Tuesday, 10 September 2019

 Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:00): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Education, and it is regarding the veil of secrecy implemented by the Andrews Labor government over the merger of the four public secondary schools into one large, single-campus secondary school in Greater Shepparton. The action that I seek from the minister is for the minister to instruct the freedom of information unit of the Department of Education and Training to immediately supply me with copies of the documents requested in my FOI request dated 18 July 2019.

There is outrage in the Shepparton community over the plans of the Andrews Labor government to merge the four public secondary schools into one giant super-school designed to house up to 3000 students. In the face of the justifiable criticism, the minister continues to claim that the government consulted extensively with the entire Greater Shepparton community. The department’s Shepparton Education Plan website states that a total of 685 people either attended a community meeting or completed an online survey during this consultation process. This represents approximately 1 per cent of the Greater Shepparton population. Senior members of the department of education have now publicly admitted that consultation with the community was flawed and inadequate.

I have submitted four freedom of information requests to the department of education’s FOI unit, seeking the disclosure of documents regarding the Shepparton Education Plan. In particular my first request, dated 18 July 2019, sought all documents relating to the community consultation regarding the Shepparton Education Plan and the decision to merge the four schools into one. On 26 July I was informed that my request had been refused as it was estimated to include the collation of over 1000 documents. On 29 July I rescoped the FOI request with a narrower time line and excluded publicly available documents, but that was again refused, with the estimation of documents required to be over 500. After further narrowing the scope of the request, the department made a final decision to refuse the FOI on the grounds that it involved collating thousands of records, when a broader interpretation was only 500.

It is clear that the department of education is deliberately stifling any legitimate scrutiny of the process surrounding the Shepparton Education Plan by refusing my FOI requests. Therefore considering he continuously trumpets the planning process of the Shepparton Education Plan as supposedly being open and transparent, the action that I seek from the minister is for him to instruct the freedom of information unit of the Department of Education and Training to immediately supply me with copies of the documents requested in my FOI request dated 18 July 2019.