Mr PALLAS (Tarneit)  — I  rise to  speak about  the level  of investment  in education infrastructure  in my community  of Wyndham in  the  2012-13 Victorian state budget. I acknowledge that the storm-damaged Galvin Park Secondary College has  been allocated $14 million for  its rebuild but note  that only $832 000 of this amount is allocated to be spent this year, which looks like another bandaid and another delay for the permanent fix. The community  at Galvin  Park needs to be provided with a  time line for the expenditure  of the remainder of the money so  they can  have certainty about  when classes  can be  held in  permanent and modern classrooms rather than making do with temporary demountables, as they are currently doing and will possibly have to do for years to come. I also note that the government has still failed, after almost 18 months in office, to honour its pre-election  promise  to  immediately fund  the  third and final  stage  of the Labor-commenced and $13 million-allocated rebuild of Werribee Secondary College.

Finally, I note that stage 1 of the construction of Tarneit Secondary College is to be completed this  budget year and emphasise that this does not mean that the work  is  done  on  the  construction of this school. The school community needs clarity about the future construction schedule.

The little this budget has delivered  for  education in the community is nowhere near adequate. Wyndham’s high growth rate — it  increases  by the population of Benalla every year — means it needs 26 more schools by 2015. That means a clear and consistent investment  strategy is necessary to avoid creating a corridor of educational disadvantage.

See Tim’s speech in Hansard here.