Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to speak in this adjournment debate about some of the great work going on in terms of construction at my local primary schools in the electorate of Deakin. Last Friday I visited St Luke the Evangelist Primary School in Blackburn South and then followed that with a trip down the road to Burwood East Primary School to see how their construction works were going.

Deb Egan, the principal at St Luke the Evangelist Primary, along with William and Isabel from prep and Alyssa from year 5, took time out from their busy day to show me their brand-new library and classrooms being built. The project is being constructed by Melbourne based builders Johns Lyng and there are around 12 workers on the site at the moment. Of course, this project was only made possible due to the school receiving a $2 million allocation under the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program.

As you can imagine, the school community are very excited about their new library and classrooms. The school itself is quite old—it has been there for many years—and this is the biggest thing that has happened there in a long, long time. Their building works are well advanced. Not only has the concrete slab been poured, but the frames are up, the structural steel is in place, the roof in on and the block work is happening—and the kids are very, very excited. William told me that he is very much looking forward to reading books and learning in the library. St Luke the Evangelist Primary also have a new toilet block, which was finished a few weeks ago, and are installing a synthetic surface on part of the school oval, including a running track behind their classrooms, with their National School Pride allocation of $125,000. It is a great makeover for the school. It is definitely needed and will be very much appreciated.

The principal at Burwood East Primary School, Jos Mills, introduced me to a group of year 4 students—Maggie, Omar, Liam, Abbie and Rhianon—who guided me through their existing school buildings to visit the site of their new school hall. Burwood East Primary School is growing, and that is a wonderful thing. Their prep enrolments for next year are increasing—and that seems to be quite common to many of the schools in my electorate. A few weeks ago I visited the same school and the principal, Jos Mills, took me to some of her classrooms where the school had used their National School Pride funding of $125,000 to tidy things up and make things look a little bit newer. Many areas of the school are very old. The children had some choice in the range of colours the classrooms are now painted. So there is lime, pink, a very enticing shade of purple and a few other different colours. I asked the children there if they were going to stop giving their rooms numbers and start calling them by colours, and they had thought about that but had not decided yet.

Burwood East Primary School was established well over 100 years go, but unfortunately has never had a school hall. Their school assemblies are held in their quadrangle—and, when it rains, students and teachers alike get wet. I know; I have been to those assemblies and got wet myself. So the school is absolutely delighted to be getting a brand-new multipurpose hall with their allocation of $2 million under the P21 program. I know they will appreciate it for all sorts of uses—not just for assemblies but also the sorts of things they cannot do at the moment, like hold music classes inside or have a gathering of more of the children. At present there simply is not the room inside to have more than a couple of classes. Construction is well underway. The concrete slab has been poured, the structural steel and the external and internal timber frames are up. Also, the site foreman from LU Simons, a Melbourne builder, mentioned that the bricks were being laid over the weekend and that glazing would be installed very soon.

Both of these construction projects, and so many others in my electorate, are using local Melbourne based construction companies, employing Melbourne based construction workers and all the trades and subcontractors that go along with that. The kids at the schools think it is great. They watch just about every brick being put in place and every steel girder. They know what is happening with the project. They know where it is up to. If ever I need to know something about what is happening at the school, I do not have to ask the builders most of the time; I can go in and talk to the children. The principal will lead me to them and say, ‘They know exactly what is happening because they are always asking.’ It is great that communities are getting involved—not just parents but the children at the schools as well. So many children and so many schools are benefiting from the P21 program, the national schools program. I will come back to the chamber at another time and talk about more of the schools that are benefiting from this wonderful Rudd government initiative.

Question agreed to.