Building Better Schools Program

Mr BOYER (Wright) (15:36): I rise today to speak about the previous Labor government's Building Better Schools program, which is a topic I have already spoken about in this place. The Premier wrote to a school principal in his seat of Dunstan in November 2017 advising the school that, if elected, a Marshall Liberal government would honour the funding commitment made to that school by the Labor government in full.

The Premier went on to say—and I am pretty sure this is something he might regret now—that he encouraged the school to 'use this funding on a project that will best suit the needs of your school, regardless of the recommendation provided by the Department for Education'. I wonder, did other schools get the same letter from the then leader of opposition or was this kind of latitude only extended to schools in the electorate of Dunstan?

What I can say is that schools that were beneficiaries of the Labor government's Building Better Schools program in the north-east have not had such benevolent treatment from the Premier or the new Minister for Education. Take, for example, The Heights School in Modbury Heights in the seat of Wright. Significant upgrades have taken place at The Heights School over the past 10 years: a new preschool was built in 2008; the front office, administration services, library and some classrooms also received significant refurbishments in 2009; and the primary school and middle school buildings received upgrades in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

The school is currently undergoing significant upgrades to the tech, science and arts buildings as part of the previous Labor government's STEM program. This $3.5 million upgrade will be completed later this year, and I am very much looking forward to seeing the students in these new state-of-the-art facilities. Most recently, as part of the Building Better Schools program, The Heights was awarded $10 million, and it chose—and I stress that it was the school itself that made this decision—to build a new gymnasium.

If one were to use the laissez-faire guidelines knocked up by the member for Dunstan literally on the back of envelope, The Heights should be free now to make their dream of a new gymnasium a reality, but not so. In fact, it looks as though the new Liberal government has already started the kind of penny-pinching from public education that it is renowned for. In order to top up the grossly underfunded transition of year 7 into high school, the Department for Education is writing to school principals, at the behest of the Minister for Education, to inform them that any student capacity issues created by moving year 7 students from primary school to secondary school must be funded out of the Building Better Schools grant.

The school is then free to use what money remains to build the capital project for which the money was actually intended in the first place. What we know for certain is that The Heights will not get the gymnasium it wanted, but instead it will get the best gym that they can afford once they have paid the year 7 into high school levy to the Minister for Education. What a generous government we have.

The Heights is not the only school in the north-east having its pockets picked. Golden Grove High School was also awarded $10 million under Building Better Schools. The school decided to spend that grant on a performing arts centre. Golden Grove High School is a very large and very well respected school. Forecasting suggests that the school will have around 170 additional students enrolled once the transition from year 7 into high school is complete. In a recent school newsletter, it was stated the new education minister had written to the school advising them that their funding was not going to be taken away, but the fine print was that it was now contingent on future enrolment expectations.

This is some incredibly glib language from the new Minister for Education. The education department and its minister are well aware of the enrolment pressures that year 7 into high school will bring to bear on Golden Grove High School. So to say words to the effect of, 'You can keep your $10 million, apart from whatever it is that you need to spend to be able to handle increased capacity owing to moving year 7 into high school,' is very disingenuous indeed.

What we will see is another example of a school having the scope of its projects scaled down to accommodate an underfunded Liberal election commitment. I cannot help but wonder what these capital projects will look like when they are actually finished and when the new government has finally stopped using these schools as its own private piggy bank. In fact, it reminds me of a famous scene from the movie Zoolander,when Derek sees the model for the Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too for the first time. I cannot help but wonder if the students of Golden Grove High School and The Heights School will not echo the words of Derek Zoolander when their new gym and performing arts centres are finally finished and say, 'What is this, minister—a centre for ants?'