Labor courts Jewish vote with $5m feasibility study

Federal Labor has pledged $5m for a study into moving the main campus of a prestigious Melbourne Jewish school.

Retiring Labor MP Michael Danby. Picture: Gary Ramage

Federal Labor has moved to shore up the Jewish vote in retiring MP Michael Danby’s seat of Macnamara, pledging $5 million for a feasibility study into a plan that would see Melbourne's most prestigious Jewish school move its main campus to the site of the Caulfield Hospital.

The principal of Mount Scopus Memorial College indicated the school was banking on Labor winning the May federal election in a letter to old collegians and community members yesterday, saying the announcement means the 70-year-old institution “can start planning the Scopus of the next 70 years”.

Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus made the announcement yesterday with fellow Jewish community member and Mount Scopus old collegian Josh Burns, who is the ALP’s candidate for the seat formerly known as Melbourne Ports.

Labor holds Macnamara by just 1.2 per cent following a redistribution, with the seat considered a three-way contest bet­ween Liberal candidate Kate Ashmor, who is also Jewish, and the Greens’ Stephanie Hodgins-May.

Mr Danby won on preferences in 2016 after receiving a ­primary vote of 27 per cent, compared with Ms Hodgins-May’s 23.8 per cent and Liberal Owen Guest’s 41.9 per cent.

Labor’s proposed Caulfield Hospital redevelopment would see The Alfred hospital deliver new hospital facilities on a portion of the current site, with Mount Scopus relocating its Burwood campus to the remainder of the site and neighbouring Deakin University taking over the Burwood facilities.

A large proportion of Mount Scopus’s students travel for more than 25 minutes from their homes in the Caulfield area to Burwood, in Melbourne’s east.

In a letter to old collegians ­following the announcement, Mount Scopus principal Rabbi James Kennard said the move would have positive implications both for the school and the “broader Jewish community”.

“It provides a unique opportunity to create a hub and community centre for the entire Melbourne Jewish community, and aiding the continuity of Melbourne Jewry for our children and grandchildren,” Rabbi Kennard wrote.

Mr Burns said Labor would work with Mount Scopus, The Alfred and Deakin to ensure the best deal for taxpayers and the hospital.

“Caulfield Hospital is in desperate need of modernisation and it’s only Labor that will take the important steps towards ­delivering the first-class health services that locals deserve,” he said.

“We’ll also do the hard work to enable the relocation of Mount Scopus to Caulfield, so students can spend more time in their local community and less time on buses travelling to school.”

Among Mount Scopus’s alumni are Mr Danby, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and businessman Solomon Lew.