Tuesday, 5 March 2024

Gippsland South electorate schools

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (19:05): (553) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Education, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide funding to three critical Gippsland school projects in the Gippsland South electorate, most particularly funding for the Sale College redevelopment. This, as the minister will be aware from briefings he has no doubt had from his department, has been an issue for a number of years now. I have been campaigning on it with the school since at least 2017. The Sale College has two separate campuses, both of which are getting pretty old. The senior campus in MacAlister Street is landlocked and does not have great outdoor facilities. In fact the physical buildings themselves are also in pretty poor shape, requiring the school to spend a lot of money on fixing roofs and leaks and things like that.

The school has for some time been seeking to consolidate onto a single new site, and I thanked the former minister, now retired, for his contribution of $3 million in the 2021 budget for master planning and initial scoping of the new school. We have confirmed that a site has been secured through the Wellington shire for the new school at Cobains Road directly opposite the Gippsland Regional Sports Complex, so it is a perfect location right on the edge of town – opportunity for growth. It has all progressed down to the fact that the Victorian School Building Authority has actually been working with the council about who is going to pay for a new roundabout and various road improvements that need to be done for a new school. However, we do not have any money to actually build the new school, so that is the first item that I am seeking of this troika.

The second is to finalise the Foster Primary School rebuild. There was some funding provided for what you might term the drop-in facilities that were made offsite and rebuilt a couple of years ago, but the main building, which stems from the mid-1960s, is still a very ordinary school facility and does need replacing, so I am seeking funding for that.

Finally, a matter that I raised with the minister personally a couple weeks ago after the Mirboo North storm event went through is that Mirboo North has but one stadium. It is on the site of the schools, which is a joint primary-secondary school site. It is well beyond and past time that it should have been replaced. It does not meet current standards. The flooring is terrible. It does not have the appropriate run-off areas. The toilets are disgusting. It does need replacing. This is an issue that I think the minister should work on with the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events to jointly fund a new facility, because it is used by the entire community of Mirboo North, not just the schools. I seek the minister’s assistance to get all three of these very important projects funded in the upcoming state budget.