Wednesday, 19 February 2025

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2024‒25 Budget Estimates

Jess WILSON (Kew) (10:12): I rise to make a contribution on the Report on the 2024–25 Budget Estimates by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, tabled on 31 October last year. I have previously addressed this report, but today I wish to draw your attention to one particular finding and corresponding recommendation that the committee makes in its report relating to building upgrades at schools across Victoria, something that I know is very important to all members in this house. Finding 29 in the report states that:

Department of Education completed the first five‑year cycle of the Rolling Facilities Evaluation program in 2023. It has not reported on the findings or outcomes of these assessments.

This finding goes to the very heart of the lack of transparency and accountability with so many school communities in this state. So many school communities in this state raise with me the very, very poor facilities and maintenance at their schools and the lack of attention from this government – and the minister is walking through the chamber – and of course the Victorian School Building Authority. They tell me how much they struggle to understand why their capital upgrades and their refurbishments and their maintenance are continuously deferred and ignored under this government. I am sure you are aware that in last year’s budget there were 29 unfunded school upgrades. Twenty-nine schools had been promised upgrades by this government on the eve of the 2022 election yet are still waiting for that funding to complete those projects before the 2026 election.

Looking at the breakdown of those commitments made before the 2022 election, it is very interesting data, when you cut it up, on where those commitments were made and where now that funding has flowed.

Of the schools Labor made commitments to in 2022, 70 per cent were in Labor seats and only 26 per cent were in coalition seats. But interestingly 80 per cent of those schools in Labor seats have received funding while only 41 per cent of coalition seats have seen that funding flow through since the election. That is absolutely appalling. This government claims to govern for all Victorians, but money is being funnelled only into Labor seats where school communities need those upgrades when there is need right across this state.

If I look at some of the 29 schools on the list that are desperately awaiting these upgrades, we have Gardenvale Primary School in the member for Brighton’s seat, we have Broadford Primary School in Euroa and we have Manorvale Primary School in Werribee – I hope to see that commitment flow through very quickly in the coming weeks with the new member in Werribee. These schools are in desperate need of upgrades, yet under this government and this minister time and time again they are missing out.

If we go back to the finding in this report around providing transparency when it comes to publishing the information about these condition assessment reports of schools, the VSBA and the government assure us that they are prioritising works in accordance with need. But the committee found, for anyone who is interested to read the report, that in 2017 the Victorian government agreed to publish demand and condition information annually to provide transparency about how investment priorities are made for new and existing schools. However, this is yet to be implemented.

At the end of 2023, because of the lack of transparency in publishing this information, I put an FOI into the Department of Education to produce a full list of the scores of maintenance of schools in this state. Of course it was rejected by the Department of Education and the minister on the grounds that it was not in the public interest. First and foremost, they claimed cabinet-in-confidence and then they claimed that it was a working document, but the Victorian information commissioner rejected that outright and said that this list should be published in full because it is in the public interest that Victorian taxpayers know how their funding of maintenance upgrades is being spent and prioritised in this state. Did I receive that list? No. The minister is taking us to VCAT instead, spending money on expensive lawyers to fight the release of this information about where schools in this state desperately need upgrades. Maybe the minister should spend less time taking us to court, spend less time making calls to shore up the votes of his colleagues and actually deliver for Victorian schools in this state.