Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Regional Victoria

Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (16:46): I rise today to grieve for regional Victoria should we ever have to suffer those on the other side in government and in particular should the Shadow Treasurer ever get his hands on the government purse. Those on the other side have a long history of demeaning regional folk and cutting their services. Those on the other side like to pretend that Jeff Kennett is ancient history, but I can tell you that we country folk have long memories and we will never forget being referred to as the toenails of Victoria. Those on the other side will hoot and holler that Jeff Kennett was 20 years ago, but their current Shadow Treasurer the member for Brighton openly echoes the sentiment. We are never going to forget that he called us out-of-towners, suggesting that our Premier, who is from regional Victoria, and our wonderful Treasurer, from regional Victoria, were in some way incapable of running the state because we were just from the regions. We will always remember Jeff Kennett’s words, but we will also remember the Shadow Treasurer and his degrading words about regional Victoria and our capacity and capability.

Regional Victorians do not like to be talked down to, and I think that that really shows in the numbers. In this business of course it is all about the numbers – and let us just count those on the other side. Of the Liberal Party there are four members in the Legislative Assembly that are representing regional areas. On this side of the house there are 12 members of the Australian Labor Party and the Allan Labor government representing regional Victoria. I think regional Victorians have made it very clear what they think of the way that those on the other side speak about us. We know that we cannot trust them. But the member for Brighton’s words are not just disparaging –

Richard Riordan: I am just bringing the Deputy Speaker’s attention to the state of the house. It appears that the grievances today are even boring members of the government.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Unnecessary assistance, member for Polwarth.

Quorum formed.

Michaela SETTLE: What I want to say is that the member for Brighton’s words are not just disparaging about regional Victoria, they are a frightening harbinger of what is to come if he ever gets his hands on the budget. In the Age in 2020 the member for Brighton invoked the legacy of Liberal hero Jeff Kennett, who as Premier presided over a massive program of privatisation. I quote the member for Brighton:

“The Liberal Party is the party of responsible economic management – the party of Jeff Kennett,” Mr Newbury told The Age.

“Successive governments have accepted that privatisation ultimately delivers better services and investment back into the community.”

Richard Riordan interjected.

Michaela SETTLE: No, we are talking about the member for Brighton here, and we are talking about him talking in 2020. This is 2020. Is that years ago? The member for Brighton in 2020 said:

If the Liberal Party doesn’t believe that the private sector can deliver services more efficiently than the public sector, what do we believe in?

I can assure the member for Brighton that many on this side often wake up and ask ourselves, ‘What do they believe in?’ It is certainly not clear. But the member for Brighton tells us that he believes in privatisation, so the people in regional Victoria must ask ourselves: which hospital in regional Victoria will the member for Brighton seek to privatise? This Labor government had to bring back the Mildura hospital into the state system, but will the member for Brighton flog it off again? I have no doubt. Will he privatise the SEC? We all know how that went last time.

While we are talking about energy, let us reflect on the Shadow Treasurer’s record on vital renewable energy infrastructure in regional Victoria. The only time I have seen him in regional Victoria was when he palled up with his mate Gordon Rich-Phillips to stir up community dissent about a wind farm in my electorate. That is a wind farm that farmers rely on for income. That is a wind farm that regional people would get jobs to build and maintain. In further disdain for regional folk, he ran a petition and hoodwinked people into signing, harvesting their personal details – we call it astroturfing in this game. But it gets even better. The petition called on people to reject our wonderful Minister for Energy and Resources because the member for Brighton said people in the city should not be making decisions for people in the regions. I do not know about you, but the last time I looked, Brighton was not considered a regional seat.

The Shadow Treasurer thinks that we are stupid in the regions, stupid enough to sign a petition on the member for Brighton’s page calling for decisions that affect the regions not to be made by Melbourne ministers. But this is where it gets really confusing or, worse still, indicates his ability to speak from both sides of his mouth. On the one hand, he does not think that out-of-towners are capable of running the state, and on the other, he thinks Melbourne ministers cannot understand the regions. Is he looking for an entirely devolved state so that the regions run themselves and metro runs itself? That would be an interesting prospect when we hold 12 of the seats in the regions and they hold just four. Bring it on, I say. Bring it on.

And they do not just believe in privatisation. They believe in cutting vital services – frontline workers, like the nurses that look after us in our hour of need. They have made it very, very clear – not in the old Kennett days but currently, in this very session – that cuts are what they are going to come for. In January of just this year one of the fine members of the other place said:

If we are lucky enough to get elected in 2026, we’re going to have … debt to deal with. How do you deal with that within a practical way …

We saw what Campbell Newman did in Queensland, he cut extremely, he probably had to, but he lasted for one term.

So I guess it’s a really difficult balancing act of how much do you cut, what do you cut, what services can you live without what services can’t (you).

In January of this year those on the other side made it very, very clear that they are going to start cutting our services.

The Shadow Treasurer is in fact making a foray into the wilds of Ballarat very soon. It will come as no surprise that he is lunching with business leaders – with the bosses – because of course those on the other side are on their side, not the side of hardworking regional Victorians. I have a couple of tips for him before he heads up to Ballarat. My first suggestion is do not call them out-of-towners; try hard not to show the contempt that you hold for the regions, because even card-carrying Liberal members will not stand for that. Another tip is perhaps do not mention payroll tax – a policy of this government that introduced the lowest payroll tax in the country for regional Victorian businesses. They should be asking themselves if that is something he is going to cut straight away. Is that on the list that they are looking at for cuts? Or will it be train lines? His hero Kennett was well and truly into that, as we know.

Whilst those on the other side like to say it was a long time ago, I can assure them that people have not forgotten. They have not forgotten in Maryborough. They have not forgotten in Ararat. They have not forgotten what it was like to be completely stranded. The member for Polwarth will be delighted to know that the return of the trains is the very reason I joined the Victorian Labor Party. I saw Steve Bracks come to my town, which had been utterly decimated by those on the other side when they ripped out the train line. Steve Bracks came and restored those train lines and, you know what, people have never forgotten.

We only have to look to our wonderful colleague the member for Ripon. They know who is there to look after them. What has the member from Ripon achieved? Let me tell you. The full redevelopment of the Maryborough hospital; that is pretty extraordinary stuff. Can I just do a little comparison here. We are not going back to Kennett. We are going to the last Liberal government, the Napthine–Baillieu governments – another one of those tumultuous ones. How can you have two leaders in one term? It was pretty extraordinary. Let us have a look at what they did about hospitals and regional health in their term. Bendigo – good on them. Let us compare it to the Andrews and Allan Labor governments’ hospital builds in the region: Ballarat base, Warrnambool base, Maryborough, Frankston, Barwon. We bought back Mildura. I think people in regional Victoria know who is looking after them. Some on the other side like to bring forth fake patients into their hospitals to try to suggest that there is more work going on, putting working people at risk by making them dress up as fake patients.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Michaela SETTLE: Do not talk to me, Mr Polwarth, about what happens in health in the region. As I say, they like to tell us that the Kennett years were a long time ago and the Napthine years were a long time ago. The member for Brighton, the current Shadow Treasurer, is already echoing all of those things that we know they have in their very DNA. They have absolute contempt for regional people. That is why they have to buddy up with the National Party, because no self-respecting regional person would vote for a Liberal. It is ancient history, the Kennett years, but it is a history that continues to run through their veins when the Shadow Treasurer refers to us as out-of-towners with absolute contempt. He might not want houses built in his leafy suburbs. But I tell you what, what is happening is those people are coming into our regions – into the gorgeous Bacchus Marsh – and we do welcome them. We do not mind what sort of sneakers they are wearing. We want them in our community, but we also want to be there and build the infrastructure for them.

I have to thank my great colleague the member for Melton, because he is putting that hospital there that is going to service all of our community. I did not list it amongst the regional hospitals we have built ‍– we had so many – but it is going to serve regional people. The people in Bacchus Marsh and in Ballan will be able to access that wonderful hospital in Melton. While the member for Brighton does not want anyone in the wrong sneakers coming to live in his suburbs, we are busy making sure that we can provide the infrastructure for the people that really need it. The Ballarat line upgrade has just been extraordinary. We have had upgraded stations in Ballan, Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat, and as I said, it might have been a long time ago, but we will never forget. You have to compare that to those on the other side, who just cut those stations. The Shadow Treasurer is absolutely hell-bent on privatisation, and he belongs to a party that do not know who they are. But the public do know who those people on the other side are. They know that they are the party of cuts and chaos. We have seen nothing more than chaos from those on the other side. Last time they were in government they were certainly wielding the razor. My good friend the member for Frankston often reminds me that they cut Free Fruit Friday.

What happens when they get in is regional Victoria suffers. Those on the other side have nothing but contempt for regional Victoria. We will stand together to make sure that the red wall is strong and that they do not come into the regions, because we value our frontline workers and we value the services that this government have provided in terms of health care, rail and infrastructure. Those on the other side are nothing more than chaos.