Page 2675 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 12 August 2015
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Where to begin? Let me start with how Telopea Park School have been involved, resulting in their very successful recent protest at Manuka Oval. I was first made aware of this issue when parents from Telopea Park School contacted me very early in the new year to advise that they had heard that the school might be losing some or all of their oval, the same oval that had been deeded to the school for education purposes only a few years before. I quickly requested a briefing from the minister’s office, but no date was agreed and a briefing has still not taken place—a hallmark of this whole issue and this minister, might I suggest.
On 20 January the Telopea Park School principal was briefed by a school network leader in the Education and Training Directorate on the plans for the tennis courts and the relocation of Mocca. Two other officers met the principal on 9 February to advise that the land had been transferred from the school and the school was to be given $800,000 hush money—that is my term. The principal was told that the matter was confidential and that she was not permitted to tell the board or the P&C until the ACT government had prepared their communication strategy. The education minister should take note. She denied any knowledge of such a direction last Thursday.
The school learnt in more detail about what was happening via an article in the Canberra Times on 13 February. As the P&C president commented at the time, and no doubt would reiterate today, the Canberra Times is proving a much more reliable source of information than this ACT government.
I first asked about this issue in the Assembly on 17 March. The question was directed to Minister Burch, but the Chief Minister was quick to intervene to ensure the right spin was delivered. He talked about the scarcity of land and the need to work with a range of stakeholders to find a new home for the Services Club. He accepted that the decisions were not to everyone’s liking. He also suggested that the school was more than happy with the $800,000 and that the fact a childcare centre would be built was the best outcome for everyone.
We asked more questions in May, we asked questions at estimates in June, and we asked a series of questions in question time last week—back and forth, questions and answers of varying hue and with mixed messages. In February, the school land was gone and the childcare centre was coming. The only issue to be determined was what the school wanted to do with the $800,000 on offer. Consultation on that, I understood, concluded just last week.
Yet last Thursday Chief Minister Barr told the Assembly that Montgomery Oval was merely one possible site that was considered suitable for a childcare centre and the oval was not lost to the school. His words were:
There has been no loss …
Mr Barr, through you, Madam Speaker, tell that to the parents. Tell that to the parents, whose name I shall suppress, who wrote in furious terms saying: “This is a totally misleading statement by the Chief Minister; in fact, it is completely untrue. The Telopea Park School via the ETD no longer has its legitimate 99-year lease over Block 5.” That is a point well made.
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