My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Planning, and the action that I seek is for the minister to reject the rezoning of 131–133 Union Street, Windsor, which is home to the Windsor Community Children’s Centre; and retain the current public use zone for education. Swinburne Uni, who have been gifted the land, are trying to kick out the Windsor Community Children’s Centre. They want to rezone the land and then they want to sell the land for profit.
Families at Windsor Community Children’s Centre and the wider community are rightly asking: ‘How on earth could we have a situation where a high-quality, not-for-profit provider of early education that has been operating on the site for 27 years; where there is high demand for quality early education; where young families are often desperate for a place; when the state government is touting its early education reforms to increase access to early education; and where the land in question, which was previously government owned, was gifted to the current owners in Swinburne, where they could be kicked off, with the land declared as excess and rezoned to allow for a commercial development?’
I urge the minister to stop this plan in its tracks – to stop the rezoning of the land. If need be, exempt the land from the requirement that the public use zone needs to be removed and revisit potential government acquisition of the land. For reasons that are very, very clear to our community, there would be significant social and community benefits from retaining the current zoning to enable access to high-quality, community-run early education.
The rezoning would be wholly inconsistent with the government’s policy to increase access to early education. This rezoning, if it went ahead, would reduce access. Retaining the public use zone for education would give Windsor Community Children’s Centre the best chance of staying at the site.
The site itself, which I have visited many times as a local MP – it is an inner-city oasis – gives children the opportunity to experience the outdoors and nature in ways that they just cannot at home, and it is run by wonderful, dedicated staff. These are just the sorts of places we need to be encouraging in the inner city, not kicking children and families out, rezoning to a commercial zone and then selling off the land. Common sense and community needs need to prevail in this situation. On behalf of our community I urge the minister to reject the rezoning.
