Noel Pearson-Submission to Noosa Shire Council (Good Shepherd College)

It aspires to nurture the children of Noosa for many generations to come, and its
Lutheran charter means that the traditions and teachings of our church will be
taught at this school for as long as this school stands.

There are countless schools around the world now hundreds of years old. There are
many schools in Australia entering their second century. Our most esteemed
Lutheran schools are now well into the second half of their first hundred years.

Our school is one of a large number of young church schools, but there is no reason
to believe that it should not aspire to become a long-term institution. | am sure it
was the vision of its founders and supporters from the beginning.

Schools are not temporary endeavours and their proper stewardship therefore
requires its trustees to take the long view — both backwards and forwards.

The current leaders owe it to all the parents and community members whose
students attended GSLC over its first 25 years to ensure they do not derogate from
the good standing and developing institutional presence in the Noosa community.
This is after all their alma mater. To call a school one’s alma mater — nourishing
mother — is a sacred matter. This place of learning has a special place in the hearts
of these past students: the school leadership owes them a trust to keep sustaining
their school into the future and growing the capital which each of its past scholars
and their families have invested in its foundation years. This social and cultural
(perhaps more truly, spiritual) capital that a developing institution grows over time —
is the most important capital a schooling institution needs.

Anthony Dyer and the College Council are animated by short term financial capital
considerations, not the important capital of the school.

The current leaders owe a trusteeship to the present parents and community
members and their students attending GSLC. That the proposed development raises
some very concerning health and other impacts — social, health, environmental,
traffic and safety — is the subject of many other submissions | have read in relation to
this application. | support the concerns that have been put forward, and cannot
believe that the current leaders have failed their duty of trusteeship in respect of
these concerns. | propose not to deal with these grounds for objection except to say
that | believe they are cogent, and are good grounds for Noosa Shire Council to
decline this development.

And of course the current school leaders owe a trusteeship to the future parents and
community of Noosa who may send their children to GSLC. Who wants a school to
be marred by a service station? Who wants the ongoing worries associated with its
environmental impact to hang over its future students?

lam reminded that the proposed development will be 50 metres from the toddlers’
swimming pool. This is the pool where my own children learn to swim. | have been
in the water with my youngest daughter’s earliest swimming lessons. How could | in