Yuna and Kondinin have their bus services back, but locals want more consultation

Two rural towns are celebrating wins after the WA Government backflipped on moves to axe their school bus services, which residents argued would have had “devastating” consequences. Yuna, a Mid West town north of Geraldton, was due to lose its south-east bus route in 2025, but School Bus Services has binned the plan following community backlash and campaigning from Fiona Mann, a local farmer and mum of three. The announcement was made after Deputy Opposition Leader Peter Rundle put grievances to State Parliament regarding the closure of school bus services in rural WA. Earlier this month, the Government also announced it would reinstate the school bus service for the eastern Wheatbelt town of Kondinin, whose community has been fighting to get its school bus back for a decade. Retired Kondinin Primary School principal Beverley Stanes said for the past 10 years, community efforts to get the service reinstated had been met with an “inflexible, templated response” from the Government. While many are grateful for the backflip, community members say there should be more consultation to prevent more bus routes from getting cut. Ms Mann’s youngest son George, 11, is the only student to use the Yuna south-east service, and the Government cited a lack of passengers as its reason to shut down the bus route. However, Ms Mann said there was no consultation, and the Government had not even taken into consideration a realignment of the bus route, which would allow it to pick up several children instead of one. “Without access to a bus service, it is extremely difficult to attract workers with young families to our towns,” she said. “We are hopeful we can now work with School Bus Services to reduce the amount of time our little kids spend on the bus and create a better alignment of the two Yuna school buses for the benefit of our community into the future.” Mr Rundle said he was also pleased with the announcements, but argued the problem should not even have got to this point in the first place. “Why does it take the grievance of me, and media attention, to actually get a result?” he said. MORE THEN JUST CONVEYANCE In response to Mr Rundle’s grievance about the state of WA’s rural school bus services, Parliament Secretary Meredith Hammat said the Government had “significantly increased” the conveyance allowance. The allowance, given to eligible rural parents or carers to assist with the costs of driving their child to and from school, is currently 57.81¢ per kilometre. However, for families who rely on school buses, the problem is about much more then just money. Kondinin resident Paul Ardagh said the long daily commutes to and from the farm posed a hazard, especially for parents juggling multiple jobs. “I have a grandson at school and another grandchild due to be born very soon,” he said. “The risk of a mother, who is having to be paid conveyance to get my grandson to school along with a newborn baby, is dangerous and needs to be carefully considered before something tragic happens.” Deputy Liberal leader Steve Martin said resorting to a conveyance allowance also did not acknowledge the community impact that came from losing school bus services. “In my home town, one of the school bus operators . . . they are the football trainer, they volunteer for St John’s, they turn up at every working bee in town, and that’s a story that can be replicated right across regional Western Australia,” he said. “This is a really important network of small businesses that the Labor Government has completely ignored.”