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Suzanna Sheed pictured from the waist up sitting on park bench. She wears a black dress and cream boucle jacket and has one arm resting on the park bench. Suzanna is smiling at the camera.

Two former school sites will be retained for education

April 7, 2022/in Media Releases

Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed gained clarification that two of the three former school sites in Shepparton and Mooroopna will be retained for educational purposes.

During question time in parliament yesterday, Ms Sheed asked Education Minister James Merlino to outline the how the government plans to use the former secondary school buildings, following the establishment of the new Greater Shepparton Secondary College.

Mr Merlino said Wanganui Park Secondary College and McGuire College would be retained for educational purposes.
He said the Education Department was reviewing sites for students with additional needs in Shepparton and Mooroopna.

Mr Merlino said Greater Shepparton Council and the Department of Education would continue to share the use of the Visy Centre and the adjacent oval at the Wanganui Park Secondary School site.

Ms Sheed said she was pleased to hear that the scouts and the Goulburn Valley Woodworkers Group would continue to use the site and that GOTAFE may expand to occupy McGuire College for Goulburn Murray Trade Skills Centre.

“The minister also ruled out that the Mooroopna School site would be disposed of without deep community engagement regarding its long term use,” Ms Sheed said.

ENDS
Media contact
Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466│elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

Click Here for PDF Version

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/SS-01-scaled.jpg 1706 2560 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2022-04-07 09:00:532022-04-11 09:16:28Two former school sites will be retained for education

Former Shepparton school sites

April 6, 2022/in Parliament

Question: My question is for the Minister for Education. The Greater Shepparton Secondary College opened this year, bringing together four local secondary colleges on the site of the former Shepparton High School. While not the biggest school in Victoria—it has about 2200 students—it has facilities we have not seen in Mooroopna and Shepparton before and offers a breadth of subjects that would not have been possible in the individual schools. The community is now discussing the many opportunities that may exist for the redundant school sites, whether they could be a home for the new Verney Road special school or the expansion of TAFE facilities or other educational uses. Minister, what is the current government plan for these sites?

Answer: I thank the independent member for Shepparton for her question and say at the outset what an absolute pleasure it was to join the Premier, the independent member for Shepparton and a member for Northern Victoria, Mark Gepp, in the other place at the official opening of the school in February. It has been years in the making. This is one of the most transformative education projects in regional Victoria. Students in Shepparton and Mooroopna deserve the very best facilities and the broadest opportunities—this year 54 electives in year 9 and the full suite of VCE and vocational opportunities. I want to acknowledge the independent member for Shepparton for her advocacy, her leadership and her passion for education for not just this school but for the entire Shepparton Education Plan.

As the member points out, there is a high level of community interest in the sites that have been vacated—the former Wanganui Park Secondary College, McGuire Secondary College and Mooroopna Secondary College sites. I am happy to report that all existing community use agreements will remain in place in 2022 and beyond, but I am happy to provide the member with more detail.

The Wanganui Park Secondary College site will be retained for education purposes. My department is reviewing long-term provision for students with additional needs in Shepparton and Mooroopna, and I want to again acknowledge the advocacy of the honourable member in regard to special needs in that community. This work is particularly important given the enrolment pressures at Verney Road School. The former Wanganui Park Secondary College does open up opportunities for the state to address specialist provision in the future, and next steps are being considered right now. We have also agreed to a shared-use arrangement with the local council to facilitate continued community use of the Visy centre. I am happy to report that we have agreed with council for the community use of the adjacent oval, with both parties finalising details now. In addition, we have agreed for the scouts and the Goulburn Valley Woodworkers group to continue on the site ongoing, and again details are being finalised this month.

In terms of the former McGuire College site, this includes the expansion of the Goulburn Murray Trade Skills Centre operated by GOTAFE as well as considering the potential to locate future education facilities adjacent to the neighbouring Wilmot Road Primary School. We are facilitating community use of the oval area and the stadium through a shared use agreement, and we are exploring the use of vacated school buildings by other community groups. In terms of the future of Mooroopna, I know the member for Shepparton and the local community are interested in discussing the future use of this site and I commit to doing just that.

Supplementary Question: Minister, before the amalgamation of these schools, Mooroopna Secondary College had dwindled to a pupil base of some 300 students. However, it is home to the Westside Performing Arts Centre and it is a major arts facility in our region that is regularly used by the whole of our community. Opportunities abound for further cultural and arts opportunities on this site, given what it currently has on it. So, Minister, will you guarantee that this school site will not be disposed of prior to there being a full investigation into how it might be reimagined as a community or arts facility?

Answer: I thank the honourable member for her supplementary question. I can absolutely assure the member for Shepparton and the local community that the government has no intention whatsoever to dispose of this site before deep engagement with the community with regard to its long-term use. The Westside Performing Arts Centre is a major performing arts space for the community, much loved, and as the member is aware, we have an existing joint use agreement with the local council for the performing arts centre at the site and we have also agreed on an arrangement with the council to facilitate community use of the adjacent indoor stadium. My department to date has been focused on those existing community facilities—the performing arts centre and the stadium. We will now turn our mind to the future use of the balance of the site, and I can assure the member for Shepparton that the Andrews government will continue to work with the member and the community on options to ensure the best long-term use of that site.

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_0163-scaled.jpg 2560 1437 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2022-04-06 15:45:022022-04-19 12:42:52Former Shepparton school sites
Suzanna Sheed MP, dressed in black business dress and white blazer site at a library table surrounded by papers.

Federal Budget

April 6, 2022/in Parliament

I am pleased to rise and resume after the 10 seconds I had just before the bells rang previously. In speaking about the federal budget there are a couple of things that I would like to say.

Firstly, I think there is disappointment in our regional areas in relation to the regional fund—the fact that the Shepparton bypass has been a project on the books for over 20 years, that governments have stood time after time out on the highway and promised that that connection from the Goulburn Valley Highway through to the New South Wales border at Tocumwal to complete what is a national highway system would occur, and to know that the Victorian government completed the business case over 12 months ago, that it has been sitting on the desk of the federal infrastructure minister, our Deputy Prime Minister, throughout that period. It is fair to say that people in my electorate expected an announcement on that 80 per cent funding that the federal budget could have delivered to see that major project go ahead. So it is disappointing to see that so much of the regional funding will be spent in northern Australia building dams, not for further irrigation in the south, where we are already developed, but further dams to provide water for further development of mines and a few corporate farming enterprises in regions of Queensland.

There is certainly disappointment across regional Victoria at the lack of funds that came out of that fund. But I want to specifically talk about health today, because the motion that has been put is in relation to the $1.5 billion of COVID funding that is to finish in September this year. I have to say that as a regional MP, it is pretty clear to me and to most people I talk to that COVID is not over. Every day we are seeing COVID numbers reported of 10 000, 12 000, 15 000 people. We know that the real number in the community is probably triple that. We know that every day people, Victorians, are dying, and we know that the impact on our hospital system still remains very significant. I think it is realistic to say that that is not going to go away overnight. We cannot say that in September the impact of what has occurred over the last two years will have reduced and will have disappeared in terms of the way our hospital systems are now functioning and the incredible pressure that they have been put under.

Recruiting medical people—nurses, doctors—in regional areas is an enormous challenge. We are feeling that at Goulburn Valley Health, the major regional centre in my electorate, with over 80 doctors needing to be recruited and over 60 nurses needing to be recruited as well as a whole range of other hospital staff. Almost 10 per cent of the workforce at Goulburn Valley Health are not there, effectively, because of the challenges in recruiting them. I would just like to say that over the last two years the challenges that Goulburn Valley Health have faced in Shepparton have been enormous. We had more COVID outbreaks. We had additional shutdowns. We unfortunately for a regional area really copped it a lot more than others for a range of reasons. But our chief executive officer, Matt Sharp, and all our health workers across our region, even across our smaller hospitals—Nathalia, Cobram, Numurkah—did a fantastic job to care for the community, to look out for their needs and to ensure that a level of health care could be continued throughout that period, with a COVID ward set up especially in Shepparton, and that still exists.

To think that somehow this is all over is a huge mistake. I would like to refer to an article, a news piece that was on ABC regional radio just last week, warning of the crisis in our regional hospitals. They continue to be under enormous strain with the huge demand, especially in the north of the state, which is the area I know best. A code yellow internal emergency was declared at Albury Wodonga Health last week, and it is the second time that has happened in just a very short period—less than a month. A code yellow was declared last Monday at Northeast Health Wangaratta. Shepparton’s Goulburn Valley Health has urged people to avoid its emergency department if they possibly can because of the excessive demand. They are encouraging people to go to their GPs, to use other services, even Nurse-on-Call.

Now, that is all very well, but we also have a drastic shortage of GPs in our region, and that is something that simply is not being sufficiently addressed by the federal government. In the town of Mooroopna there were two medical practices, Dr Chan’s and the Mooroopna Medical Centre. Dr Chan by virtue of age and hard work has retired. He has sent a letter to all his patients saying that he is no longer there. There really is no-one for him to refer them to. There is no-one, as I understand it, taking over his practice—just another GP—in a town like Mooroopna, with a population of over 8000, left with one practice in the town.

That has major implications for our emergency departments, because when you do not have GPs providing that on-the-ground daytime service and after-hours service to the community, the only place left to go is your emergency department. I am told that it is not so much that we are seeing so many COVID patients right at the moment but that we are seeing the burden of illness that has developed over the last two years from people who have not been going to get the health care they need, perhaps been ignoring symptoms, not having tests that they would otherwise have had, perhaps not having those breast screens, not getting their diabetes management—a whole lot of things that people would have normally done as part of the course of their day-to-day life they were not doing. So the load now is huge, and the burden on our health services across the state—but I am talking specifically of our region—is also huge. When you cannot find the people to fill the positions, that can only get worse, and it bodes ill for the overall health of our community.

So to think that $1.5 billion might be just slashed from the state of Victoria come September is really concerning to me, because if anything we need more. There is so much more to be done. It is all very well to say that we have the Department of Rural Health at Melbourne University and they are training doctors who may one day come back to the country, but let me tell you they do not even keep statistics on that. Occasionally a doctor trained in a rural area will go back to a rural area, but not very often. They are not coming back in hordes, I can tell you. They are not coming back, and no-one is addressing the shortage of that general practice primary health care across our regions.

Is it at a point now in country areas where expectant mothers need to take towels, scissors and a piece of string with them when they are making their way to a hospital? It is not good enough that services are not available for people in regional areas. The mental health services are underdone, and again staffing is a huge problem. Certainly in Shepparton we are hoping that stage 2 of the redevelopment of Goulburn Valley Health and its mental health services will be a high priority, as I hope will an early parenting centre. I see the Minister for Health at the table, and I cannot let that go by without mentioning it, because they are major projects to really attend to the health of our community.

It was an amazing time in some ways, prior to COVID, to see the investment that occurred in Shepparton with the development of stage 1, and our new hospital and new buildings are about to be opened very soon—a new emergency department, a new five-storey building on the site of the hospital. All these things will make a difference, but there is no doubt that the major issue now is about people. It is about finding the people to do the work within our hospital system, and that may be a call-out to older people who have retired, to people even coming back part time. But I say, ‘Leave the money in the system, and put more in’.

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_0073-scaled.jpg 1437 2560 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2022-04-06 15:38:482022-04-13 15:42:45Federal Budget
Suzanna Sheed dressed casually in blue jeans, white shirt, and a black puffer vest steps out of a white 4WD

Dangerous railway crossing in Tatura

April 6, 2022/in Parliament

Question: My constituency question is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. I would like to address a dangerous railway crossing in the Shepparton electorate. The unprotected railway crossing on Dhurringile Road in Tatura has been a hazard for many years, and it needs to be addressed. Only last week I saw a truck go through the stop sign without stopping to see whether a train was coming. The crossing is on a busy road used by milk tankers, agricultural vehicles, school buses and other vehicles. It is also used by pedestrians and cyclists. It is an operational freight line, and a number of trains go by it during the day and the night. It poses a serious risk. With the installation of multiple boom gates on our level crossings as part of the upgrade between Shepparton and Mooroopna and the Seymour station, will the minister direct the installation of boom gates at this dangerous level crossing?

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/20210411-Suzanna-Vehicle.jpg 2048 1536 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2022-04-06 15:30:312022-04-19 12:43:13Dangerous railway crossing in Tatura
Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Sheed achieves action on dangerous Strathmerton intersection

April 1, 2022/in Media Releases

Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed was pleased to receive a prompt response from the Roads and Road Safety Minister Ben Carroll regarding a concern she raised in parliament about a dangerous Strathmerton intersection.

Ms Sheed had been contacted by constituents about the dangerous corner of Stokes Road and the Murray Valley Highway, whish was the site of a fatal collision in February this year.

Mr Carroll responded to Ms Sheed’s concern this week by saying he had requested for the Department of Transport to work with Moira Shire to explore options to further improve safety at this location.

Ms Sheed said she was grateful that the minister had taken the concerns around this intersection seriously and initiated steps to improve its safety.

“I am glad to see that safety improvement discussions are underway and I will be watching with interest to see what solutions come from these talks,” Ms Sheed said.

In parliament last month, Ms Sheed told Mr Carroll that a rise on Labuan Road was a short distance from the give way sign and the Murray Valley Highway, which made it difficult for motorists to see the intersection and it had a give way sign instead of a stop sign.

She asked the minister to assess the intersection with a view to installing stop signs and rumble strips, and to take necessary steps to make the crossing safe, as a matter of urgency.

In his response, Mr Carroll advised an investigation of the intersection had noted some visibility issues.

ENDS

Media contact
Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466│elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/joshua-hoehne-WPrTKRw8KRQ-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg 1706 2560 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2022-04-01 09:00:222022-04-06 15:13:03Sheed achieves action on dangerous Strathmerton intersection

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T 03 5831 6944   F 03 5831 6836
E suzanna.sheed@parliament.vic.gov.au

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