My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Education and is in relation to Colac Secondary College. I beg the indulgence of the house to give some background, because it is not simply about providing a football and cricket oval at the school; there is also a significant history. In April 2008 construction of Colac Secondary College, which was an amalgamation of Colac High School and Colac College, began when the then Minister for Education turned the first sod at the site. This marked the beginning of the cultural and educational shift needed in Colac to recommit to education throughout the community, to improve numeracy, literacy and school completion rates and also to help create higher educational expectations and aspirations.
Three years on, due to the unqualified and absolute commitment to first-class education for all Victorians by the previous Labor government, the school is in its third and final stage of construction. In October last year I had the great pleasure of announcing a commitment of $11 million for the final stage, and the coalition later met that promise after originally undervaluing the project by committing just $7 million. The $11 million promise made in October 2010 was for new music, dance and food technology facilities, more classrooms, sports rooms, recreational areas and, in particular, sports fields, including a football and cricket oval.
Along with the first-class facilities already built in the first two stages of this project, stage 3 must deliver all of the abovementioned facilities to make this school the best possible place for our students to learn. It is our obligation to fulfil the commitment that we made to the Colac community to revitalise and reinvigorate education in this town and region.
I am calling on the minister to make sure that the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle, the cricket and football oval, is implemented and, in the scheme of things, is seen as being just as important as all the other facilities built on that site in recent times and indeed those that are being built at the moment. I urge the minister to ensure that a full-sized oval is included in the final stage of the project.
