Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak about Thebarton Senior College, in my electorate of Hindmarsh. I was very privileged and honoured to be at Thebarton Senior College recently for the opening of the new language centre, which was part of the Building the Education Revolution. Over $1.7 million of funding went towards that particular school. I would like to acknowledge the great work that the staff do there in ensuring that the education system works very well for their students. Many of the students are new arrivals to this country and attend the college to learn English as a second language. Principal Kim Hebenstreit is fantastic and is doing a great job there in running the college.

On the day that I was there the members of the governing council were there, as were representatives from TAFE SA, DECS, and Kennett Builders, who built the magnificent language centre at Thebarton Senior College. As I said, Thebarton Senior College received $1.7 million in funding to build the centre. We know only too well that there have not been enough opportunities for schools around Australia to undertake major projects like this for quite some time. We know that they were crying out for better facilities to give them the tools to be able to educate our children. Over 11 years, all that we saw from the current opposition were programs for flagpoles—and that was about it. Even then, as an opposition we were not allowed to go to the opening ceremonies; they had to be opened by government members only.

But back to the point: the $1.7 million for this language centre will enable students to have the tools to get an education and go on to become good citizens of this country. As governments it is our duty and our job to ensure they have all the tools in their hands to be able to get that education. The $1.7 million for the language centre came from the government’s Science and Language Centres for 21st Century Secondary Schools program. I know there are over 537 projects like this one being built around Australia.

It was so good to be there on the day, especially to chat with the builders, Kennett Pty Ltd. How interesting it was to hear their perspective—that the BER had supported quite significant job growth in the building industry, against the backdrop of a pretty serious world financial crisis. The Kennett builders were telling me that they had to take on extra staff, not only for this project but also for many other projects around South Australia, because they picked up quite a few of the contracts. They said they were putting people off before we started our BER projects. It was very good to hear that from them first-hand. So the building of this centre benefits not only students, who will be able to enjoy this facility, but also construction workers and tradespeople in the area because it has created a lot of work locally. (Time expired)

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