Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Ouyen Primary School site

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (19:18): (329) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is that all means necessary be taken so that the land of the old Ouyen primary school at 10 Hunt Street be rezoned to be able to be sold to accommodate the need for housing in the town. Several residents and organisations in the Ouyen community have contacted my office regarding the future of this site with an interest in purchase. Ouyen primary school, like I said, located at 10 Hunt Street in Ouyen, merged with the Ouyen secondary college in 2014 to form the Ouyen P–12 College. The land that the primary school was located on became surplus to education requirements in 2014. A strategic Crown land assessment from April 2018 determined that there were no or low public land values present and supported disposal of the land. The land is now in the process of being rezoned from public use zone – we know rezoning is a lengthy process, but that was 2014, nearly 10 years ago. There are a lot of hoops to jump through – I get that as well – including native title matters and consultation, which is currently sitting with the First People of the Millewa–Mallee. I have contacted their office, and they are yet to respond with an update.

Recently I did write to the Minister for Education and was promptly responded to, which I very much appreciate. The minister said:

I am advised that, at this stage, there is still no resolution with respect to native title matters which would allow the land to be progressed for sale. As you can appreciate, such matters can take time to achieve resolution. I note that the Department of Transport and Planning’s land and property area is responsible for the rezoning and work to prepare the site for a future sale, including consultation with Traditional Owners.

In the interim, I can confirm the site is regularly maintained by the Victorian School Building Authority’s Land Regeneration Program. As the former school site is inoperative, its maintenance needs different attention to when the school was operating …

which we can all appreciate as well. This process is nearing 10 years and the patience of community members in Ouyen is starting to wear a little thin, but Ouyen Inc, as a community organisation that are driving this, are being very, very patient. They do a lot of great work, and they just want to see a result sooner rather than later.

I seek whatever action is necessary to progress the planning consultation and the rezoning issues that have brought this to a complete standstill so that the land can be sold and used for the benefit of the Ouyen community and in fact to build houses on it.