Doorstop, Norlane

ELLA GEORGE, STATE MEMBER FOR LARA: Good morning everyone. My name is Ella George, and I'm a State Member of Parliament for Lara, proudly representing Geelong’s Northern parts. I'm really proud to be here today along with my colleague Richard Marles, the Federal Member for Corio and Minister Catherine King, the Federal Member for Ballarat. It is such a pleasure to be here at the Norlane West Scouts Group with a very exciting announcement. I'll now hand over to Minister King to say a bit more. Thank you. 

CATHERINE KING, MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: Thanks Ella, and it's great to be here with my friend and colleague, Richard Marles, and also to Kim from the Norlane West Scouts as well. Thank you, and thank you to all the Scouts for having us here today. Well, today we're announcing round two of the Growing Regions Program for all of Victoria. But we're here in Norlane West with a fantastic announcement, over $600,000 to partner with Scouts Victoria to really rebuild what is an almost 80 year old facility that has been serving Scouts well, but maybe not as much as it could be. It doesn't have disability access, doesn't have the storage needs, doesn't have the community access that's needed. This facility here will really redevelop the Scouts. But what we're announcing today is over $25 million worth of eight projects across the state of Victoria. And they range from community hubs in Paynesville, to an oval redevelopment in Horsham, to a Koroit township renewal, so really bringing that town up again to making it more liveable for communities, a leisure complex in my hometown of Ballarat, as well as a pavilion redevelopment and a marine hub in Eildon. This program has been, again, a competitive based program, it’s a program that has been assessed. We’ve spent quite a lot of time cleaning up, frankly, the mess of the previous government in a way in which they allocated grants. I'm really proud to be making these announcements here today, this community infrastructure across the country and across the state of Victoria. Again, projects like this are really, really important and they're important because they provide the opportunities we talk a lot about; the importance of social cohesion. These are the sorts of facilities where young people learn to work together. They learn life skills here at Scouts in particular, to make sure that they can actually work together, work cooperatively, and they really help with social inclusion. It's why we like partnering with local government and with the not-for-profit sector to build these facilities. I'm going to hand over to the local member in his capacity as local member, Richard Marles, the Member for Corio, and then the Scouts will say a few words as well. 

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER AND MEMBER FOR CORIO: Well, thank you, Catherine. And it's a real delight for me to have Catherine King here today to make this announcement and also to be here with Ella George, the local State Member for Lara, and of course, Kim Upston, who is the group leader for the Norlane West Scouts Group. And we're so excited about the announcement that we're making today to contribute $660,000 towards a $1.3 billion project which will see the complete redevelopment of the Norlane West Scouts hall. As Catherine said, this is a facility which was intended to be temporary when it was first put here 80 years ago, but has still been in use right up until today. And so it's much needed to see a replacement of this. All of this work will occur over the course of the next year, so it is intended to be finished by the end of 2025. It'll be local builders who are involved in the redevelopment of the Norlane West Scouts hall, and the result of that will be a fantastic asset for the Norlane West Scouts Group, but not just them, it'll be a great asset for the whole community. It's actually going to be a multipurpose facility which will enable the Scouts to hire that out, to get some income, and in turn be a really good asset for those in the north of Geelong. The Scouts are a wonderful global movement which have been around for more than a century, and here in Victoria there are 17,000 Scouts, including on top that, 5,000 adult volunteers who help make the Scouts work every year. And as Catherine said, this is a movement which is one of the most significant youth engagement movements around the world. Really important here in Geelong’s north, giving kids the opportunity to gain skills that they need for their future lives, giving them leadership training. It is a really fantastic movement, which is why we're very excited about the redevelopment of the Scouts hall. With that, it's my pleasure to introduce Kim Upston. Kim is the group leader of the Norlane West Scouts hall and will be the custodian of this great new facility.

KIM UPSTON, NORLANE WEST SCOUT GROUP: I'd just like to thank everyone for coming today. Thank you so much to Richard, to Catherine, to Ella for joining us to make this announcement, and thank you to everyone, all of our Scouts and our community members who have come to join us. This is really exciting for our group. We've been advocating for a new hall for quite a number of years now. Our group, since we started seven years ago, has just grown. We've really connected in with the community. We have lots of different support networks and we really want that to continue to grow, which a new hall will allow that to do. Scouting is about community, and the new Norlane West Scout Community Activity Centre will allow that to continue to develop in a new space. So thank you. We really appreciate all the support we've received, and I'll pass back to you.

KING: Lovely. Any questions?

MARLES: Questions?

JOURNALIST: Do we have a timeline yet for the project? 

MARLES: It’s intended that the project be completed by the end of the year. So– 

JOURNALIST: Complete rebuild?

MARLES: Yeah. So a lot is going to happen in the course of the next 12 months, and it will be a local build, but the speed of this speaks, I think, a lot to how impressive the Scouts are. 

JOURNALIST: Will they relocate locally while the building is going on?

UPTON: Yes, we’ve already started conversations with Norlane Bay Secondary School about using their space as a meeting space while we’re (inaudible)

JOURNALIST: What will be the main upgrade? 

UPTON: I feel like I need to invite my building extraordinaire to talk about these particular things, Ben.

BENJAMIN UPTON, NORLANE WEST SCOUT GROUP: Thank you. So the main upgrade of the hall will include a much larger space for the activities to be run. There will be a new commercial size kitchen in there for the youth members to be able to use and other community groups. The toilets and showers and disability toilets will be located inside instead of outside the hall, like they are right now. So it's going to be a massive, massive build for these guys and it's going to be amazing. 

JOURNALIST: For you, Deputy Prime Minister. On a separate topic, which foreign actors does Australia suspect may be behind inciting anti-Semitic violence in Australia? 

MARLES: Well look, last night the Prime Minister held a National Cabinet where the members of the National Cabinet were briefed by Reece Kershaw, the chief Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, about the shocking event which occurred in Sydney over the last couple of days. I'm not in a position to talk about the specifics of the Police intelligence, but the Police briefed the first ministers in the National Cabinet. But I do want to say this, there is no place in Australia for antisemitism and the Albanese Government is utterly committed to doing everything within its power to seeing antisemitism stop. We have a Jewish community in this country who have made an enormous contribution to our nation. There were literally thousands of people that lined the streets when Sidney Myer passed away. Sidney Meyer, who actually began his retail life in Ballarat and from that moment forward, we've had a community in this country which has made such an enormous contribution to Australia. So many in the Jewish community today find their roots in Australia as a place of refuge. We have a community in Australia which had the highest proportion of Holocaust survivors come to Australia other than Israel. This was a country of refuge for the Jewish community. And in that sense, it is absolutely essential that every person in the Australian Jewish community, indeed, every person in Australia, has a right to go about their lives free of hate and in a manner which is secure and safe. It should not be the case that millions of dollars are being spent to provide security for Jewish community facilities, for Jewish community schools around the country, and the underlying fact which brings that about is something that we must bring to an end and this Government is absolutely committed to doing that. That's why the Prime Minister convened a National Cabinet last night. That's why we've put in place Operation Avalite with the Australian Federal Police, which is committed to doing everything within its power to bring an end to antisemitism and to bring to justice those people who are perpetrating these appalling crimes. 

JOURNALIST: And is Australia prepared to support future US military operations under President Trump that may include taking back the Panama Canal or seizing Greenland?

MARLES: Look, we welcome the inauguration of President Trump and the beginning of the Trump Administration. And we were represented at the inauguration by our Foreign Minister, Penny Wong. We look forward to working cooperatively with the Trump Administration in what is the most important relationship that we have, our bilateral relationship with the United States. Our alliance with the US is really the cornerstone of our foreign policy, it's the cornerstone of our national security. We look forward to an ongoing American leadership within the world. That's what's very much in the interests of the peace and prosperity of the globe. It's very much in Australia's interest. And we look forward to working with the United States on all the equities that we have within the alliance and AUKUS, of course, is front and centre in respect of that. And we welcome– we wish President Trump all the best at the outset of his Administration.

JOURNALIST: One more for you, Deputy PM. Just bringing you a bit closer to home, our Mayor, Stretch Kontelj, has said that the Geelong CBD is like a third world country. Does the Federal Government have any plans to revive the CBD of Geelong? 

MARLES: Well over my time as the member for Corio, I've worked with successive mayors of Geelong to see how we can revitalize the CBD. The CBD has enormous heritage value, for example and I think we could be doing more as a community to see that heritage value developed. Indeed, if you look at Ballarat, where Catherine’s from, it is amazing the way in which heritage is celebrated in the Ballarat CBD and I actually think we can take a lesson from Ballarat in relation to that. I'm really happy to work very closely with Mayor Kontelj to see how we can do more in terms of bringing to life the CBD. And I think one of the real opportunities for the CBD is that as a university town with the Deakin campus on the waterfront, with more students making their home during term time in the CBD, that offers the opportunity to get economic activity going in the CBD and breathing life into it. So, I think, you know, there is a lot that needs to be done there and as I say, we're happy to work, I'm very happy to work closely with the Mayor in respect of that.