Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Schools in my electorate are bursting at the seams. At North Melbourne Primary School, classes are being taught in the corridors because the classrooms are too full. Teachers are sharing classrooms at the Carlton Gardens Primary School, and for weeks earlier this year the children were using portaloos. Teachers in this school are outstanding, and they work hard for the kids in their care, but their jobs are made much harder by the successive failures of governments to plan ahead for inner-city Melbourne school needs.

Many of these kids in these excellent schools are travelling from Docklands in the CBD because governments have failed to provide a local city school for city kids. More and more young families are moving into these areas, but the provision of vital community infrastructure such as quality public schools is not keeping pace with that growth. It is projected that, on current trends, within 15 years there will be a shortfall in the area of around 4,800 primary school enrolment places and around 2,000 secondary school enrolment places. Parents in Docklands were promised a school years ago but have been left waiting by successive Liberal and Labor state governments.

My colleague in the Victorian parliament, Ellen Sandell, and Greens councillors Cathy Oke and Rohan Leppert have joined with parents to push hard for a new school—a city school for city kids. Parents, teachers, experts and the Greens all agree: it is time for action. Now all that is needed is for the Victorian Labor government to finally respond to community pressure and build a new school for Docklands.