Resumed from 24 May on the following motion moved by Hon Donna Faragher —
That this house notes both the significant concerns being raised across the community and the lack of consultation undertaken by the McGowan government on its Education Central policy, particularly the proposed relocation of the state’s only fully academically selective senior high school, currently at Perth Modern School, to a high-rise inner-city school within the Perth City Link, and calls on the government to —
(1) reverse its Education Central policy and maintain Perth Modern School as a fully academically selective school; and
(2) revert to the comprehensive western suburbs secondary schooling strategy announced in September 2016.
HON ALISON XAMON (North Metropolitan) [ 1.09 pm ]: As they say, a week is a long time in politics and since I last rose in this place to speak to this motion, we have certainly seen some significant changes, most notably the announcement by the government this week that Perth Modern School would not have to be moved from its existing location and that Education Central would potentially now be built at a different location. I had it in mind that I would have to once again elaborate on all the reasons why it was a really bad idea to look at moving Perth Mod from its current location, and I am really relieved that I no longer have to try to make that case and that that decision has now been taken off the table.
I will say how disappointed I am that so much distress was experienced by so many of the parents, students and alumni of Perth Mod while uncertainty raged a round what was going to happen to the school. I maintain, as I outlined in my remarks last time I spoke to this motion, that good consultation would have indicated very early on just how unwanted this decision was for the Perth Mod community. I am very clear about how important that sense of history and tradition is and how important the current location is to the Modernian community. It is a really important part of their sense of identity. I hope this means that lessons have been learnt and that it is now understood that sometimes it is really important to not mess with communities when they are going pretty well, thank you very much.
I want to reflect a bit more on the distress involved. I have met with parents and have seen people in tears. It has also been reported to me that the decision had a very divisive impact on that community; not because people were divided about whether or not to move, but because people were starting to feel so paralysed about what to do about it and about how to make the government listen and to reverse this decision that was so unpopular and so unwarranted, and that people so absolutely did not want.
I also want to express my sadness to that community over the recent loss of one of their students. I know how difficult that has made it for the parent body to feel as though they can move forward and do something to recognise the significance of that passing. I am hoping that this week’s announcement means that there can be some sense of comfort about how people move on that.
There is a broader issue here about consultation. I have spoken in this place before about what consultation looks like and what it means around the National Disability Insurance Scheme and a range of other issues that are incredibly important to various communities in which people’s lives are affected. We are going to have to start talking about the basic standard for consultation. This decision in no sense involved consultation and, as I said, should never have occurred in the first place. I hope that Perth Mod parents feel as though they were well heard, and I hope there can be an opportunity for them to move forward and feel as though their community has been respected.
I also want to talk about some other issues that came up during the course of the campaign; I feel it would be remiss of me not to raise them in this place. Throughout the course of the campaign to try to keep Perth Mod at its current location there were different tactics employed to try to make the case for saving Perth Mod. I have to say, from the outset, that the Greens did not agree with two of the positions that were put, and I need to put on the record where we stand on them.
The first matter is that comments were made by some parents about St George’s Anglican Grammar School, which is our first inner-city vertical school. It is not the first inner-city school; there is another school in Fremantle that has been going for a very long time, Lance Holt School, which is held in very high regard and is what we term an inner-city school. It is not high-rise, but it is an inner-city school, and it is an excellent school. For years it has taken advantage of the community of Fremantle and the surrounds. I want to speak out in support of St George’s because I know that some of the comments made about it have also caused distress. I would like to tell people that St George’s parents love their children every bit as much as Perth Mod parents, and St George’s parents are every bit as concerned about the wellbeing of their children as Perth Mod parents. If one talks to the students of St George’s, one will find that they are every bit as proud of their school as students at Perth Modern, and there are reasons for that, because it is an excellent school. It is also, in my opinion, a potential model for how vertical inner-city schools need to operate.
There are some distinct differences between St George’s and what was proposed for Education Central, but I will speak specifically about St George’s. St George’s is six storeys and has effectively been kitted out as a purpose-built building. It has facilities on the roof, such as basketball facilities and areas for the kids to hang out and spend time together. It is a small school; it is capped out at just over 400 students. It needs to be acknowledged that the Anglican Schools Commission put an awful lot of work into developing its model for St George’s, and a huge amount of work went into it. It has a range of arrangements with the City of Perth, in particular. The children undertake chapel at St George’s Cathedral. The school library is the beautiful new Perth State Library. The students do rowing down at Elizabeth Quay and sports on the Esplanade. They use Beatty Park Leisure Centre for swimming and they do their theatre arts at the Heath Ledger Theatre. They also use the Art Gallery of Western Australia. The school has truly the most exceptional arrangement. I also acknowledge that, as a private school, St George’s has the money for an appropriate staff-to-student ratio. It is absolutely diligent in how it ensures the ongoing wellbeing of its students, and it really takes advantage of the opportunities that are available to an inner-city school.
It is a wonderful model. I encourage people to go and check it out, but I would suggest that if they want to check it out, they will have to get on a waiting list. I will challenge some of the comments made around this, because I was told during the campaign that St George’s student numbers were dropping. I am sorry, but there is absolutely no truth to that whatsoever. Over its two years of existence, St George’s has increased its enrolments by 20 per cent per annum. That is projected for the future and, indeed, it has students on its waiting list up until 2029. Over the last 12 months alone, the number of requests from parents of prospective students for tours of the facility has doubled, to the point at which there is now a waiting list for prospective parents to undertake tours.
The reality is that this particular model of school is very popular with a lot of people. I do not want to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater by people confusing a passionate desire to maintain a school like Perth Mod with effective denigration of another school. I am speaking out very heavily around that.
Hon Peter Collier : I opened that school. The parents at St George’s had the choice.
Hon ALISON XAMON : Absolutely. I am talking about making sure that when people are trying to save their own school, they do not denigrate another.
Another thing I want to say is that I have heard a lot of comments made about high-rise or vertical schools. As I have already articulated, there are models and there are models. St George’s is a model that has pretty much got the balance right. They have provided some wonderful opportunities for their kids and there is a very strong sense of community within that school. The Greens are not prepared to throw out the option of any sort of high-rise or vertical schools as we go into the future. It is very important for people who live in the middle of the city and it is particularly important for people who live immediately around the city, and it is a good use of space. As a model, it is something that has been explored internationally, and we have excellent models here in Australia as well. There are plenty of opportunities for us to get it right.
I went to two public high schools where the footprint was huge and there were massive ovals. I have to say that my experience, as has been described by others, is that I was not a sporty person. Certainly most of the people I knew used the oval at lunchtime to go down there and smoke. I think we need to talk realistically about the way people use these spaces. I understand that for a lot of people it is really important, but it is not true to say that children who attend inner-city schools are not exposed to green space and do not get access to a range of sporting facilities. In some cases, they get more opportunities than are available to other people. I felt that I needed to say that, and I say it as somebody who can claim to be a long-term mental health advocate and who strongly supports saving our green spaces and urban bushland and encouraging people to keep mature trees. I feel quite confident that my credentials on this issue are pretty well known. I needed to comment about those two matters.
Getting back to the second part of the motion, I am really glad that this is where the debate needs to happen. Perth Modern School has been saved. Good. It needed to be saved. It should never have been on the table in the first place. Now the discussion — I have a feeling this discussion will be heard in this chamber for quite a long time — is about where is the next need for a school. We have two options. An inner-city school has been proposed with the Subiaco option and on the table is one in particular that we have been talking about — the western suburbs secondary school plan, which was put out before. As I say, I do not think this discussion will go away in a hurry. If it was up to me, and I suspect everyone around this place would agree, and we had the money, I would love to do both. I would love there to be an inner-city school and I would love a western suburbs secondary school to be an option. The reality is that we need to cater to the growing number of people living in the middle of the city. We also need to do something for people who live out towards the eastern suburbs, particularly given the pressures on Mount Lawley Senior High School. However, we know we have to deal with Shenton College and Churchlands Senior High School. The projected overcrowding is a huge problem.
As I mentioned last time I spoke, I am being lobbied very heavily by parents, particularly around City Beach, who thought they were getting a school, which was the option presented to them, and are becoming very alarmed because they feel that that option has been taken off the table. Not only that, people are getting concerned about what will happen about the rest of the schools originally proposed in the western suburbs secondary schooling plan. It was going to impact on schools such as Carine and Mount Lawley Senior High Schools. It has a massive flow-on effect for a lot of people.
One of the things I will not get into in this place is whether Education Central, which I assume is still the name we are using to talk about this strategy, is best placed in Subiaco. Frankly, I do not have the data to be able to independently make that assessment. That is one of the difficulties I have in this place. The former Minister for Education is obviously in a unique position having been privy to population data, projected need and all those sorts of figures, and the existing Minister for Education, since taking on her portfolio, has also been subject to receiving this information. I have not received that information independently. I have never been an education minister and I am not an education minister now, but I am expected to somehow use competing data — that is what I have been presented with — to try to figure out what the Greens are supposed to support. I have to say that that is pretty difficult for me. I am not quite sure. I accept that more and more people are attracted to inner-city living and the vibrancy that brings, which is borne out by the population data. I am also aware that the western suburbs, through bad planning by successive governments on both sides of this place, have been left at a real crisis point with a lack of schools and failure to consider projected overcrowding of schools, which will be absolutely untenable. One of my difficulties is to figure out what side of the fence I am supposed to support with this competing data.
In trying to assess at this point where I need to lie, given I have a particular motion in front of me, I come back to the basics around consultation and who knows what is going on and how these conversations have been had. The parents who are contacting me and are concerned that City Beach in particular has been taken off the table are saying that they did the consultation and were part of the discussions, so they thought this was something that had been agreed and that they were moving forward. I am not suggesting there is not a dire need for an inner-city school but we know that that same level of community engagement has not occurred. We also know that we are at a crisis point with what Shenton College and Churchlands Senior High School face with the overcrowding that will occur very soon. I note Hon Donna Faragher’s comments; I saw her on the television news on Sunday commenting that City Beach was “shovel-ready”. I have been thinking about that, and it is true; in many ways it is ready to go. The time frame is consistent with us being able to get some movement on it fairly soon. I know also that no matter where the most dire need is — again I cannot make that assessment — we will need a western suburbs school at some point. I am looking at whether we proceed with an inner-city school — I will say “inner city” rather than talk about the Subiaco option because I want to focus on the inner city as a model, and, again, I am fine with a certain type of vertical school — or do we need to proceed with City Beach as a matter of priority? The City Beach site seems ready to go and we know we will need both at some point. That will create difficulties for the budget. I imagine that people are concerned about — I agree — that most of the small amount of money that is available will be utilised for City Beach and the money will never be released to create what I accept and recognise is a necessary inner-city school to provide additional options to deal with growing populations. I take Hon Peter Collier’s point about choice and that we do not know what will happen. However, we know that the City Beach site will be needed, so I am reluctantly trying to fall on one side — and I will explain why I say reluctantly in a moment. At this point, weighing up all options, we will probably support the City Beach option as a priority over an inner-city option. I say reluctantly because — the Greens came out during the election campaign with this — it is doing my head in that these decisions appear to be politicised. I say that because if this were genuinely being independently determined, there would be no discussion about which model is the best or most desperately needed because it would have effectively been sorted out by an independent body. Then we would know where we need to spend our dollars and the argument would be about how many dollars we spend and how many schools we can build and when. That would be the argument.
One thing the Greens have been calling for is the establishment of something like an independent schools commission. To be very clear, we are talking about a similar model to that of the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission is charged with the responsibility of determining the redistribution of electoral boundaries. It uses population data. It looks at the existing population, projected population and communities of interest. The commission also calls for submissions. I know that most parties put in submissions about their ideas of what things should look like and all sorts of things. I should add that individuals can also make submissions, not just political parties. The Electoral Commission consults and can factor in the information it receives. The Electoral Commission has the data and uses it to get some idea of where the need might be. With that consultation, bearing in mind communities of interest and what communities want, as well as where there is demonstrated need, the commission announces where the electoral boundaries will be.
One thing that bothers me about new schools and upgrades of schools is that all the announcements are made during election times. I have lived and raised my children in what is termed a safe seat, and I can tell members now that the high school in that safe seat is never offered upgrades or offers to be made pretty. The school really needs it, and I would see other schools in marginal seats get offered thing after thing. I think that people get really sick of that. People want to see genuine decisions made about the public education system, about where schools are opened — that is, as opposed to an identified need in a new suburb; clearly where there is a new suburb, a new school is needed. People want to feel as though things are done because a genuine need has been demonstrated. A particular high school that is falling apart and is covered in asbestos — but is in a safe seat — should get equal attention to the very large school in a marginal seat. That is one of the things the Greens are talking about. The reason that we will continue to maintain these decisions are not independent is that there is a situation right here in which we can see a lack of transparency in how either of the decisions were made. Even as a member in this place I cannot independently assess which proposal is most important based on its merits. The public expects these decisions to be made in a way similar to the way that the Electoral Commission spells them out: “This is why we have made this decision; this is why we are doing the redistribution in this way.” People can then see where they fit within the scheme of things, and that a regional high school, for example, does not have to go without. These are the sorts of things that vex me.
I want to reiterate where we are at. I am really, really glad that Perth Modern School has been left alone. I reiterate to parents, students and all former Modernians that I hope they will now be able to get some peace, regroup and use this opportunity to reflect on how well they campaigned on so many things. Hopefully it becomes a unifying experience for the Perth Mod community — I genuinely hope that — and I look forward to getting my invitation to come to Perth Modern soon! I remind people that it is really important not to bring other schools down and that we need to keep an open mind about different types and models of schooling arrangements. I understand that the government has made it clear that it is quite supportive of looking at vertical schools. The Greens are supportive of vertical schools. I certainly do not want to misrepresent where the opposition is, but I understand it is also open, depending on the model, to the possibility of vertical schools in the future. This is something we should keep on the table. This is something we should keep an open mind about. We should also look at some of the best practice. The Greens are not interested in dismissing any of those options. I can say we do not know which is more important at this point — the inner-city school or the western suburbs school. We do know that the western suburbs will need one at some point and they are ready to go. I just wish that we were able to remove all of this discussion from this place and that the topic was not politicised, so we could ensure that these decisions were independently determined and out of the hands of politicians. Then, everyone could feel very confident that no matter where they live, if their child goes to a public school, that public school is given every opportunity to be the best public school it possibly can be regardless of whether it is in a safe seat or not.
[speeches and comments of various members]
Hon DONNA FARAGHER :
I urge the house to support the motion.
Division
Question put and a division taken, the Acting President (Hon Laurie Graham) casting his vote with the noes, with the following result —
Ayes (20)
Hon Jacqui Boydell Hon Colin de Grussa Hon Rick Mazza Hon Aaron Stonehouse Hon Robin Chapple Hon Diane Evers Hon Simon O’Brien Hon Dr Steve Thomas Hon Jim Chown Hon Donna Faragher Hon Robin Scott Hon Colin Tincknell
Hon Tim Clifford Hon Nick Goiran Hon Tjorn Sibma Hon Alison Xamon Hon Peter Collier Hon Colin Holt Hon Charles Smith Hon Ken Baston (Teller)
Noes (11)
Hon Alanna Clohesy Hon Adele Farina Hon Kyle McGinn Hon Pierre Yang Hon Stephen Dawson Hon Laurie Graham Hon Samantha Rowe Hon Martin Pritchard (Teller) Hon Sue Ellery Hon Alannah MacTiernan Hon Matthew Swinbourn
Pairs
Hon Michael Mischin / Hon Darren West
Hon Martin Aldridge / Hon Dr Sally Talbot
Question thus passed.