Thursday, 15 August 2024

 Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (17:10): (782) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Skills and TAFE, and the action I seek is for the minister to join me in a visit to the Melbourne Polytechnic campus on St Georges Road in Preston to discuss the bright future of that campus. As the minister will know, the campus does have a very long history in Preston. The Preston Technical School was first built there in 1937, and there have been a lot of physical expansions and organisational changes since. But fundamentally the buildings continue to do what they have done for many decades now, which is provide high-quality practical, vocational education. The courses were free when the school started in 1937, and many of them are of course free again today under the Allan Labor government’s free TAFE program, including those in early childhood education, hospitality, cybersecurity, Auslan and other in-demand sectors.

But beyond the educational aspects of the campus, it is also an important community space. It is a very large campus – 7 or 8 hectares – and many local residents walk through it or use it to access the Nara early learning centre, the playground at Margaret Walker reserve and the HP Zwar oval, which is home of course to the West Preston Sharks and also the Preston Bullants Junior Football Club. I should give a shout-out to John Pappas, Gabrielle Olarenshaw and all the committee members there. We can hear the sirens from the ground at our place. They start at about 8:30 on a Sunday morning and go all day, so it must be a solid day for the volunteers. We commend their efforts.

For all of us who do regularly walk through that Melbourne Polytechnic campus, you cannot help but notice that the buildings on the Cramer Street side are not heavily used. I do recognise local resident Mick Bellairs, who first raised this with me. Mick had the idea of turning them into more green space and sporting fields, like Edinburgh Gardens, further south, which is certainly worth considering, though I note to Mick there is already a lot of green space and a lot of sporting fields in that neighbourhood. But suggestions like the ones he and other residents have raised are exactly the sorts of things being considered as part of our Preston activity centre planning process, run of course by the Minister for Planning as part of our housing statement.

If the Minister for Skills and TAFE does get the chance to come up and visit, we might also discuss with her how her thinking for that campus’s future as a TAFE institution aligns with the Minister for Planning’s thinking about the broader Preston central area. We thank the minister very much for her consideration of our adjournment matter and look forward to her response.