs SALLY QUINNELL (Camden) (10:58): I contribute to debate on the address-in-reply to the Lieutenant-Governor's speech. I thank the Hon. Andrew Bell, the Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, for his lovely welcome to the new members in the Chamber. It was lovely to be welcomed in such a warm way and to be recognised for the effort that it has taken to get here. I start my contribution with the importance of education to the people of Camden. There is a problem in Camden with massive numbers of students in each of our schools. There has been a lot of development in Camden, yet we have not been getting the schools that we need and deserve. I ask all members to reflect on what teacher caused them to be here today. We all have a particularly special teacher who was an outlier for us. I had many teachers that contributed to my being here, but I give a shout‑out to my maths teacher, Ms Rosemary Hughes.

TEMPORARY SPEAKER (Mr David Layzell): It being 11.00 a.m., pursuant to standing and sessional orders, debate is interrupted for question time. I set down resumption of the debate as an order of the day for a later hour.

Debate resumed from an earlier hour.

Mrs SALLY QUINNELL (Camden) (12:19): I pick up where I left off before question time by asking everyone in this House to reflect on a teacher who was particularly special to them. I take a minute to think about the impact that teachers have on us, our State and our country going forward. The Lieutenant-Governor said in his speech that education is nation-building. It is not just an investment in the future of the people of the State but also an investment in the future of knowledge and the development of new ideas. In our schools, students are taught how to be critical thinkers, how to question and, like we have seen earlier today, how to debate. Over the past 12 years there has been an unprecedented level of teacher attrition. Last year, for the first time in history, more teachers resigned than retired. Being a former teacher myself, I know that teachers consistently discuss jobs outside of the profession as viable options. There are many complex reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is the complete lack of understanding and respect from those in the former Government.

For example, many classes do not have teachers and students are taken to the library. I have had constituents in Camden tell me that they have classes that are without permanent teachers for months, terms or, in some cases, nearly the entire year. I know of a year 9 maths class that was without a permanent teacher for the entire school year. There just is not a teacher to take on that role. One could imagine having their favourite teacher taken away for the entire year and having casuals day after day after day. Many of our important senior classes are being sent to the library, and the library staff are taking on seven, eight or nine classes at a time. Those students are being given time to do personal study rather than having important one-on-one student-teacher interaction.

People have been telling me, in my capacity as the Independent Education Union delegate, that there were schools that had to close and go to online learning one day a week on a rolling roster. For example, year 7 would be online on Mondays, year 8 would be online on Tuesdays et cetera, because there were not enough teachers within the school to have all of the students on site. One can imagine the impact that has on parents and members of the greater community that need to then stay home and supervise those students. On election day I had a volunteer who was a principal tell me that he had six resignations on his desk with post-it notes on them saying, "In case of a Liberal win." They were sitting on his desk, and he was waiting for the results on election day to see if those teachers would walk away. I am pleased to say, having spoken to all six of those teachers, that they stayed on. I thank them for their service.

This Government is absolutely putting teachers and support staff first. It is saying, "You are enough. You are doing all of the heavy lifting in our schools." It is important that we continue to support our teachers and recognise that there is a crisis. The first step to fixing a crisis is recognising it. I used to sit in staffrooms listening to the former education Minister from the other place continuously saying that there is no teacher shortage, when we had 16 or 17 teachers not in on any given day and classes were being split, merged or sent to the library. There 100 per cent is a crisis in our schools. It is upsetting for our teachers to be told that they are not worth hearing and that they are not being listened to.

The Government has already started to reduce workloads by employing support staff to take on specific roles. The very next day after that program was rolled out by Minister Car, I had a teacher from Mount Annan High School come up to a mobile office I had and tell me about the immediate impact it had on her school. By having an excursion manager and an excursion supervisor in the school, there were able to actually go on excursions. Up until that point, the teachers were too busy teaching day to day and trying to cover and merge lessons to go on excursions, which is a very important part of education. It is important to go out and learn in workplaces away from the classroom.

The Government has also committed to moving 10,000 teachers to permanent positions. It is easy for people who have always had a permanent job to forget what it means to be a temporary teacher. I am friends with teachers in the Camden electorate who have been temporary teachers for over 30 years. That is 30 years of having to find out on the first day of school every year whether they have a job or not—whether they are going to be employed in their school or are going to spend the next week driving around to all of the local schools to find out if they have a new position. That has an ongoing effect on job insecurity, particularly for young staff. I thank the Lieutenant-Governor for pointing out the impact this has on a person being able to lay down roots and start a family within a community. Knowing where you are going to be working is an important part of becoming and staying part of a community. The Government has committed to introducing a ban on mobile phones in all public schools. While I know that the teens in my household are not so thrilled with that—

Mr Steve Whan: Their teachers might be.

Mrs SALLY QUINNELL: —their teachers are absolutely thrilled. There is nothing more upsetting than standing at the front of class and expounding your incredible knowledge, only to look over and see that everyone is on their phone. It is not dissimilar to question time sometimes. It can be very upsetting. Teachers will know that students are going to speak to each other in the playground. There are ongoing concerns for teachers. For example, students will be able to go to the bathroom knowing that there is not a mobile phone recording device in the bathroom with them. Those are things that teachers are facing. Teachers will know that if they allow a student to go to the bathroom during class, they will not have walked off to film a TikTok, which is a real concern.

The people of Camden have spoken clearly about the need for more schools in the electorate. They were told by the former Government that they were not going to get a new high school but would instead share a high school with the electorate of Leppington. In fact, one person in my electorate told me that they were told by the former Government that they did not need a new school, because the Government did not realise that the developments of Gregory Hills, Gledswood Hills, Leppington and Willowdale are all next to each other. It would be a shame if someone sat down with a map and realised that 100,000 people would need a high school. So this new Government has committed to two high schools—one in Gregory Hills and Gledswood Hills and one in Leppington, each side of Camden Valley Way. It is important that schools are near communities.

People in the Camden area also found it amazing that Gregory Hills Public School was not slated to be built until 2027—that is, until I was preselected. Then, when I was preselected and started meeting with the community, it was suddenly one of 15 schools that popped up like daisies out of the snow with demountables. Suddenly, a principal was hired for the school and it was set to start—which it has. Gregory Hills Public School started this year, and it is very successful. I am a proud supporter of that school and of the community that it serves. It is important that schools are within the communities that they serve. Schools are incredibly important hubs of learning and knowledge, but they are also important for communities to get together and meet people. That is especially true in new estates, where people are moving in, often from diverse areas, and need to create a sense of community quickly.

Another thing mentioned in this fantastic speech by the Lieutenant‑Governor was health care and access to health care. Our Government's priority of having access to health care is nowhere clearer than in Camden. We have had unprecedented development over the past 10 years, but we have not had any movement toward any sort of healthcare access. It seems the people who were formerly in government felt it okay for Camdenites to travel to Campbelltown, Liverpool or Nepean hospitals, which are three of the busiest hospitals in this State. The Minns Government has committed to finding a space and building a new public hospital in the aerotropolis. We know the importance of having an airport and a hospital next to each other. People speak to me continually about their fear of having a brand‑new airport for New South Wales and not having a hospital next to it. We need to have those two things next to each other, as we do with the Mascot airport and St George Hospital. It is important that the people of Camden be able to access affordable health care. In what has been called a privatisation by stealth, accessibility to health care is constantly being sent to the private sector. So people in Camden are expected to pay for services that are free everywhere else in Sydney.

More police officers have been committed to us because, once again, the infrastructure has not come with the development of the new housing. I have been told we have fewer police officers now than we did when Camden was a 40,000‑person town. That is a major problem. We have two cars that can patrol the area, and they are expected to patrol from the Liverpool area and Oran Park all the way down to Bowral. I do not know whether people in this House know the constraints with that. If two police cars are attending a car accident on the M5, near Bowral, they are a good hour away from anywhere else in the electorate. That is not good enough when we have such a large number of people moving into the area.

The thing people in Camden are talking to me most about and the thing that is hitting the most with the cost‑of‑living crisis is tolls. The Government's commitment to introduce a two‑year cap of $60 a week on tolls is massive news to the people of Camden. Every single way out of Camden involves a toll road, it being in south‑western Sydney. In my time out on the doors, I doorknocked people who are paying $180 a week in tolls. That includes two people going to work and sporting commitments. In fact, one family told me that the son may not play soccer this year because "We just can't afford to get him there." This is a disgusting representation of how south‑western Sydney and Camden in particular have been left short when it comes to infrastructure.

We do not have access to the same things that everyone else in Sydney does, and that is on the former Liberal Government. It left us behind. We were expected to accept the houses, and we are happy to accept everyone coming to Camden. It is a great place. I suggest that everyone wants to live there. But we do not have access to roads, health care and education, and a tenet of our Government is to deliver them. I thank the Lieutenant‑Governor for his beautiful welcome to the new people in the House.