You don't have much choice around here. It is 24 kilometres to school, & not every parent has a second car to do the school taxi run. With no public transport with in 20 kilometres, unless they are dole bludgers, the wage earner or both have to use a car to get to work, so the school bus it is. Most of the kids at either the primary or high schools go by bus.

Fortunately our school had a good headmaster a few years ago who organised the school properly, & his arrangements are still apply. After school the kids are organised into groups by the teachers according to which bus they have to catch, & kept together until they have boarded their bus. The teachers job is not complete until all kids are on their respective bus.

Perhaps the Gold Coast primary schools are a bit lax in their duty of care for the kids in their charge. Both the head master & the class teacher should be sacked for not taking care of this kid.

24 kilometres to school? that's crazy!

For pre-school, at the age of 5, someone usually used to walk with me, not always, then when I started school I was shown the way once, then walked on my own every day, one kilometre including a small field and a magical forest - that's how it should be!

Yuyutsu our local post office delivers to 880 homes, all on an acre up to a thousand or more. There are 8 school busses service us. I guess it is cheaper to bus the kids than build schools.

1200 of the 1600 kids at our high school come in by bus from surrounding districts, some further out than we are. Ours is a smaller school district. In some big country areas high school kids board a bus at 6.00 AM, & get home at 6.00 PM.

Some of the outer districts here have 3 or 4 teacher primary schools, which can be great or dreadful depending on the staff.

At my last property I had to drive the eldest 5 kilometres to a school bus stop, which serviced 5 families. The driver would not let a kid off there if you weren't waiting, or another parent offered to drive them home. My daughter used to beg me to ride a horse, & lead her pony to pick her up. A 10 kilometre round trip by horse is rather time consuming, so it didn't happen too often, but the whole bus load of kids used to cheer whin I did.

There are advantages in living out here, & not in a city. Our bottom boundary is 600 metres of fresh water river front, with swimming holes & wildlife. I have a Canadian white water canoe, which we used to put in the river 10 kilometres up stream, where the road crosses it, & paddle down stream to home. The kids can all ride, shoot & handle that canoe.

My grand son is now learning to ride on weekends, & much prefers here than his house in the city

Hassy on the thread 'Privatizing Public Transport' you pontificated that "but all public transport must become not only full cost recovery, but profit centres"

Now you say "At my last property I had to drive the eldest 5 kilometres to a school bus stop, which serviced 5 families" Just want to know how much you were paying to use public transport to get your kid to school. Were you being subsidised by the taxpayer and therefore a state welfare recipient? Why didn't you drive your child all the way to school, and pick her up after?

Who'd be a bus driver?

Abuse of bus drivers is legendary.

Nothing to do with public transport Paul old mate, they were school busses, & it is illegal for anyone but a school kid to ride them. They are funded by the education department to save the cost of building schools, & believe me, when you live out of the city there is not much else you get for your taxes.

If the government demands our kids go to school, it has to provide either schools or transport to those they do provide. Our pick up was on the way from another area. We did not complain that our school bus did not take our road, rather than the main road which had no kids, as our road was very rough most of the time, occasionally impassable, The old busses used by real country school bus operators can't handle too much of that, so we happily took our kids to the main road stop.

The only public transport was at the railway station about 30 kilometres away, but the only passenger train was always full of tourists & required a booking 3 months in advance. Private coach lines did offer long distance travel from a stop at the railway station, but those are definitely the last resort, only for the desperate.