Tuesday, 6 February 2024

Truganina school buses

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (19:21): (500) My adjournment is for the Minister for Public and Active Transport, and the action I seek is that the minister come and join me in Truganina to ride one of the brand new school buses that we have just rolled out to Bemin Secondary College in Truganina, which has just opened its doors for the first time as of last week. As the minister knows, these routes were just announced as part of a $25 million investment to introduce, modify and – importantly – extend school bus services across the state. As part of this funding, Truganina was lucky enough to receive six brand new school buses – six of them – operating twice a day to get students from across the suburb to Bemin Secondary College.

Bus reform and improving our network has always been one of my strongest focuses. Over the past few months I have heard from so many people across my local community, many of them living in areas where there is no bus coverage at all, who have been absolutely delighted to know that their local community now has school buses. Some of these folks are actually working parents whose children have just been enrolled at their new local high school and indeed started last week. So I am very pleased to say that a lot of these folks now have access to a bus service to get their kids to and from school without having to worry about whether they can make the morning drop-off or even the dreaded afternoon pick-up, which is why I would love the opportunity for the minister to see just how these new bus services are benefiting kids in my part of the outer west.