Thursday, 9 June 2022

Parkdale Primary School

Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (18:30): (1984) I wish to raise a matter for the attention of the Minister for Education in the other place, and it relates to schools in the Mordialloc electorate. The Liberal candidate for Mordialloc, Phillip Pease, has been energetically out on a program of visiting schools across the electorate, both state schools and independent schools, to understand their immediate needs, to understand how they are recovering from COVID—how the student population is recovering from COVID, how the staffing situation is after COVID—and, importantly, to understand the future plans for many of the schools. Whether it is Edithvale Primary or Parkdale Primary or Mordialloc College, the recurring theme is the need for new investment.

Phillip Pease is a passionate advocate for schools in the Mordialloc electorate, and last week I was pleased to join him in visiting a couple of schools, including Parkdale Primary School, to see how it is going—how its staff and student body are going—but also to hear about its needs. One of the key issues that was raised in relation to Parkdale Primary was the need to upgrade its grade 2 building for the grade 2 classes. This is a very old building at Parkdale Primary. It is one that dates from probably no more recently than the 1970s. It is a very old-style school building, it is not suitable for disability access and it is really not fit for purpose for education in 2022. The rebuilding of that building or indeed the replacement of that building is going to be a multimillion-dollar investment, so the action I seek from the Minister for Education is to ensure that funding for the replacement or rebuilding of the grade 2 building at Parkdale Primary is made a priority for the government so that that can be delivered in a very short period of time.