Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to inform this place of yet another attack on the good education within my electorate of Cowan. Specifically, I would like to speak on the circumstances of the Allenswood Primary School site in the suburb of Greenwood and how the state Labor government is threatening to sell some of the land on the site. I would like to speak about the implications of this sorry matter.

In August 2007, the parents at the school were informed that they were to receive a new school, a school to be built on the current site. That announcement was received with great acclaim because the school is not a very attractive place; it is old and run-down. As part of the proposal, the school populations of Allenswood and East Greenwood primary schools would be amalgamated on the Allenswood site and the school would be renamed Greenwood Primary School.

I repeat that that was good news for most residents and parents. I say ‘most’ because the plan involved the sale of the site of East Greenwood Primary School and, while the sale was the subject of some local concern, it appeared that the majority of residents felt the sale of those four hectares of land at a resale value of around $16 million would reasonably cover the cost of building the new school at the Allenswood site. That cost was estimated to be around $13 million, and the majority thought that that was fair enough.

Parents and residents looked forward to seeing the new plans for the school and then were horrified to see that the original set of plans involved the loss of the school oval and the creation of a through road between two sets of streets. The plan would radically change traffic flows within the area. It would mean that traffic would flow right past the school, and there are issues with that. Also, according to this plan, there was inadequate car parking, the key point being that more than one hectare of land from this site also was to be sold off for residential development, leaving a bit less than three hectares, as I understand it.

Parents and local residents raised their concerns. I am informed that some parents were told by a state representative, ‘If you want a new school, you should stop complaining, otherwise you’ll get nothing.’ The loss of that extra land would greatly reduce the functionality of the site, the trade-off being that the state government and the City of Joondalup would enter into a shared use agreement with the local government oval located next door. To get to that oval, kids from the new school would have to leave the school site and travel down the hill and through a few trees. They would then be out there, on the local government oval. From my perspective, as a parent of primary-school-age children at a local Cowan primary school, I agree with parents who worry about the safety aspects of sharing a facility—this oval—rather than having sole on-site use of one.

At this point, I would pay tribute to the actions of the Kingsley and Greenwood Residents Association for their outstanding efforts to get the right result in this matter—which, unfortunately, is yet to come. I will name just a few of these members: Ed Burton, Sue Hart, Monique Moon, Peter Billington and David and Robyn Bertolini. They are all working hard on this problem. After agitation and sustained pressure by the residents association, the next set of state government plans remedied the parking and the through road problems, but the proposal to sell the one hectare of land was still there in black and white. The residents association then organised a petition of 759 signatures.

The voice of the people sadly fell on deaf ears, apart from those of the state Labor MP, who finally saw that representation was required. She was a bit slow on the uptake—possibly because she does not live in the electorate or because she was dutifully toeing the Labor government line—but, in any case, the land is still to be sold. No doubt, the extra proceeds from the sale are planned to go towards some other state Labor government project that will not benefit the people of Greenwood. With regard to representation on this issue, I think the state MP has been ineffectual, because the only thing the residents of Greenwood have in writing is a line in the local newspaper from that MP saying that she was heartened that the state minister did not rule out keeping the Allenswood site intact.

I say enough is enough. I call on the state education minister to listen to the people and to give a cast-iron guarantee that the whole site will be retained, and I ask the minister to do the right thing immediately.