Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Justice and Public Security) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to speak about a number of projects in my electorate, and first of all about a great local win. I must congratulate the Berwick Lodge Primary School and in particular the principal Henry Grossek, the school council, the parents and also the lucky students. We had this ridiculous situation where Berwick Lodge Primary School was going to receive $3 million under the Building the Education Revolution package—I have spoken previously about this in parliament. What occurred is that they actually wanted a library and six classrooms, which you would think on the face of it was a very fair proposition. But, in actual fact, when they went to the education department, they were told, ‘No, you cannot have six classrooms and a library; you must have a gymnasium.’ As I have said before in this House, they have already said, ‘We have a gymnasium. We want a library and six classrooms.’

It got to the ridiculous situation where the school principal Henry Grossek had to contact me. He had been through all the right processes trying to get this ridiculous situation changed, but in the end he had to go public on this issue and seek our assistance. Then—surprise, surprise—we had the government’s cabinet meeting in my electorate at the Emerald Secondary College, and during the day Henry Grossek was able to speak with the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and explain the ridiculous situation happening to Berwick Lodge Primary School. Finally, some common sense has prevailed and Berwick Lodge Primary School will get their library and six classrooms.

But, more importantly—and all members from both sides should be very careful of this—even though we are supposed to have this great friendly love-in between the federal Labor government and the state Labor governments, it would appear that the state Labor government in Victoria was taking the cream off the top of the funding, because the gymnasium which they were trying to force Berwick Lodge to have was not worth $3 million. Therefore, where was the remaining money going to go? People were saying it could be in the vicinity of $1.5 million.

Berwick Lodge Primary School can now have its library and six classrooms and can also use the additional funding for whatever it needs to be used for. I congratulate Henry Grossek for going out there and making an issue of this. It is very unusual for a principal to do this, because in the guidelines it pretty much says that, if a principal goes out and speaks publicly, his application becomes null and void. I want to ensure—knowing that sometimes the education departments like to punish people who speak out against them, especially in Victoria—that nothing happens to principal Henry Grossek or any of the teachers at his school for taking this strong stance. I believe that all members of parliament, on both sides, would agree that nothing should happen to a person who has done the right thing to ensure that the money which his school was to receive is able to be distributed fairly within his school.

This is going to help all schools in La Trobe, because it would appear that there are other schools receiving federal funding where that money is being creamed off the top. We want to make sure that the Rudd Labor government, with its so-called ‘education revolution’ is held accountable for every cent it spends to make sure the programs and projects are delivered in the way they are supposed to be delivered.

Something that I know would greatly interest the residents of Berwick, in particular, and going right up to Oatlands and Timbara, is the Clyde Road. The Clyde Road goes over the Princes Highway and it goes pretty much through the main street of Berwick. Anyone who has driven along Clyde Road would know that in the morning, with the Pakenham train line in peak hour and later on in the day, it is just a nightmare to get through. Anyone who has lived down there or has driven there in peak-hour traffic will know how bad it is. Another intersection that you could say is in the same sort of state is Springvale Road in Melbourne. I would not say that the Clyde Road is quite as bad as Springvale Road, but at times it would not be far from it.

There is some good news. Under the previous Howard government we funded the Bryn Mawr Bridge, which helps residents, especially in Beaconsfield and suburbs such as Officer, by enabling them to sneak around via Kenyon Drive going past Beaconhills College. As a side issue, I do think that when we funded the Bryn Mawr Bridge the residents on Bryn Mawr Boulevard definitely suffered some local community pain for this project. What I mean by that is that they now have a thoroughfare going along their street and past their houses. I did say at the time that the residents would need to be catered for. The residents approached me and they were greatly concerned about not having privacy barriers put up. I recall that on the day the Bryn Mawr Bridge was opened I was approached by the CEO of Casey, who is good man but something went horribly wrong with our conversation. The Casey Council did a great job and funded this project under budget. I believe the whole project was allocated $10 million and it ended up being $8 million. The council wanted the remaining money to be spent on Kenyon Drive to assist with Beaconhills College, which was a very fair proposition. I did stipulate that I thought it was only fair that privacy barriers be erected along Bryn Mawr Boulevard to help the local residents. Only recently residents contacted me, two years after the event, and said that the privacy barriers had not been installed. I believe that is wrong, and I believe that the council is now going to address it.

Another issue which the local residents want addressed is the problem of motorists speeding along there. I have been there myself. It is a 60-kilometre zone but, as a former police officer, it appears to me that some of the trucks going down the road are driving over the speed limit. Even if they were right on 60 kilometres per hour it is very dangerous, especially after hours when you have got kids leaving Beaconhills College and students walking along the boulevard. I believe that during school hours that section should be made a 40-kilometre per hour zone along with all the other school zones around the state. I think that is vitally important and it is something that I will fight to achieve along with the local residents. Recently there was an accident. The residents are greatly concerned. In this accident a car went through the fence of one of the residents. Luckily, there were no children in the backyard. They do want some protective barriers—some of those guardrails—and I support that.

I will come back to the Clyde Road issue. This was one of my major commitments last election. The Howard government committed $25 million to it if re-elected. Initially my Labor opponent attacked this as a waste of money, saying that it was not required and not needed. Eventually he saw common sense and committed to the project through a Labor Party announcement. Labor said they would commit $30 million to the project. I was at the Beaconsfield community political debate during the election, where my opponent publicly said he had had meetings at the time with the state roads minister, Tim Pallas, who had committed to funding the other half of the project.

At the same time the former Howard government made a major election promise around Springvale Road, as I previously mentioned—which is not in my electorate but in the seat of Deakin—as did the new Rudd government. What is really sad and disturbing about this is that the $140 million Springvale Road grade separation project, as Minister Anthony Albanese announced in his media release on 29 April 2009, is about to go ahead. From what I hear, the works will be underway very shortly. Very sadly, the Clyde Road intersection, which was announced during the same election campaign, will not be going ahead. All we have had is the state Labor government committing $1 million for a feasibility study. This is an absolute disgrace. It is an outrage that two projects were announced at the same time but one is not going ahead. It appears that one is going ahead because it is in a Labor member’s electorate and the other, because it is in my seat of La Trobe, is not being funded. I think it is grossly unfair to all the residents in the local area, especially when the government is heading towards putting this country in $315 billion of debt.

My electorate of La Trobe is in one of the fastest-growing corridors in this country, yet I do not have a major road project anywhere. There is no rail project. On numerous occasions I have called for an upgrade of the Belgrave train line, a third line from Ringwood to Ferntree Gully and the duplication of the line from Ferntree Gully to Belgrave. That is something I called for when I was in government, and I will continue to do so. If you look around the country, in South Australia the Rudd government has committed to light rail projects. I think it is grossly unfair that the residents in the outer suburbs of Melbourne have been left behind. I think it is an absolute disgrace.

Finally, I have some good news. Fernlea House palliative care hospice was started off a number of years ago by Jan Lancaster when she purchased the property. I believe it was in 2004. It was my election commitment to hand over through the Howard government $800,000. I have spoken on this numerous times in the House. I could not believe it when, after the Rudd government were elected and heading into the May 2008 budget, they gave the residents 30 days notice that they were going to close it down. The minister, Justine Elliot, was forced—through Derryn Hinch, I believe—to come to the party and hand over $200,000 to the project. I will give Minister Justine Elliot some thanks, though, because I know it went right to the death knock. With a local campaign we put together a very strong petition. I must thank all those people from Fernlea House palliative care—again, Jan Lancaster, Ann Davis and Helen Pike—for the great and fantastic work they have been doing. All the volunteers use their own time to go and help people in their final days and make their lives very comfortable. Justine, obviously following the strong campaign, made $470,000 available. I do thank the minister for that.

In saying that, though, the poor residents and all the staff have gone through the awful experience, for two years in a row, of waiting and waiting for funding to be made available. It is one of those projects where the volunteers are doing a fantastic job. It is in Emerald, the suburb where the Prime Minister had his community cabinet meeting and, surprise surprise, the announcement came two days before. Whether that had much to do with it—I would say so. The good new is that, finally, Fernlea House is getting some funding.

Another issue raised with the Prime Minister at the community cabinet meeting was the question of the weed funding promised for the Dandenong Ranges. I initially made a $3 million commitment. Obviously, we did not win the election but Minister Garrett promised to make a strong commitment to do something. The first thing he did was cut the funding for wandering trad, funding which the then minister for the environment, Malcolm Turnbull, had committed to. This is a disgrace. On the night of the community cabinet meeting the government had no answers. It is a broken election promise. They should immediately make funding available to help the local residents, especially all the volunteers who remove weeds. Not only are weeds a  major problem in our creeks, where they suck up all the water and the platypuses are forced to go into creeks in residential areas, but the weeds, which would remain dormant in cooler temperatures, will, with climate change, now grow. I again call on the Rudd government to fund weed management in the Dandenong Ranges.

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