Tuesday, 8 September 2026

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (23:39): (2774) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Education, and the action that I seek is that the minister provide an update on how the Building Fund for Non-Government Schools is supporting low-fee Catholic and independent schools across my electorate. I could talk about many such investments from this fund in recent years. I could talk about the new St Josephine Bakhita Primary School in Clyde North, just around the corner from the new Clyde Grammar school. Both schools are terrific schools in my electorate which have benefited from this funding. But today I wish to ask about St Francis Xavier College, a wonderful local school with campuses in Beaconsfield, Berwick and Officer. It was at the Berwick campus last week that Mr Tarlamis and I were delighted to join with principal Julie Banda, the head of the Victorian Catholic Education Authority Professor Elizabeth Labone and the entire school community at St Francis Xavier to celebrate and officially mark the opening of their new learning centre, which was supported with $3 million from this fund. It was terrific to see this learning centre, which in fact has already been operational for most of this year, and to see the way in which students are already using it, their classrooms and their shared spaces. It was really wonderful to see the vibrant culture of this part of the school already thriving so strongly. It was particularly wonderful to be there with the school student leaders, the students and indeed the school choir, who were quite simply remarkable. I wish to acknowledge the entire school community for their significant efforts in bringing this new building together.

This is something that really demonstrates the value of investment right across the education system. This is an area where we have opened six new public government schools just in the last four years as well. It is also important that as we are focusing that investment in the public education sector we are also providing support for these other pathways. St Francis Xavier, this great local school, is a wonderful example of how this government has been supporting all such schools across our state so that we can continue to thrive and achieve the best NAPLAN results in the nation and be the true Education State.