Thursday, 6 February 2020

Miners Rest Primary School

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (17:06): (1839) My adjournment matter tonight is to the Minister for Education. The action I seek is that he provides me with an update with key dates, including the start of construction and the proposed opening date, for the new Miners Rest school.

At the 2018 election the Liberal-Nationals committed to a new school for Miners Rest on a new site, and then subsequent to that the government then committed to a new school for Miners Rest which they described as allowing ‘the school to expand with new land’. Now, there is no land that has yet been acquired, and I am very concerned that the Miners Rest school will fall into the category of the Lucas Primary School, for which the government made an announcement, from opposition, saying it would fund it in 2014, yet that school has only now just opened this year in 2020. So there would be no students currently at the overcrowded Miners Rest Primary School who would get to see their new school if the government continues to treat Ripon schools in the way that they treated the Lucas Primary School.

Hence my request that we at least get some dates for when they plan to start building this new school, which might give us an idea of when it might be finished, and then that may also give us a very good idea of whether the government is intending to stick to the commitments that it made to deliver a brand-new school for Miners Rest. My fear is that they will not deliver a brand-new school for Miners Rest and that this will in fact be an expansion of the current school. The current school is monumentally overcrowded, and we have a series of demountables. I do think that the people of Miners Rest have an expectation that both sides of the chamber understand that they need a new school. It would be extremely disappointing, and in fact outrageous, were the government to backtrack on this. I note they did not put this school in the budget last year. One would hope it would be there this year if they plan to build it in this term; however, either way they do need to advise me so that I can advise my community when they are getting this school that they have been promised.