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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
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Parliamentary Committees

PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE: BIRDWOOD HIGH SCHOOL REDEVELOPMENT

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (11:40): I move:

That the 382nd report of the committee, on Birdwood High School Redevelopment—Stage 2 (Visual and Performing Arts Centre), be noted.

The construction of the new facilities at the Birdwood High School is estimated to cost $4.4 million. These facilities will accommodate a maximum of 650 secondary students, which is the long-term projected enrolment figure, and involves the demolition of building 9 and the construction of a new two-storey visual and performing arts centre. Temporary fencing will be erected to define the contractor's compound and deny access by both students and staff during the course of the construction works. However, there will be times when a crossover of contractor staff and students may occur and appropriate management procedures will be put in place to suit those requirements.

There will not be a requirement to provide temporary classroom accommodation during the works as this accommodation is available on site. With these plans in place, it is not anticipated that there will be a significant impact on the school's teaching delivery during the project works. The construction stage will be approached in a way to ensure the school is able to function during the construction process.

The project aims to provide modern, efficient and functional areas for the delivery of education to the community of Birdwood. The key drivers are to provide new and upgraded facilities to better support the school's curriculum, to improve the accommodation at the school and avoid continuing maintenance of the existing building structures. It is anticipated that there will be no change in the recurrent cost of the school's operation as a result of this redevelopment.

Three options were considered. A 'do nothing' option was discounted due to the need to replace ageing infrastructure. The construction of a completely new school would be the highest cost alternative and the existing solid construction buildings are in good condition but insufficient to accommodate total enrolments. The preferred option is to redevelop the current Birdwood High School site to provide new and appropriate learning and educational facilities across the site for up to 650 students, as mentioned, in a purpose-built facility that represents contemporary requirements.

Construction was scheduled to commence recently and to be completed by July 2011. Based on the evidence presented to it, pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public work.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:43): I rise to support the member for Light's motion in relation to this project. Once again, it is one of those projects that is better late than never. However, with the recent announcements of what is happening at Inverbrackie, we will probably have to expand all the schools in the Hills to cope with the kids who will be in Inverbrackie. At a cost of $4.4 million, it is not an enormous project but it will benefit the Birdwood community and will in some way accommodate that area in the future.

The Public Works Committee, in its wisdom, has decided that it will not have hearings on a lot of these projects (because it just takes the time of the education department, schools and everywhere else) unless the committee has a particular interest in the project. We dealt with this issue before the announcement on Inverbrackie, as I recall, so we may well have had some questions had we dealt with it, for example, in the last week or so. However, the opposition supports the motion and looks forward to the project being completed in the near future.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:44): I am no longer the member for this area, but I was when stage 1 of this project began. I want to pay a huge tribute to the Birdwood High School because my involvement with it was always a very positive experience. The school is doing a fantastic job within that community, and I understand that this is probably stages 2 and 3 of the original project. Some of the original work was done when I was the member, and this is the $4.4 million part of stages 2 and 3.

Again, I pay tremendous tribute to the school, particularly Mr Ian Tooley, the principal when I was associated with the school. He was a very inspirational leader in relation to these projects, and he pushed them hard. He was very professional and, although it is sad for Birdwood High School, he is now the principal of Nuriootpa High School, which of course I am thrilled to bits about. He is coming in and, hopefully, will do the same thing for Nuriootpa High School. In fact, I think I can be brave and say that Mr Tooley was headhunted for this job because of the sort of guy he is. I certainly support the member for Kavel, who now has the seat and is doing a great job, and no doubt he will have more to say than me. Again, I congratulate the committee on doing the work and the $4.4 million well spent.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (11:45): I am pleased to speak to the motion that has been brought to the house by the member for Light in relation to the 382nd report of the Public Works Committee concerning the stage 2 of the Birdwood High School redevelopment.

As the member for Schubert just advised the house, he was the member for that area of the Adelaide Hills while stage 1 was being developed. However, that part of the district in the Hills region has come in and out of my electorate and into the member for Schubert's electorate on a number of successive terms. It has been in, gone out, come back in, gone out and come back in, so it has sort of seesawed in and out of the electorate of Kavel a number of times.

In the period when I was first elected to this place in 2002, Birdwood—the township and the high school—was in the electorate of Kavel. In the subsequent term, from 2006 to 2010, it went into the member for Schubert's electorate, and now it has come back into my electorate. As I have said, it has seesawed in and out. In the first term that I served here in the parliament on behalf of the good people of Kavel—the outstanding electors of Kavel—it was at the very beginning of the commencement of the planning of stage 1 of the first redevelopment of Birdwood High.

I clearly remember that I had a meeting with the chairperson of the governing school council and the principal of the high school, Mr Ian Tooley, as the member for Schubert previously communicated. We sat down and worked through a strategy on how we could secure state government funding for the redevelopment of the school because it was in real need of some redevelopment.

I spoke on this matter in the house some years ago, and I described the school as similar to a Hollywood set: if you looked at it from the main street, it looked really nice and presentable. The main admin unit was a nice red-brick building and adjacent to that was another two-storey, red-brick classroom block; to the east was the resource centre, the library. All were relatively nice buildings in a good state of repair.

However, when you went behind that facade, the classrooms and the rest of the infrastructure were in a pretty poor state. I had a tour around the high school site in those early days of my parliamentary career, and quite a number of buildings and infrastructure were in real need of some redevelopment. That is why I said it was like a Hollywood set: the façade that faced out to the main road was very good, but everything behind it was pretty daggy.

Ms Chapman: A bit like the government.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: No, its façade is starting to crumble as well, member for Bragg. It is not even a Hollywood set; it is ready for the trash can, if you like. I was involved, and I was very pleased to be involved, in those early planning stages, in the early strategy to secure funding. We were pleased when the government allocated some funding for stage 1, and we are certainly pleased that the government is committed to stage 2.

I am pleased that the township has come back into the electorate of Kavel this parliamentary term, and I certainly hope that, after the redistribution this time around, it and those other towns that came back in remain in Kavel. As the member for Schubert said, Mr Ian Tooley was the principal at the school at the time. He has since moved to Nuriootpa High School. We have done a bit of a swap because we have the principal from Mannum Area School, I think it is called—the primary school and the high school are amalgamated in that town—Mr Steve Hicks has come from Mannum to Birdwood High to head that school.

I want to quickly touch on an issue the government has recently announced, through budget measures, that the two schools, Birdwood Primary School and Birdwood High School, are to combine. That will put pressure on both of those schools' administration staff and the whole schools community. Whilst stage 2 of the redevelopment is taking place at the high school, which we welcome, there will be additional pressure on infrastructure and services placed on both of those school sites as a consequence of combining those two schools into an R-12 school.

I have spoken on that issue previously in the house and I will continue to say a lot more about that matter as things proceed. The school communities are extremely concerned about negative outcomes. I am advised that there will not be any cost benefit; it will actually cost more to combine the two schools and run them as one, if the current funding models are maintained, which is the information that I have been given. So, I am in the process of writing to the Minister for Education highlighting these issues and seeking his consideration in reversing the decision to combine the two school campuses.

As I said, I am pleased to support the motion and I am pleased that the government has seen fit to provide funding for the continued redevelopment of the high school site.

Motion carried.

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