Mr BALCH - 2000-05-17
Minister, you would be aware that I’ve been working for some time with the Jingili Primary School Council, the Marrara Family Centre, and the Jingili community on a unique and imaginative project to develop a child care centre at the Jingili Preschool. As you know, there have been a number of delays including those associated with developing the project and the requirements of the tendering process. Recently, there has been some concern that the project may be further delayed until the end of the financial year. Can you give any guarantees that this project will not be further delayed?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, this is an excellent example of a very hard working backbencher, and I am quite happy to say on the Parliamentary Record that he has been instrumental in succeeding where I in a previous life had failed. What we are trying to do here is make sure that the facilities that are provided for young people in a school can be adapted so that they are provided for young people in child care. We looked to co-locate on previous greenfield school sites and it became a very difficult thing to do. This backbencher has put an enormous amount of work into the Jingili primary school initiative.
We are going to move the Marrara Family Childcare Centre across to Jingili. It helps Jingili, which has diminishing enrolments, to look to a new catchment of enrolments. It will be very good for the school. It is a new gateway for enrolments into that particular school. It uses services in a co-located way. There has been no animosity between the various groups that have got together. They have excellent design plans and they have put them out to tender. They were successful in getting a range of contractors for this particular job. The margin of difference was $85 000 which demonstrates to me that it was a very competitive tender in a big field. Unfortunately, the budget allocation was short by $150 000 when we finally added up the costs. There was good reason for this. We wanted to make sure the facility that was built had a wide range of access, particularly since they have a very good name for taking on young children who are often difficult to place in childcare. The member for Jingili has written to me, as the Chairman of the Jingili Primary School Childcare Committee, and I am pleased to say that the additional $150 000 will be made available.
This is very innovative work. This will be the first time in the Territory we have seen such a collaboration, and I think it provides a great model for other sites. His hard work provides a great model for those opposite who might want to get involved in some community activities and push it as hard as he has to the great benefit of those who will be using it.
Mr PALMER (Leader of Government Business): Mr Speaker, I would ask that further questions be placed on the question paper.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, this is an excellent example of a very hard working backbencher, and I am quite happy to say on the Parliamentary Record that he has been instrumental in succeeding where I in a previous life had failed. What we are trying to do here is make sure that the facilities that are provided for young people in a school can be adapted so that they are provided for young people in child care. We looked to co-locate on previous greenfield school sites and it became a very difficult thing to do. This backbencher has put an enormous amount of work into the Jingili primary school initiative.
We are going to move the Marrara Family Childcare Centre across to Jingili. It helps Jingili, which has diminishing enrolments, to look to a new catchment of enrolments. It will be very good for the school. It is a new gateway for enrolments into that particular school. It uses services in a co-located way. There has been no animosity between the various groups that have got together. They have excellent design plans and they have put them out to tender. They were successful in getting a range of contractors for this particular job. The margin of difference was $85 000 which demonstrates to me that it was a very competitive tender in a big field. Unfortunately, the budget allocation was short by $150 000 when we finally added up the costs. There was good reason for this. We wanted to make sure the facility that was built had a wide range of access, particularly since they have a very good name for taking on young children who are often difficult to place in childcare. The member for Jingili has written to me, as the Chairman of the Jingili Primary School Childcare Committee, and I am pleased to say that the additional $150 000 will be made available.
This is very innovative work. This will be the first time in the Territory we have seen such a collaboration, and I think it provides a great model for other sites. His hard work provides a great model for those opposite who might want to get involved in some community activities and push it as hard as he has to the great benefit of those who will be using it.
Mr PALMER (Leader of Government Business): Mr Speaker, I would ask that further questions be placed on the question paper.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016