Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to give an update on the vision for improved education and employment prospects for the Dunkley community and the greater Mornington Peninsula-Frankston region and what has been happening of late. I was pleased to see the member for Isaacs venture down south of his electorate into the electorate of Dunkley to unveil the plans for the trade training centre involving a number of secondary colleges and Chisholm TAFE. It is great to see the Labor Party finally coming to realise that this is an important project for our region.

Back in 2007, there was a commitment to construct an Australian technical college to service the greater Frankston and Mornington Peninsula region, a key initiative that was extremely well supported by my electorate, particularly in light of the fact that vocational education and post-secondary education in the greater Frankston-Mornington Peninsula area is about half of the Victorian average. So there is a real need to open up opportunities and to build aspiration for our young people about these possibilities for future life careers and for improving their skills, knowledge and academic attainment. They need to understand that these opportunities are actually within reach.

Part of the vision that I outlined in 2007 was for an Australian technical college. Alas, the election did not go the way I had hoped and the Gillard-Rudd government was elected. Rather than proceed with purpose-built, dedicated trade training or vocational education facilities, the Labor government wanted to sprinkle a bit of money around a whole lot of secondary colleges, just to maybe slightly improve the kitchenware in home economics resources at secondary college or update the technology in the mechanics space—just slightly tart up what was available in the existing facilities. What was needed was a dedicated purpose-built facility. I continue to argue for that, in spite of the Labor Party's objection to a dedicated facility. Thankfully, they have finally come around to the vision of a purpose-built, dedicated technical and vocational training facility to service our region.

It was great to see the member for Isaacs turn up at the plan unveiling. Labor have finally got with the program. I am happy that this project is proceeding. They could not bring themselves to call it the Australian Technical College. They gave it a name change; it is now called a trade training centre. That is okay with me. They needed to change the moniker just to get with the program for the initiative—that is perfectly fine by me—but at least it is happening. I am encouraged that it has finally resulted in the member for Isaacs visiting our community to unroll the origami, the great challenge of those plans. I wish all the parties involved with that process all the success under the sun.

But we need to do more. We have underparticipation in tertiary education from students in our region. I accept the conclusion of Kwong Lee Dow in his recent review of a tertiary education provision plan for south-east Melbourne. He makes the point that participation is often linked to the accessibility and the attractiveness of the territory education courses within reach of the student population. I was pleased to be able to bring more than 200 extra university places to the Monash University Peninsula campus to bolster its health focus with occupational therapy. Speech pathology will be the next cab off the rank, followed by physiotherapy and a number of other courses. That has really added to that vision.

I was thrilled that the focus on health sciences, social work and other courses that we brought was supported by a $5 million commitment from the former Howard government. My ambition was that the facility that would be built with that $5 million of assistance would collaborate with the local council, the university and other providers to build a health, aquatic and wellness centre. We could not get the previous state Labor government over the line on the aquatic centre, so Monash was left with no option but to proceed with the activity and recreational centre. I was delighted to tour that facility recently and see the continuing investment in the post-secondary education infrastructure in our region. But we need to go further. The specific focus on health and wellness at the Monash University Peninsula campus does not offer the range of courses that our community and economy needs.

I have outlined a vision for BASE: business, arts, science and engineering. Those are the next courses that we need to pursue. We are blessed to have Monash committed and active and very successful in our community, and there is a fantastic TAFE provider through Chisholm. By combining those two great institutions, I think we can expand the range of tertiary education available to our community. With the strategic investments that the Urban Renewal Authority has made in downtown Frankston we can see an investment in infrastructure to support the vision to revitalise the CAD of Frankston and give a much richer and more meaningful range of tertiary education opportunities for our community to see their participation and aspiration lifted. (Time expired)