Stop Education Queensland Disposing of Future High School on the Southern Moreton Bay Islands

Eligibility - Queensland citizens
Principal Petitioner:
Rosemary Binks
16 Carissa Street
Russell Island Qld 4184
Total Signatures - 343
Sponsoring Member: The Clerk of the Parliament
Posting Date: 20/1/2020
Closing Date: 30/4/2020
Tabled Date: 19/5/2020
Responded By: Hon Grace Grace MP on 18/6/2020
TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland

Queensland Citizens draws to the attention of the House: the decision made by the Department of Education Queensland to deem the only parcel of land - 17 Kings Road, Russell Island, suitable for the future development of a high school on the Southern Moreton Bay Islands as surplus to requirements in 2011. This decision has been maintained despite clear evidence that these Islands have the highest rates of youth disengagement from secondary education in the Greater Brisbane Metropolitan Area (Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute report, 2015). In 2011 Education Queensland instructed Redland City Council to administer a returning lease of increasing duration on this parcel of land on Russell Island. Currently, a decision on a lease proposal by Bay Islands Conservation Incorporated - for purposes other than the formal education of school aged Islanders on this land, is before Officers of Redland City Council.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to do all within its powers to:

  1. Instruct the Queensland Department of Education to protect the wellbeing of current and future high school aged students by reversing their decision to identify this land - in part or in whole, as being surplus to present and/or future needs. 
  2. Prohibit the temporary or long term use of this land - in part or in whole, for any purpose other than the formal Education of Secondary School aged students in perpetuity