Education Minister Martin Dixon has accused the Labor opposition of hypocrisy for promising to consider building a Yarraville area secondary school if returned to government.
The Weekly last week reported shadow education minister James Merlino and Williamstown MP Wade Noonan committing to work towards the return of a high school to the Seddon-Kingsville-Yarraville (SKY) area, but Mr Dixon argues Labor had a decade to act on the issue.
“These are weasel words from Mr Merlino and Mr Noonan, who have released no policy and committed no funding for a new school in Yarraville,” Mr Dixon said.
“Instead of unfairly and hypocritically building up expectations in the community, Labor should put their money where their mouth is.”
The Education Department and local principals say the needs of projected student numbers will be met by existing state high schools in Footscray, Newport and Williamstown, but parents and Labor insist booming primary school enrolments prove a Yarraville-area high school must reopen. Labor has declined to put a dollar figure on the cost of such a school, but Mr Noonan said claims that there was sufficient capacity to meet growing demand failed to address long-term growth in student numbers.
“Last week it was reported that the Education Department’s own projections showed an additional 1484 places would need to be found for students in the Maribyrnong municipality between now and 2021.”
Mr Noonan said Labor had been “in the process of considering a range of options” before the government changed in 2010.
SKY High president Melissa Horne said revelations that Melbourne’s state schools must absorb 50,000 new pupils by 2021 supported the campaign for a new inner-west high school.
“SKY High’s recent rally of local parents and kids [show] local school populations are expanding rapidly and we need more capacity in the public high school network now to meet this growth,” she said.
“It is time the state government started acting, before we reach a crisis in the high school years.”
