Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to update the House on the progress of a community campaign that has been running in my electorate for almost five years. Since 2009 the Save Sunvale campaign has sought to have the site of the former Sunvale Primary School in Sunshine rezoned as a public park and for the local community rather than being sold off for residential development. Our communities grow in our shared spaces. Communities rely on open public spaces for families and individuals to be able to come together for recreation, celebration and communal activity.

Save Sunvale campaign's John Hedditch and Sean Spencer recognise this and they have noted for some time that Sunshine is currently lacking high-quality open public spaces for its community relative to other areas in Melbourne so they have been campaigning since 2009 to have the entire site converted into a high-quality open public space for the people of Sunshine. The Save Sunvale group met with representatives of all political parties in Melbourne's west with this objective for many years. Before the 2010 state election this group met with Mr Bernie Finn, the Liberal upper house member for the western metropolitan region, and Matthew Guy, the then shadow planning minister. In this meeting Save Sunvale assert that Mr Finn committed that the entire site at Sunvale would be rezoned as a public park should the Liberal Party win the state election in 2010. In fact, Mr Guy joked in this meeting that the site should be renamed 'Finnland' in honour of Mr Finn's lobbying efforts for the group.

Unfortunately, Bernie Finn seems to be following in the footsteps of his federal Liberal colleagues and is now claiming not to recognise the promises he made to his own community while in opposition. In a recently released tender for the land, the state Liberal government has made only the western portion of the Sunvale site available as open public space. Like his federal Liberal colleagues, Mr Finn is now insisting that he never promised otherwise, telling the Brimbank weekly:

That promise was never made, never, ever, ever. You can provide a Bible or the Koran or a Footy Record, I’ll swear on all those, that promise was never made.

Mr Finn made this statement to the local newspaper because he refused to front a recent community rally on the Sunvale site to explain his government's actions. For someone whose campaign slogan is 'the voice of Melbourne's west' Mr Finn seems to have gone very quiet in the face of community activism. Mr Finn further told the Brimbank weekly:

I have spent more time on this site, on this issue, than on any other single issue in the west …

I put it to the House that this really sums it up. These are the results you get from state Liberal MPs in Melbourne's west: a failure to deliver for their community, even on the issue that by their own admission they spent more time on that any other.

The Victorian Liberal government should stop the tender for this site until they meet their own election commitments to keep the entire site as a park. In the meantime, members of the Save Sunvale group are now occupying the site in protest at the flawed tender process, setting up an around-the-clock camp on the site and engaging in subversive protest actions like mowing the grass and installing a raised community vegetable garden. I wish them good luck in holding the Liberal Party to their promises. I will be glad to set up a swag with them when I am back in Melbourne.