Page 570 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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I do not know the currency of it, but I can say this: no decisions have been taken with respect to anything. For me to stand up now and rule out a particular school would actually be to give a decision on it, and I have not got any decisions made at all.
Furthermore, as I think Dr Foskey said, the decision to close all these schools is one of the most significant decisions that have affected this city for a long time. I can assure this chamber that, if there is going to be a recommendation to sell off a property, that is the sort of decision, in its seriousness, that I would take to cabinet. I would take that to cabinet.
I reiterate that there has been no decision taken on any of the properties other than those that required moving from one school to another because those premises are now needed again. With respect to ACTCOSS, that is not into a school; that is into the former Griffith library premises within the old Griffith primary school. Remember that the Griffith primary school has been closed for years and years.
There is another possibility—whether some of the existing community groups in current government owned accommodation want to move because of the location of their clientele base. That is not beyond the realms of possibility. Let me give an example. Sometimes, where we had schools closed earlier on—years and years ago—there are now community groups. For example, there is the Holder high school, now the Grant Cameron centre. It is full of community groups. I do not know off the top of my head exactly who is there. I know a couple of them—VOCAL, for example. But there may be some in there who think, “A school is going to be closed; that would be better for us to move to.” We need to consider their needs properly, because they will then create a vacancy for someone else.
Quite clearly I do not want to be rushed in this. By the same token, what happens if the condition audit tells us that the best thing to do is knock the building down and sell the land, because it is unsafe—for example, if we found out that a preschool had asbestos in it? When the condition audits come out, we will know some more and we will be in a better position.
I was working for Education in about 1997. I was working there from 1996 to 1997 and during a bit of 1998; then I got a better job. There were condition audits being conducted at that time. Those condition audits need to be updated. Then we can decide for ourselves whether government agencies need accommodation and whether community groups need accommodation.
But we also need to recognise this—I put it on the record yet again: when community groups go into government owned accommodation, generally speaking they go in at a community rental rate. There are two types of community groups. There are not-for-profit community groups, and there are groups which are for-profit community groups. The latter are providing a service—quite a legitimate one—that adds value into the community, but they actually make a profit. They, of course, will have a different model.
There is nothing different about that—nothing that does not already exist in our government owned accommodation. For example, if you have a look at the people
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