Labor announces $1 million for Peanut Farm sports pavilion in St Kilda

THE race to the November election has kicked off in earnest, with Labor promising to pump millions of dollars into Albert Park if elected to government.

Drought Sports Oval Aerial. Peanut Farm Reserve, St Kilda.

THE race to the November state election has kicked off in earnest, with Labor promising to pump millions of dollars into Albert Park if elected to government.

With poll day less than seven weeks away, incumbent MP Martin Foley has unveiled a raft of new commitments in a bid to dissuade swinging voters from supporting Liberal candidate Shannon Eeles.

Mr Foley, who holds his seat with a margin of just 0.9 per cent, visited St Kilda’s Peanut Farm Reserve today to unveil a $1 million pledge to “kickstart” a long-awaited rebuild of the sports pavilion next year.

This announcement followed a $600,000 pledge to support residents of the notorious Gatwick hotel on Fitzroy St, with housing and drug and alcohol programs that would be delivered by the Sacred Heart Mission and St Kilda Community Housing.

Labor has also promised not to sell the Elenara boarding house, which is being assessed for potential sale by the Napthine government.

And last month the party promised $10 million for a long-awaited revamp of Elwood College — although electoral boundary redistributions mean this now falls in the Brighton electorate.

Mr Foley said a Labor government would allocate the sports pavilion cash in its first budget, with the project to include new facilities for the St Kilda Sharks women’s football team.

Meanwhile, Prahran Liberal MP Clem Newton-Brown said the Government would spend $60,000 installing new floodlights at the St Kilda Junction underpass in response to a community campaign.

And the Liberals promised $20 million to build a secondary school in Prahran, promising to open enrolments to Port Phillip students.

The Government trumped Labor’s $1.5 million pledge for the Albert Park College Year 9 campus, by allocating $5.5 million in this year’s budget for the project. But Port Phillip primary school parents are still waiting for a bipartisan commitment for a new school by 2017.