Wednesday, 18 March 2026

 Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (09:48): Recently I was speaking to parents from Birralee Primary School. Birralee is in Doncaster. Its student population has risen from 160 in 2013. It is now, 10 years or so later, more than 600. The school has had very little in the way of facilities upgrades in that time. The school is desperate for a gymnasium or a hall where the children can meet under cover indoors. They have approached the local Labor upper house member and been told that unless they are in a growth area or the western suburbs, they have no chance of any funding of the $2 million they have asked for as a state contribution to enclose a facility for those now 600 children to be able to meet in an environment protected from the weather.

I point out Birralee Primary in particular because Birralee is just a few hundred metres up the road from the North East Link. Two million dollars is what they are after, but just down the road, as people in this chamber will know, we have seen more than $15 billion rorted by the CFMEU and union leadership under the guise, under the watch, of the current Labor government, who cannot find $2 million to help students out at Birralee Primary where the population has gone from 160 to 600 in a decade. They are allowing $15 billion to be rorted by their union buddies on the North East Link, and they are not getting the money back.