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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-22 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

WILLUNGA PRIMARY SCHOOL

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:47): It has been hard to get a word out today. The member for Schubert jumped up earlier before the lunch break, when I was on my feet and talking, and he has just done it again. Tomorrow I have the honour of going with the education minister, Jane Lomax-Smith, to open the redeveloped Willunga Primary School, in the seat of Mawson. It is a $5.1 million redevelopment. It has been ongoing over the past year or so. It is a fantastic new school for our area. I would like to thank the education minister and all the staff who have been involved in this project over the past year.

Not only is it a great place and a great space for children to learn in and for teachers to teach in but it is also environmentally friendly. The redevelopment was built using the principles of ecologically sustainable development, and includes a new administration building, with a reception area, two classrooms and an outdoor area. The classroom windows face north, letting in more natural light, and the rooms include window shades and insulation to make the rooms cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Solar panels will provide electricity for the school's new buildings, while four new rainwater tanks collect water for the school to use in the new toilet blocks.

So I think this is a great way of not only having more sustainable development but teaching our children who are the people who are the leaders of tomorrow. But they are also today's leaders in many ways because at school they pick up all these great messages about health and about environmental sustainability and they take them home and teach us, the parents, to turn off the lights and to use power and water more frugally, for a better future, that they will inherit. Willunga Primary School has always offered a high standard of education, and now its classrooms match the quality of the teaching inside.

One of the great things about being a local member is getting around and visiting the schools and having the schools come in here and visit as well. Today I had 53 students from the Emmaus Catholic School in Woodcroft, and their behaviour was exemplary, with a group that size, in getting around the corridors and into the two chambers and Old Parliament House. They are a credit to themselves and to their school. On Tuesday, I had a different group of 47 students from Emmaus Catholic School. They have also been to the Australian Electoral Commission this week, so what an exciting week it is for them, in the week of the federal election, getting to see first-hand not only Parliament House but also how the Electoral Commission works.

It is a great time, and I am sure that many members will be busy going to school graduations. Tonight I have the Tatachilla Lutheran College valedictory service, and I am looking forward to that. It was a great night last year, to hear the speeches and the ambitions of all these students. They get up as they finish their final year of school and talk about their hopes for the future, and they play some great music as well that they have been taught at the school.

In a couple of weeks' time, as many other members in this place will probably do as well, I will be going to seven or eight grade 7 graduations, and these are fantastic nights to, again, hear the aims and aspirations of these grade 7 children as they finish their primary school and are about to embark on that next step into secondary school. It is a really wonderful thing. It is a great thing about this job, to see that our future is in safe hands, with these grade 7s, and these other senior students, who are also having their graduation nights over the next week or so.

The redevelopment of Willunga Primary School is a $5.1 million project. We got some money from the federal government as well. The state government provided $4.12 million and the federal government provided $1 million. Just up the road is Willunga High School about which I have written to the minister quite a few times. She has been down to visit the school. It is not in the best state of repair after a backlog of several decades of maintenance, so I was very pleased in the budget this year that the minister has made available the funds to do a feasibility study, and we are hoping that Willunga High School will also be upgraded to match its brand new primary school just down the road.

It is part of a large amount of money that is being spent on capital works in our schools, and I congratulate the minister for the huge contribution in this year's and last year's budget as part of the Education Works program to reshape the face of public education in South Australia. Kids and teachers in our public schools love to have great facilities and we are providing them.

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