Wednesday, 20 March 2019

 Ms WARD (Eltham) (16:18): As I was saying last time we were sitting, I was extremely thrilled about the announcement of a new community hospital for my community. This is going to be a great advantage not just for the people who reside within the district of Eltham but for all those along the growth corridor between Yan Yean Road and Plenty Road. This is great far-sighted policy by this government, and I am thrilled to support it and indeed thrilled that my community supported it overwhelmingly.

We had $8 million for the Diamond Valley Sports and Fitness Centre. Acting Speaker, you might not be aware of the magnitude of basketball in my community, but I can tell you it is massive. We have over 11 000 people playing basketball in my community. We have got clubs that you can see from the moon—they are that big. And while Diamond Valley do not have the great red and black colours that the Wildcats have, they are a fantastic family club and I am thrilled to support them.

There is $16.1 million for Montmorency Secondary College, which will also advantage the Wildcats. Again, basketball needs infrastructure in my community, and the Andrews government has responded and will deliver to enhance basketball services across my community but also give them the facilities that they need. When we have got situations where girls cannot actually train on basketball courts on any given night of the week because there are just not enough courts to go around, government needs to step in and support them, and this is exactly what we have done with our election commitment. I cannot wait to see it come about.

The new parks for Eltham and the new dog park—these are going to be fantastic. As you would imagine in a community like mine, which is pretty environmentally oriented, we love animals. To be able to support our dogs, to have a place for our dogs in addition to the current dog park that we have got in Eltham, which is shared with the local sporting facility—as you can imagine, that creates its own challenges in having lacrosse and cricket played on an oval where there are also dogs, and you can imagine the deposits that sometimes go on that oval—and to be able to create a private space for dogs which they are not sharing with sporting codes I think will be of great benefit.

We have also got new car parks for Eltham station, which will also be of great benefit to my community. By 6.30–7.00 on most mornings you cannot get a car park within cooee of the station; to be able to address that is terrific. I am also looking forward to the direct bus service, once Hurstbridge stage 2 gets up and running, to help people again get into the city. It was a great success when the work for Hurstbridge stage 1 was underway. To be able to again ferry people into the city as quickly as possible with the least amount of disturbance is very important.

One thing I am particularly passionate about in our election commitments is the $1 million for the Lower Plenty Football Club. This is a terrific club, and it is a club that has become the senior club for the Research Junior Football Club as well. You are probably aware, Acting Speaker, that we are already funding the redevelopment of the Research Junior Football Club pavilion, which is almost completed. It is going to have one of the best views going across the north-east. To be able to further enhance that club’s structure and strength with money for the Lower Plenty Football Club—a fantastic club, the Bears—is going to be terrific.

I am also excited about the $1 million that we have pledged for St Thomas the Apostle Primary School, a great local Catholic school, which has got a fantastic vision for how it can take the school further. I am really excited about the kind of works they want to do, including an amphitheatre for that school community.

But we have got commitments across Victoria that we announced over the last election period that will have lasting effects for our community. One of the most important was our announcement of a mental health royal commission. I commend the minister and I commend the Premier for the work that they are doing here. This is incredibly important. To be able to cast a light into the dark shadows of mental health and the way people who need mental health services are treated is going to be game changing, and I am very, very proud of this government for taking this important and strong step.

I also look forward to the legislation that will strengthen green wedge protections. As you can imagine, Acting Speaker Richardson, being a green wedge MP yourself, having protections that do strengthen our green wedge, that do consolidate those protections that are needed and ensure that the green wedge is used as it should be is something that I strongly support.

I am also excited about the announcements and the work we are doing in infrastructure projects like Melbourne Metro, the West Gate Tunnel, the north-east link, regional rail upgrades, level crossing removals, statewide upgrades to our hospitals and school rebuilds. There is so much we are going to do as a government in the next four years and it is going to be fantastic.

Before I finish up, I do want to acknowledge my community and thank them for supporting me and giving me the immense privilege of representing them. My community is full of activists, passionate people who are caring people, and I am deeply honoured that they have decided that I should be their member of Parliament for the next four years.

I also cannot thank enough those who have helped me in the Labor Party. I want to thank the state office. I thank the Labor Party and I thank my good friend Kosmos Samaras for the tremendous support that he has given me over decades of friendship. Thank you to my amazing staff: Joe, Adele, Naomi, Antony, Emily, Liz, Duncan and Andriana, Megan, Ashlea, Dylan and Shanae. I also have a fantastic crew of supporters and volunteers including but not limited to Rhonda, Jennie, Garry, Russell and John, along with Alexander, Harry and Angela and the amazingly energetic and passionate Natalie.

There are fantastic people in my community, people who have real commitments, who have strong commitments to social justice, who care deeply about their community and the wider community, and they are a very active community. I have had so many people come to help me during my campaign, people from the community who want to preserve our community but who also have embraced the progressive agenda of this government, who have felt proud of this government, who have felt proud of our Premier and who have wanted to go into bat for this progressive government and for the fantastic things that we are doing, and it is across the spectrum. It is people from a diverse array of backgrounds in my community who are so glad to have a government that stands up for them, that represents them, that cares about them and that creates legislation that will actively change their lives for the better. They know that we will do what we say, and they are grateful to have a government that will stand up for them and stand up for what is right in this state.

 Ms KEALY (Lowan) (16:25): It is a great privilege to provide your address-in-reply because of course it means that you have been re-elected or elected to this place. I would like to open my contribution to this debate by thanking the enormous number of people who have helped me in my journey, whether that was over the election campaign or whether it was over the past four years in my first term of Parliament, because I have absolutely no doubt that the hard work that was put in over those four years of the 58th Parliament assisted me to achieve the result that we did at the last election. With that I would like to roll through a lot of thankyous. I realise most people would probably leave that until the end, but I think it is the most important thing to do when it comes to speaking about your re-election to this place.

Firstly, if I can just thank my wonderful staff who have worked so hard over the past four years. We have a reputation in the electorate office of Lowan that we get back to everybody. We make a conscientious effort to follow up on issues that we cannot necessarily fix. We know that constituents want to be heard and we make all possible efforts to try to resolve the problems. That certainly means that I get a lot of thankyous, but they really should be passed on to my fantastic staff. Particularly to Suzanne, to Kym and to Helen, I would like to pass on my thanks to those three wonderful women for fighting hard for our electorate to get a fair deal and of course for their ongoing support. I really greatly appreciate it.

I would also like to thank my campaign manager, the Honourable Hugh Delahunty. He is still very active in the community and provides an enormous amount of support and direction for me, which is fantastic and greatly appreciated. I thank my campaign committee, the hundreds of people who handed out how-to-vote cards for me, particularly over the extended pre-poll period, and all of my supporters for their kind words of support, the funds that they provided for the campaign, maybe a like or a comment on social media or just telling their friends that I was the one that they should vote for and that Emma Everywhere was somebody worth supporting. Thank you so much. It does mean a lot to me, people putting in that effort.

To my amazing family, my loving family, to my mum and dad, Liz and Rob; to my awesome brother, Sam; the fantastic Jones family, particularly Chris, Mya and Tess; Jess who handed out heaps of how-to-vote cards for me, which was great; and the extended family—the support is never ending. Thank you so very, very much for that. And of course my little boy, Harvey, who would always keep things in reality and would refuse to be involved in any handing out of how-to-vote cards but did find it quite entertaining that Mummy’s face was on lots of posters all around town. At one point we were in Warracknabeal at a netball and football match and he saw the big trailer. He looked at me and asked, ‘Mummy, are you famous?’. I said, ‘Not really, Harvey, but a lot of people tend to know who I am’. ‘I knew you were famous, Mum’, he replied. It was very, very cute, and I do love my little boy. Thank you very much, Harvs. You probably do not quite understand at six what that support means, but it does mean a lot. I hope you look back in the future and I make you proud, because you certainly make me a very proud mum.

I would also like to thank the National Party membership and The Nationals parliamentary team. The support we get from our National Party colleagues is absolutely amazing. We all travel long distances to be here each and every week and we provide support not just for political issues and helping to sort through different matters to get ideas on how we can do something a bit differently but we also provide personal and emotional support. I think that is what really makes the Nats stand out. We have that collegiality. We are like a big family, and I do think as a result of that we came up with some really good policies that would help people in country Victoria right across the state. I think that is why we had a really good result in many, many seats.

I would also like to express my gratitude to two members of the Nats, former MPs who were not fortunate enough to retain their seats, and that is Peter Crisp and Luke O’Sullivan. I think that both Peter and Luke were outstanding parliamentary representatives. This place is the lesser for the loss of those two members, but I know they are still in close contact not just with us as MPs but with their electorates. They will continue to stand up for their communities. They are still very strong supporters of and contributors to the National Party and I cherish not just the time that we were able to work together but also their friendship, which I know will continue long into the future.

I would also like to make special mention of Joanne Armstrong, who was a National Party candidate for Western Victoria Region. Jo put in an amazing effort over the time of the campaign. She also supported the member for Ripon in her re-election very, very strongly, whether it was helping to hand out how-to-vote cards, assistance with scrutineering or getting around the electorate and going to lots of events. Jo, your contribution was really something I have not seen before in a prospective upper house member. I thank you so much for your dedication and support. It is great to have strong, intelligent, wonderful women flocking to the party at the moment, because they know that women can be involved in the Nats and be strong advocates for country Victoria and that is something the Nats can help facilitate. Thank you so much, Jo. I look forward to continuing to work with you into the future.

As we know, it was a bittersweet result in Lowan. It was very humbling to have increased my first-preference vote from 54 per cent four years ago to 68 per cent against a statewide swing. But, as I said, it was not my own result. It was a combination of a lot of things, particularly a lot of hard work by a lot of people over that first term in the 58th Parliament of Victoria. The people of Lowan have put their confidence in me and I will never take this trust and faith for granted. That is something that is often slung around during an election campaign. You see these campaigns to ‘Make Lowan marginal’ or saying that the Nationals are taking the seat for granted. I have never done that and I refuse to ever do that. The people of Lowan deserve a lot better and I know they are a lot smarter than that too. If I did start to take the electorate for granted and not put in the kilometres and the hours and the commitment that I do and have proven to do very strongly over five years now, then I think there would be a much different result. So I do make that commitment. It does not matter what the margin is but I will never, ever stop fighting for a better deal for all country Victorians, particularly those that are furthest from Melbourne.

I do think there would have been a slightly different result in the election if Labor had had policies which support country Victoria and if we had seen some significant financial pre-election commitments to our part of the state. I think the most disappointing failure of commitment was around the Warracknabeal education precinct. This is a half-built school that has basically half of the secondary college and a third of the special development school, which has meant that now the SDS has relocated to these new buildings but they cannot use the facilities properly and they are not appropriate for this cohort of children.

These are amazing students. They deserve far, far better. We cannot really use a brand-new science lab that was designed for secondary school students for the special development school students. They have not got proper learning spaces that can nurture and support the growth and development of children with special needs. We have got a budget coming up and I do urge the Andrews Labor government to try and fix this. It cannot just fund half a school and walk away from it. We need a full commitment. We need to see this project finished and it needs to happen starting with the next budget, whether it was an election commitment or not. The Nationals did commit to keeping that project going. Labor needs to fix the mess that is at Warracknabeal and I just cannot urge that project forward strongly enough, because it is a disaster now. It is appalling how that school has been handled and it just would not happen in Melbourne.

It is pleasing to see that we did get one commitment, which was a matched commitment to redevelop Baimbridge College in Hamilton. This was an amazing campaign and I am proud to stand side by side with the community of Baimbridge to achieve that. I look forward to seeing that in the first year’s budget for this 59th Parliament of Victoria, and I look forward to seeing that project progress and making sure that Baimbridge is given the school that their students and future students deserve.

We also had some other really important commitments that will help to support and develop growth in our region—whether it was around an increased investment for Coleraine police station and Hamilton police station or whether it was around refurbishment and rebuilding of a section of Willaura hospital in the east of the electorate. We also put forward some great funding for a water play and splash park for Horsham. This is a great commitment of just over $2 million and it may not have won me any votes from any adults—maybe a few grandparents and parents—but I think if I am still standing for Parliament at about the time that today’s 6 to 10-year-olds are ready to vote then hopefully we will have that done by then and I will be able to collect on that future investment of putting in a water play and splash park.

A really important commitment that I would like to see continue to be developed was an interesting concept around developing the Wimmera River in Horsham to build a conference centre and a coffee shop or a restaurant. We have got this amazing feature of our local landscape, the Wimmera River, and there is not one place where you can have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine along it. We are halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne. We have got the beautiful Grampians National Park on our doorstep and we do not have anywhere we can have a cuppa on the river. This is a great opportunity for our region. It really captured the hearts and minds of my community when I put this idea forward and already two private investors have come forward, so this is something we need to just get going on. It is not a lot of money that the council needs to look at master planning in that area and doing some consultation in the community to work out what exactly we need for that region, but it is something I hope this government will assist to support the growth and development in our local region.

There were other great announcements that support our community, around unlocking commercial land and building the Stony Creek Bridge in Halls Gap, and new clubrooms and a community pavilion at Nhill’s Davis Park—and can I at this point just recognise and thank the marvellous late Glenn Meek for his amazing commitment to Nhill and to that park and making it amazing. If there is no other reason we need to get Nhill’s Davis Park upgraded, let us do it in memory of Glenn, because gee, he was a good fella and it is awful that we have lost him.

Whether it is about the refurbishment of Longerenong College’s agribusiness centre or whether it is stage 2 of the Hamilton CFA-EMV airbase, we need all of these things in my electorate. We also made a great commitment to fix country roads and save country lives. Let us look at building better roads and look at being smarter about how we build roads which are actually made to stand the test of time and be built to last through the type of transport that we have in our region.

Let us bring back passenger rail to Horsham and Hamilton. We are the only electorate in Victoria that does not have any passenger rail services whatsoever. We do have the Overland train. There is a constant question mark about it and it is more of a tourist train but there are people, particularly in the west of my electorate, who rely on the Overland to commute to medical appointments in Melbourne. I really would like to see a huge investment in how we can have better connectivity between our part of the state and those bigger centres, whether Ballarat or through to Melbourne. We need to be connected and we deserve better around that.

We also had good announcements around how we can provide better connections, particularly around enhancing reimbursement rates for the Victorian Patient Transport Assistance Scheme. I think that was very important. It is something that I get a lot of complaints around, just the sheer expense of having to go to medical appointments out of town. We need to look at how we can get decent policy to support people in country areas. It is different to being in the city. We need to see an extension to the kangaroo pet food trial——and in fact it should be made permanent. We need to see a change of heart from the Andrews Labor government around the centralised government banking concept, where any government body has to centralise their funds in a Westpac bank account in Sydney. It is hitting our community banks particularly hard, and our communities are losing an enormous amount of funding as a result of this banking decision. There is the management of native vegetation and the locking up of our national parks, and the ridiculous decision to shut down rock climbing in the Grampians, which is just absolutely crazy and needs to be reversed. There is a pathway we can take where we can respect the environment, we can respect local Indigenous history and sites of cultural significance and we can support our amazing tourism industry and small businesses which rely on rock climbing.

We have so many opportunities here, but I do want to see one thing from the Andrews Labor government. We live a successful life beyond Melbourne. We may be a long way away, but we should not be forgotten. I urge the Andrews Labor government to put us first at some point in time.

 Ms HENNESSY (Altona—Attorney-General, Minister for Workplace Safety) (16:40): I rise to make a couple of brief comments on the address-in-reply, and of course this serves as an opportunity for us to reflect upon the Governor’s speech and the fantastic election result. One of my colleagues just advised me that today is in fact the International Day of Happiness. We can sometimes lose the love when we are in Parliament, and so it is in that spirit that I shall make a very brief contribution.

The member for Lowan makes a very important point, that we can have happiness even if there is not too much love in the joint—and I will take up that sentiment. I would like to briefly reflect upon some of the important things that have occurred in my local electorate over the last four years. Labor’s investment in infrastructure has been incredibly important. There have been over 31 000 new jobs generated in the western suburbs, and that has been very important, given the incredible levels of population growth. We are investing in skills and education. Wyndham Tech School opened, and the investment in free TAFE has been very important for our local community. We have seen over 13 000 students take up opportunities at Wyndham TAFE as well. We have made investments in local roads. The outer suburban western roads project—a $1.8 billion project—is very important. That is not to say that any of the local representatives in the western suburbs will take their foot off the accelerator when it comes to advocating for ongoing investment. That is something that my community expects of me.

Investments in things like the West Gate Tunnel will be important because they will improve commuter times as well as generating 6000 jobs. I was very proud to know that we have finally got some direct services back on the Altona loop for my local community. But investing in local roads and rail and improving bus services are certainly very big priorities for my local community. There is the $85 million Werribee Mercy Hospital expansion, again a very important project that I am very proud of. The $200 million Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital Project is very important when it comes to local health services, and I was determined to not stop being the Victorian health minister until we secured the investment and commitment for the redevelopment of Footscray Hospital. I am delighted that the $1.5 billion investment in that important piece of infrastructure was a commitment that our government made in the prelude to the last election, and I am very proud of that.

During the election campaign other commitments were made. There was the expansion of Altona College, another very important education facility; building a new community hospital in Point Cook; and the second stage of Saltwater P–9 College. We have committed to provide assistance for boaters and fishers—and we have fantastic coastal facilities in Altona, right across the west in fact. We do not like to brag about them because we like to keep them secret, but boating and fishing are very important in my electorate as well. There will be a new car park for Aircraft station, which will increase the number of car parks there, That is very important as we see great growth in the outer suburbs. We need to encourage people. We need to actually make it possible for people to be able to access those train lines. Expanding the car park is an important part of that, but as I said, I will be continuing to advocate for increased investment in additional bus services and additional train services.

Our multicultural community is a very important part of our local community in the west. We were delighted, as were my other western suburb MPs, to make commitments to funding and providing support to Holi and Diwali festivals in the west and to be able to support all of our local Indian communities and cultural leaders to that end.

Following the election we saw some changes in the ministerial line-up. I would like to use this opportunity to express my very deep thanks to all of those I worked with whilst I was the Minister for Health, in particular all the staff from the Department of Health and Human Services. I was a demanding minister of my bureaucracy, and together we managed not just to turn around things like poor elective surgery results, get the best ambulance response times and the biggest capital injection across the state but we also tackled very challenging issues like medical treatment decisions, assisted dying, getting safe access zones in place, reforms around assisted reproductive technology and getting quality and safety reforms in place arising out of some of the horrific findings into the Djerriwarrh hospital incident. We supported our nurses; we put in place nurse-patient ratios for the first time in this state. We legalised medicinal cannabis and we supported medical research. Many of those things were only made possible because of the support of the workforce and the very hard work of the people from the Department of Health and Human Services, and I doff my hat to them with the greatest of respect and gratitude. I know that they will continue to work hard supporting my friend Jenny Mikakos, who will do a spectacular job as the Minister for Health and Minister for Ambulance Services.

I would like to acknowledge the former Attorney-General, the member for Keysborough. They are indeed big shoes that I have to fill in my new role as the Attorney-General. I am very focused on the election commitments we have made in respect of workplace manslaughter and wage theft. Ensuring that we increase the accessibility of justice for all Victorians is very much part of my priority over the coming years, as well as ensuring that victims are given much greater sensitivity and inclusion in the criminal justice process. There is much work to be done.

Campaigns are not won by any one individual. They are won by teams, and I had a very competent and wonderful team in my corner in Altona. In particular I would like to thank Craig Mayo, Maryam, Vinayak, Rachael and Gaye, Lori and Jason, the McPhersons, Ed, Carl Marsich, Paddy, Akira, Punita, Sara and Nat, Corneilius, Jack Hollowell, Elleni, Charlie Volpe, Gary Coglan—a very passionate Western Bulldogs supporter— Greg Buliffe and the exceptional John and the entire Ballestrino family. I thank my electorate team: Helen, Memphis, Emma and Josh, and John as well—and all of the wonderful volunteers that supported us, of course. I also want to acknowledge my staff who worked for me as the Minister for Health and Minister for Ambulance Services in the political office. Many of those have taken the great risk in life by coming along and following me to the justice department. Some have stayed working in health and some have decided, very wisely perhaps, to go and get a life. It is very, very difficult to sustain life working in political environments and I want to express my deep gratitude and thanks to them.

I would like to acknowledge the incredible team who worked on the Labor campaign. People have called out Sam, Kosmos and Stephen and also Lissie, the Premier’s chief of staff. They led an extraordinary team that was supported by volunteers, members and supporters right across this state in an election result that I think we have every right to feel extraordinarily proud of. We also need to ensure that we feel very humbled by that result and we will continue to be focused on delivering on our election commitments and rising to the challenges that we have not planned for over the next four years.

In conclusion, I would like to also just acknowledge my wonderful family who endure my political life. They have been a fantastic source of support. Election year means different things to different people. For candidates and MPs it means working tirelessly but for children it means sometimes getting the disappointing news that your mum or your dad are not able to make things. So I would like to really thank my beautiful children, Lily and Ginger, for their support and their indulgence. Thank you to my lovely husband, Bernie—again, a person who endures my political life rather than a person who is a champion of it. Ultimately, keeping households running is such an incredibly important role of partners of politicians. Irrespective of what your political colour is, I think for partners, children, other family members and supporters of politicians we ought to get down on our hands and knees and worship the ground they walk on, because they endure all of the costs and consequences of political life. I pay my family my respects very, very deeply and with great love and appreciation. There is also to my extended family, who come out and support my political activities on election and who forgive me.

There are my beautiful girlfriends as well, particularly Donna, Marlene, Georgina and Suzette. They have been my best friends from school time and continue to be. They are my civilians who ensure that I keep myself very, very engaged in what ordinary people care about. Again, I thank them for indulging the negligence as my friends as being funny and fun. Again I would like to just place my love and appreciation of them formally on the record.

Finally, Maria and Frankie. Maria is my very large pussy cat and Frankie is my very gorgeous border collie.

Ms Kairouz interjected.

Ms HENNESSY: She is indeed beautiful. Again, they are very important parts of my family. They too have endured neglect. I am very grateful for the fact that when you come home from work, even when it is late at night and the rest of the family is to bed, they are still an enthusiastic couple with wet noses ready to give you love and a bit of affection as well.

With those informal and perhaps slightly inappropriate acknowledgements, I would like to also acknowledge and express my appreciation and thanks to all of those who have made such spectacular inaugural speeches. They have been breathtaking from, as I said, people right across the chamber. It does make me reflect upon the fact that the future of this Parliament is in good hands. What I have been particularly moved by has been the power of the personal stories that many people generously shared. I hope we can remember the respect that we have felt and that those stories have engendered throughout what will be some inevitably very contested times in this Parliament. I wish everybody well and thank the Governor for her speech and I thank the chamber for the opportunity to comment on it briefly.

 Mr TILLEY (Benambra) (16:51): Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution to the address-in-reply to the Governor’s speech. As we have heard from parliamentary colleagues over a number of weeks since the Governor gave her speech, it is an extraordinary privilege to be able to serve our respective electoral districts in this great state of Victoria, no matter where they are, whether they be suburban, regional or more remote parts of our state. We all come to this place with significant passion and drive to do the very best for our respective districts. I would like to congratulate each and every person on their respective election success. I congratulate those who are new to this Legislative Assembly and wish them all the very best. We will see what the future has for all of us. I congratulate those who are returning to carry on the work that they do for their respective communities.

More important than talking about ourselves is talking about the people in our districts. For Benambra, it is about the 44 000 people who lodged their vote, whether it was at pre-poll, by postal vote or on polling day. I thank each and every person who lodged their vote regardless of who they voted for. They did take that very important step of making their vote count. In my case it was to my benefit, to continue serving the Benambra district. I thank everybody, I really do. It was not like the election for the 56th, 57th or 58th Parliament for me. There was a significant amount of bark taken off and the primary vote was significantly reduced, down to around 40 per cent. It took a number of days to count the vote. The traditional two-party preferred was not the Liberal Party and Labor. It was a count between the Independent and the incumbent, so it took a little bit more time. I appreciate that. There was a little bit of excitement, colour and movement during those days and talk of what the likely outcome was going to be. It was fascinating to watch. Throughout my service and in my working career people watching has been a fascinating pastime. I certainly enjoy watching people’s reactions to a whole range of things.

Anyway, that is now going back to November of last year. Parliament is back and now it is time to knuckle down and do the important work that we do as legislators for the betterment of the state of Victoria. We may not agree on everything. We may agree on some things and we may oppose others. The important thing is our Westminster system. It is not perfect but it has to be robust. Hopefully we will have the best outcomes that we can achieve as legislators for this great state of ours.

I will talk about the electorate. Those who have not been there need to take the time out and enjoy the great parts of the Benambra district, including the local council area of Indigo, which is very rich in its original gold rush and goldmining history. There is no goldmining there nowadays but it is very rich throughout. You can see history in Beechworth or Chiltern and certainly in Rutherglen, where there are still original what I suppose you would call relics of the past. Certainly you cannot touch the very ground where our forefathers—

Mr Wells interjected.

Mr TILLEY: Yes, Tony Plowman moved out. He has gone down to the coast. I thank him for his service once again.

Talking about Beechworth and Rutherglen, it is a very rich and diverse area. Yackandandah is very rich in the history of chasing alluvial gold up Twist Creek to the top. The Cornish miners probably sent a number of coffins back to England. If you look at the history there, they weighed something like nearly a ton and a half. I cannot remember ever putting a body or a body bag into a coffin that weighed a ton and a half, but anyway the history is fascinating. It is worth taking the time out to look at the rich and diverse history in those original gold areas.

Tourism is a very big part of the region and it is a very important part. More work needs to be done, particularly through some significant promises and commitments that have been made by the current government. It needs to deliver on those. You cannot keep drawing it out week after week with false starts a number of times and repeat announcements. The people who live and choose to reside there and raise their families and work in the Benambra district by and large, probably 90 per cent of them—in my view and they share that view—are just battlers, people just trying to raise their families and get by. You see, the divide between country and city dwellers is that we have a fantastic lifestyle, but it costs to have that lifestyle. It is no different to those that live in suburban Melbourne. The thing is we like to have our campervan, we like to have our tents, we like to have our four-wheel drive—

A member interjected.

Mr TILLEY: You have probably seen it in the car park; I am unashamedly now driving a Ford Mustang. I paid for that and make a significant contribution of my own to run that. For me, and I will put this on the record, what little five-year-old boy does not want to be a soldier, want to be a fireman, want to be a policeman and own a Ford Mustang. Well, I have nailed all four in my life, and I am very happy to have nailed all those things. I do not know what five-year-old boy actually puts on his bucket list that he wants to be a politician, but that is a whole other thing.

Let us go back to the election again—I am switching around the place in a very short time. I caught up after the election with your old mate, the ALP candidate Mark Tait, a CFMMEU organiser. Mark carried his team there, and I thank him. I acknowledge the way the Victorian Trades Hall Council and others who turned up to support the ALP during the campaign, particularly at pre-poll, behaved there, and likewise for the candidate from the Shooters and Fishers, Josh Knight, who is a terrific fellow. He works hard. He has a young family, and I continue to see him around the town quite a bit. He is a really smart young guy. He is a terrific bloke. We extended invitations and caught up at the pub after the election. We extended invitations to all the candidates. Unfortunately I do not think the Greens candidate accepted the invitation. In fact I do not think he has been out of Prahran—anyway, we never saw him up there during the campaign, and he probably scored the appropriate number of runs on the board. As I said, there were a couple of candidates that were invited but certainly did not take up the offer to join us for a meal and a couple of cool bevvies, a couple of frothies, down at the pub. That is not surprising at all.

The funny thing we are seeing not only in the state of Victoria but right across the nation—no doubt we will probably see a bit of this at the next federal election—is the rise of Independents. We certainly saw in the last election the Benambra Independents. It is a bit of a movement off the back of something; I do not know exactly what it is.

What I really want to say is that during that campaign there were claims of there being grassroots campaigns. There was nothing more grassroots than what I saw on the ground, not only from the ALP but from all over—they were all locals, apart from the blokes that came down from Canberra and the blokes that came up from Melbourne to help out, but they are the union boys. But when I am talking about grassroots campaigning, there was nothing more grassroots than the team and supporters that supported me and have supported me in previous elections. They are not lords or dames or silver-spooners; they are just good hardworking local people. They are not necessarily members of the Liberal Party. They are just good solid citizens who volunteer and provide me with all their support, trust and confidence to keep serving them in this Parliament. I do not even know how a lot of us even express it in words, but the trust and confidence they give us to serve our respective communities is very humbling. It is extraordinary. One of these days I might be able to put it into words, but anyway, we will work that out. They are certainly not landed gentry.

I have not spoken to the family but I want to take this opportunity to highlight one of the examples of our growing regional setting on the border of New South Wales and Victoria and acknowledge the passing last week of Garry Wolter. Garry Wolter served the nation in the air force. He had a lot of stories. I do not know what his politics were necessarily. I do not know how he voted over the years, but I had a close personal relationship with the entire Wolter family. Garry unfortunately passed away last week. From all accounts he was out mowing the lawn and went back up to the garage, and they later found him in the garage. But more importantly he was the patriarch of a great local family and a great local small business that has grown. There has been succession planning, and it has now gone on to the two boys, Adrian and Nathan, not forgetting of course their sister, Amber, and the matriarch of that family, Marlene. It is just an incredible example of a family. I do put on the record that I apologise to the family for not contacting and speaking to them. It is just so important. They are intrinsically just so much a part of the grassroots family that makes up the Benambra district.

I am extremely and extraordinarily proud to have been in their company—the fun we have had, the stories we have shared, even the political banter from time to time. These are the sorts of families that fear no man and will belt you whichever way it comes. Garry’s service will be on Friday, which I will be attending, but it is extremely sad. I am pretty confident that there are going to be quite a number of people attending that service, but no doubt the eulogies will be better served coming from his family, his friends and his associates in the community. He now rests in peace. It is sad. He passed away too early, way too early. I thank Garry for his association and friendship and for my ongoing friendship with his extended family. It is a large family. There are grandkids, too many to mention, and certainly the wives of Adrian and Nathan—I do not want to be namedropping—and also Amber. But it is just so important to mention that, and I will talk to them on Friday and apologise for using this place to make mention of a great Victorian, a great Australian, that served not only his business but his family. It was just time, and life has to go on.

There were a number of commitments for the Benambra district. Yes, they were my commitments—they were the Liberal Party’s commitments. Some of them are crossing over from a number of parliaments, but I have taken the opportunity on behalf of the Benambra district to write to the responsible ministers that were sworn into the now cabinet. Some of these plans, these visions, are not that of the local council. They are truly the visions and aspirations of the community, of the people who choose to live up there. They are not necessarily big-dollar items. Let us not forget that you guys have got a lot of hungry mouths to feed out there, so it is going be a very competitive market, and I tell you what, the way you are spending money, there is not going to be a lot of it to go around. So please do not forget rural Victoria and please consider us. I look forward to the challenges of working with the government where we can so that we are not forgotten, even though you will hear the catchcry that the government stops governing at the end of the tram tracks of Melbourne and at Craigieburn. Anyway, we will not go on about that terribly a lot. With education, we just want to educate our kids. Yes, we both made a commitment to Beechworth Secondary College. That issue has been going on for probably about eight years, and we both committed to it. I will be watching the government and expecting and hoping for the sake of the community that want to educate their kids that the Beechworth Secondary College project really starts advancing. I will even take this opportunity to thank my colleague Jaclyn Symes in the other place. She worked very hard on that. I look forward to working with her now she has made the cabinet and in her portfolios of regional development and agriculture, which are two very important portfolios. I ask the Treasurer to make sure that the government puts some money into those portfolios.

My 15-minute contribution is going very quickly. Significantly there are major projects on roads. I will watch with interest what the government’s position will now be for the Country Fire Authority. I appreciate that the Liberal Party’s results in Victoria have probably given a whole new definition to what it means to be boned, but in this place please consider all the volunteers. There are about 63 stations in the Benambra district with great expectations and hopes for an outcome that will not trash what is a great organisation. I was away a couple of weeks ago, but I was only one of a couple of thousand men and women voluntarily serving this great state. My time is up. Let us fight on for the future.

 Mr DONNELLAN (Narre Warren North—Minister for Child Protection, Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers) (17:06): It was an honour to be re-elected at the last election to represent Narre Warren North. It is a great privilege to represent such a marvellous, diverse and beautiful community. I am very honoured to have been re-elected for the fourth time.

I just want to say a few thankyous more than anything else to a whole lot of people who did a whole lot of doorknocking, made a whole lot of phone calls and did a lot of time on the polling booths. I want to acknowledge people like Rex Ashenden; Morshed Chowdhury; Richard Dabrowski; Helen Donnellan, my mother, who is always a very aggressive fighter on the polling booths; Declan Foley; Lalith Silwa, who was there many nights after his long days at work; Javad Khan; Zoran Kovacic; Brian Miller; Brian Oates; David Parr; Keith Pimblett; Thorwald Phillip; MaryAnn Spencer; Doug Wilkinson; Declan Williams; and Radenko Mihailovic—the late Radenko, a beautiful person who passed away in between the election and just recently. Also, Prabodh Perera, Carlos Loyola and staff from my office like Kieran, Drew, Sandra, Jonathon and Ben, who took time off to come down and campaign. I am sure there are some people I have missed in that acknowledgement, so I apologise.

There were also many people who generously gave to my campaign and I would like to acknowledge them because without doing the fundraising it is a bit difficult to get out in the field and do the things you need to do to ensure you win. It was a good campaign. The polling booth was fun. It was a bit like a holy crusade. We had many and various people who thought it was a holy crusade, including the Liberal candidate, but we slayed them along the way and we got up, so that was very satisfying.

I really want to talk about what happened in the last four years in various portfolios and then about what I am looking forward to both locally and as a minister. Over the last four years in terms of roads, it has never been as large. If we look at the west, there is the $1.8 billion going to upgrade roads there, which is beginning. Dohertys Road was the first road, and it has already started. If we look at the north, there is the $1 billion package which is going in under a public-private partnership, or if we look at the south-east and specifically at my area, we see the Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road in Pakenham South which is being upgraded and Lathams Road, Hallam North Road, Narre-Cranbourne Road and Pound Road West. That is a $1.2 billion exercise. It is the biggest investment in outer suburban roads that has ever been undertaken by any government, full stop.

We have got over $4 billion being spent on the building of outer suburban roads. We know that we have had a 50 per cent growth in volumes of cars in the outer suburbs, and very much what this government did over the last four years was address those issues head-on. I think what you will find in future years is that there will be greater ease and greater capacity for the community in the outer suburbs to get to employment zones and the like because these roads are going to be fit for purpose.

You have only got to look at regional and rural Victoria and at the record investments we made there. If you look at the total figures over the four years that the Andrews government was in and compare that to the four years prior, there was an uplift of about $450 million in maintenance alone. That is separate from the approximately $940 million we announced in last year’s budget, which included substantial increases in maintenance but also substantial increases in capital upgrades across the state. You have only got to look at things like the Midland Highway where there was an extra two to three passing lanes put in to make that link between Geelong and Ballarat so much safer. I know those road upgrades were very much welcomed.

Obviously we have a commitment to continue those upgrades in the outer suburbs, which the government is presently working on in terms of design, funding and the like. That work, as I was saying, has already started in the west, but we will move on to the south-east and the north over the coming months. I notice the member for Yuroke has a smile on her face, because she has $1.2 billion worth of road funding coming her way very soon. She is a good hustler locally to get that—a determined hustler, to put it mildly. In terms of roads, it was a very good four years with record investment. There is no doubt that it was a record investment.

But look at the work done by previous ministers in the last four years in the roles I have presently, whether it be child protection or disability. Look at the work that the Minister for Mental Health did in relation to taking on the commonwealth in relation to the issues with the national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) in terms of transparent pricing for services. This is an area that he pushed very heavily and it is an area which more than anywhere else will impact directly upon regional and rural Victoria. If you do not have the pricing right for your NDIS, you will simply not get a market developed in those areas. That is something we will continue to fight for.

We have not signed up to the NDIS yet because we do not believe it is in the form that we committed to delivering to our community. Further, we have only got about 50 per cent of the people we expect to actually be in the NDIS currently within the system. There are various issues in relation to complex cases which the minister took up in terms of trials. The federal government is currently running a trial in relation to complex cases such as people with dementia and the like. We are running a trial in the outer suburbs of the west but the problem is that there is still not a program to roll out across the whole state so we can actually deal with complex cases. I congratulate the minister for the work he did on disability and the NDIS, and that is work I will continue to work on with the commonwealth to get better outcomes.

I also want to acknowledge the marvellous work that Jenny Mikakos did in relation to delivering the Roadmap to Reform. That is very much about trying to get in early before we have people entering the child protection system. That is working with families so we do not have kids entering the child protection system. Let me put it very bluntly: we have really got to stop feeding the youth justice system potentially with people out of child protection. What we are finding is that 60 per cent of people in the youth justice system have had engagement at one period or another with child protection. That is simply not sustainable in the long run—to actually feed from youth justice into the jail system. So the work that Jenny started and I know the Minister for Corrections will be doing in relation to youth justice is to get in early to ensure we support these families and ensure they have the capacity to provide a loving and welcoming environment for their children more than anything else, and then as a state government we will provide the skills and the support to get better outcomes for our community. That will very much stop feeding the member for Niddrie’s work and starve him of clients, I guess. I think the member for Niddrie would be very happy to be starved of clients in the youth justice system, and that is very much where we need to do that work.

But if you look at the figures, there has been a 69 per cent increase in expenditure for family and children’s services, and I very much give Minister Jenny Mikakos credit for that. She did a marvellous job. There have been 610 new child protection officers over the last four years. Again, they are very much needed because what we are finding is that we have got frequent re-presentations in the child protection system. About 60 per cent of clients have been presented again. We need to be able to make these assessments more thoroughly and do a greater deep dive before we actually bring people into the system. The problem with having people assessed twice is that you really should just be doing that job once. What we found is there is greater support for child protection officers, and they need that support to actually have the time to make those decisions.

What has been very much occurring is a greater focus on the use of kinship care in child protection, which we have put substantial funds into. Kinship carers actually represent about 71 per cent of carers in the system now, and we are finding that that definitely provides better outcomes than residential care, which is difficult. Jenny has substantially reduced the number of children in residential care to approximately 400, and I intend to continue doing that. But it is about actually supporting the kinship carers so that they can deal with sometimes very complex relationships. Frequently it will be a grandmother taking care of a grandchild with a family member in the middle of that. That is not an easy thing to deal with. That is not an easy relationship to move through, but that is why we need to look at supporting those kinship carers, and that was actually done under the last government.

In terms of residential care we have also introduced Home Stretch, which again provides support for people from 18 to 21 years of age. What we have found is that many people end up homeless in the youth justice system, and that is just simply not acceptable because we are not providing the support they absolutely need.

In terms of ageing, there is enormous work being done in that space as well. Various commitments have been made. I was actually out at St George’s Hospital in Kew the other day. We are building a 90-bed public sector residential aged-care facility. That is going very well, with allied health services beside it. It is a seamless transition for people who are in aged care to actually receive the services they need right next door. That is in partnership with St George’s Hospital, and it is very much one that St George’s Hospital welcomes and that the state government welcomes.

We know that we have given an absolute commitment to keep our aged-care services. We have 76 per cent of the public sector aged-care services in the country now, because every other state has abandoned aged care or never actually provided it in the first place. A couple of elections ago, I think it was in 2014, we as a government made an absolute commitment to keep our public sector aged-care beds, because they are for the people less well off in terms of income but also for the most complicated cases. So we as a state government more than anything else will be providing those services people need for the less well off and the more complex cases, and that is why we have made the commitment to build that extra facility at St George’s Hospital.

Next we are also looking at a public sector aged-care facility in Wantirna to ensure that the Angliss Hospital can actually have that extra space for the hospital services they need. We will also provide an extra 120 beds to provide the services that are needed. We have also made a commitment to provide an enormous number of extra hours of respite care. I think it was 100 000 extra hours of respite care for the carers in our community, whether they be caring for a child, a parent or the like. Carers are incredibly generous people. They give their time. They are not paid for their work a lot of the time, but we need to recognise that they need support to actually be able to continue doing that work, because of the massive contribution they make to caring for those people in our community. That was a commitment we made at the election, and I will be following that through with great passion, because I know how much those carers provide to our community. If we actually had to provide for and fund that, we would be in a very difficult situation.

In terms of my local community there are some exciting things happening. I am waiting to look at this budget. We have got a commitment of $500 000 to actually help the Narre Warren Bowls Club. That is a beautiful bowls club. It is a club that welcomes people from far and wide. I was actually there the other night, and they were having an emergency services challenge. They set up the emergency services challenge between the local emergency services. That was their way of saying thank you to the community for the work that the emergency services people do. Further, I am there to support them in their endeavours for how they support the community. It is a very successful bowls club, written up in the various publications for bowls. What we are looking at doing, very much like what they have in Queensland, is getting a roof put up over the bowls club so they can play late into the evening and continue to provide that opportunity for people to socialise and play sport together. I am very much looking forward to that.

There are various other upgrades I am expecting on roads and the like, but there is also the upgrade which is occurring presently in the emergency department of the Casey Hospital. I am excited to see when that finishes. That is a major service in our local community. For many years the local emergency service was very much provided down at Dandenong, but as the Casey Hospital has grown and the demands on the hospitals have grown, Casey has had to obviously expand its emergency services and provide those services for Casey, Cardinia and beyond.

There is a lot to be done. I am very excited about being re-elected again. I am very much looking forward to the work that I wanted to do, and I very much want to continue the work for my local community so that they have better outcomes and better services.

 Ms SPENCE (Yuroke) (17:21): I am very pleased to make a contribution to the address-in-reply to the Governor’s speech. At the outset I want to congratulate all the members who have been re-elected, but in particular I want to congratulate the new members and wish them all the very best for the four years ahead.

I have listened to all of the inaugural speeches that have been made, and I am inspired, I am impressed and I am excited to be working with the many new members of the government in this place. The future is certainly very bright. To that end, I am extremely pleased to be standing here as the re-elected member for Yuroke. It is certainly a great honour and one that I take very seriously. I am very humbled by it.

I am also very excited about this term of government and building upon the achievements of the previous term. I look forward to watching the progress of our existing projects locally that the community is very much looking forward to seeing the completion of. These include the long-awaited duplication of Craigieburn Road, including the signalisation of some very busy and dangerous intersections, flexible barriers and shared walking and cycling paths. This massive project will reduce congestion and travel times for more than 28 000 drivers who rely on this road, and it will boost safety for all road users.

The construction of an additional car park for Craigieburn railway station will provide around 700 new spaces. With the current car park full well before 7.00 a.m., this is a vitally important project. Regarding the opening of the new secondary school in Craigieburn South, it was terrific to turn the first sod on this project last week, and I look forward to seeing this construction progress throughout this year and the school opening for term 1 next year.

The new Craigieburn CFA station will provide an expanded and improved home to our terrific local firefighters. Other projects include the delivery of a new Craigieburn ambulance station, the new Craigieburn North State Emergency Service facility and the commencement later this year of the new Mickleham-Kalkallo to Craigieburn bus service that will improve public transport and give an option to residents in these growing estates to the north.

I look forward to seeing a retired W-class tram begin a new life as a learning space at Our Lady’s Catholic Primary School. And I look forward to seeing the completion of projects where we have partnered with Hume City Council: the Craigieburn splash park near Livvi's Place in Anzac Park, which will give families an opportunity for outdoor water play; the Craigieburn softball centre is the first of its kind in the Hume municipality; the all-abilities play space and barbeque area near the Hume Tennis & Community Centre; the soon-to-be-opened pavilion at the Aston recreation reserve as well as the new pavilion at Arena recreation reserve; the Aitken Hill integrated community centre, next door to the recently opened and incredibly impressive new Aitken Hill Primary School; the Merrifield West northern community hub with three preschool rooms and five maternal and child health or specialist consulting rooms as well as multipurpose rooms and community spaces—this hub has been supersized and it will need to be to cater for the rapid growth in Australia's fastest growing suburb; the Kalkallo kindergarten with 33 kindergarten spaces for families in this growing community to the north; and the Cloverton South community hub, with preschool services and community meeting spaces in Kalkallo.

The Greenvale West Integrated Children’s Centre will have maternal and child health services, a multipurpose space and an activities room for playgroups. I look forward to seeing the new pavilion for the Greenvale Equestrian Centre that will include changing facilities and office and storage space. There are many projects underway, as members can see, in partnership with the Hume City Council, and I thank them for their continued work and their advocacy for our growing community.

As well as all that we have got underway, I am also thrilled that we will deliver on the commitments that we made prior to the election. The Craigieburn community hospital will take pressure off the Northern Hospital and provide a whole new level of confidence to families, who will know that this means health care much closer to home. The new hospital will include pharmacy services, women’s health, paediatric care, public dental services, day surgery, day chemotherapy, rehabilitation support and family violence and crisis support services. Families will also be able to access alcohol and drug services and social support services. This is an exciting project, and I look forward to working with the community as chair of the Craigieburn community hospital consultative committee.

I am also thrilled that our commitment to new schools continues with the previously mentioned Craigieburn South secondary college to open next year. This is to be followed by Merrifield West Primary School and Greenvale North West Primary School, which are set to open in 2021; and Kalkallo Common Primary School and the long-awaited Greenvale Secondary School to open in term 1 in 2022. When the minister came to announce these schools he could see how ecstatic the Greenvale community was at the prospect of this secondary school project finally coming to fruition, and I cannot wait for it to open. In fact Mr Ondarchie in the other place was saying at the early voting centre that we would not deliver on this commitment, so not only do I look forward to the school opening but I also hope that it will be a polling place where we can continue that little chat.

Speaking of polling places, I think it is also important to note my thanks to the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) staff both at the early polling place as well as the election day polling places. Sandra McGregor, the election manager for the Yuroke district, was very helpful and along with her team did a great job in challenging circumstances. There was certainly a lot of frustration with the location of the early polling place, and those frustrations ultimately were taken out on the VEC staff. That was not fair; they were just doing their job and they did not pick that location. It was in an industrial precinct which you had to drive to get to, and once you drove there there was nowhere to park, so there was a lot of frustration. My heart certainly went to the staff that copped the brunt of that, and I hope that next time a better effort is made to find appropriate locations. One thing for sure is that this did not deter the almost 19 000 electors, or more than a third of electors, who voted early in this election. It did not deter them, but it did frustrate them, so I do hope greater efforts are made.

I would also like to say a few words about my Liberal opponent in this election. I have known Jim Overend for many years and he is generally considered to be a pretty good bloke. Personally I think he may be the smartest Liberal candidate in the state. This is because Jim knew that the best way to get elected as a Liberal candidate was to pretend he was not a Liberal candidate. I kid you not, this is what he did. Jim’s campaign material was completely void of anything to do with Liberal branding. It was black and white—no blue. It was black on one side with his name. You had to search to find written in tiny little letters ‘Liberal for Yuroke’. You really had to look for that. I understand this was a condition of him standing for the party. He is certainly a smart man.

Jim campaigned in his black shirts, with ‘Jim’ written across the front and black branding on his material. At the pre-poll the how-to-vote material was black Jim-branded on one side and on the other side it had the former Opposition Leader and Liberal branding. This did not go down well with Jim’s campaign team, I can tell you. It did not go down well and Jim won that battle, so come election day the how-to-vote cards came out in full black on one side with ‘Jim’ and his other branding on the other side. Good on Jim. He knew what his technique had to be. He was determined to make sure that people did not associate him with the Liberal Party—that was his best chance of success. But unfortunately for Jim, the then Leader of the Opposition blew his cover on a couple of occasions: he visited Yuroke three times in two weeks, drawing attention to Jim being the Liberal candidate and undermining his ‘Liberal not Liberal’ campaign technique.

I am sure others will have their own views as to whether or not the then Leader of the Opposition visiting Yuroke three times in two weeks during an election campaign was a good use of time, but personally I think it was terrific and it was great to have him there. The results do speak for themselves, and while I was amused by Jim’s campaign, I do thank him for the way that he and most of his campaign team conducted themselves throughout the election. The reality is that Jim was up against a history where the Liberals did absolutely nothing for Yuroke from 2010 to 2014, and voters remembered that. The Andrews Labor government played catch-up over the four years following that Liberal neglect, and the voters knew it—the voters knew that they had been neglected. They remembered that and not only did they not want to go back to those years of inaction but they really could not afford to.

As you know, Acting Speaker Suleyman, the area I represent is experiencing rapid growth, and voters simply could not afford to take the risk that the good work that Labor was doing would come to a halt under the Liberals. I have spoken about the ongoing works that are currently underway in Yuroke and the upcoming works. This is no doubt an exciting agenda, and the voters have endorsed that program.

In conclusion, I would like to thank those who helped during the campaign. Firstly to my family, my husband, Kosmos, and my son, Adam: I thank them both for their ongoing support. Given that all three of us are involved in politics, election season can be fairly hectic around our place and there is a general understanding throughout the campaign that we will all catch up some time in December. Whilst we have all got each other’s backs throughout the campaign and we know that we are all there supporting one another, the reality is we see each other when it is all over and share stories at that point.

The other important members of the household—everyone has heard about our massive tribe of black cats, Marvin and Minx and Maximus and M—the biggest duty during an election campaign is to make sure that whoever actually gets home at a decent hour feeds the cats. That is the one thing that we are all very committed to. When we are not campaigning we are making sure that that tribe is fed, and they reward us by not being terribly, horribly behaved towards us in that period.

To Paul, Ryan, Justin, Alicia, Josh S, Josh P, Gursewak, Ravinder, Deepak, the Pastras family, Peter, Chandra, Drew, Upul, Walid, Joseph and Anthony, and everyone else that was involved in the campaign, I say a huge thank you. Whether it was helping out at pre-poll, being a booth captain or a helper on election day, coming to markets and street stalls, doorknocking or even hosting a sign at your property, your assistance and support was greatly appreciated and you all played a vital role in this result.

To all the residents that I represent in Yuroke, I am incredibly grateful that I have been given this opportunity again. I will continue to work with you and for you to improve our community, to deliver the many projects that we have underway and to deliver on the commitments that we made prior to the election. I am proud to do this as a member of this Andrews Labor government.

 Mr CARROLL (Niddrie—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support) (17:33): It is my privilege to rise and contribute to the address-in-reply as the returned member for the electorate of Niddrie. It feels like yesterday that I was sworn in after the by-election back in 2012. It is a privilege to represent the community you have been a part of essentially for all your life. To grow up in a community and to attend kindergarten, primary school and secondary school and to get your first job there—these are all privileges that I hold dear. After the last election it was a wonderful privilege to be sworn in by the most progressive leader in Australia, our Premier, and to feel the support of my colleagues as the Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice and Minister for Victim Support.

I want to begin by highlighting what we are doing in the Niddrie electorate. When I came to office back in 2012 I said in my inaugural speech, and I quote:

… I have set myself clear priorities. Any conversation about opportunity must include education, the most fundamental building block to success. Niddrie is blessed with a great network of schools; however, some are in urgent need of attention. It is difficult to inspire students on the relevance and importance of education when the school around them is falling down. My immediate task is the implementation of the Essendon Keilor College master plan.

Well, last Friday I had the very great honour of opening the brand-new science, technology, engineering and maths facility at Essendon Keilor College. This was a project that was essentially 10 years in the making, and thanks to the Andrews Labor government—and in particular the man that is building the Education State, the Deputy Premier—we opened that facility. I am very proud because it was essentially opened in my own backyard of Airport West. The former Niddrie High School, which closed many years ago, is now a beacon of what education and opportunity means. It is incredible what this will mean for future generations growing up in the north-west, who will be given the world’s best education right there in Airport West. It was not easy. We promised $10 million for this school back in 2010, and when I was elected in 2012 it was one of the biggest issues that came up for me whenever I walked down the street. We ended up having to bring a door in from the college, which we presented to the former Minister for Education, Martin Dixon, for him to do the advocacy. But when we came to office we delivered on it, and I thank both the Premier and Deputy Premier for that.

I am also proud that we are funding a major rebuild of Aberfeldie Primary School, Joan Kirner’s primary school. But the list goes on. There is funding for Keilor Primary School and also $7.6 million for the Western Autistic School in Niddrie, which the Premier came out to announce. There can be no more important role for government than how it treats people with disabilities and special needs. I knew this as employment minister, but I saw it firsthand at the Western Autistic School in Niddrie. Jeff Kennett sold off the school oval, and it is quite a small facility in Garnet Street, Niddrie. Then to come there and announce $7.6 million and see the faces on the parents who have kids with special needs, who have more stressors than you and I will probably ever understand, and to see how that is going to transform their lives and give those kids the very best level of education to go on and make something of themselves is something I am very proud of. I think in building the Education State there is no more important policy for us as local members of Parliament.

We also made some major transport reforms in the previous government. I want to give a shout-out to the member Essendon, because he led the charge and I was a very strong supporter of it, for the Buckley Street level crossing removal. That is transformational in my community. Everyone in the Niddrie electorate, from East Keilor to Avondale Heights and from Aberfeldie to Niddrie, goes through the Buckley Street level crossing. It is a significant project. We copped a lot of flak doing it, like we do on some of these projects, but we got it done and it is very significant that we got it done. Right throughout the pre-poll many people came up to me and said, ‘It feels like it’s always been done’.

But there was also $5 million to fix up the bottleneck at the Newman Street, Keilor Road and Grange Road intersection. There were a thousand signatures by local community members. I thank the Minister for Roads and Road Safety in the previous government and Kieran Barns-Jenkins as the ministerial adviser. This was a critical project. I probably had no better feedback than about this project at the pre-poll, and I am very proud of that. It is transformational for our community, as will be our funding commitments to fix up the dangerous intersection at Rosehill Road and Hoffmans Road and build a new science and technology centre at Rosehill Secondary College.

Probably one of my proudest achievements during the last term was that I became a father. You cannot choose when you become a minister, but I became a minister when our daughter was only six months old. To become a minister but also to replace someone who I deeply admire, Wade Noonan, and to follow in his footsteps to become the Minister for Industry and Employment was a special occasion. I am very proud of what we managed to achieve in my 12 months as minister. To become a minister 12 months out from an election you have got to hit the ground running, and I think we did that. But I am most proud as employment minister that I focused on people with disabilities and that we really used the leverage of the government’s procurement program to support ex auto workers and people with marginalised backgrounds to get work on government projects. The President in the upper house is very clear about this, as are the Premier and literally the whole cabinet: that for every dollar we spend, we make sure there is a social dividend.

On social dividends, I want to mention the member for Lara, who is the former sports minister and is in the chamber, because not only did he support my local sports clubs through coming out and making announcements but he also had a very good listening ear. Whether I was bringing in the local mayor to talk about the East Keilor Leisure Centre that we went on to build, doubling the size of the Keilor Basketball Netball Stadium, funding the Overland Reserve in East Keilor or female-friendly change rooms, these are all wonderful projects that I know the former sports minister should be very proud of having as a legacy in my local electorate.

I am privileged also to be the Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support and Minister for Crime Prevention. I am very keen, and I look forward to the challenges that these roles present. I am surrounded by some wonderful people, particularly the lead minister, the hardworking Attorney-General, who will be an outstanding Attorney-General, following in the member for Keysborough’s footsteps. I will also be working with the Minister for Police and Emergency Services as well as the Minister for Child Protection and the minister overseeing the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, which we know is an important area for my portfolios and is a real touchstone in making sure we address those criminogenic aspects but also the antisocial behaviour and the mental health aspects that we know lead so many people that need support down that marginalised path.

You cannot do this role without the support of some wonderful volunteers and a wonderful electorate office. In my electorate office I have got Jackie Foley, Emily Williams, Simon Frankland and Stefan Loukomitis. I have also had a range of volunteers over the years who have been a great support, including Davide Pantalone and Alex Nikolaou. I want to thank them because they are front and centre on busy Keilor Road, dealing with constituents day in, day out. They do an outstanding job. I think there can be no more important reflection when you are out at the supermarket or the street than when someone bails you up to say to you as a local MP, ‘Listen, you weren’t there when I came in, but your office helped me’, ‘You sorted out my issue with Telstra’ or ‘You helped me get the local tree trimmed’ or whatever it may be. Day in, day out, being on a busy shopping strip—Keilor Road—next to the post office and all the banks, my electorate office staff members work very hard, and I am proud of all of them. I want to thank Emily Williams, who does an outstanding job on my communications and in my newsletters. I think I am one of the luckiest and am most proud of my newsletters, because they hit the mark, they have almost replaced the local paper and they do a very good job in communicating what we are doing as a government and what we are doing to support the local community.

I want to thank my family—my wife, Fiona, and my daughter Madeleine. She is too young to know what is happening and what role Dad is playing, but one day she will be able to look back on it and see some magnificent photos out at Government House. I want to thank my mum and dad, who are also constituents of mine. I also want to acknowledge the candidates that ran against me at the last election. We got on very well at the pre-poll. There was Ben Reeson for the Liberal Party. I acknowledge the Greens candidate, Jean-Luke Desmaris, and Rebecca Primmer of the Animal Justice Party. We get along very well. They are three individuals that I hope do not give up on politics. I hope they pursue it, because they have very big careers in front of them if they choose to go down that path.

I also want to thank the Niddrie and Keilor East branch members that have supported me so strongly throughout the last four years. I could not have done this role without their support, and I thank them—from the booth captains to the scrutineers and all the volunteers. I want to thank the Bates family, Pat Anderson, Ray Rushbury, Adrian Grossi, Alex Nikolaou, Andrew Philippou, Ashley McInnes, Owen Virtue, Ashela Bright, Narelle Wiggan, Joshua Rose, Bec Spiteri, Caitlin MacFarlane, Ben Thomson, Davide Pantalone, Jackie Foley, Judy Maddigan, Julie Jones, Libby Williams, Rachel Rei, Robert Walters, Siobhan Loukomitis, Sue Hannaford and Tim Mayfield. I also thank the volunteers that helped on election day and pre-poll—Cath McDonald, Cathy Fasciale, Charlie Pandolfo, Gary and Jennie Rothville, Jake Carroll, Janice Eldridge, Ken Solomon, Kiera Williams, Lou Di Gregorio, Maria Cardillo, Martin Strebs, Maureen Crowley, Norm Chapman and Stephen McAteer—and also, for the signs throughout the community, Barbara Gleeson, Gavin MacDonald, Ness Conidi, Robert Alvares and Tony Kamitsis. I am also very lucky to be supported by a range of other people. I just thank them. They know who they are; they know how important they are to me.

As we go through the next term of government I am very keen—I think it is in the Labor Party’s DNA—to help some of our most marginalised community members. We do have gender equity in cabinet—50-50—and I was proud most recently as Minister for Corrections to spend my International Women’s Day out at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre to see firsthand the reforms this Labor government is making to support and assist women prisoners. We are rolling out a 70-bed mental health and wellbeing precinct at Dame Phyllis Frost. Victoria did not feature on the Four Corners program on women prisoners, and I do not know why, but it could be because we are doing a couple of things right in this area—focusing on mental health and making sure women have access to their children. But more than that, we are a government that is in the process of eliminating strip searches of women. In fact we will have reduced them from 20 000 to about 1000 a year through technology but also through some of the procedures and policies that we are implementing. I remember meeting Baroness Jean Corston, who reformed the women’s prison system in the UK. She said to me when I met her—I was lucky to meet her through the Reichstein Foundation—‘Always think, Ben, of women prisoners as being troubled, not troublesome’, and that is what they are. They are often victims of family violence, often have mental health issues and are often the breadwinner who is doing all sorts of things to try and keep the family unit together, which has led to their incarceration.

As minister I am very conscious of the growing number of women prisoners, and it is certainly something that I wish to address—the recidivism rates—and I am looking forward to working with my caucus colleagues, many of whom are in the chamber today, who have come up and addressed this issue with me as the new Minister for Corrections.

On the Youth Justice portfolio, I have inherited a great body of work from Minister Mikakos in the other place. I want to congratulate her for commissioning the largest review of the youth justice system in 20 years by Penny Armytage and James Ogloff, which is really the road map to youth justice. It does have its challenges—no-one walks away from that—but if we can get the machinery of government changes right from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Justice and Community Safety; if we can get the legislative instruments right in terms of a single, dedicated youth justice act; and then if we can focus on rehabilitation and the work of Pat McGorry and his team out at Orygen on the youth justice system; and if we get those early interventions, we could begin to turn these young lives around and make them see the benefit of living a life of purpose rather than graduating to the adult corrections system. I am very keen, along with my parliamentary secretary in the crime prevention portfolio, the member for Broadmeadows, to make a very big investment to support those experiencing place-based disadvantage but also to look at the first 1000 days and the importance that that has.

The member for Footscray knows the great work that Tweddle do out in the western suburbs. I know the great work they do. I know the great work that the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute do through maternal health nurses. Recent research shows that if you amped up the rate of maternal child health nurses by even tripling their numbers and the visits to some of these disadvantaged families, you would get the wraparound services a lot earlier and you would support them really from cradle to college ongoing, therefore making a very important contribution.

Finally, on the victim support portfolio, I am very committed to working with the Attorney-General to implement all the reforms that the Victorian Law Reform Commission report on the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal made and making sure that all those 100 recommendations are implemented in full and that we support victims.

I know, as the Premier has said on many occasions, we are the most progressive state and we are the most progressive government. We should be very proud of that victory recently in November. It was a real endorsement from the community that this is a government that not only gets on and builds the infrastructure—we know about that—but builds the social infrastructure and support every step of the way, and I will continue to do that across my four portfolios in the justice area.

 Mr DIMOPOULOS (Oakleigh) (17:48): I would firstly like to thank the people of the Oakleigh district. I very much appreciate the trust they have shown in me and Labor, not just at the election but over the last four years.

On 24 November the people of Victoria had a clear choice—a government that had a record of getting things done, of keeping its promises and of making things fairer for Victorians, or an opposition that offered the politics of fear and division and of seeking to promote the worst in our society just to win an election. Theirs was not a plan based on any values; it was a political plan, not a plan for government. There is a difference, and I think the outcome exposed this. When you offer a positive agenda and when you talk about the things that matter to everybody in health, in schools, in transport and in jobs, people listen. When you get things done, it does not go unnoticed. The Premier summed it up well when he said that if we delivered on the commitments we made, if we stayed the course and focused on the issues that made a real difference in local communities—hospitals, schools, roads, rail, jobs, funding, skills and training properly—and if we stayed focused on those things and delivered the commitments we made, we would be rewarded for that. We certainly were.

I would like to welcome all the new members to this place. I heard all the inaugural speeches from the government members. I want to commend all the new members, but particularly the government members. I was stunned by those contributions. Never have I seen a more compelling cocktail of values, heart, intellect and lived experience. I am proud to be a member of your team. You are extraordinary.

I would also like to thank those people who flew the Labor flag for the last four years. Being involved in politics is never easy, so for the volunteers who gave up so much of their time to the campaign for Labor, I say thank you. Without you none of us would be here to make a difference—it is that simple. I also want to acknowledge all of my opponents in the last election.

Here are just some of the things we have seen in the Oakleigh electorate since 2014: level crossing removals at Grange, Koornang, Murrumbeena and Poath roads and nearby in Clayton, Ormond, McKinnon and Bentleigh; new train stations and the Huntingdale bus interchange; school upgrades delivered or funded for Hughesdale, Oakleigh, Carnegie, Mount Waverley Heights and Amsleigh Park primary schools, Sacred Heart Girls College Oakleigh, Salesian College, Glen Eira College and Bentleigh Secondary College—and my good friend the member for Bentleigh is here in this chamber; significant extra capital funding for Glen Huntly, Clayton North, Murrumbeena and Huntingdale primary schools; and upgrades at Murrumbeena Park, Duncan Mackinnon Reserve, Oakleigh Recreation Centre, Scammell Reserve, Murrumbeena Tennis Club and Caloola Reserve. And those are just a few.

It was not just our capital program across Oakleigh and indeed across Victoria. There were reforms that when the history books are written will be judged as groundbreaking. I am talking about medicinal cannabis, safe exclusion zones for women, voluntary assisted dying legislation, the safe injecting room, the apology for historical homosexual convictions, 50 per cent women on government boards and in courts, our commitment to Safe Schools, commencing negotiations for a treaty with Victoria’s Indigenous communities and flying the Aboriginal flag on top of this building, the Royal Commission into Family Violence, followed by the biggest investment to reduce this insidious disease and issue, and the creation of 440 000 jobs since 2014.

Being successful in politics is not a means unto itself. If you do not get things done, you do not deserve to be here. Mistrust of politicians has been growing over the last few years. There is a simple lesson which politicians often forget, and the Premier always reminds us of it—that is, to keep your promises. Say what you are going to do and then do it. It should be a simple formula: the community choosing the party whose policies and programs best reflect their values. I get the sense somehow that our government style is refreshing. It should not be; it should be the norm. To provide government that delivers services, better life chances and decency for the people of Victoria is why we are here, but if you keep your promises, you keep your word—not just in politics but in life—you get credit.

There are a couple of notable things I have observed over the last couple of years. Firstly, there were the countless people who considered themselves Liberal voters who told me they were voting for Labor for the first time and the staunch Liberals who would not vote Labor but commended us on what was happening in Victoria with variations of, ‘I’m not Labor, but, gee, you’re getting a lot of things done’. That is something the opposition did not pick up on—that overall people have a very positive outlook of Victoria and that optimism is not easily displaced. As the Premier observed, the low road, the politics of fear, the politics of division—which is not leadership—that has been rejected. Between 2010 and 2014 very little was achieved by the Liberal government, and their years in opposition were negativity personified, with no plausible solutions for the future and no positive narrative.

Chief in negativity was Mr David Davis in the other place. But for all his disgraceful conduct I thank him. For four years Mr Davis conducted a personal crusade in the seat of Oakleigh. He thought he was on a big vote winner, particularly in relation to our removal of level crossings. Mr Davis spent an estimated $80 000 campaigning in my area. There were his incomprehensible late-night tweets, the public meetings and the profanity-laden abuse directed at me straight after watching people vandalise my office while he was recording it.

Ms Ryan: On a point of order, I do hate to raise a point of order on someone’s address-in-reply, but I think it is a little unfair given the upper house member is not here to refute the claims that are being made against him and there is no mention of the upper house member in the Governor’s address to Parliament.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Suleyman): There is no point of order. Continue on, member for Oakleigh.

Mr DIMOPOULOS: Thank you, Acting Speaker. Let me cite two examples as to whether his campaign was a success—Burwood and Hawthorn, both seats in the region that Mr Davis represents. Without diminishing the campaigns of our excellent new members for Burwood and Hawthorn, imagine if Mr Davis had directed his negative scare tactics to those seats. Hawthorn was won by just 330 votes, so for those wondering why the member for Malvern is Leader of the Opposition and not John Pesutto, you might think about Mr Davis spending all his resources in seats like Oakleigh instead of Hawthorn and Burwood. So to Mr Davis I say, ‘Thank you’. Thank you for being there for us in Oakleigh. You have shown yourself, by accident or by design, to be a true stalwart of the labour movement.

The second observation I have is in regard to the advent of lowest common denominator politics, particularly online through social media. Politics is a tough business, but there are certain activities that push the boundaries of acceptability in any walk of life and I will call them out. We call them keyboard warriors—brave behind a computer. What is worse is when it moves into stalking and threats, including threats to kill.

I have personally been followed by an individual who has secretly taken photos of me just going about my day and then posted them online. Title searches have been conducted to find out where I live and where my family lives. And this same individual has said that he had organised people to chase me all over Oakleigh and set up a roster of people to stand outside a residence he mistakenly believed I lived in. He threatened to send cabbies to that place and effectively said he could not control what might happen because, and I quote:

The more you anger them, the greater the chances.

And I would be at the mercy of:

… Punjabi’s, Arabs, Turks & Greeks.

I know of people convicted of threats to kill against members in this house who are still out in the community today, and we recall the terrible attacks on the former member for Brunswick, which could have been much worse. I am also aware of countless times individuals have been spoken to and cautioned by Victoria Police for their online behaviour and public conduct against members of Parliament and others. However, despite this, the threats continue. Here is one from another individual in January:

Fells, Jacunta Allan, Andrews, and others will all meet their creator in time.

The great equaliser.

...

There’s only one way to feel satisfaction.

Everybody just shhhooosshh for now.

Hell hath no fury on their lost soles.

Let them all laugh and carry on as if nothings happened ... but and there’s always a but my friends.

Shoooshh.

This was followed up a few days later with:

Shhhhsss, there will be a time and a place.

The plot thickens, the list grows once again.

And here are just a couple of his from last year:

Her day will come, she’ll squeal like a little pig.

… I prayed for us all, but especially for her demise, and I mean demise

This person has recently changed his Facebook profile picture to the Clint Eastwood character, Dirty Harry, holding a Magnum handgun.

And here are some comments from various individuals not just in relation to me, but also to the Premier and the Minister for Transport Infrastructure:

You sir had better be very careful when crossing the road.

Only time I will like him is with 3 bullets in the head and 6 foot under.

That was referring to the Premier.

That scarf around your neck may prove to be quite useful.

That was referring to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure.

Take this slut Jacinta out

And I don’t mean to dinner?

And, ‘I’ll be seeing you little poofter, we will have words you unwashed cunt’. I am really sorry for the language, Acting Speaker. ‘Slap him with a dildo and strike him with your belt. Leave the dildo hanging like a tail. Pin a tail on the mule’. ‘I will fuck you little poofta, your time will come’.

She needs her teeth taken out …

This is all on social media, Acting Speaker.

Ms Ryan: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I can appreciate that these are incredibly distressing comments, but I do not think it is appropriate language for the house. There is an appropriate place to raise these things, it is via privileges. Acting Speaker, I seek your guidance on this language. I do appreciate that it is incredibly distressing, but I think there is an appropriate place to raise it.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Suleyman): I will seek advice. I remind the member to not use unparliamentary language in his contributions.

Mr DIMOPOULOS: Thank you, Acting Speaker. I just remind the house that I am quoting entirely from sources on Facebook.

The last one is:

Keep looking at your BACK.

And just ‘DMW’, or dead man walking. I and others have endured this almost daily for the last four years. It is not on. These comments are against the law. This is not free speech. These are threats. This is a crime, and while we hope these people do not act on their threats, there are also troubled people out there reading these threats. They are being led to believe that the hate and the threats of violence are acceptable, that any action taken would be justified by the approval of online commentary. I fear that we are moving to a time where politicians and anyone with a public profile are fair game.

We have seen it in the UK with the tragic murder of Jo Cox, MP, a dedicated local member with two children under five. We saw it in the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, where six people died, including a nine-year-old girl. Both attacks occurred while they were conducting mobile offices to talk to constituents—something I and many other members here do regularly. The leadership must start here and in other parliaments across Australia. We must call out these threats, and we must not whip up anger and hysteria then act surprised when people take it too far. We must adopt respect and we just have to help stop the hate.

Acting Speaker, I wrote this speech weeks ago, and if we need no other reminder about where this can lead to than what happened in Christchurch in New Zealand last week, then I would be stunned. But on social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, it is very difficult for action to be taken let alone to get redress. When a threat is reported to a major social media company, the onus should be on them to caution or remove the user, and the threats must be reported to authorities. These companies cannot promote freedom of expression without the appropriate vetting of threatening behaviour. These are after all multibillion-dollar global businesses. They have the resources to do this, and they must. I thank you, Acting Speaker, and the indulgence of the house.

In my few remaining minutes I want to move on to what comes next for Victoria, because we have a fantastic agenda. The slogan was ‘getting things done’. It was a line that came from the ground up—from what people were telling us. Our campaign was purely a reflection of how the community viewed our government. We did things, and we have promised to do even more. We will deliver our election commitments to the Victorian people.

In my community, upgrades to Glen Huntly Primary School, Murrumbeena Primary School and Oakleigh Grammar are yet to come. We have made commitments and will deliver them: upgraded sports pavilions at Lord Reserve and Koornang Park; level crossing removals at Neerim Road and Glen Huntly Road; funding for a new Indian community centre; more open space and more car parking in Carnegie; a new ambulance station on Warrigal Road, which my good friend the member for Bentleigh fought for; and of course more reforms across the energy markets, industrial relations and other key areas of consumer economic interest. The Treasurer has said we will cut our cloth according to the economic times. That is what a responsible government does, but it also delivers on its election commitments and continues to back its values. That is what we will do.

Again I sincerely thank the people of Oakleigh and the people of Victoria for showing their trust in the Labor Party. To me and to many members here the people of Oakleigh are not just an unknown constituency. I grew up in Oakleigh. I know thousands of people in Oakleigh, and while the two weeks of pre-poll was hard, hard yakka, it gave me and all other members an unprecedented opportunity to meet literally thousands of people in our constituencies in a short space of time. Every time I met those people I was even more humbled by the privilege I have to represent them. They are not the people who have written those horrific things on social media.

I want to thank the Premier for his leadership and his friendship, and I also thank the entire government, including the ministers. I have got a special thankyou in my heart for the member for Bentleigh. There have been many, many late nights, and I do not think we would have gotten through the four years unscathed had we not had each other to lean on.

I also want to thank the member for Werribee. The Premier has given me the best gift by appointing me Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, because he is a good friend and he is an excellent mentor. I am so delighted to be working with him over the next four years. It is a rare privilege.

I want to thank my staff for the last four years: Kieran Boland, who has been an extraordinary support; Caroline Melzer; Connor Parker; Aidan Wright; Jasmine Stanhope; Deborah Tagoda; Loren Rotunno; and Elijah, on and off. I also want to thank the Victorian Electoral Commission staff, as other members have, for that really hard few weeks of work they did to keep our democracy going.

Finally, I want to thank my beautiful partner, who is an incredible human being—I love him more than anything—and that is Yianni. I want to thank my mum and dad, and I also want to thank my sister, her family and my three beautiful nephews. I also thank all these amazing colleagues I have for the next four years as we achieve success in changing Victorian society forever.

 Ms BLANDTHORN (Pascoe Vale) (18:03): It is a great pleasure that I am speaking to the Governor’s address-in-reply. It is 10 years since I bought my first home on Moreland Road, and my husband, Adrian, and I and now our new baby, Patricia—although she is not so new; she turned one this week—and our two rescued cavaliers, Kelly and Bridie, very proudly call Pascoe Vale South home. Like so many people who have come from other parts of our great state—indeed from across the world—we have chosen to make our home in the vibrant multicultural community that I am so privileged to represent. Since 2014, living in this amazing community and representing it in the state Parliament as part of an Andrews Labor government has indeed been a great privilege. We have worked hard and we have delivered results, and in a somewhat unique election where we were regularly accused of not having delivered for the people of Melbourne’s north, we were very easily able to refute that.

Some of the big-ticket items that over the last four years we were very pleased to be able to deliver in the electorate that I am so pleased to represent include $10 million for noise walls in Glenroy, protecting residents in Glenroy from the noise on the Western Ring Road. This included walls on the Moonee Ponds Creek bridge, which ensured that the residents of Glenroy and in the valley were protected from the noise from the Western Ring Road. We began work on removing the dangerous level crossing in Glenroy; early works are underway. We had $750 000 for the new Glenroy Library at the Wheatsheaf Hub, and we had $1.6 million announced last year for a new early years centre at the Wheatsheaf Hub in Glenroy. We also provided $1.8 million for a new Oak Park ambulance station, and the building of this ambulance station is in the design phase currently. We have two new netball courts at JP Fawkner Reserve, a $100 000 grant for unisex change rooms at Hallam Reserve, $2.3 million for upgrades at Pascoe Vale Girls College, $200 000 for Pascoe Vale Girls College sports fields, $2 million for dedicated bike lanes on Cumberland Road, $13.8 million for upgrades at Strathmore Secondary College and $3 million for upgrades at Pascoe Vale Primary School. We upgraded the Tullamarine Freeway.

There has been $3.5 million for upgrades at Pascoe Vale South Primary School; a $100 000 grant to redevelop the pavilion at Raeburn Reserve in Pascoe Vale; $1 million for a new multipurpose hall for St Oliver Plunkett Primary School, which I was very pleased to officially open just before we entered the caretaker period; upgrading the Western Ring Road; a $100 000 grant for the Glenroy Bowls Club, which is almost finished; four new netball courts at Sewell Reserve in Glenroy; two upgraded netball courts at Martin Reserve in Hadfield; $5 million for upgrades at Westbreen Primary School; $3.5 million to extend the Upfield bike path; two new netball courts at Cole Reserve in Pascoe Vale; $2.8 million for a new home for the local SES unit; $1 million for upgrades at Mercy College in Coburg; road safety improvements in the Bell Street–Sydney Road precinct; $754 000 for upgrades at Newlands Primary School; $1.9 million in upgrades at Coburg High School; a $192 000 grant for lighting at De Chene Reserve; and $3 million to redevelop the Coburg City Oval, home of the Coburg Lions. We have begun work on removing the Bell Street level crossing, and we have begun work on removing the Moreland Road level crossing. There has also been a $100 000 grant for lighting at Bridges Reserve and $6.7 million for upgrades at Coburg North Primary School.

These are just a few of the things that we have delivered in the electorate of Pascoe Vale and on the borders of Pascoe Vale in just the last four years. So the accusations that we are taking the community for granted are somewhat debunked by that list and certainly debunked by the many, many other things that did not feature in that list that we have also achieved in the last four years. I am very proud, on that record, to have been re-elected as the member for Pascoe Vale, and I think it is a clear endorsement that the people of Pascoe Vale know that it is an Andrews Labor government that will deliver for them. As the Premier says, it is an Andrews Labor government that says what it is going to do and then it does it.

When we took to the electorate a plan for the next four years we were overwhelmingly endorsed in that plan. I was very pleased that after much work one of the key features in particular—and the Premier came to Pascoe Vale to announce this upgrade himself—was $11.9 million for the upgrade of the Gaffney Street–Sussex Street intersection. This is an extremely dangerous roundabout which I have spoken about in this chamber on a number of occasions and which the former Minister for Roads has visited previously and the new Minister for Roads will visit later this week.

It is an intersection that takes more than 35 000 cars through it on a daily basis. It has a major shopping centre built on the intersection and it has residents living on the opposite side to the shopping centre. It is certainly a dangerous intersection for pedestrians, and particularly for the many school students who walk to schools within the area. So to be able to have the Premier come and announce that a re-elected Labor government would put $11.9 million into fully signalising this intersection and realigning the road was a great victory for local community who have advocated tirelessly. In particular I would like to acknowledge Sarah Jefford, who was a tireless advocate for the local community in achieving the funding for this project.

The Labor government also announced that, if re-elected, it would invest $9.2 million in rebuilding Glenroy College, and $1 million in upgrades at the Corpus Christi Primary School. Indeed, the $1 million for Corpus Christi Primary School was announced at the same time as our overall capital funding package for Catholic schools. One-third of students are educated in our independent and Catholic school systems, and to have the Premier come to what was his old primary school to announce $1 million for Corpus Christi Primary School was very welcome to this community. The investment of $9.2 million in Glenroy College, a school that is doing fabulous work in improving literacy and attendance outcomes for students but which needs some extra help with its facilities, was a great outcome.

The announcement that we would remove two more dangerous level crossings was another win for our local community. We were already removing Moreland and Coburg, and we would now also remove the Munro and Reynard streets crossings in between the two. This is a great outcome, which will obviously improve traffic flows, and also pedestrian flows and the reliability of public transport along the Upfield line. Of course work continues on removing the Glenroy level crossing.

We announced 355 new car parks at Merlynston station. This was also something that the community and I have been advocating for for quite some time. We also announced a further $1 million for the Pascoe Vale South Primary School and funding for an upgrade to the Oak Park Soccer Club’s kitchen. I was very pleased to welcome the then Minister for Multicultural Affairs who made the announcement that CALD seniors groups would receive funding as well. To have the multicultural affairs minister visit the Hadfield senior citizens was a great day for those senior citizens.

I am extremely humbled to have been re-elected as the member for Pascoe Vale. I think I have been re-elected on the achievements of the Andrews Labor government in Pascoe Vale, and certainly on the commitments that we make going forward. But I would just like to put forward some thankyous. For me, this was a difficult election. I was just home from hospital with my first baby when I heard that two blokes were going to nominate against me. Patricia was only four weeks old when she came with me to the Pascoe Vale Primary School with the Minister for Education, and five weeks old when she joined the Premier at Strathmore Secondary College. She was certainly a trooper on the front line of the campaign.

I would also like to thank my husband, Adrian. Obviously it was an emotional campaign. You cannot do these jobs without the support of your family and friends, and Adrian was by my side the whole time. He was absolutely staunch in his support of and his advocacy for me and I love him dearly. I said in my inaugural speech that our relationship will be forever marked by election campaigns—given it was at the end of the 2010 election, when we were both chiefs of staff in the government, that we met—and that obviously continues.

I noticed that the now Attorney-General thanked her dogs, and I want to do the same. Kelly and Bridie certainly suffered a lot during the election. A new baby came home and they looked as if to say, ‘What’s this?’, and then there was an election on top of that. They probably bore the brunt of much of it, so to Kelly and Bridie, a particular thank you. It certainly takes a village to raise a baby, and to run a campaign under the circumstances in which I did. I could not have done it without my extended family, in particular my mum, who effectively moved for great periods of time from her home out in the Yarra Valley to ours in Pascoe Vale. Thanks to my brothers John-Paul and Daniel. John-Paul in particular was a staunch defender of mine out there on the trail and falsely maligned in many circumstances, but I think retractions and whatnot have proven the day there. I would also like to thank my extended family, who give me unconditional love and support, particularly my cousins. We come from a long line of loud and proud women and Richmond supporters, and my cousins in particular were on the campaign trail day in, day out for me, often travelling from all over the place to come and help me.

Thank you to my staff—I do not think any of us can do this job without our staff—and in particular Liam, who has since gone on to work for the Minister for Education. Liam was with me for four years and well and truly kept my office going and my campaign going. To Laura, to Paula, to Elise and to Kate: I could not have done any of it without you.

I would also like to thank Terry Alberstein, who works with us on our social media. I would like to concur with the member for Oakleigh about the comments he made about parliamentarians becoming the victims of keyboard warriors who feel they can say anything from behind the comfort of a keyboard. There was no doubt that my election was also subject to some of the sorts of behaviour that the member for Oakleigh has referred to in his electorate. Certainly Terry and my staff assisted in managing that and protecting me from that, but it is totally unacceptable that we are coming to a world where people feel that just because they are behind a keyboard they can say and do whatever they like without any consequences. I think, as the member for Oakleigh eloquently put it, we have seen in the last week in particular where allowing people to get away with that kind of behaviour can lead.

I also thank the other members of my campaign team, Paul, Lauren and Evan, and their families. Not only do our own families take a hit in an election period, but so do the families of our staff and our volunteers. Thank you to my friends, and in particular Cassandra, Umandeep and Helen, who would often appear with parcels of food or a new round of clothes for Patricia, or just that little thing that you might need or that you do not have time to do. I thank the union movement, and in particular the shop assistants union, but also the plumbers, AWU, CFMEU and Transport Workers Union, who are always great advocates of our working families in this Parliament. Their support, often at short notice, during my campaign was certainly greatly appreciated.

I thank Labor’s head office, and I know a number of people in this chamber have already thanked Kosmos Samaras. I have always thought that I would not become that annoying candidate for Kosmos, but I think this time I did. Thank you to Kos for his advice and support. I thank Student Unity and Young Labor. The member for Oakleigh referred to the gruelling hours of the pre-poll, and certainly my pre-poll location was unique and it was very hostile. The Student Unity members in particular staffed that pre-poll and kept it going. I am very grateful to them for that. It was often at times when I was physically unable to, so thank you for that.

I thank the staunch locals in our community who remain great supporters of mine—people such as Terrian and Pieta, Rory, the Hosseini family and the Erdogan family. I enjoy great support from our local community. During a very difficult election in Pascoe Vale they stood by me, they advocated for me and they often took a bit of flak in their own communities for it, and I am very grateful to them for that.

Thank you, finally and most importantly, to the voters of Pascoe Vale who have re-elected me, both on the record that I have outlined and on the commitments that we made. I can assure them that I will continue to be an advocate for our community day in, day out in this place.

 Mr J BULL (Sunbury) (18:19): It gives me great pleasure to make a contribution and respond to the Governor’s speech to the Parliament by way of an address-in-reply. It is a truly wonderful feeling to return to the Parliament for my second term and to represent the outstanding people of the Sunbury electorate. I would like to thank my electorate for re-electing me and, in doing so, voting for a positive set of plans, a positive set of policies and initiatives that will propel our community forward. I want to thank the community for overwhelmingly voting for a record of investment in local schools, local roads, health care, public transport and community infrastructure, and I want to thank my electorate for rejecting fear and division and instead choosing to re-elect, in record numbers, a government with a big, bold, positive agenda for our great state. I want to thank those that voted for Labor. To those that chose not to, I assure you as your local member that we in this government will work hard over the next four years, as we have over the past four, to try and win your support.

I would also like to thank my incredible wife, Jasmine, whose unwavering love, advice and support is truly remarkable and a constant source of inspiration to me. I would like to thank my terrific parents, Ian and Lesley, who I adore, whose advice is endless and whose love is endless. I also thank my extended family, friends and wonderful team of volunteers, without whom I certainly would not be here today.

Can I also take this opportunity, as other members have this evening, to thank my terrific electorate office team. To Adam, Jarrod, Jules, Almendra, Mik, Josh, Sharpe and Sam, thank you for all the work you have done over these past four years and thank you for your commitment to the people of the electorate and to constantly focusing on delivering for them.

To the countless volunteers, of which there are too many to name—although in saying that, I will attempt to name them—can I thank and acknowledge Brad, Ann, Cheryl, Sharon, Kylie, Juan, Peter H, Peter J, Mathew, Spiro, Cameron, Justin, Gillian, Darren, Steve, Jana, Jordan, Ross, Doug, Peter, Bob, Jean, Brad, Thommo, Ryan, Jeff, Cole, Rhys, Britt, Deyls, Tim, Dylan, Brian, Connie, Clint, Lauren, Phil, Liam, Andrew, Shannon, Barb, Maureen, Joan and so many more. This great Labor victory was your victory, and I would like to put on the record my thanks for the incredible hard work not just through the campaign but right across the four years.

Other members have mentioned the Victorian Electoral Commission staff. I think it is very important to acknowledge their work both on election day and in the lead-up, those wonderful two weeks of pre-poll that we all enjoy so much.

Mr Wynne interjected.

Mr J BULL: I hear the Minister for Multicultural Affairs also enjoys his time on pre-poll. Whilst I am discussing the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, I am incredibly proud to be the parliamentary secretary in this state for multicultural affairs and incredibly pleased to be serving with the minister.

Can I also take the opportunity to thank the ALP head office—Sam, Stephen, Kareem, Simon, Jas and Conrad—and in particular the unwavering, unstoppable Kos Samaras for his advice, for his support and for an incredible job and an incredible campaign.

I want to congratulate and acknowledge of course the Premier—a stunning campaign, an incredible four years—for outlining a platform for a bold, visionary Victoria. To all cabinet and all caucus colleagues, it is a wonderful privilege to be serving with you in this place. I particularly would like to acknowledge the member for Yuroke for her terrific friendship and unwavering support. It has been indeed truly remarkable to listen to those inaugural speeches over the past few weeks in this house—to listen to the breadth of experience that is now in the chamber. To listen to many of the reflections that have been made over these past few weeks has been truly extraordinary.

When I was first elected in November 2014 I was somewhat shocked and somewhat surprised to learn that there were no projects in my community—a community that I have lived in my entire life. No projects were underway—no school rebuilds, no new roads and no community infrastructure—and worse yet, there was huge uncertainty caused by local instability due to a potential local government split. There were those who were not sure of their future employment. There was no pipeline of projects. It was not a good state of affairs at all, with no pipeline of works and no plans to address numerous concerns that were in my community, a community that was growing. I think this was reflected right across the state.

We set out to change that. Four years ago, the Premier and this government made a promise to the people of Victoria to put them first by investing in jobs, education, health and public transport, and by getting to work on those really important matters of reinvesting in TAFE, reinvesting in schools and hospitals and ensuring that we began to set this state on a new course, a new path. And that is exactly what we did.

Projects that had been set up in the previous term, projects that are underway now, are changing this state for the better. They include the Metro Tunnel, with those five new stations and over 6000 jobs; the 75 level crossings gone by 2025; the airport rail; western rail; the Geelong high-speed rail; the Cranbourne line duplication; and the Suburban Rail Loop—has there been a more exciting project in this state? I can see that members in the house are incredibly excited about this project. There is the north-east link and the West Gate Tunnel. These are terrific projects that not only create jobs but set this state up for decades to come.

I am incredibly proud to be the local member, with a record pipeline of local projects: $53 million for the Sunbury recycled water plant; $10 million for the noise barriers at Gowanbrae, that the member for Pascoe Vale mentioned; $3.5 million for a new science wing at Sunbury College, my old school, and $4.8 million on top of that for a new library; $1.5 million for Gladstone Park Primary School; $3.5 million for Sunbury Primary School; $700 000 to my old primary school, Sunbury Heights Primary School; $3.1 million for the Mickleham Road–Melrose Drive intersection upgrade; 300 additional car parks at the Sunbury station, which is a terrific announcement; $700 000 for Kismet Park Primary School; $2 million for the warm water pool; signalising the Gap Road and Horne Street roundabout; building the Sunbury men’s shed expansion; $3 million for the Sunbury global learning centre; nearly $500 000 for Boardman Reserve; and $400 000 for the Sunbury Lawn Tennis Club.

The list just goes on and on and on: $3.9 million for Sunbury Downs College; $7.2 million for a terrific project of a shared facility, to have an early learning centre and a local council facility on both primary school land and secondary school land; $4.5 million for Tullamarine Primary School; and for the first time a new future for the Jacksons Hill historic site, including $3 million for an arts and community precinct. I should acknowledge the work of the Minister for Planning in having the Victorian Planning Authority do some very important work around ensuring a great future for this site, something that I am incredibly proud of as the local member.

The list goes on, but in looking towards the next four years, I as the local member and a member of this government will be focused on a number of things. They will be removing the Sunbury level crossing; upgrading the Sunbury Day Hospital to turn it into the Sunbury community hospital; building on that record investment in schools, starting with upgrades at Gladstone Views Primary School and Gladstone Park Primary School; those 300 car parks at the Sunbury station; exciting new upgrades to Langama Park and Boardman Reserve in partnership with Hume City Council; ensuring the delivery of the arts precinct; and upgrading the Sunbury and Macedon Ranges Specialist School.

I do want to take this moment to just reflect on a conversation. I think your being the chair, Acting Speaker Dimopoulos, may have led to this reflection. It was a conversation I had with a parent of a student at that specialist school. It would have been perhaps six to eight weeks before the election. This parent said to me one evening, ‘Make sure you guys win, because we need you’. I know that each member on this side of the house can reflect on the importance of ensuring our schools, and in particular our special schools, are well funded and well supported to give every single student the very best opportunity in life.

We will continue to get on with duplicating Sunbury Road. We will continue to deliver free TAFE. We have got an extraordinary Solar Homes package. For the very first time this state will be prioritising panels for Victorian homes, driving down prices. Not only are we reducing people’s power bills, but it is also good for the planet, and that is what this government supports. There is also the airport rail link, the Suburban Rail Loop and so much more.

I am conscious of time, but I did want to touch on something briefly. In my first speech in this Parliament I reflected on the need for our state to do more in mental health. After four years as a local member I have had the opportunity, like a number of members have had, to meet with constituents who themselves are dealing with mental health issues or whose families are dealing with poor mental health. I think of all the matters that you deal with, in not having the answers and not knowing what to say in many respects to these wonderful Victorians, this would have to be one of the toughest. The triggers and causes are many and varied, but the solutions are never simple. This year 3000 Australians will take their own lives and countless more are trying to cope. Last year alone we lost 621 Victorians to suicide. That is a devastating statistic. That is why I was so very pleased that this government established the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. It is widely supported by my local community and I imagine it is supported by all communities. This is important work. It is work that will save lives, and what could be more important than that?

This government is focused on delivering for all Victorians. It is focused on investing in health and hospitals. It is focused on building the Education State. It is focused on ensuring that we are giving our young people the best start in life. We know that skills and training provide opportunity. That is why we are going to make TAFE bigger and better and it is why we are going to continue to invest in all our wonderful skills and training facilities that operate through TAFE and give people a great start in life.

We know that clean energy is the way of the future, and our Solar Homes package is exceptional. I referenced it earlier, but it is an extraordinary package and something that I am incredibly thrilled to have a part in delivering.

We have removed 29 level crossings. There are 46 to go in order to have 75 removed by 2025. One of those is the Sunbury level crossing. There is also the Metro Tunnel, the north-east link, the West Gate Tunnel and the Suburban Rail Loop. We are getting on with building the road and rail projects that our state needs.

It has been an incredible journey over the past four years. We have the opportunity now over the next four years to continue to deliver those projects, those initiatives and those elements of government that can improve people’s lives every day. Whether it is the royal commission into mental health or investing in schools, TAFEs and hospitals, they are the things that this government will continue to do, and they are the things I have been incredibly proud to be a part of.

 Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham) (18:34): In my address-in-reply to the Governor’s speech I acknowledge and thank the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker and congratulate them on their reappointment. I have no doubt they will both continue to do a fantastic job. It is a great honour to stand here today and represent the people of Sydenham in what is my third term. I congratulate the Premier, my friends and colleagues in this place and those in the other place who were successful at the election. I look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver the best outcomes for Sydenham. There are lots of people that I want to thank for this election victory. First, I must thank the Sydenham community of course for re-electing me to fight for them here in the Parliament. I know that every day in government is a gift from the people and that it must be treasured and used for better outcomes for all. And that is what I intend to do. I want to thank the constituents, particularly those who came to see me over the last eight years in the electoral office, on street stalls or at community events to tell me about their hopes and dreams of making Sydenham a better place to live, learn and work.

I want to thank my campaigners at the last election, particularly those that gave up so much time in the election campaign and during pre-poll and on election day. Particularly I want to give thanks to my booth captains and scrutineers: Mark Gazic, Uros Rasic, Madeline Moore, Glenn Sykes, Simone Stevenson, Despina Havelas, Nicole Barr, Karishma Mohan, Ian Herbert, Mark Bell, James Singh, Leo McClay, Ivan Popovic, Lauren and Paul Hutchins, Evelyn Proud and Bob Boyd, Stuart Miller, Draga, Ismene Thiveos and Anne-Maree. Thank you to the many other volunteers that stood by my side during those weeks and of course on the very long day of the election.

Can I also give a big thanks to my former ministerial staff, in particular my chief of staff, Robert LaRocca, who has moved on to be another minister’s chief of staff now, for his unwavering support of me in my time as a minister; my industrial relations adviser Maddy Moore, who has been with me for eight years; Ismene Thiveos; Tanya Corrie; Emma Webster; Shelley Maher; and of course the infamous Jana Stewart, who many in this place will hear more of when she is successful in the federal election as the Labor candidate for Kooyong. Thanks to my local Brimbank and Melton councillors who helped me in the lead-up to the election and on the day, in particular the Labor councillors Kim Truong, Lara Carli, Steve Abbouchi and Melissa De Santis.

And of course I want to thank my family. I made the mistake on election night of not thanking my mother. God beholds that fact; she is here now to make sure that I am in the Parliament to thank her. So can I say thank you, Dianne Bell, for giving birth to me but for also helping me through probably the toughest time of my life over the last few years. And of course I thank my stepdad, Mark Bell, who is more like a dad than anyone else I have in my life. I love you, Mark. And of course to my son, Xavier; my brothers Glenn and Brent; my niece and nephew Gus and Tara; and to my wonderful stepkids and their partners who, on the most difficult of days, 24 November last year, came down from Sydney on the anniversary of my husband’s passing on election day, on a really difficult day, to be beside me handing out how-to-vote cards. Can I thank Lauren and Paul, Julia, Michael, Leslie, Georgia, Maddy and Ben for your support—your ongoing support—and my wonderful little step-grandchildren William, Jacob, Edie, Nate, Rorie and Audrey, and of course there are two little plums on their way.

I thank my friends Carolyn, Gab, Lara, Amy, Rachel, Martine, Matt, Nicola, Simone, Sarah and Liberty for all your support over the last four years, but in particular in the last two years of helping me out by providing things like meals when Steve was at his sickest, and just helping out generally in keeping my spirits lifted during the most difficult time of my life.

Can I also thank the ALP head office, their leaders and volunteers, the Victorian trade union movement and of course my parliamentary colleagues for their support.

Of course I have to thank my late husband Steve. Stephen Patrick Hutchins has been by my side for 17 years and was with me through the last eight years, always at the ballot box with me, always at pre-poll. I have got to say it was the toughest pre-poll before this election because I had this terrible Independent running against me, whose wife was the biggest loudmouth on the face of the western suburbs. All I could think about was what my husband would have said to that woman who was constantly haranguing people. That made me a little teary during pre-poll just because I thought he would certainly have had the best comebacks ever during that time. Certainly he was by my side as an MP and by my side as a minister, and I want to acknowledge just how much support and strength he gave me here in the Parliament and of course at home by being the number one carer of our kids after I decided to go into Parliament. Of course he was repaying 13 years of debt to me in terms of being a senator in the Senate during those years and then retiring, enabling me to then be able to take up my career aspirations here in the Victorian Parliament.

Being married to a New South Welshman is never easy as a staunch Victorian. We started our relationship by travelling across the Murray on a regular basis. In fact when I found out I was having a baby we talked about maybe even calling our son ‘Murray’, after the Murray River, but we saw the light and called him Xavier instead. But certainly Steve was my number one support, and he always will be. I miss him greatly and dearly. I just want to take the opportunity here in the house to thank all of the staff at the Epworth Hospital who helped us to fight cancer through those years, particularly the oncologists, who were absolutely amazing. I am not sure how the nursing staff there continue to do their work week in, week out, but my heart and thanks go out to them.

Steve would tell me not to be sook, so I am going to get on with it and talk about local achievements. Despite the campaign that was being run in my electorate by those opposite and by the Independent candidate running against me, one that was based on fear in the electorate, particularly targeting Sudanese families—despite all of that—we managed to run a decent and hardworking campaign. I am proud to say that we were able to deliver in the last term of government in Sydenham the removal of the dangerous and congested level crossing at Melton Highway. We upgraded the Taylors and Kings roads intersection, and we built a new secondary school called the Springside West Secondary College in my electorate, which has already grown tremendously in numbers.

Labor has many proud accomplishments, but one of its proudest is supporting the education of our children. Labor is looking after kids in classrooms right across the state by providing free dental check-ups and breakfasts, all while getting on with delivering 100 new schools and upgrading 1300 more. We will also be the first government in Australia to introduce kinder for every three-year-old in the state, giving our littlest Victorians the best possible start in life.

We promised to rescue TAFE, and we did. Now we are making it bigger and better than ever before, making 50 courses free, creating 30 000 new training places and upgrading campuses across Victoria.

Sydenham schools have received almost $2.1 million from the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund, with over 11 000 payments across the Sydenham electorate. There is almost $25 million in equity funding. This is based on the introduction of programs that help disadvantaged students across my electorate and beyond. More that 1100 students in Sydenham have benefitted from the state school relief program over the last few years. This is because we want schools to be inclusive and we want to make sure that no child is left behind and every child is given the opportunity they deserve.

The Andrews Labor government has also delivered funding certainty for Catholic schools, such as Catholic Regional College in my electorate. We secured $3.5 million for Copperfield College’s Sydenham and Delahey campuses in the last budget to refurbish the school and help support the great work being done at Copperfield.

This stands in stark contrast to the investment made by the previous Liberal government, who between the years of 2011 and 2014 contributed $638 000. In contrast the Labor government delivered $66.6 million in capital funding between 2015 and 2018. This is all in the context of huge growth in my electorate.

In terms of other areas of significance, health has been a really important one to the people of Sydenham, and our investment in health continues to deliver. We are investing billions into health and hospitals so that Victorians can get the care that they need, no matter where they live. This means more nurses, more midwives, new community hospitals and backing our paramedics so that they can keep responding to emergencies in record time.

Locally these significant investments include $200 million for the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital; $29.6 million, a huge boost—as Acting Speaker Suleyman would know—to the Sunshine Hospital emergency department’s capacity; and $50 million to develop the business case for the new Footscray Hospital, which will be an amazing new health and research precinct into the future. We also know that Western Health received over $145 million more in operating funds than under the previous government, which is an increase of almost 30 per cent.

On top of that we have delivered in the area of infrastructure. We have already removed 29 level crossings, and as we have heard before we have set a target of 75 by 2025. One of those 29 levels crossings, I am happy to say, is the removal of the Melton Highway level crossing.

We have delivered the biggest infrastructure program Victoria has ever seen, including the expansion of the M80, which is a very important project in both my electorate and your electorate, Acting Speaker Suleyman, and of course the upgrades to the Tullamarine Freeway, the investment in the Melbourne Metro Tunnel, the West Gate Tunnel, and the policy we took to the election around the Suburban Rail Loop. We are getting on with building the road and rail projects which get Victorians home sooner and safer, and also delivering local jobs in the process.

Melbourne’s western suburbs are experiencing strong population growth and this is increasing pressure on the road network, so it is important that we keep investing in our infrastructure. I want to thank the Andrews Labor government for committing funding for a business case to improve the Calder Freeway between the M80 and Bulla-Diggers Rest Road, in particular looking at alternatives to the current arrangements at Calder Park Drive.

In 2016, I began advocating to secure planning funding to upgrade the Calder Freeway. Thankfully, as part of the 2017–18 budget we saw planning funds provided. A long-term strategy for the Calder Freeway is in progress, with the support of many locals who are calling for secure funding into the future and for us to look at ways to fix the bottlenecks that exist on the Calder. Since then, I have written to the Victorian Minister for Roads, as well as to federal ministers and shadow ministers responsible for roads and infrastructure. I have also previously raised here in Parliament the need to address safety and congestion all along the Calder Freeway. I will continue to advocate for the interchange to be built at Calder Park Drive and for improved safety on our Calder Freeway.

I have only just touched on a few things, but of course there is so much more that we have delivered in the last four years and that we have committed to into the future—renewable energy, jobs and of course our awesome announcement around a mental health royal commission. That is really going to change the face of some of the issues that my residents are facing. Unfortunately only last week a friend’s daughter was feeling very suicidal. She ended up having to take her to Sunshine Hospital’s emergency department. I have to say that our resources are very lacking when it comes to mental health at our emergency departments. Some of the investments that are yet to hit the ground will, I know, address this. I know it is a huge burden on our ambulance system and on our policing system.

Of course there are many other achievements in the area of industrial relations, in the area of women and the prevention of violence against women, and of course Aboriginal affairs. I guess of all my work, what I am most proud of as a former minister is the work I have been able to do in the area of treaty and being able to advance treaty with Aboriginal Victorians. I was absolutely blessed to be able to work with the leadership of Aboriginal Victoria to progress a bill to this house and to have that accepted by a majority of the community across Victoria—that is, the Aboriginal community.

I thank the Premier for all his hard work in delivering for my area.

 Ms HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (18:49): I am very pleased to be here in the chamber and speaking tonight. I took a bit of an idea from one of the previous speakers. We were talking about the re-election of the Andrews Labor government and the volunteers and the many, many people that help an individual candidate in their campaign, so I thought I might do the same and do the thankyous at the start, because otherwise you end up getting to the point where if you leave it to the end you always run out of time. I guess the first thing to say is that I am so proud and feel so privileged to be part of this second term of an Andrews Labor government. In fact I am very proud of the work that was done in the last term, from 2014 to 2018, and I hope that was instrumental in the re-election—the ‘Danslide’, as it is called—of the Andrews Labor government in 2018.

I will just go through some of the thankyous, because it really is hard work for a whole lot of people running a campaign, even in a safe seat like the electorate of Thomastown. I believe that you cannot take people for granted. Everybody has a right to have a campaign in their electorate so that we can respect people’s views and let voters know what it is that the Labor Party is offering to the electorate and so that people have full information and can then make their decisions on that. I do not believe we should feel that people in safe seats do not need to be told anything just because they are going to vote a certain way anyway. It is just not right to have that attitude; in actual fact it is not the way things are going anyway. Everybody has views, and they all want to look at what a government is offering and then make their decisions on that.

In terms of thankyous, I can only really go through some of those that really put in way over and above the call of duty. Of course we had lots of people manning—or crewing, or womanning—the polling booths on election day. And of course there is now so much more importance placed on the pre-poll in the two weeks prior to the actual election day; you need to have people there for quite long hours every day starting at 8 o’clock in the morning. I think it was on Thursdays and Fridays until late and also on Saturdays.

I would like to thank first of all my union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, and congratulate the new secretary, Tony Mavromatis, for taking on the position of secretary of the AMWU. I thank him for all his help and support, and I thank all the officials and members that also supported me during pre-polling in particular as well as on election day. It was great to see them all again. I also thank Lorraine Cassin, who is the federal secretary of the print division of the AMWU, and Tony Piccolo, who is the assistant state secretary there. Tom Hale is a former secretary of the food division of the AMWU and replaced me when I left to come into this place. I thank the secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, Troy Gray, along with Danny Filazzola and Alfonso and Joe Youssef. I think they were there on the days when it was pouring with rain and very cold, and they stuck with it during the pre-polling.

Of course the very, very important local ALP branch members and also the community volunteers put in so much of their time and their heart at all times of the year, not just at election time. I thank Suctettin and Perihan Unal and their daughter, Ruiekye Unal, and Reyhan Unal and her husband, Imran Ahmed. They came across and really helped out when we were in a bit of need and there were problems or something happened. They would drop everything and all rush over and help wherever they could. I really appreciated their help along with that of Siri Abak.

Nessie Sayer is a real Labor Party stalwart—she is pretty well doing work for our party 24/7. She goes to everything and supports everybody, and I really appreciate both the work that she does and also her friendship. I thank Imran Khan from the new area in the Thomastown electorate. Regina Leung-Huning and Ann Lo did a lot of work, including during election day. My partner, Gary, my son, Kynan, and my mother, Kathleen, were always there helping me whenever I needed their help. I also thank Samir Bekhazi, Antoun Khoury and Sarah Tawil. At the tramways union, the new leadership there—Tarik Koc, Mark Moran and Frank—also gave me a lot of help during the campaign and on election day. I also thank Bone Despotovski, Koste Kolevskio and the many members of the Australian-Macedonian community living in the Thomastown area, and of course I would like to pay a special tribute in remembrance of Simon Petrovski, who sadly passed away recently. He was too unwell to actually help on election day, but he arranged other members of the community to help out. That is an incredible commitment to the Labor Party, while he was ill and fighting a terrible cancer, to do that. I also thank members of the Palestinian community; the Australia Pakistan Youth Association and other members of the Pakistani community; the Iraqi community; and Donato and Marai Polvere, even though she had a serious neck operation and had quite a lot of difficulty moving around.

These are all the people that make the Labor Party what it is and put in so much love, work and commitment to make sure we have a Labor government, because they know that a Labor government is going to help and is the best chance for working people to increase their standard of living and have a better life. They do that for nothing other than the belief in the values that we all share, and they really are wonderful friends and committed party members.

When we look at the actual electorate and what was committed to, there is a long list of things and money that will be going into the electorate of Thomastown. Everyone goes on about safe seats getting nothing. I think, from my adding up, by November last year the Thomastown electorate received about $600 million—more than half a billion. When I tell people that, they are absolutely surprised, but they can also see all the work that is being done in the area, all the building that is going on and even a few cranes now on some of the buildings such as the Northern Hospital. Not only are we building a seven-storey tower at the Northern Hospital, but we will also have more theatres. The Minister for Planning is here. I hope that is okay and fits in with the planning system of the area. Of course we also committed to a new emergency department in the election at the Northern Hospital, and that will be devoted to children and their families. That hospital is overstretched in emergency, as are other parts of the hospital. With a number of people coming in by ambulance, it is much better to have a quieter place for children and their families, separate from the general emergency department.

There will be two more primary schools built in the next few years as part of the education package, and of course kindergartens will be attached to those. There is more commitment to the planning of stages 2 and 3 of Edgars Creek Secondary College, and of course we are really advocating and wanting that to be built as soon as possible because of the number of families and students in that area. It is the only secondary school in the new suburbs, and we really need to make sure that is completed.

Of course the Reservoir level crossing removal is an iconic issue for residents. While it is not in the Thomastown electorate, people do not just stay within the boundaries of a state electorate; they move around. The Reservoir level crossing has been the bane of many people’s lives, often waiting 20 minutes in traffic while trains and cars go by. I think there is a five-way intersection as well as the train track there.

The bus service which has been committed to between Mernda and Craigieburn through Wollert is really important, and again this is part of the new suburbs. This will service Edgars Creek Secondary College. There is a real need for students to be able to travel on public transport to get to the new secondary school rather than having their parents drive them there or drive them to the more established areas and creating congestion around them.

We are also really looking forward to more information and more work on the high-performance basketball training hub that is going to be developed in Melbourne’s north-west. People were astounded that a party would actually offer kindergarten for all three-year-olds, and they were so excited to think that they would be able to get free or subsidised kindergarten for three-year-olds in the area. With the scout hall, there has been a real issue around facilities and activities for teens and younger people—

Business interrupted under sessional orders.