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Sue Napier wanted to know where the lockers were. Apparently there aren't any, the students will have their own bins in their pods. Sounds funky, but it's just the new Kingston High School. It doesn't matter that there aren't any lockers because the grade sevens have them now but most don't use them. What does Sue Napier have to do with it? I was sworn in at Parliament House yesterday to give evidence in support of our new school to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works.
I say Parliament House because that's where I entered (yes the machine beeped again because of the steel toes in my shoes), but typical of the rabbit warren that it is we actually ended up in 10 Murray Street I think. I was shown to a seat at a massive table with three big microphones hanging from the roof so that the Hansard girl could hear everything we said. I had to swear (strange term) to tell the truth, the whole truth etc etc and then the politicians were wheeled in. Whilst they were sitting down a camera crew came in with a huge TV camera and plonked it down opposite me. This worried me a little bit, but when he then put a microphone directly in front of me but didn't give anyone else one I really started to panic. No one told me I would be on the telly! I looked over at Helen (our Principle) and noticed that she seemed just as nervous as me so that made me feel a lot better.
The committee comprised Sue Napier (shadow Minister for Education and other stuff), Brenton Best (Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly and other stuff) and Greg Hall (Independent Member of the Legislative Council). The Deputy Secretary for Corporate Services at the Department of Education, Greg Glass started off by speaking to the huge submission document that they had put together, then the Principal Architect from Hassell gave a presentation on the design before the committee started to ask questions. Strangely this was where the TV guys left, I assume they must have had something more interesting to film, at least that meant I wouldn't be on the telly because I hadn't even spoken at that point.
They moved onto Graham Bury (the Mayor) and asked more questions. Their questions were really good ones actually. They did a great job of representing the voting public as most of them had already been asked by parents at one meeting or another. They wanted to know about upkeep costs with the wooden exterior, extra costs associated with the green roofs (as in grass), using recycled water in the toilets, the students having access to information from the heating and cooling systems and of course, lockers amongst many other things. I had been told I wouldn't need to prepare a presentation so I didn't, however I did have something planned in my head just in case. As it turned out I wasn't asked one single question, so I had to jump in on other peoples questions to make sure that I still had a say. We were all then dismissed from the table back to the public chairs and then private submissions were taken.
First was Councilor David Grace. David is always outspoken so I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say. He had a few issues, well actually he had a lot of issues (Hansard will do a much better job than me of recording them so I won't try to do that here) and he made sure that he put them all before the committee. Then another lady (Julie Taylor) spoke, but she had a really soft voice and I couldn't hear a lot of it. She said she wasn't representing the Kingston Bypass Access Group (I think that is their name), but then went on to represent them so I'm not sure if I heard that bit correctly or not. I think her concern was related to traffic flows when the new school opens and she wanted to ensure that the new Kingston bypass was built before the school opened. Traffic and student/pedestrian safety was the biggest concern that the parent/guardian group had as well, so I could understand her concerns. We have been told by the experts that traffic impact at school times should be negligible and the council have shown us their plans to realign the road (Kingston View Drive) outside the new school and the existing sports centre, as well as plans to build a new car park and bus turning area so we have had our concerns satisfied for now.
That was it. I walked back into town with the Mayor and chatted about stuff and it was weird to see the way people would recognise him and point and stuff. I see the same thing happening when a very pretty lady walks down the street, guys heads turn all over the place (I don't do that of course!) and I wondered if they (the pretty ladies and the Mayor) notice it as much as I did.
The next day heaps of people got in touch to tell me that I was on the ABC news. Apparently they used some footage they took of me and our Principal just sitting there listening intently. If I can find a copy of the news story I'll post it here and if you didn't see the link above you can click here to view the Hansard version of events. If you want to see a copy of the consultants brief, project brochure, media releases etc then click here, although the information there is a bit old now.
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