2 February 2012

Member for Tarneit Tim Pallas today released correspondence between himself and the
Education Minister.

The correspondence demonstrates that Minister for Education Martin Dixon is more
interested in deflection of political accountability and blaming the previous
government than he is at dealing with a substantial issue that threatens the
future of Galvin Park Secondary College.

With the school year upon us the Minster has preferred to commit only to a “clean,
safe and dry” school at the commencement of Term 1, 2012.

The problems at Galvin Park have been apparent for over 12 months now and with
students about to commence school, all the Minister can offer for the future of
the school is “I have asked the Department to undertake a detailed a careful
assessment of the underlying problems and to provide me with recommendations on
how to resolve these permanently.” 

The Minister has:

1)   Refused to attend community meetings

2)   Refused to release all atmospheric testing results as undertaken by his Department

3)   Delayed the opening of the Galvin Park Secondary College until Monday next week, with the Science and Art facilities still inadequate

4)   Refused to confirm a funded commitment for a complete rebuild of Galvin Park,
exacerbating uncertainty and delay for a new school.

Mr Pallas also noted that the Baillieu Government had stripped
$481 million from the education budget, halved the capital works budget,
slashed $50 million from the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning program
and refused to honour his commitment to make Victorian teachers the highest
paid in Australia.

That’s over 40 new schools that could have been rebuilt this year that are going to
suffer the same fate as Galvin Park.

Mr Dixon needs to decide the future of the school before his inaction and dithering
lead to students, parents and teachers voting with their feet and finding a
school that meets a higher level of adequacy than “clean, safe and dry.”

If Galvin Park had suffered a fire event rather than water inundation, the
Department of Education would have acted immediately to rebuild the school.
Instead the community need to wait for May for the Budget Process to reveal the
fate of their educational opportunities.