Thursday, 28 October 2021

 Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (18:08): (6118) I raise an issue for the Minister for Emergency Services tonight, and I do so on behalf of the drycleaners in Swan Hill who have lost the contract to provide services to the CFA in the town. This is an issue around the centralisation of government policy for procurement, and the action I seek from the minister is for her to review that policy with the intent of reversing it so that the business is kept local. We see too often services being stripped out of regional Victoria by the Andrews government, and this is just another example of the centralisation of buying power that is actually disadvantaging regional communities.

The CFA has retained a regional office in Swan Hill. Their uniforms have been going to the dry-cleaning service there now for literally years and years and years. Why is a decision now being made to have that centralised and those uniforms potentially being dry-cleaned in Melbourne? It makes no sense. As it has been explained to me, the CFA staff will need additional uniforms to allow for the turnaround time of their uniforms being sent away somewhere out of town and having them returned, whereas before they could just take them down the street to the local drycleaners. On behalf of the local drycleaners in Swan Hill and others—as I understand it, a similar situation has been raised by a member for Eastern Victoria Region, Melina Bath, in the other place around the drycleaners in the Latrobe Valley—please, Minister for Emergency Services, re-examine that policy about centralising the dry-cleaning and laundry services for the CFA so that those jobs and that business can be retained in regional Victoria.