Wednesday, 1 November 2023

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (16:01): It is tempting to use this opportunity now to raise the appalling state of roads in my electorate and issues such as the person that contacted my office – not a constituent – just today to say that they had hit a whopping pothole on the Melba at Glenburn and that their caravan almost took a 180 degree turn and how they were very fearful of that. And I will not use this opportunity to say how disappointed I was when the Minister for Roads and Road Safety was bragging at question time about the investment in country roads. She mentioned particular highways, but she did not mention my electorate once. It is tempting to talk about the underinvestment in the CFA in my electorate, but instead I am going to start with the funding for small schools in my electorate.

I have a couple of small schools that are in the unique and difficult position of being classified as metropolitan, but everything about those schools shows that they are rural. These two schools are Panton Hill Primary School and the Learning Co-operative school in Hurstbridge, and both of those schools I am quite familiar with. The small school in Hurstbridge, which has a unique approach to education, only has a couple of classrooms, but it is on 17 acres. It does not have water or sewerage services available, and it is classified as metropolitan. The school finds it quite perplexing, because the formula that is used by the government would give it greater money if it was indeed classed as rural. When you have got a very small school like this that has kids that have a number of different challenges, they make some really good inroads with those students. They really offer what they describe as education with a difference.

Panton Hill Primary School – again, it is in a very small town. There is no public transport. It has got a general store. It is very much rural, but the school is classified as metropolitan, and with that comes a reduction in funding. Panton Hill is not on sewerage; they are dependent on a wastewater treatment plan. They do not have access to mains gas; they have to have big LPG deliveries. They do not even have a postal service. They have got a bushfire shelter and they have a bushfire plan, as does the Learning Co-operative school in Hurstbridge. So both of these schools are very obviously rural in very country settings, and the sorts of things that I have mentioned, the characteristics of those schools, clearly demonstrate that.

Panton Hill Primary School does not have an outdoor covered area. They would greatly love that, and they have put in for a grant, because they want somewhere where the kids can be in the shade in summer and out of the rain as well. What they have got at the minute is open. The concrete is not level. It needs a bit of excavation work to extend that and make it into the size of an actual netball or basketball court so it has greater use and a softer surface. I have been there when the kids have had their assemblies for various things, and they have got to sit on the hard asphalt. I think that most schools are beyond that now. When you have got a classification that also limits the amount of funding you can get, it makes it harder for the school to do some of the not-high-cost improvements. That cost, having said that, is about a million dollars, but it is certainly not several million dollars.

I want to also mention the lack of investment in parks in my region. We are lucky that annual reports have popped out today. With Parks Victoria, the total revenue and income from transactions in 2023 was $433 million and the operating expenses were only $53 million, so 12 per cent of revenue is what they get. There is such underinvestment. At the end of 2022 Parks Victoria had more than 80 partial and full park closures statewide, many as a result of the October 2022 floods and other natural disaster events, but certainly not all. Twelve months on, flood recovery works have enabled the reopening of 24 parks and reserves that were impacted by recent national disasters, but as of June 2023, 30 partial park closures remain in place. You can have a look on the website and look at how many parks and camping grounds have closures in place; I am sure every member can have a look at their electorate. I was quite shocked. I had known of a number, but I was unaware of the full extent.

I am going to list these, because the reporting on the website indicates that 26 parks are going to remain fully closed without an open date in sight. We know that around Lake Eildon, the national parks there, they missed out on the school holidays. We want kids to be outside. We want families to be outside. We do not want them locked up in hotel rooms. We do not want them locked up in their own lounge rooms just playing on devices. We want them to be out and about. Impacting the Eildon electorate alone are the Candlebark campground, the Devil Cove campground and the Lakeside campground – they are all in Lake Eildon National Park; the O’Toole Flat camping area and Gap Track Bridge; the Herb Fitzroy day visitor area and toilet block; the Big Peninsula Stepping Stones; the Little Peninsula Bridge is closed; the Phantom Falls walk is closed; the Dom Dom Saddle picnic area toilets are closed; the lower section of the Cumberland walking track is closed; and the Horseshoe Lagoon Flora and Fauna Reserve and Trawool walk-in campground are closed.

These are really popular, and I think the government needs to do much more work to fix up the things that need fixing so that these areas can be reopened and are no longer a danger. I urge the government to have a look at this. Often it is lower level investment – replacing of a track, replacing of a bridge, steps that have come loose, debris that has washed onto the tracks and things like that. Some of it is fairly simple, but I feel very much for the Parks Victoria staff, because they cop it and it is not their fault. The Parks Victoria staff do a great job with what funding they have got, but the government has failed them, failed their employees, at every turn.

Most of the areas that I have mentioned are incredibly popular, and we would like them to be open by Christmas. There are also those flow-on effects to the local economy. Down in the Upper Yarra the O’Shannassy aqueduct trail is a really picturesque trail which is used a lot by walkers and those on bikes – electric bikes or regular bikes – and there is a bridge there that is deemed dangerous. It has been several years now. It is about 800 metres in from the Wesburn end, so you cannot go the full distance. If you start at Warburton, you still cannot go – you have to go part way and back again. That bridge, as I said, has been closed for almost three years. The community are waiting for a solution, and I think they are not very hopeful. The Parks Victoria website says there is a new temporary bypass track in place, and let me tell you, you have to hike down, go along under the bridge and then come back up. Whilst you can scramble to do that, you cannot do that easily with a bike, particularly the weight of an electric bike. At the same time I see the government pushing along with other projects, with the Yellingbo conservation area and camping on licensed river frontage. It is putting a lot of money into driving these sorts of projects but letting our parks fall into disrepair. It is really not good enough.

One of the investments that I did like was the investment at the old Olinda golf course, with the Chelsea Flower Show-winning entry by Phillip Johnson in 2013, I think it was. He has recreated that small display, turning it into a very large display, and it is fabulous. It is really good, and the government helped with that. But Phillip and his family are expected to pay $100,000 a year out of their own pockets to keep the garden going, and I just do not think that is right.