Tuesday, 26 November 2024

Western Victoria Region

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (12:59): (1278) My question for the Minister for Education concerns the Victorian School Building Authority’s capital works bundle west 2. The bundle includes Whittlesea college, Fitzroy Primary School, Swan Hill North Primary School and the odd one out, Cobden Technical School. Department of Treasury and Finance prequalification includes project size limits, making this bundling damagingly restrictive for small local businesses. In my electorate BDH Constructions has 30 years experience and recently successfully delivered the Colac specialist school. Their contract limit is $15 million, enough for almost any standalone school, but when works are bundled like this they cannot bid for the Cobden project. Why are they? These are not identical projects – three are primaries, one is a secondary and Cobden is a technical school – nor are they geographically proximate, as Fitzroy is a long way from Cobden. Minister, will you reissue this project to the market, or will you let the VSBA take the easy way out and favour fewer contracts with larger builders?