Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising in this grievance debate I wish to raise a lost opportunity within the electorate of Flinders. It is a considerable lost opportunity—that is, the neglect of the future of Somerville Secondary College. Members of this House may know that, over the last few years, along with members of the Victorian parliament I have been concerned about the potential for the creation of a wonderful school at Somerville, the Somerville Secondary College. After a long campaign by local residents, a wonderful group of people, that school came to pass this year, but it has come to pass without an oval. There was a chance for that oval to be created. We had the chance through the state government over this last week to establish a permanent set of playing fields for Somerville Secondary College, but it was chosen not to be of sufficient importance or of sufficient urgency to take the chance.

In essence, on Friday, 26 May, despite adequate warning, despite considerable pressure and, extraordinarily, despite an offer by the federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Ms Julie Bishop, to pay for that land the Victorian government declined to purchase the 1.5 acres, or 6,000 square metres, that would have allowed the school to complete its playing facilities. Instead, that land has been auctioned off and will go to commercial purposes. The children and students who attend Somerville Secondary College, not just over the next five, 10 or 20 years but over the next to 100 years, will forever be denied the opportunity to have a full set of sports facilities. That is a real indictment and a real failure. It was not a difficult thing to complete, because we made the offer to them. We offered to reimburse Victoria if they would purchase this land. The Commonwealth education minister, Ms Julie Bishop, made that offer within 48 hours of having had the proposal put to her last week. The proposal was made on Monday, 22 May, and by the afternoon of Wednesday, 24 May she had made the offer to say, ‘Yes, we will reimburse the Victorian government. We will meet the costs of this land if they wish to complete the school.’ Their refusal to accept is reason for genuine grievance.

I would like to recount to the House the facts so that the people of Somerville and the members of the House may understand precisely how an opportunity which comes once in the life to a school has been so grievously lost. Three greats wrongs have occurred here. Firstly, the Victorian government refused the offer of this 1.5 acres, or 6,000 square metres, of land adjacent to the existing Somerville Secondary College when it was first offered six months ago by the family who sold the original land to the school. It was done on a concessional basis because they wanted their parents’ will to be fulfilled. They offered this land at less than market rates to the Victorian government precisely for the purpose of completing the land at Somerville Secondary College. That offer was extraordinarily generous.

Having missed that first opportunity the second great wrong occurred when the state was given another chance. It again denied the school an oval. The problem here is that there was originally sufficient land for playing facilities, but Aboriginal artefacts were found on the site over quite a long period so the effective area available for use within the school was dramatically reduced. There was no account made of that fact. So the people who said, ‘You can’t build on this land’—that is, the Victorian government—because, and I do not dispute this, they had found Aboriginal artefacts, subsequently said, ‘We will count that land, though, as part of your school area and of course you have enough by our ratios.’ This is a classic catch-22 situation in which the school community, led by the principal, Roger Page, who does an outstanding job, was trapped by a sort of Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy from the late 19th century. So what is the second wrong? It is that the school is being denied an oval that will be of adequate size and with reasonable facilities as we go forward over the coming years—not five or 10 years but 20, 50, 100 years. This school will be forever penalised for the decisions made last week by the Victorian government, by the Victorian Minister for Education and Training, Ms Kosky, and by the utter failure of the sitting state member for Hastings, Ms Rosy Buchanan, to take up the case. This is when your character is tested: when you have to take on your own side.

This brings me to the third of the wrongs, which is that the Commonwealth offered to reimburse Victoria and that offer has been lost forever, not because the Commonwealth has taken it off the table but because the land has gone. That land, which could have contributed so much to the school and to the community, is gone forever because now it is likely to be commercially developed. And it is not as if there was no forewarning. I want to quote from a letter written on 22 May by a concerned parent—who has asked, for fear of repercussion, that their name not be identified—warning the Victorian government of the risk. It begins, ‘Dear Minister,’ and refers to the Somerville Secondary College. It notes that a property currently owned by Mrs Lesley Sinclair, who was the vendor representing the remnants of the original property from which the education department acquired over 13 hectares of land in the early 1990s for the purpose of primary and secondary schools, was available. But as the Victorian government was aware, a sizeable proportion of this land ‘can never be utilised due to restraints imposed due to Aboriginal issues’.

The letter goes on to say that the most significant omission in the construction of this school is that it does not possess an oval for recreational activities. Schools and ovals go together. This is a fundamental blight—an oval should be part and parcel of an ordinary development. The letter goes on to say it was always intended that an oval would be included as a school asset and, in fact, that the Mornington Peninsula Council was negotiating to assist in the construction of this oval due to a severe lack of recreational facilities in the Somerville area. So it is a lost opportunity not just for the students and the school but also for the town of Somerville, which has been woefully and shamefully neglected.

The letter goes on to say that the construction of the oval stalled when certain areas adjacent to the oval were deemed to be of Aboriginal significance, thus restraining the size, placement and overall design of the oval. The letter said:

I implore you to reconsider this position, as the school has lost the use of a sizeable amount of land within the site. Should this land be purchased by the department, it would not only rectify land lost onsite but would allow a significantly larger and better positioned oval to be constructed, which would have benefits not only for the school population but for the general population of Somerville.

The letter ends there. But, throughout that week, extraordinary attempts were made to move the Victorian government to purchase this land. On 22 May, the same day I received this correspondence from a parent, I wrote to the federal education minister, Julie Bishop, and spoke to her office on a number of occasions. They worked assiduously over the next 48 hours to produce an offer to reimburse the Victorian government—to cover the costs and to make sure the Victorian government was not out of pocket—but that offer, which was made on 24 May, was allowed to pass. The result was simple: when the land went to auction on 26 May, there was no Victorian government bid. The land was passed in and the Victorian government was immediately notified that there was still a third opportunity to purchase this land. But there was utter inaction. By late afternoon the land was gone and the facilities were gone. Forever and a day, for as long as that school exists, the facilities will never be completed to the standard that the students, parents and teachers of Somerville Secondary College and the residents of Somerville deserve. This is a profound disappointment and I condemn the Victorian government’s inaction. (Time expired)