Media Releases

Member for Swan Hill, Peter Walsh, has extended his congratulations to Swan Hill College and ESL Manager, Vicki Merritt, on winning a State-wide award for the work that is being done in the school with its multicultural students.
“The winning of a Cultural Diversity Quest Award is recognition of the excellent work being done at Swan Hill College with its growing cohort of students from overseas,” Mr Walsh said.
“We have a large number of students from other countries in our district’s schools and the programs being offered to them are highly innovative and extremely valuable.
“The work produced by Vicki Merritt and her ESL class at the College is an example of what is being achieved and to win such an award against more than 150 other programs being run around the State is recognition of this.
“The commitment of our region’s teachers to develop projects, such as Swan Hill College’s winning multimedia project, is a true reflection of the high quality programs being developed and I congratulate the staff and students on their success,” Mr Walsh said.

Member for Swan Hill Peter Walsh has welcomed the fast tracking of the Coalition’s pledge to cut TAFE fees for young students holding a Health Care Card.
“The slashing of TAFE fees for youth health care card holders to just $100, from the usual tuition fee of $2000, will be of enormous benefit to local students particularly those looking to access Sunraysia TAFE,” Mr Walsh said.
“The fast-tracking of the concession fee places is to ensure students enrolling in new courses in 2011 will not miss out.
“The Coalition has sped up the implementation of the concession fee places as the bulk of enrolments take place in January / February.
“Young people continue to be under-represented in Victoria’s education and labour market with around 17 per cent of 15 to19 year olds and almost a quarter of 20 to 24 year olds not engaged in full time education or employment.
“By removing the barriers to vocational education for young people it will assist them in entering the workforce and contributing to our local economy,” Mr Walsh said.
“The Coalition Government will also be reviewing all fee structures across the training system to ensure there is continued support for those who need to broaden their skills to gain or maintain employment.
“The concession fee places program will be reviewed in 12 months and it will feed into a wider review of the entire fee structure across the vocational education and training sector in Victoria,” he said.

Member for Swan Hill, Peter Walsh, has come out in support of our region’s teachers during the lead up to this year’s World Teachers’ Day.
“I visit the schools in our electorate on a regular basis and I am always impressed by the energy and commitment of the staff in those schools,” Mr Walsh said today.
“The demands of today’s society require our children to be prepared to contribute in a rapidly changing world, one which is vastly different from when most of us attended school.
“To meet these demands we require a special kind of teacher who can provide a unique learning environment which will bring out the best in our children.
“In my travels I consistently see such teachers and World Teachers’ Day on Friday October 29 is an opportunity for us to acknowledge these wonderful professionals.
“Teachers ‘make a difference’ every day and, in doing so, they make an extremely significant, but often un-recognised, contribution to their local and wider community.
“I encourage everyone to regularly acknowledge those special people with whom we entrust with our children but particularly take the time to do so this World Teachers’ Day,” Mr Walsh said.

The Regional Information and Advocacy Council has established a fund to help secondary, post-secondary and mature age students with a disability cover the costs of their study or apprenticeship.
Member for Swan Hill, Peter Walsh, said the $5000 Scholarship Fund was open to residents in the Loddon Mallee and whose disability was intellectual, psychiatric, cognitive, neurological, sensory or physical impairment, or a combination of impairments.
“In my electorate that means students in shires of Gannawarra, Loddon, Buloke and Swan Hill can apply,” Mr Walsh said.
“RIAC may make a single allocation or divide the fund up between more than one applicant.
“This is a great initiative and RIAC is to be applauded for making this initiative available for students with a disability.”
Applications close June 30 and can be obtained by visiting www.riac.org.au or phoning 5822 1944.

Bronwyn Pike, the Brumby Government’s Education Minister, needs to leave her gilded office in Spring St and visit some of the schools in the Swan Hill electorate hardest hit by the Building the Education Revolution (BER) debacle according to Member for Swan Hill, Peter Walsh.
“I have been contacted by many School Councils with complaints about the supposed building program that is being inflicted on their schools,” Mr Walsh said.
“What started out as an exciting time of development and expansion for these school communities has now become filled with frustration, anger and disappointment.
“By refusing to allow School Councils input into the developments that were planned for these schools and denigrating their Principals by saying they were incapable of managing these projects, the Minister has demonstrated the contempt and arrogance of the Brumby government for Victorian school communities,” he said.
“Because of this arrogance we now have schools receiving buildings they don’t really want, projects that are way behind their completion timeline, very questionable costings for the projects being undertaken and many projects so far behind they haven’t even begun the construction stage.
“This is a disgrace and I invite the Minister to come with me and visit some of these schools in Woorinen, Koondrook, Donald and Swan Hill, to name a few, to see the results of her government’s mishandling of the whole BER program,” Mr Walsh said.
“It is simply not good enough for her to sit in her office and tell these school communities how well off they are when we all know that is not the case.
“Unless Minister Pike makes the effort to visit some of these schools so badly affected by her mishandling of the BER program then we won’t see any improvement to the current situation and school communities will continue to suffer as a result,” Mr Walsh said.

The nationwide Building the Education Revolution construction debacle is just as evident in the Swan Hill electorate as the rest of the country according to Member for Swan Hill, Peter Walsh.
Speaking in Parliament yesterday Mr Walsh condemned the Brumby Labor Government for its appalling mismanagement of a number of BER projects in his electorate.
Mr Walsh identified Woorinen District Primary and Manangatang P-12 College as just two examples of schools left frustrated by delays, botched tendering processes, construction zones with little or no evidence of work being carried out and a major lack of communication between the Education Department and the school communities.
“The Manangatang P-12 College community were initially promised they would be in their new buildings by the beginning of this school year but all they have for their patience is a weed infested, overgrown, fenced off construction area and several pegs in the ground,” Mr Walsh told Parliament.
“An even worse case is the Woorinen District Primary School which was promised a new school to replace the ‘temporary’ portables installed some 15 years ago.
“The community were provided with more secondhand portables to move into while their new school was being built.
“However, these portables arrived several months after the school was told they were meant to, were in a totally unusable state with major construction and fitting out issues and remain fenced off with the whole school now looking like a disused construction zone with a large area of the playground now inaccessible,” Mr Walsh said.
“To make matters worse, the limited communication that the school has been provided with indicates that work on the new school probably won’t begin until the end of this year.
“The Building the Education Revolution is not happening for the people in my electorate and once again the Brumby government stands condemned for its inability to manage yet another major project,” Mr Walsh said.

Member for Swan Hill, Peter Walsh, has welcomed the guarantee by the Department of Transport to continue operating the threatened Marnoo Primary School bus.

“Earlier this year, following a review by the Department of Transport, the school was advised that it would lose the services of the school bus at the end of Term 1,” Mr Walsh said.

“This meant that the six children, some as young as five years of age, who travel to the Marnoo Primary School by bus would need to catch a secondary school bus to either Stawell or Donald to attend school.

“This would have left only six children at the Marnoo School and, thus, threaten its existence as such small numbers would inevitably lead to the school’s closure,” Mr Walsh said.

“Considering there has been $350,000 spent on upgrading the school over the past 18 months plus the enormous amount of time, money and energy that the local community have invested in their school, this would have been a disastrous outcome,” he said.

“My office has received in excess of 60 letters and emails from very concerned members of the school and the Marnoo community regarding this very real possibility and the devastating effect this would have on the entire district,” Mr Walsh said.

“Following my representations to the Department of Transport and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) there has been agreement to waive the cessation order until the end of 2010.

“This will give the school and community the opportunity to investigate possible options to ensure the continuation of the bus service into 2011 and beyond.

“I congratulate the Marnoo community on their proactive response to a very real threat to their future and look forward to working with them to ensure this threat is addressed in the longer term,” Mr Walsh said.

Mismanagement of the Building the Education Revolution in schools continues to create enormous problems for staff and students according to Member for Swan Hill Peter Walsh.

Speaking in Parliament this week Mr Walsh detailed the disgraceful sequence of events that have beset the Lake Charm Primary School.

“The Bendigo Regional Office of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) and the project managers, Incoll, have deliberately kept communication with the school as vague as possible giving the school community very few facts about what stage the building program is at,” Mr Walsh said.

“Instead of preparing for the start of the new school year, the female staff at Lake Charm were forced by the DEECD Bendigo Regional Office to become furniture removalists during the period leading up to the return to school date as the builders refused to take any responsibility for the process,” he said.

“As a result, the school was in no shape for the students to return to last Monday.

“When informed of the problems by the School Principal, the Regional Office had the gall to tell her to ‘take the kids swimming for a few days’,” Mr Walsh informed Parliament.

“What an appalling indictment of the level of interest and concern by the Brumby Government’s minions in the DEECD.

“This is a reflection of the mismanagement and wastage of taxpayers funds that the Brumby Government has inflicted on the Building the Education Revolution program,” he said.

“The staff and students of Lake Charm Primary School, and every other school suffering similar levels of mismanagement, deserve a whole lot better,” Mr Walsh said.