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

I wish to talk about a school in my electorate, Berwick Lodge Primary School, which is doing a fantastic job out there under the guidance of principal Henryk Grossek. I would like to thank all the school committees for all the great work they are doing in helping the students, and the teachers for providing the students at Berwick Lodge Primary School the best education possible. In my various and numerous visits to the school, I am always welcomed by the kids, who are doing a fantastic job out there.

You would think the school would be happy to receive $3 million under the government’s education revolution program. However, Berwick Lodge Primary School has little to smile about because, instead of having the opportunity of using this $3 million for the construction of a new library and six classrooms, as planned, we have the crazy situation where the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development has told the school that it needs to use this funding to build a gymnasium. You may think that is fair enough, but the school already has a gymnasium and it does not want another one. It actually wants—and this is from the school council, the parents and the students—to have a library and it wants six additional classrooms.

Berwick Lodge Primary School opened in 1994—this is its 15th year—and it has 750 students. It already has a library, but over time it has become too small. I believe all colleagues would agree that a library is the basis for any good education at a school and it just seems absolutely bizarre and crazy that a school cannot get a library and, instead, is being told by the education department that it must have another gymnasium. I can see the conversation now when the application was being looked at by the education department: ‘Here is an application from Berwick Lodge Primary School: it actually wants a library and six classrooms,’ and someone has with the brainwave, ‘No, why don’t we just give them a gymnasium?’ The school has said on numerous occasions that it does not want a gymnasium and it has been told, ‘Well, why don’t you just have a second one?’ It is absolutely stupid and ridiculous.

The previous government allocated Berwick Lodge Primary School $143,000 for a multimedia centre. The school got to say where this money was spent and it is a fantastic facility. I know it is being well used because during the last election campaign I was grilled by the students in that facility about some of my election promises. But, in all seriousness, this needs to change now. The school needs to get the funding it requires for a library. That is what the school wants. This government needs to make sure that it gets stuck into the state education department in Victoria to make sure the federal funding is used for what Berwick Lodge Primary School wants it to be used for. (Time expired)