Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge and pay great respect to the community of Somerville on the creation of the Somerville Secondary College as an independent stand-alone secondary college. This has been a long fought project. It is a great outcome for the community. It has proceeded in three stages. The first stage was to have the school itself established. This was land which was to have been sold by the state government, and I am delighted to have been able to have worked with the Somerville Secondary College Committee, as it then was. They were people who had a sense of vision, purpose and hope that this town, which had grown and expanded and which had a great sense of unity, should have a secondary college. They were successful. Led by Phil Brake and many others, that committee went on to ensure that the Somerville Secondary College was established as a satellite of the nearby Mount Erin Secondary College. I am exceptionally pleased that the previous government was able to commit $3 million all up to the establishment of this new school. It has given many students the chance to have a school within Somerville. It has already been and will be for many decades to come one of the centres of life in this town.

What is perhaps extremely impressive is that from that base there was always the imagination and the sense of vision that it would become an independent stand-alone secondary college. That decision has now been achieved. I congratulate Chris Lloyd, the new principal of Somerville Secondary College. That is to be the name. That was always the intention. That will be an independent school. Great work has been done by many people: by members of the community, by members of the school council, by members of the school teaching group and, of course, by the principal and his predecessors. It is with a real sense of joy that I am able to offer my congratulations to the school and the people of Somerville on the fact that they will now have a new Somerville Secondary College as an independent stand-alone college. In particular, I am pleased that the battle for a new school oval has been won. The oval project went to tender on 15 October. I understand that there were many different tenderers. I understand from the school’s principal that the project will be completed during the first term of 2009. It will be a great facility. It will be an all-weather facility. It will have a running track. It will be good not only for the students but for the town and people of Somerville.

Beyond that, I also want to note that not only will this much-needed new oval be of value to the school but I am very hopeful that its use will be extended, and I know it is the intention of the school to extend that use with appropriate support to the community. In that context, I have written to the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council to ask them to consider funding change rooms and other facilities, including lights, which would enable the community sporting clubs to make use of this new, all-weather oval with a running track in the middle of Somerville. That would be a great thing.

This leads me to the third stage. We have embarked upon the first two stages of the big vision for a Somerville secondary college. Stage 3 will be the creation of years 11 and 12. We had thought it would take many years for the school to be established, but we were successful. We had thought it would take the best part of a decade for the school to be allowed to stand on its own as an independent year 7 to 10 school. Now, those two stages having been successful, we work towards this being a years 11 and 12 facility at the appropriate time so that Somerville will have a true secondary college from years 7 to 12. It is a great outcome. I am delighted with the progress. I thank all those who were involved, I congratulate everybody who has been part of the development of the Somerville secondary college and I say with great respect to the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council: we do hope that you can assist with the completion of the oval’s facilities.