PRIME MINISTER:
It’s wonderful to be here – you’ve welcomed us so warmly to your school.
It’s good to see so many of you having breakfast here and it was good, with Kim, to pick up a few of you to come to school. And as Bob says, you’ve got to be here at school to learn and it’s wonderful to hand out these awards for you attending school.
I just want to congratulate the teachers here, the parents and the team from the remote school attendance strategy in your beautiful pink tops. Kim and where’s Lorraine?
KIM GREGORY:
Lorraine’s around here and this is Sarah. Lorraine and Sarah are also a part of our team -
PRIME MINISTER:
Some of you are - you’re all kitted up and no one can miss you coming, that’s fantastic, congratulations. And thank you so much.
And you know, one of the things we’ve just been talking about is how important it would be to have a new early learning centre. Do you think that would be a good idea?
BOB SIN:
I think that would be a great idea.
PRIME MINISTER:
Does everyone think that would be a good idea?
Okay well I can announce that in partnership with the South Australian Government, and the South Australian Minister is here, Mr Maher and of course you know Rowan, your member for Grey and of course Alan Tudge, Human Services – and you all know Nigel, we’ve been out bringing some of you to school this morning.
But what we are doing, is the army will be coming here as part of the Army Aboriginal Community Advancement Programme, and they’ll be spending, together with the state governments funding, about $8 million to build an early learning centre. We’re going to fix up some other bits of infrastructure here - the caravan park, do some work at the rubbish dump - right around the community and they’ll be here for about six months. So you will have a lot of Australian Army people here and they will be working with you to build up the infrastructure and the services in your community.
So it’s been very successful elsewhere and we want to say thank you for all the work you’re doing and we’re delighted to be supporting you.
BOB SIN:
Thank you very much. It’s going to make an enormous difference in Yalata.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
Ends