Submission
No 93
INQUIRY INTO FOUNDATIONAL AND DISABILITY
SUPPORTS AVAILABLE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG
PEOPLE IN NEW SOUTH WALES
Name: Name suppressed
Date Received: 15 September 2026
Partially
Confidential
Select Committee: Foundational and disability supports available for children and young people in New South Wales September 2026
Every child has the right to education.¹ NSW is failing to make that right real.
Dear Chair, Deputy Chair and Committee members,
Inquiry: Foundational and disability supports available for children and young people in NSW
Your Committee has already established the central fact: NSW’s system of support for children and young people is inadequate. The Government’s response leaves one of its most serious failures unresolved - what happens to children who cannot access the support they need at school.
The Committee recommended embedding support in schools through revised funding, allied-health collaboration and stronger educator capability.² The NSW Government did not support that recommendation.³ It fully supported only two of the interim report’s 17 recommendations and has instead relied heavily on Thriving Kids - even while acknowledging that Thriving Kids will not revise education funding mechanisms.
The accountability failure extends beyond this inquiry.
In 2024, the Auditor-General found that problems identified as early as 2006 remained unresolved: the Department could not show where demand exceeded supply, did not maintain waiting lists when approved support was unavailable and did not measure how long children waited for support to reach them.⁴ It set January 2026 as the deadline for corrective action. That deadline has passed. The public record shows a replacement Access Request computer system, but no published demand-and-capacity map, end-to-end waiting time data, measured reduction in administrative burden or evidence that the proposed functional-needs funding reform was funded and implemented.⁵ Even the
Department’s June 2026 Interim Disability Inclusion Action Plan lists relevant
delivery dates as “TBD” or “TBC”.⁶ The Government must now produce the evidence that these reforms were completed. If they were not, the Committee should require the responsible agencies to explain the delay, identify the accountable officers and provide funded completion dates - not another promise of future action.
These are not abstract administrative failures. Across the Illawarra, families and educators describe the same cycle: support arrives too late; children become overwhelmed; classrooms are disrupted; teachers exhaust every available option; children are suspended or sent home; and parents are forced to leave work. My family’s experience, set out later in this submission, is one example of this wider pattern, not an isolated case.
I ask the Committee to recommend: support based on a child’s needs - not diagnosis, postcode or crisis;
enough resourced mainstream, support-class, specialist and flexible local options to keep every child learning; and
transparent oversight of unmet demand, waiting times and every form of exclusion from education.
These are starting priorities, not an exhaustive list. The solutions must continue to be shaped by children, families, educators, Aboriginal and culturally diverse communities, disability advocates and allied health professionals, with funding to back it up.
Families and educators must be heard before the final report
The Committee has reopened submissions, but no further public hearings are currently listed.⁷ I ask it to continue gathering evidence, including through an Illawarra hearing or roundtable with local families, carers, educators and school staff. The Committee should also require the Minister for Education, the Department and responsible officials to publicly account for: the rejection of Recommendation 13;
delivery against the Auditor-General’s January 2026 deadline; unmet local need and gaps in available support; and
what action will be funded, who is responsible and when families will see results. The final report must convert the evidence into funded action, accountable leadership, firm deadlines and public reporting. Any recommendation the Government rejects should require a clear explanation and an effective alternative.
Families have given evidence repeatedly. They should not be asked to tell the same stories again without a clear pathway from evidence to action.
Families should not have to prove what government already knows
It is an indictment of this system that a parent already carrying the consequences of its failure must use what little time remains after work, appointments, school collections and caring responsibilities to prepare evidence for yet another inquiry. Families have described these failures for years. Parliamentary inquiries and the Auditor-General have already documented them. Yet exhausted parents are still
required to become researchers, case managers and unpaid policy advocates repeating what government already knows, with no guarantee that action will follow.
| am writing because | still hope something will change. It may come too late for my
family, but it should not come too late for the families following us. In a state with the power, evidence and resources to act, this should not be normal.
This is not a lack of evidence. It is a failure to act.
WHAT THIS FAILURE LOOKS LIKE FOR MY SIX-YEAR-OLD BOY,
| am an Illawarra mother. My son is six years old and in Kindergarten. The
: system is already failing him.
has been suspended four times.
There is no local support class place available to him. Families cannot see how : many children are waiting, where vacancies exist or when a place may become : available because the Department does not publish that information.®
: There is no vacancy at a private specialist school either - even though we are fortunate enough to be able to consider an option that is financially impossible : for many families.
His school is trying. But effort cannot replace trained staff, specialist expertise, : sufficient support hours and an appropriate learning environment.
So where does that leave us?
One of us has already had to reduce paid work significantly. We have discussed
: home education - not because it is the pathway we chose for our son, but
:; because the education system cannot currently offer him a sustainable place to : learn.
We are a two-parent family and we are still struggling. How is a single parent, : kinship or foster carer, or a family without savings or flexible employment : expected to survive this?
A child’s access to education cannot depend on whether a parent can sacrifice ; their income, career and financial security to provide it themselves.
: The State cannot call education accessible when a family’s remaining choices are : repeated exclusion or leaving employment to become the education system of : last resort.
Yours sincerely,
When support arrives too late
A six-year-old should not have to fail before support begins
Imagine being a parent who helps their child get dressed, regulated and through the school gate. You start work. Before lunch, the phone rings: your child is overwhelmed, the support is not available and you must collect them. Again. Your child loses learning, friendships, belonging and self esteem. They begin to believe they are a “bad kid”. You lose paid work and wonder how you will manage tomorrow. You call clinics and therapists again: how much longer until your child can see an occupational therapist, paediatrician or behaviour specialist? Meanwhile, a teacher remains responsible for an entire class, balancing learning, safety and distress with too little time or specialist assistance. Classmates lose learning time and may feel unsafe. Nobody wins. For my family, the choices currently available are mainstream schooling without enough support and partial attendance; an uncertain wait for a local support class place; scarce and expensive private specialist schooling; or home education that may require a parent to leave paid work. These are not meaningful choices, particularly for single parent families. This is not an isolated outcome. ABC News reported that QUT education researcher Dr Rebecca English estimates around 80 per cent of homeschoolers are “accidental” or unwilling.⁹ These families have not freely chosen home education; they have “run out of road”. Parents must then absorb the cost, leave or reduce paid work and navigate another system. In NSW, families were waiting 65 working days—an entire school term for home schooling applications to be processed. ABC News: ‘Accidental’ homeschooling on the rise as families say schools are not coping
The paperwork is extensive. The support may cover one hour of a six-hour day. Schools and families describe hours of Access Request paperwork, evidence gathering, meetings and delay - only for approved assistance to cover a fraction of the school day. Even where an SLSO is allocated, that worker may not receive the role-specific training, planning time or specialist guidance needed to support the child consistently.
The one-hour allocation described in this submission is lived experience, not a statewide average. But that is precisely the problem: NSW does not publish the information needed to determine how widespread this gap is - what support each child needs, what is funded, what remains unmet and how long it takes for approved support to begin.
The statewide figures show this is not an isolated family problem
6,768 Almost 20 years 61.4%
primary students receiving after the Department was of educators in evidence
disability adjustments first warned about gaps, cited by the Committee
were suspended in NSW the Audit Office still found said they often or very
public schools in 2024.¹⁰ no reliable local picture of often felt overwhelmed by
need, supply or full wait workload; 37.3% were at times. least somewhat likely to leave.
This is not a dispute between parents and teachers Safety matters. Unsafe behaviour must be addressed. But suspension, shortened days and repeated collection cannot become substitutes for support. Parents cannot fund SLSOs, create support-class places or co-regulate a child while the child is at school. Teachers cannot manufacture staff, time, spaces or specialist expertise. The State controls public schools, their funding settings, workforce, policy, data and accountability.
Thriving Kids does not replace NSW’s responsibility for schools Thriving Kids may be valuable, but it is a jointly funded foundational support program outside both the NDIS and mainstream systems.¹¹ States remain responsible for delivering public school education, and education systems remain responsible for personalised learning, day to day support and responding to exclusion or reduced hours.¹²,¹³ The Government’s response relies heavily on Thriving Kids. The Committee should look beyond the headline funding and require evidence of what the program will actually deliver inside a child’s school day.
NSW has the money, authority and responsibility Up to $1.0743 billion has been allocated to Thriving Kids in NSW through June 2031: $631.9 million from NSW and $442.4 million from the Commonwealth. NSW’s Department of Communities and Justice will control intake, commission providers and determine where services are delivered. General supports begin in October 2026, followed by targeted allied-health supports from January 2027. Yet, as at 15 September 2026, the public could not see where targeted services would operate, how much capacity would be available or how it compared with expected demand. Procurement results were not yet available, further geographic and Aboriginal-led commissioning remained ahead, and the workforce transition plan was unfinished. Announced funding is not delivered capacity. The funding envelope is capped, and families cannot determine whether it will provide enough services, in the right places,
at the right time. Intake, navigation and parent capacity building may help but they cannot substitute for services that do not exist or schools that remain under resourced.
Navigation cannot substitute for capacity A navigator is useful only when there is a funded, available service at the end of the pathway. Without sufficient capacity, navigation simply moves families between waiting lists.
Likewise, “parent capacity building” must not become another way of transferring government responsibilities to unpaid families. Parents can learn strategies and advocate for their children, but they cannot fund SLSOs, create support class places, supply specialist expertise or provide support while their child is at school.
Three decisions would change the school day - this is where government must start
A needs-based School Support Guarantee.
No diagnosis gate for reasonable adjustments or rapid interim support. 1 Establish enforceable response standards so that children receive interim support promptly and a funded plan before repeated exclusion becomes the default. Show hours needed, hours supplied and how the remaining school day will be supported.
A funded Illawarra continuum - not a single waiting list.
Publish local demand, capacity and wait times; expand trained school staff, specialist and allied-health support, support-class places, rapid-response help 2 and flexible local learning pathways. Give teachers paid planning and collaboration time. Make practical, role-specific neurodiversity and disability inclusion training mandatory for new and existing teachers, SLSOs and relevant support staff.
See and review every form of exclusion.
3 Record suspensions, shortened days, repeated early pickups, refused attendance and failed placements. Trigger independent case review after
repeat exclusion, protect learning during absence and publish de-identified outcomes by geography and adjustment level.
THE COMMITTEE SHOULD REQUIRE AN ANSWER - NOT ANOTHER PROMISE
e The Government’s response should identify what will change, how it will be funded, who is accountable, when families will see results and how delivery will be measured publicly.
e The Committee should hear directly from Illawarra families and educators before its final report and require continuing public reporting on unmet demand, waiting times, support delivered and exclusion from education.
These are minimum accountability requirements, not a limit on further action arising from the evidence.
The evidence and the case for action
The following sections trace how long these failures have been known, what they cost children and communities, why current reforms remain inadequate and what the Committee should now require from government.
1 - NSW was warned in 2010. The evidence of reform is still
missing
For sixteen years, NSW has known that it cannot show families where support is available or how long children must wait. This is no longer a failure of knowledge. It is a failure of delivery and accountability.
Parliament demanded transparency. The Government promised it.
In 2010, a NSW parliamentary inquiry recommended an immediate investigation of unmet demand for special-education places and classes, publication of the findings and sufficient additional capacity to meet that demand.”
In 2017, Parliament went further. It recommended collecting and reporting regional data on enrolments, applications and waiting lists for schools and support classes.° The NSW Government supported those recommendations in 2018 and said upgraded information systems would enable that reporting.®
Fourteen years later, the Auditor-General found the basics were still missing In 2024, the Auditor-General found that the Department still could not readily
identify where demand exceeded supply, did not maintain waiting lists when targeted support was unavailable and did not measure the time between approval and support actually reaching a child. A subsequent parliamentary answer confirmed that the Department did not maintain waiting lists for support class provision.
The Department’s public dataset does not close this gap. It shows classes currently operating and expressly warns that it is not a definitive list of available classes. It provides no visibility of capacity, vacancies, applications, unmet demand or waiting times.
Without this information, the Department cannot demonstrate that support is being distributed according to need or identify the children left without a viable education pathway.
The scale makes continued delay indefensible Approximately 206,000 NSW public school students one quarter of the system received disability adjustments in 2023. Applications for integration funding increased by 78 per cent between 2018 and 2023, while the Access Request process remained convoluted and administratively burdensome.
The Department began designing a functional needs funding model in 2020. Its own commissioned modelling estimated that reform could make another 6,000 to 14,000 students eligible for targeted support and remove approximately 14,000 Access Requests—around 35 per cent—from the process each year.
A related 2023 budget proposal was deferred by senior government decision-makers. Implementation from 2026 remained dependent on further approval and funding.
January 2026 was meant to be a delivery deadline, not another planning milestone By January 2026, the Department was expected to: establish local and statewide demand-and-supply information; measure the full time from identified need to actual support; reduce the Access Request burden and make decisions more transparent; improve needs-based funding and reasonable-adjustment guidance; and monitor whether adjustments were producing better outcomes for students.
A new computer system is not proof of reform The public record shows that a replacement Access Request system was trialled in
- That may improve workflow, but an IT upgrade is not a demand map, a waiting- time measure, additional support capacity or a functional-needs funding model.
I could find no published implementation report, local demand-and-capacity map,
end to end waiting time data, measured reduction in school administration or evidence that the proposed functional-needs model was approved and funded. Even the Department’s June 2026 Interim Disability Inclusion Action Plan, published after the Auditor General’s deadline, recorded relevant reform dates as “TBD” or “TBC”.
Meanwhile, Department policy says reasonable adjustments do not require a diagnosis, while substantial targeted funding and support class placement remain subject to separate eligibility criteria and availability. The result is a practical support gap: a child may be entitled to adjustments while their school lacks the staff, specialist assistance or available placement needed to provide them effectively.
The evidentiary burden now sits with the Government The Committee should require the Department to table the records demonstrating what was delivered against every recommendation due by January 2026, including: the underlying data and implementation results; funding and policy decisions; the officer and agency accountable for each action; and the evidence relied upon to classify any action as completed.
Where work was delayed, deferred, narrowed or abandoned, the Government should explain why, identify who made the decision, provide a funded delivery date and state what protection is available to children who cannot wait.
I intend to seek these records through GIPA and to track the Government’s response.
But public accountability should not depend on a parent paying for an information access application to establish whether a publicly stated reform deadline was met.
Families have repeatedly provided their evidence. The Government must now provide its own. Silence, delay or another promise of future action cannot be treated as delivery.
2 - The Committee diagnosed the school gap; the Government declined the remedy
The interim report tells a coherent story The Committee found inadequate support, a geographic ‘location lottery’, major family financial and wellbeing burdens, cross-sector workforce shortages and unclear service boundaries. It recognised that NDIS design had weakened integration in schools and that prevention, transparent data and embedded supports were needed.
INTERIM GOVERNMENT WHAT REMAINS
RECOMMENDATION POSITION UNRESOLVED
6 — Statewide Supported in No enforceable capacity,
navigation principle response-time or successful-
referral standard.
11 Prevention and Supported No public baseline, KPI,
cost avoidance publication date or consequence for missed outcomes in the response.
12 Clear system map Supported A website as services start is
and transition not yet the promised full map of eligibility, interfaces, timelines and transition funding.
13 — Embed supports in Not supported The response allows
schools, revise funding, possible ‘in-reach’ and co-commission allied protocols, but says Thriving health Kids will not revise education funding mechanisms.
14 — Workforce Supported in No quantified workforce gap,
principle regional target, training pipeline or milestone.
15 — Parent capacity Supported in Useful family capability must
principle not substitute for public school staffing, adjustments or learning continuity.
17 — Shared data and Noted A capped program was cited;
public outcomes the response did not commit to the recommended shared infrastructure and dashboards.
‘Ten recommendations supported’ conceals how conditional the response is The Government described ten recommendations as supported or supported in
principle. Only two were fully supported; eight were supported in principle, four were noted and three were not supported. One of the rejected recommendations was the central school integration remedy. The final report should distinguish commitment from aspiration and require the Government to answer each missing element. Thriving Kids cannot be used to close an education recommendation without education accountability The answer cannot be that children may receive help somewhere in the community while the six-hour school day remains unsupported. Any ‘in-reach’ model must specify access, frequency, who pays for collaboration time, consent and information sharing, what happens in regional shortages, and what the school must provide between appointments.
3 - When support is delayed, the cost does not disappear
It moves first to the child A linked NSW cohort of almost 72,000 public-school students found 19 per cent experienced suspension or expulsion between Years 3 and 12, and about 60 per cent of excluded students experienced it more than once.¹⁷ Earlier exclusion predicted repetition.
NSW research shows that early exclusion strongly predicts further exclusion and is associated with serious longer-term risks. Suspension should therefore trigger early support—not simply another suspension.
Australian parent testimony and qualitative research describe psychological distress, damaged belonging, school refusal, family strain and employment disruption around exclusion.¹⁸ A seven-family qualitative study provides depth, not prevalence, and the Committee should recommend linked NSW education, health and justice data to measure local long-term outcomes.
It moves into every classroom A 2026 survey of 377 Australian teachers reported an average nine minutes of each 30-minute lesson lost to disruption - an extrapolated 12 weeks a year.¹⁹ It is a self reported teacher-perception survey, not a national time-and-motion study. NAPLAN results in the same year showed roughly one-third of students below the Strong or Exceeding levels, but those facts do not prove that disruption caused the results. They show why calm classrooms, effective teaching and early support matter to every child. It moves to parents, employers and the public balance sheet ABS data show labour-force participation among working-age primary carers was
64.6 per cent, compared with 82.0 per cent for non-carers.²⁰ Primary carers were more than four times as likely to rely mainly on a government pension or allowance (30.0 per cent compared with 7.3 per cent). These are general carer figures, not estimates caused by school exclusion.
A 2026 Australian longitudinal study found that having a child with disability was associated with lower odds of maternal employment, with a larger effect where disability and special healthcare needs overlapped.²¹ Again, it does not isolate suspension; it establishes the wider employment squeeze into which repeated school collection falls.
The economic question What is cheaper: a timely hour of skilled support before crisis, or years of lost learning, repeated exclusion, parent work loss, educator burnout, mental health demand and justice contact?
The Committee recommended a prevention and cost avoidance framework. The final report should require its publication, baseline and first results.
4 - The budget is large; the adequacy test is missing
Disability funding increased, but unmet need increased with it The Audit Office reported that disability-specific funding above the base allocation increased from about $1.1 billion in 2018 to $1.9 billion in 2023. Over the same period, the number of NSW public-school students recorded as having disability rose from about 158,000—one in five—to about 206,000—one in four.
Average additional funding was about $9,300 per recorded student in 2023, but that arithmetic does not establish whether each child’s adjustments were fully funded or delivered.
Headline school funding still does not answer the six-hour-day question The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is expected to add $10.4 billion to NSW public schools over ten years—$5.6 billion from NSW and $4.8 billion from the
Commonwealth.²²
The 2025–26 Budget said average school funding per student rose from $14,819 in 2023 to $17,022 in 2025. These are major totals, but neither figure shows whether a particular school can fund the adjustments its current students require.
Illawarra’s public allocation data show growth - not sufficiency NSW publishes large funding totals but not the information required to determine whether identified functional need is actually funded and delivered throughout the school day.
PUBLIC FIGURE WHAT IT DOES NOT TELL THE COMMITTEE
$1.9b disability-specific How many required adjustments were unfunded, school funding (2023) delayed or delivered for only part of the day.
$10.4b additional school What share will create disability support capacity, funding over ten years where, by when and against which measured demand.
$54.5m Illawarra RAM The disability specific amount, actual need, staff loadings (2026)²³ vacancies, support hours or placement wait times.
Up to $1.0743b Thriving Eligible demand, service intensity, regional Kids over five years capacity, unit cost, successful referrals or overflow when the cap is reached.
The Committee should not ask only ‘how much was spent?’ It should ask: how much functional need was identified; how much was funded; how quickly did support begin; how many hours and which services were delivered; what changed for attendance, learning, safety and wellbeing; and where did the unmet cost go? Without that denominator, more money can coexist with longer queues, partial days and exhausted classrooms.
Families will measure promises against delivery
A fair accountability process is factual, public and persistent I intend, with other Illawarra families and educators who choose to participate, to track written responses; publish an accurate, non-partisan table of commitments; seek public information where necessary; and monitor progress after the election.
This is not hostility. It is the democratic accountability families have been asked to wait decades for.
What success looks like
Success is not simply that or other children have an enrolment. It is that he can attend a full school day, access learning, feel safe and know that he belongs.
When he becomes overwhelmed, trained adults help him regulate before distress becomes crisis. He is not made to feel like a “bad kid” or repeatedly excluded for disability-related behaviour that timely support could have prevented.
His teacher has enough trained staff, planning time, appropriate spaces and specialist backup to support him while teaching the rest of the class safely and well.
His classmates have a calmer, more settled learning environment.
His parents can remain in paid work instead of waiting for the next call to collect him. His family can plan for his future rather than wondering whether home education will become their only remaining option.
Across NSW, success means more children attending, learning and remaining connected to their schools; fewer suspensions, shortened days and crisis collections; better-supported educators and classmates; and fewer families forced to choose between their child’s education and their financial security.
For success means being known for who he is and what he can become, not for the moments when an under-resourced system could not support him.
Confidentiality request I consent to publication of the main body of this submission, subject to the following requests: My child’s name and any information capable of identifying his school are not to be published. My name, email address, telephone number and residential address are not to be published.
This request is made to protect the privacy and welfare of a young child. The confidential material may inform the Committee’s work, but I ask that it not be published, quoted or described in a manner that could identify my child or his school, or myself. If the Committee is not able to agree to this request, please contact me before publishing the submission.
References
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United Nations, Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted 20 November 1989, art 28. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments mechanisms/instruments/convention rights child
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NSW Legislative Council, Select Committee on Foundational and Disability Supports Available for Children and Young People in NSW, Interim Report, February 2026. https://files.parliament.nsw.gov.au/fileapi/ParlFiles/GetArtifact? serverRelativeUrl /lcdocs/inquiries/3080/Report+No+1+ +SC+ +Disability+support+ +FINAL.pdf
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NSW Government, Response to the Select Committee’s Interim Report, 20 May 2026. https://files.parliament.nsw.gov.au/fileapi/ParlFiles/GetArtifact? serverRelativeUrl=/lcdocs/inquiries/3080/Government+response+on+interim+report+ +Foundational+and+Disability+Supports+Available+for+Children+and+Young+People+in+New+South+Wal es.pdf
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Audit Office of New South Wales, Supporting students with disability, 29 August 2024. https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/our-work/reports/supporting-students-with-disability
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NSW Department of Education, Specialist support classes by school and support-needs type, NSW
Open Data. https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/dataset/nsw-education-specialist-support-classes-by-school-
and-support-needs-type
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NSW Department of Education, Interim Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2026–2029, June 2026. https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/about-us/strategies-and-reports/disability inclusion-action-plan/NSW_Department_of_Education_Interim_DIAP_2026-2029.pdf
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Parliament of New South Wales, Inquiry into foundational and disability supports available for children and young people in NSW, inquiry page, accessed 15 September 2026. https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/parliamentary-business/committees/inquiry-details? committeeInquiryId=3080
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Parliament of New South Wales, Questions and Answers: support-class provision and waiting lists. https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/parliamentary-business/questions-answers-tracking-details? id=101048
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ABC News, “‘Accidental’ homeschooling grows, as families blame struggling schools”, 21 October 2025. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-21/accidental-homeschooling-on-the-rise/105912808
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Parliament of New South Wales, Questions and Answers: suspensions of students receiving disability adjustments, 2024 data. https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/parliamentary-business/questions-answers
tracking details?id 106510
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NSW Government, Response to Portfolio Committee No. 3 report on education of students with a disability or special needs, March 2018. https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/files/73021/Government%20response%20 %20Portfolio%20Committee%20No.%203%20 %20Report%20into%20students%20with%20special%20needs.pdf
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- NSW Department of Education, Resource Allocation Model. The $54.5 million Illawarra figure is the author’s calculation from published 2026 school allocation data. https://education.nsw.gov.au/about us/strategies-and-reports/schools-funding/resource-allocation-model