Page 2544 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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Instead, the government has consistently been disruptive and obstructive at every opportunity—unlawfully and corruptly closing the school, then blocking and delaying an appeal for two years rather than arguing the case on its merits; twice proposing demolition of the school; simultaneously supporting and opposing heritage protection of the place; refusing for years to meet with any Flynn group; then running a sham consultation that is now the subject of a formal investigation; and misleading and telling outright lies to the Assembly and the community on multiple occasions.
Indeed, Ms Burch’s own department advocated demolition in 2009, only days after the government’s commitment to protect the heritage value of the school. Ms Burch can now move two childcare centres into the school only because it is still there.
But what Ms Burch is now proposing falls well short of remediating the social impact of closing Flynn’s only school and community facility—which was well used by residents from beyond the immediate school community. All Flynn will see is a damaged building and a hall to rent for, in Ms Burch’s words, 18th birthday parties. If Ms Burch has her way, most of Flynn’s only facility, which has Flynn money tied up in the bricks and mortar, will be declared off-limits to Flynn residents.
It is disturbing to see a government disrupt and delay efforts by a community to protect a building for the people who live there, and then blame that community for the government’s failures. It is not the community that has held up the future of Flynn. It is the ACT Government who has worked against rather than with the people of Flynn.
As I said, that is signed by the Flynn Primary School Parents and Citizens Association and the John Flynn Community Group.
SHOUT expo
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (12.15 am): On 9 May I opened the SHOUT, that is, the Self-Help Organisations United Together, chronic conditions self-management expo. It was a great event attended by many organisations, which I will cover later. But the point of the expo was to assist people, and to provide information to people who have chronic conditions, in how they can self-manage those conditions that they have.
There were a number of organisations there that were providing that vital information to people. There were numerous groups from ACT Health and it was great to see so many organisations there from ACT Health. Arthritis ACT were there. They have a partnership between themselves and SHOUT which delivers a chronic condition self-management course in the community called living a healthy life with chronic conditions.
There were Exercise and Sports Science Australia, ACT Chapter, Alzheimer’s Australia ACT, the ACT ME/CFS Society, the Prostate Cancer Support Group ACT Region. They have challenged me to hold a sausage sizzle this year and I intend to invite all members of the ACT Assembly to that in a similar fashion to what the minister did last year.
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