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

Last month I was delighted to officially open the new state-of-the-art fitness centre and refurbished library at the Hills Sports High School at Seven Hills on behalf of the Minister for Education, the Hon. Julia Gillard. The newly refurbished library is the heart of the school and students will be able to study in the ultramodern premises using the latest technology and resources. The new fitness centre is a state-of-the-art facility with a large weight-training and cross-training area, a large well-equipped aerobics room and provision for the establishment of a sports doctor and physiotherapist. For a sports specialist high school, like Seven Hills, it is essential equipment and gives the students the opportunity to engage in sporting activity at the highest level while undertaking their senior years of high school.

In addition to these new facilities I had the opportunity to turn the first sod on what will become a one-of-a-kind aquatic training centre also on the school grounds. The Rudd government has contributed $3 million to this $6.5 million project, with the other $3.5 million coming from the Royal Life Saving Society in New South Wales. The academy will be the first of its kind not only in New South Wales but in Australia. The aquatic safety-training academy will be a benchmark facility for the delivery of the highest quality vocational education and training in Australia. The Royal Life Saving Society will be providing both recreational and vocational education and training programs to all members of the community including students, teachers, parents, emergency service workers and the aquatic and recreational industries. The academy will also provide the society’s mobile Indigenous training unit with a central base to carry out Indigenous-specific initiatives adapted to meet the various needs of Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Western Sydney.

The training academy will comprise one training pool of 25 metres with eight lanes for all training programs by the Royal Life Saving Society as well as by groups such as swim-training squads, water polo teams and synchronised swimming teams. That pool will be used by the Hills Sports High School during school hours. One program pool of 20 metres by eight metres will also be built for use for spinal injury management, rehabilitation, disabled courses and swim and survive initiatives. There will also be an administration block and seminar and training rooms.

These outstanding facilities will help ensure that every one of the 920 students at the Hills Sports High School and in the community at large is encouraged to realise their full potential and obtain their goals. Over the next year and a half or so we will see much more building in our schools around Parramatta. Just last week Parramatta achieved an outstanding result under round 2 of the Primary Schools for the 21st Century, in which 25 Parramatta schools shared in close to $52 million of infrastructure investment. That takes our total now to more than $80 million for 152 projects in 72 schools as a result of the $14.7 billion education revolution program. We promised an education revolution and that is what we are delivering.