Ms JENNY AITCHISON (Maitland) (17:56): I speak about some of the issues in the new budget relating to the Maitland electorate, particularly the integrated community health and mental health building, a $22 million dollar building that has received $500,000 of planning money. I thank the Minister for Health for that, because I have raised it with him. There are some 150 health workers in Maitland in community health and community mental health. It is good to be collocated around the hospital but not necessarily in the hospital to deliver those services. That is really important. Because in 2014, before I was elected, the Liberal-Nationals Government cut community mental health in my electorate. We have seen the price of that over the past eight years.
The impact on people has been terrible—people who previously could go to a community mental health service and get those services without necessarily having a Medicare card or going though paperwork. When people in the community are in crisis, sometimes they need to be able to access those services quickly. I hope that we will get an integrated community health and mental health building that provides those services. Like everything in the budget, we need to make sure that it is not just a $22 million building for the big sizzle of the media release and then only $500,000 for planning. I would like to see the forward estimates for this project to establish when that money will hit the ground because at the moment the date is 2026 and we need it way before then. People working in health in Maitland are scattered across the city which is inefficient. Some of them are working in very old facilities that have been falling down around them, so it is important that we get the project.
The other big initiative in the budget is Gillieston Public School. We have $1.73 million for that which, I gather, is just going to planning. Perhaps, hopefully, at last we can get the toilets at that school connected to town sewer. Hopefully we can get proper fencing and not rural fencing across the road from brand new developments. I have talked in this place about this school for seven years now. I am so pleased that we finally have an admission from the Government after the education portfolio committee in the other place attended the school during June to highlight how bad it was. I say a big thankyou to all of the parents who have been involved in that campaign, particularly Katie Ferguson and Todd Sellers, who have been at the forefront of that. The portfolio committee received 30 written submissions about that school. Four parents spoke to the committee directly, either face-to-face in Parliament or over Zoom. It has been important to have that community backing.
We want to know how much more we are going to get for that school. I have asked the Treasurer and I am asking for meetings with the education Minister, which I have not been able to get. The Government says it will be a redevelopment. Is that a $70 million or a $30 million redevelopment? Are they going to rebuild the school on the site? What are they going to do? The community deserves to have the plan. Half the kids in the communities of Gillieston and Cliftleigh who are going to public schools are not going to Gillieston Public School. We know why the other schools in the Maitland electorate are already overcrowded. Because students are all leaving this school. We need to make sure that they go back there.
I will talk about two more issues. One is social housing which is really important. I am incredibly disappointed. The budget provides $108,000 in maintenance for the Maitland electorate. That is $180,000 on social housing for the whole electorate. That will not even fix the problems in one house in some areas. We have termites and recurrent mould because of building collapse. So I am really disappointed about that. The other thing is the new building and the stimulus money. Some $6.737 million was allocated to Maitland in 2021‑22. It has not been spent. Only $729,000 of that money will be spent this year—just over 10 per cent. That is the stimulus money. The $1.493 million that was also allocated again was not spent. The other issue is the Hunter Valley Flood Mitigation Scheme. This affects you, Mr Temporary Speaker, as well. That is $22 million over eight years. It is a drop in a bucket for a $900 million entity. It needs more funding. It needs to be twenty‑first century.
