Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to discuss a school in my electorate, the Belgrave Heights Christian School. On Friday, 9 June, I had the great honour and privilege to announce the opening of its recently completed capital works. These works included a double classroom, a food technology area for kitchens, a science laboratory, a chemical storage room and staff offices and amenities. The Australian government contributed $500,000 to this $1.3 million project. The funding was provided under the capital grants program. The new facilities will be used for secondary classes in cuisine, science, mathematics, English, geography, history and French.

I congratulate the school’s principal, Mr Andy Callow, and all those concerned who made these new facilities possible. The generosity of the school community continues to play a vital role in the school’s development. I would especially like to single out the extraordinary efforts of Mr Ian Birchell, who has volunteered his time, his earthmoving equipment and his considerable building skills to the school for over two years—an amazing effort.

The Belgrave Heights Christian School was originally conceived with the aim of bringing Christian education to the hills. After five years of hard work and prayer, the school first opened its doors to 15 students in February 1983. Today the school has grown to 193 students, enrolled from prep to year 10. I have great admiration for the school’s emphasis on character development. With the enormous pressure students and schools are under to achieve academic success these days, values can often be overlooked.

In November 2003, the Australian government published its values education report, which showed that values based education was being ignored in a number of Australian schools. Accordingly, I applaud the Australian government’s commitment of almost $30 million to redress this through the establishment of the Values Education Program. But Belgrave Heights Christian School certainly does not suffer from this failing. To the contrary, Belgrave Heights Christian School is renowned for its efforts to instil in each student high standards of morality, self-discipline, social justice, decision making, leadership, tolerance, respect for others and good manners.

Belgrave Heights Christian School also strives to continually improve and upgrade its facilities. I am also pleased to say that the Australian government has been very supportive. We handed over $130,000 in 2001 and $225,000 last year. In closing, it is a fantastic school. I thank all the staff, I thank the parents and, of course, the students. They are going to have a wonderful future as a result of going to that school.