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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-18 Daily Xml
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Public Works Committee: Aldinga Beach B-7 School Redevelopment

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:33): I move:

That the 96th report of the committee for the Fifty-Fourth Parliament, entitled Aldinga Beach B-7 School Redevelopment Project, be noted.

Aldinga Beach B-7 School is located on Quinliven Road, Aldinga, in the City of Onkaparinga. The Department for Education has advised that the school has strong links with the local community, including sporting clubs and volunteer organisations. The school is allocated funding of $5 million as part of the Department for Education's capital works programs. There are certainly ageing buildings at the site requiring demolition and replacement, and the proposed redevelopment will include refurbishment of existing facilities to accommodate 800 students on the school site by 2022, up from 684 students in 2020.

The specific scope of works for the Aldinga Beach B-7 School upgrades include the construction of the new building, including general and service learning areas, breakout spaces, flexible teacher preparation areas, storage and external decking to connect the pre-existing school, construction of two modular buildings providing amenities for students, construction of a new covered outdoor learning area over a main court area to facilitate whole-of-school gatherings in the future, the demolition of aged buildings (as earlier mentioned), and the decommissioning of amenities and refurbishment as storage rooms.

The proposed works will be staged, with construction expected to be complete by March 2021. The committee examined written and oral evidence in relation to this project, and received assurances that the appropriate consultation had been undertaken. The committee is satisfied that the proposal has been subject to the appropriate agency consultation and meets the criteria for the examination of projects set out in the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991.

Based on the evidence considered, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the scope of the work I have outlined to members this morning.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (11:35): I rise to commend all those people at Aldinga primary school. It is a wonderful local school.

This $5 million was announced by the former Minister for Education, the member for Port Adelaide, back in 2017, and while the community is very welcoming of the new buildings that are going up now—I was at the school last week and there is a crane there—they are a little disappointed about the lag in that money being announced in 2017 and the building work finally starting in 2021.

To Mel Justice, the principal at the Aldinga primary school, I want to thank her and all her hardworking staff. It is a terrific school, one that has grown so much over the years. I think the original Aldinga primary school may have been opened by Prince Charles when he was a young fellow; that was replaced with this current school.

Of course, another announcement we made in 2017 was the building of a brand-new birth to year 12 school in Aldinga, which will be magnificent. It is going up now, and not only is it going to have wonderful facilities for students of all ages, it will also be a great civic centre for the people of Aldinga, who so far lack the sort of space they are going to be able to have here. It will be able to be used by the community for musical performances, for meetings and other things. Again, that was an announcement made by the former Minister for Education, the member for Port Adelaide, back in 2017, and I thank her for listening to the community of Aldinga.

Both these schools will play an important role, particularly the secondary part of the new Aldinga school, in keeping students and young people in Aldinga. At the moment, and for many, many years, they have had to leave Aldinga and go across Main South Road to Willunga High School. In a way that has hollowed out our community, because a lot of the time these kids have then played footy and netball for Willunga or McLaren and, while they have really strong junior teams with 60 or 70 kids in some cases in the various age groups, the Aldinga Sharks have suffered.

The location of the new school is just up the road from the existing primary school which is obviously having this $5 million upgrade—which is terrific—but both schools are also located close to the sporting complex at Aldinga, and I was glad to see that the Onkaparinga council has committed many millions of dollars to upgrading that as well. So come the start of the next school year we are going to have two public schools very close to each other, Galilee Catholic School sitting in the middle of that, and then Southern Vales Christian College not too far away either—and they are all around this sports hub.

What we are all excited about at Aldinga is the possibility of having young people leave school each afternoon, go to training at the netball club or the soccer club or the footy club, or any of the other clubs there—cricket, tennis—and then play for the Aldinga Sharks on the weekend. It is really going to improve that whole sense of community we have in Aldinga. It is already a really tight-knit community, but the location of the school and the upgrading of the existing school is really going to further enhance what is a wonderful part of South Australia, one I am incredibly proud to represent.

The $5 million is very much welcomed. It was great to be there the other day presenting the leaders of the school with an Aboriginal flag, a South Australian flag and a Torres Strait Islander flag. Those young leaders are terrific, and they are looking forward to the new school as well. Some of them have had a bit of a look through. As I said, that $5 million would have been appreciated had it been spent a little bit earlier, given that it was announced in 2017.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:40): I acknowledge the member for Mawson and thank him for sharing his knowledge of the school site and the educational facilities located there. I also thank and acknowledge the school governing council and principal, noting that the government is rolling out the largest capital works program in the state's history and endeavouring to do that as efficiently as possible.

Motion carried.

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