Kim Macdonald: Luxury skyscrapers are cheaper than the inner-city school, where’s the value for money?

It is worth pausing to think about the latest cost prediction for the new inner-city school — $165 million. We all knew it would be expensive — given the cost of building on sloping inner-city land — but the amount is beyond the price of many luxury skyscrapers. A comparison to schools in easier-to-build areas includes $25m for Landsdale Primary, which opened in 2023, and $37m for Wungong Primary, to open next year with 840 students. To put the inner-city school price tag in perspective, let’s look at what it could have purchased if the State Government had followed some private schools by repurposing existing city buildings. Recent sales include Oceania Capital Group’s $75 million purchase of an 11-storey skyscraper on St Georges Terrace six months ago, while heiress Leonie Baldock’s Westgreen Properties forked out about $100m for the 16-storey London House on the same street in 2022. Closer to the inner-city school’s price tag is the 36-storey state-of-the-art, thermos-shaped skyscraper on Spring St, which developer Victor Goh’s AAIG priced at $145m last year when transferring the title between its companies. The luxurious building has 360 degree river views, 300 car bays, high speed lifts, a five-star energy rating and superior air quality through the use of organic compound materials for things such as carpets. Students would not have even had to cross a road to get to Kings Park for sport, and teachers no doubt would have loved using the penthouse sky lounge as a staff room. I understand why the State Government wants school children to have the chance to play on real grass and sit in the shade of real trees, but surely there were more cost effective ways of doing this. Like repurposing the State Government’s own education office, set on a 1.5ha piece of land opposite an East Perth park and sports oval. The Government office workers could easily have shifted to another building in the city. While Liberal and Labor were busy fighting over payment for the land, it seems they both forgot about value for money for taxpayers. The State Government is considering where to put its next city school. On behalf of taxpayers, can we get some value for money this time?