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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: The Heights School Redevelopment

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:40): I move:

That the 97th report of the Public Works Committee for the Fifty-Fourth Parliament, entitled The Heights School Redevelopment Project, be noted.

The school is located on Brunel Drive within the City of Tea Tree Gully. The school is a preschool to year 12 school that offers students advanced pathways in maths, science and technology. The Heights is one of three Department for Education Ignite focus schools for gifted and talented students. The high school was allocated funding of $10 million as part of the Department for Education's capital works program.

The school requires works to accommodate the transition of year 7 to high school, and there is also aged relocatable accommodation on the school site requiring demolition and replacement with new facilities. The proposed scope of redevelopment works includes the construction of a new junior primary building; providing general learning areas; a teacher preparation and storage area; a centrally located, covered outdoor learning area; construction of a new gym providing international-sized netball and basketball courts; demolition of four buildings; installation of a storage shed and landscaping adjacent to the new junior primary building; and gym, as I mentioned earlier.

The proposed redevelopment works will accommodate up to 1,500 students on The Heights School site to cater for the expected growth in student enrolments. The redevelopment works will be staged and construction is expected to be complete by September 2021.

The committee examined written and oral evidence in relation to the project and received assurances that the appropriate agency consultation in relation to the project had been undertaken, and the committee is satisfied that the proposal has been subject to the appropriate consultation and does meet the criteria for the examination of projects described in the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991. Therefore, 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 works that I have described.

Mr BOYER (Wright) (11:43): I am very pleased to have the opportunity this morning to speak about this project. In the same vein that the member for Mawson gave a little bit of history about the project at Aldinga Beach B-7 School, I would like to do the same here in relation to The Heights School and how this project came about.

It was originally a grant from the previous Labor government under what was then called the Building Better Schools program which was a fantastic program, a transformative program which saw a record amount of infrastructure spending given to public schools for capital works projects of their choice. Over the last couple of years I have heard the odd person criticise the then Labor government's decision to leave that decision up to schools, but the impression and the feedback that I had, as the government progressively rolled out those announcements to schools, were that there was not really any school in South Australia that did not have a capital works project up their sleeve that they wanted funding for. Certainly that was the case with The Heights School.

When we told the school that they had been successful in receiving a $10 million grant under the Building Better Schools fund towards a project of their choice, it is still one of the days I clearly remember. I was just a candidate then and had not been elected as the member for the seat of Wright, but as someone, when I was much younger, really motivated to actually join the Australian Labor Party through issues of the funding of public schools, it was a very proud day for me to see the looks on the faces of the principal and staff who had fought for money for the school over many years, to finally receive an amount that would, I think, legitimately be a transformative amount.

I know that is a word that we bandy about a lot in politics and government and sometimes it is a little bit meaningless, but not in this case with a $10 million grant to The Heights School towards a brand-new double gymnasium to replace the existing gymnasium, which was, I believe, an original part of the school. I know the member for Florey has been into that gymnasium on many more occasions over her career than I have.

Members interjecting:

Mr BOYER: No calisthenics, I am told. In the three years I have represented residents of Modbury Heights, I have been in there on a number of occasions and I can tell you it was tired, dilapidated, the air conditioning did not work and it certainly was not fit for purpose for a B-12 school of some 1,500 students.

It was wonderful to share that excitement with The Heights School when we announced they would be getting $10 million and it came on top of a $3.5 million grant that the school received for a science, technology, engineering and maths laboratory as well—one of the bigger ones, I believe, that was built under the STEM project by the previous Labor government. I certainly have enjoyed a number of visits to the STEM lab. I have spoken individually to the teachers who use that space, I have spoken to many students who have the privilege of using those fantastic facilities, and the feedback has been really fantastic.

Of course, it is one thing to announce these big capital infrastructure projects, and they always sound fantastic at the time; it is another thing entirely to actually go along once it is built and to sit there and watch students learning in the environment and talk to teachers about how it helps them and why it is better than the facilities that they previously had. That is the most rewarding part about this.

It is lovely to get a good news story out into your community about funding for public schools, but where the rubber really meets the road is how it actually helps kids learn and helps teachers teach. I am very confident that, thanks to this grant from the member for Port Adelaide and former Minister for Education, generations of children at The Heights School will be beneficiaries of the taxpayers' money that has gone towards upgrading the facilities there.

There are a few people in particular I would like to mention while I have this opportunity because although we get to do what you might describe as the fun bit, which is going along and telling them the good news, there are always, of course, those people who are part of the school community, often in the leadership team, who have spent many years making a case for why they believe they are deserving of funding and The Heights School is certainly no exception.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank and congratulate the principal, Mr Nigel Gill, for his advocacy on this issue and two other people also who would not ordinarily find themselves in the group of people from a school who get thanked publicly because they do work behind the scenes. The first one I would like to thank is Mr Jim Rouse, the governing council chair of The Heights School. He has been in that position for a decade. He has just been re-elected for another term and is beginning his 11th year.

Jim is a fascinating kind of fellow in many respects. He is a small business owner in the area. I am sure he will not mind my saying he runs a very successful Totally Workwear store in the Salisbury area. That obviously takes an incredible amount of his time, but he is also very active in The Heights School community. Jim is an uncompromising gentleman, I would say in the nicest possible way, and I believe that is what every school needs in its governing council chair.

It is obviously difficult for principals or employees of the education department to come out and criticise decisions of the department or the government of the day—that is not their place as public servants, and I accept that—but every now and then the school needs an advocate who is separate from the member of parliament who represents that area to go in to bat, and I will tell you that you could not get a better one than Jim Rouse.

Jim is fierce in his advocacy for his school, and the $10 million grant given under the Building Better Schools fund was in no small regard due to his decade-long advocacy. I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of all the people who have gone to The Heights School over those years and students and staff there now to thank Jim for his work—it does not go unnoticed.

The second person I would like to mention is the business manager, Vicki Cook. Again, business managers always do the behind the scenes work. I can tell you that it is a big job, particularly when your school is 1,500 students strong and you are managing multiple building projects. Vicki oversaw the $3.5 million STEM building works, which was a fantastic project that went off without a hitch. Vicki is a master of that invaluable skill that all good business managers have, which is to stretch a budget as far as you possibly can.

There were a number of things I have seen included in the science, technology, engineering and maths laboratory at The Heights School, which managed to be built because Vicki was smart with the money she was given and tenacious in the way she interacted with and pursued the builders and the department to make sure her students and staff got maximum value for the money that was given. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Vicki for her ongoing work.

I would also like to thank the builders, Chappell Builders, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting on a number of occasions, including the project manager at The Heights School, a young fellow called Josh. They are a great bunch of blokes. They have developed a fantastic rapport and relationship with Vicki, Nigel and Jim, the school leadership team. That fantastic relationship they have cultivated there has resulted in better outcomes for the school. It has resulted in a STEM lab that is fit for purpose and met all the school's requirements. I have absolutely no doubt this project is going to be the same because the lines of communication are open and they are talking to each other all the time about what they can do to make the project better.

Before I finish, it would be remiss of me not to point out that the $10 million that was given by the previous Labor government has unfortunately shrunk. Like Alice in Wonderland, it seems to have taken the magic potion and become just a little bit smaller. What was $10 million is now, I believe, just short of $8 million because, as I understand it, some of that money is being taken to fill holes in other projects, which is disappointing.

What was going to be a brand-new double gymnasium for a school that is 1,500 students strong and growing is now a single gymnasium, which I believe will not have toilets in it, and hopefully a refurbishment of the existing gymnasium. I know the school is doing what it can but, fingers crossed, I hope that we will see as much as we can manage of that original $10 million grant go toward a project at The Heights School.

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (11:53): It is always welcome to have large grants and large capital works at school sites. As the member for Wright indicated, I have had a long interest in this school not only because I have represented the area but because my own children have been through that school. I have actually watched the gymnasium decline over a long period of time, so I was very much looking forward to having the really great facility we are talking about brought in.

I think something the member for Wright touched on is the initial $10 million that was long overdue to be spent, and the present government must be given the credit for spending the money. Of course, the difficulty is the $10 million rapidly became $7.8 million when extra things like asbestos removal came off the top of the ticket. While we all know asbestos removal has to happen and it was long overdue, particularly at The Heights School, it is really difficult to tell the school community after they have been given the opportunity to put together something they see as exciting and wonderful and have some of the shine come off the top.

So it is really important with these building works that they are clear and transparent from the very beginning and that people's hopes are not raised only to be dashed. Although anything is welcome, it is a very difficult pill for the school community to have to swallow to realise they have to make economies, and that gym should not be something that is economised on. It is not good at all that we have to make do with something less than is the bottom line of a school the size of The Heights.

We also saw in this process things being called different names. An OSHC centre might be called something else to satisfy whatever is needed. Different buckets of money have been found to try to patch together some sort of a deal at the end that might be suitable. Let's not be silly about it. This is an election year and I understand why all these things have to happen. But it is a bit pointless to bring all these works together, particularly in a climate where the employment is as difficult as it is. It would be much nicer to have a small line of employment moving through the four years rather than a big swelling of works in the last 18 months to six months.

It is a good outcome, particularly as I hear drama and arts are getting some money. One of the interesting things you might like to know about, member for Wright, is the music rooms were stuck in the corner of the gym for quite some time. It was always very difficult to have music lessons with balls thudding against the wall—not in time, of course. It has been a long way from being satisfactory for a very long time.

I am hoping I will be able to come along to see the ribbon cut on the day it is finally all finished and thank everybody who was mentioned for their work, particularly the wider school community. Jim Rouse and Nigel Gill have done an amazing job, as has every member of the school governing council. There have been some long-serving members on the school governing council. They have had their children go through the school, as I have. Some of them have stayed on.

I still visit The Heights School regularly because that is an area I know really well. I do not walk dogs around the area anymore, but I certainly visit the school or walk past the school every day, so I like to see what is going on. It is good to see, finally, some works being done. I hope that it is enough to satisfy the scope of what is needed at the school. I am not sure what else is outstanding as I have not had the conversations about what is outstanding; it has mostly been about what is going in.

Well done everyone. I look forward to seeing the students using the new areas. I know that the new STEM area was a complete fillip for everybody. We were so thrilled to have that area open up. I am sure that the same things will happen with the new spaces that are coming on line shortly.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:57): I acknowledge the members for Wright and Florey for their contributions. I think it is important to acknowledge and thank the school community for their contribution, as has earlier been mentioned. Principal Nigel Gill; Jim Rouse as the governing council chair, now in his 11th year of service; Vicki Cook, the business manager; and, as the member for Florey rightly pointed out, other members of the governing council and those in the school community, together with the members, have been passionate advocates for this project for many years.

I was interested to hear and learn that the member for Florey's own children had attended the school and, no doubt, in consequence of that but also through her diligence overall, she is very closely familiar with the school, its needs and the school community overall.

Motion carried.

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