Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to update the House regarding a school in my community, Carlingford West Public School, which has recently suffered badly from fire damage. On Sunday night at around 11.45, fires ripped through seven classrooms of the school, on Felton Road in Carlingford, requiring nearby residents to be evacuated from their homes. Thankfully, there was nobody hurt as a result of the fire, although $1 million worth of damage was caused. Investigations are ongoing as to the cause of the fire, with investigators spending all day Monday at the scene. But, thankfully, they have ruled out arson as a cause, instead labelling it an accident—a possible fault in the electrical wiring. I can report, though, that a generator has been installed and the school, once again, has power. Now the work begins to find out what went wrong to spark the fire and to ensure that it does not happen again.

I have been in contact with the New South Wales Minister for Education and Training, the Hon. John Della Bosca, whose office has assured me that dealing with the aftermath of the fire is a top priority for his department. The school reopened on Wednesday for as close to normal business as possible, utilising the library and the out-of-school-hours room as an interim measure to make up for the loss of the seven classrooms that were destroyed. All of the firefighters, some from as far away as Greenacre, should be congratulated on ensuring that the damage to the school was minimised, enabling classes to resume so quickly.

There will be seven demountable classrooms installed as quickly as possible. The principal, Mr Kevin Gerard, and the department are in discussions as to exactly where the new demountables will be situated. The demountables will remain in place until a new set of classrooms can be built. Again, I am sure it is a matter of priority for the state government to restore Carlingford West to the excellent education facility it was only last week.

A fire such as this destroys much more than the classrooms. Buildings can be replaced and alternative arrangements can be made, but many of the 686 students lost artwork that they had been preparing for Education Week, putting those celebrations on hold. The computer rooms and their computers have also been destroyed, with work still on hard drives. Many other teaching resources for the kindergarten and year 1 students have been lost and will need to be replaced as a matter of urgency. The memory of this will live in the minds of the younger students for many years, but I am sure that both they and the school will bounce back and I wish them all the very best with their rebuilding.