Page 3232 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
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Primary School site? When will this relocation take place? Since there is a lot of specialised equipment and there are specifically built structures to house it, what arrangements have been made to ensure that the relocation will be completed by the start of the 1991 school year?
MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Ms Follett for her question. Mr Speaker, the question of the location of the Life Education Centre is a matter that is yet to be fully and finally resolved. I expect that Rivett Primary School will be the final location for that centre. I think it is an appropriate location, given that it is very proximate to its existing location. It would be able to fulfil the needs of children in the Weston Creek area to the same extent that it has up until now and it would, of course, also be fairly central as far as the rest of Canberra is concerned. I believe, also, that the question of resolving the final location of the centre is one that ought to be resolved, not by my making a ministerial statement or answering a question in this house, but by confirming with the people who operate that centre and with the people who use it that the alternative location proposed is a suitable one in all the circumstances.
At this stage my advice is that we are examining Rivett Primary School, and I will confirm that with the Assembly when I am in a position to say that the option has been fully canvassed with the people who use it. The cost estimated in the document tabled on Tuesday is $55,000. I am quite confident that that amount of money will encompass all the costs necessarily entailed in moving the specialised equipment, to which Ms Follett referred, to Rivett. I acknowledge that there is some specialisation of that material and it involves some structural work on the new location, Rivett school or wherever. I am confident that that can be accommodated within the $55,000.
MS FOLLETT: I have a supplementary question. I would just remind Mr Humphries of the last part of that question which was: will the relocation be completed by the start of the 1991 school year? I would ask further: when will the Minister be in the position to let these victims of his restructuring program know what is in store for them?
MR HUMPHRIES: Given the tenor of the question, the first part of my answer is that to describe these people as victims who are not informed about what is going on is somewhat unfair. These people are being consulted. They have been consulted. They have been consulted up until now and - - -
Ms Maher: The Life Education Centre is happy to move.
MR HUMPHRIES: They are being consulted and, as Ms Maher reminds me, they are, in the circumstances, given that the Government is paying for the cost of relocation, quite prepared to move. The fact of life is that I believe that the move will be accommodated within budget, it will be
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