Thursday, 4 December 2025

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (23:27): (2215) My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Education, and the action that I seek is for the minister to provide full funding in the 2026–27 state budget to complete the buildings and facilities at Banmira Specialist School in Shepparton so that all students can be located on the one campus. The 2022–23 state budget included $23 million to repurpose the former Wanganui secondary college site to a new home for Banmira Specialist School, but this was clearly not enough, because more than half of the classrooms at the Wanganui site remain boarded up and the school is forced to operate over two sites, with teachers and some students shuffling back and forth between sites, which is highly inefficient. At the start of this year around 130 early years and primary school students moved into the new campus of Banmira Specialist School, developed on the site of the former Wanganui Park Secondary College.

Banmira provides a vital service to students and families in Greater Shepparton, offering learning opportunities for students aged from three to 18 who have intellectual disabilities and need not only special instruction but also bespoke rooms and spaces where they can feel at ease. I visited the school in May and was delighted to see the bright new classrooms, but I was even more impressed by the dedication and care of the teachers who are helping these students to thrive. Unfortunately funding for the school in the 2022–23 budget only covered stage 1 of the multistage development, and funding has since dried up, even though the school is only half finished. To see half the school fenced off and boarded up was quite a shock, and the failure of the Allan Labor government to fully fund the redevelopment has meant that senior students have not been able to move across to the new campus. Senior students are stuck in the old buildings at the Verney Road site, and many students who this year moved from Verney Road to the new Banmira campus as primary students will now have to move a second time back to the Verney Road campus when they enter senior grades. This repeated movement and change is highly destabilising for special needs students, who often require consistency and a sense of stability and predictability in order to settle and flourish at school. In April this year the school council president wrote to the Treasurer, who is also her local member, setting out the need for funding to complete the school. In her letter the president said:

The 3.5km distance between the two sites has resulted in logistical issues that impact both staff and students. With students and staff needing to shuttle between campuses, we face delays and disruptions to valuable instructional time. This not only affects learning outcomes but also creates financial and operational strains. The senior students at the Verney Road campus are particularly impacted by aging facilities, small classroom sizes and safety concerns, including traffic hazards and limited access to transport.

In May this year when I asked the Minister for Education to fund the completion – (Time expired)