Thursday, 7 April 2022

Motions

Federal budget

Debate resumed on motion of Mr FOLEY:

That this house notes the federal Liberal-National government:

(1) has again failed to deliver Victorians their fair share in the 2022–23 budget; and

(2) will cut all COVID-19 funding at the end of September, which is $1.5 billion in Victoria alone.

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (12:32): I am glad you filled the chamber to hear the continuation of my contribution on the take-note motion on the budget. I really want to go to a point that I have pursued vigorously on how we overcome Einstein’s definition of insanity: repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I am going to go to the city deals on this. This, as we know, was a promise from the federal government for two city deals in the countdown to the last federal election. They were for the south-east and the north-west.

I went and saw the then minister, Alan Tudge, after this had been pursued, because I got the feedback in the consultation with local governments that they thought it was fragmented, and I wanted to make sure that this opportunity was not missed. I put a big-picture view, particularly out of the north, on where the assets were and what could be aggregated and how we could get the highest value, and he said the case was compelling. So we went with good faith that there would be delivery on this. Through the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board 4.0 we were able to get Hume City Council to put a proposal of $40 million on the table to actually add value, because what we are looking for obviously through these deals is contributions from the three tiers of government.

From north Melbourne’s perspective, there is a wonderful opportunity. If I can just highlight the food hub proposal that La Trobe University and CSIRO have combined on, I think it is absolutely in the national interest. It will help exports. It will be in Victoria’s interest and right through the entire region. This is really about two of our leading institutions collaborating: CSIRO, our foremost science and industry body, and La Trobe University, which has the natural advantages of the land and everything that it has. They are both offering big investments to make this happen, and I just think that is an absolutely wonderful proposal. Again this is about value. We were able to campaign first of all to win the City Deals, to get that offer at least on the table, and then to get Broadmeadows as a priority.

Now, the value is that we have attracted $1 billion in new investments for shovel-ready and pipeline projects, so that is the critical catalyst that we have. We have got a whole series of different companies all lined up to do cleaner, greener jobs and a hydrogen hub for energy, and it is about bringing back the north. This was vital at the time because I have long argued that the Australian government too often remains a bystander where there is collaboration where it is needed most. If you go back, what happened was that then Prime Minister Tony Abbott had his budget—remember his budget? It was called the ‘lifters and leaners budget’. I asked him to go beyond that rhetoric and to come and meet the heavy lifters in life in Broadmeadows that had underwritten prosperity with heavy manufacturing and how we fast-tracked through to advanced niche manufacturing. Part of that was looking at what CSL, one of our leading companies, had said to a Senate investigation—going way back—about the difficulty of actually manufacturing and getting the value from intellectual property from Australia to be a global company.

So we have had a win there. We got an investment of $1.8 billion to do not just the AstraZeneca vaccines that are being manufactured there but a new deal with Seqirus, a subsidiary of CSL, nearby at the Melbourne Airport. So that is a win; that is a proposition. But the city deal has the opportunity to bring these together. This is the critical issue of continually having to fight for political advantage, perceived or not, and whether you invest in the best value, where you can deliver economic prosperity and generational change. They are the decisions.

There is huge disappointment in Victoria that after all this time nothing has eventuated with a firm deal on the table. I know that the current minister, Paul Fletcher, was in Melbourne this week talking to the local mayors again about what could happen. I do not know whether they can pull something out literally at 1 minute to midnight, but we are absolutely running out of time. We do not want to see, as I say, Einstein’s definition of insanity played out one more time, because this frays public trust. The public want governments, no matter their political background, to invest where they can maximise the value. We are facing the catastrophes of our times. We have to actually look at what we can do and where the regions are. Do not just draw the electoral lines around them, actually see where the assets are, see where you have the elegant science, where you have the aggregation, over generations, of infrastructure and invest there.

This is the opportunity. I am hoping that there will be a late announcement. I have just got to keep pursuing it. The way I put it to Hume City Council was, ‘Well, put an offer on the table. Put money down. Show them the money. Actually say you’re going to do this, because it doesn’t matter who wins this upcoming federal election, the Labor Party have given a commitment that they will honour any deal that is done now. So why don’t we actually get something done?’. I want to say that that is an opportunity that should not be missed. I am hoping—here we have got the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, the member for Bentleigh, who does this on behalf of the Victorian government as well—to try and see if we can drive something to a close. But it is disappointing, because too often the critical analyses of city deals is that they have just been for political advantage, not the best value, not the best economic growth and not the best building of our future. So let us see if there can be something landed in the dying days before the federal government goes into caretaker mode. Victoria clearly needs it.

We have heard in other contributions how we have been dudded on the GST, and we know that, and on other infrastructure. That is why the Andrews Labor government has stepped up and filled that void. But we are part of the commonwealth. One of the analyses that was done after the budget was saying that there is almost as much money going to Tasmania, which has the population of Melbourne’s north.

This is why we need to look more strategically, invest for the best value, identify the regions, take the electoral maps off the table, because otherwise you get from the federal government, as we did with the demise of the automotive industry, the managed decline strategy, which was Margaret Thatcher’s strategy towards England’s north because there were no votes there. That is what Melbourne’s north got. Geelong got a lot of money. Adelaide got major industries—they got water, they got the proton beam, they got everything, everything, everything—because they were trying to knock off Nick Xenophon, so that was about politics. Let us invest with the best, get the economic return, get the prosperity and analyse where you can do the best deal for the people of Australia, and they will vote for you on that.

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (12:41): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the motion that relates to the federal government providing a fair share of funding to Victoria. I want to make some commentary around the fact that from a local perspective of Gippsland East that has certainly not been the case in relation to the level of support. If you use my electorate as an example of support from the federal government, my electorate has received absolutely extraordinary support over recent times, and I am sure that will continue into the upcoming budget year. I want to remark on a couple of projects that have received federal government funding in recent times.

As all members in this chamber will know, it was only a couple of years ago that we endured some very significant bushfires that ravaged our area. Those fires destroyed a lot of community facilities that were integral to the recovery of those communities, because they were where people came together and socialised, talked and helped to recover, and it is hard to gather at those facilities when they are not there. There was obviously a great need to have a number of these facilities rebuilt and a lot of that fell to the federal government—it fell to all levels of government, but a significant portion of that fell to the federal government.

As recently as the last couple of weeks we have had significant announcements relating to the Sarsfield and Ensay recreation reserves and facilities—in those towns they are hubs where people gather—being federally funded. We had nearly $10 million in federal government money given to the upgrade of the Bairnsdale airport. The stimulus for that was twofold. The first one being that over the fire period, which lasted for fairly much six weeks of very significant firefighting in my region, it was problematic to get strike crews in and out of the region and the airport never had the capacity to land planes of any great size that could bring numbers of fire crews in and out. It was then put on the radar that the airport needed to be upgraded from an emergency services perspective. In line with that, maybe the additional benefit down the track is that now that airport can cater for planes with greater carrying capacity, and it might also open up the possibility of passenger air services in and out of Bairnsdale. That upgrade of $9.9 million, which is very significant, is fully federal government funded.

People will know that Mallacoota did it pretty tough during that period, and a number of projects have been funded in Mallacoota. I will not get to them all here off the top of my head, but these are little projects in towns. I have spoken about facilities that bring people together such as the Mallacoota Inlet Bowling Club and the Mallacoota Golf Club, which have received federal government funding to rebuild and recover. The mudbrick pavilion in the middle of the town is a hub largely for the arts community in Mallacoota, which is significant. It has been in bad need of an upgrade for a long, long period of time and has been federally funded again. These are all just in the electorate of Gippsland East post fires, where the federal government has provided exceptionally high levels of support.

One of the other big issues in Mallacoota was emergency services, ironically after the fires, and the need to have upgraded facilities to meet the needs of that community. There was a shortfall in funding—some funding was provided by the state—but now we have been lucky to get funding to finish that project of that combined emergency services hub within Mallacoota. But Mallacoota was not the only area that was hit of course; the fire damage was significant right across the entire region.

Upgrades—federal government money was announced just this year, in 2022, to upgrade the Omeo Golf Club and provide new Omeo netball facilities. People from country communities know that those sporting clubs and those sporting groups and the gatherings that go on around those facilities and within those clubs are often the best therapy you can get to recover from the experience that many of our communities have endured. So they are critically important facilities.

The Gippsland Agricultural Group is now going to build a terrific centre at the Bairnsdale airport site. The agricultural group has been doing a lot of work in recent years around testing crops for warmer weather conditions—seeing what grows, seeing what does not. They delve into a range of areas around productivity and fodder for stock, and their little lots where they do these test growings are very significant. But this facility that they have now been funded for with the federal government money will allow them to bring in groups, to run forums, to run sessions—to basically have a base there where they can take that whole new project to the next level.

At Raymond Island we have got works for the halls. Swifts Creek hall is an important one. Community halls in country towns remain very significant places of gathering. These were all federally funded, so it is a surprise to me to stand here today and see a motion that relates to a lack of support from the federal government, if you like, in relation to Victorians getting their fair share, because that certainly has not been the case in my electorate.

Another issue that I will raise is men’s sheds. What a great initiative men’s sheds are to our country communities. The recent round of federal government support to my region, again only just a matter of months ago, has funded two men’s sheds. I will give an example of one. Twin Rivers had no men’s shed at all and a growing community. Twin Rivers takes in the area, for those that are familiar with my region, of the Tambo and Nicholson rivers region between Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance. It is a growing little community. It is actually the community where I live. Maybe in the years to come I might be the beneficiary of turning up at this men’s shed. But there are no better initiatives to, I guess, bring people together: to chat, to socialise, to get their social contacts going and their mental health better. There is nothing better to address those issues than to communicate with those around you and your friends network, and it is these facilities that bring people together. So two men’s sheds is just another project that we are working on out of this federal money to bring together these communities that do not have one.

One of the programs that missed out, and I will mention this here, is the significant upgrade to the Buchan Recreation Reserve. My federal colleague Darren Chester and I have met with that community. We know the importance of this project, and I am optimistic that it will receive a level of support at some stage in the future. Buchan was one of those towns that was exceptionally hard hit. The fire basically enveloped the entire town, and the recreation reserve and those facilities there became somewhat of a hub for those who had to evacuate their homes. It is a community that is certainly expecting a level of support. Of course these federal government grant streams are often highly oversubscribed. My federal colleague Darren Chester has been working very hard, and we have had some terrific outcomes through his advocacy, but there is more to do, and Buchan is one of those that we are very, very hopeful of securing into the future.

But the point that I want to make is that right across the length and breadth of the East Gippsland electorate we have had massive, massive federal government investment into rebuilding these communities and into rebuilding the facilities in these communities that will bring these people back together, that will put the necessary upgrades in place to meet the demands of the future—not only in relation to recreation but also in relation to community safety around fires. We are now building centres that will be better prepared for people to be able to stay in in an emergency situation—have a shower, have a meal cooked for them—and to have the support networks and agencies come into these facilities to cater for those in need in times of emergency.

In relation to this motion, the federal government has done an extraordinary job in supporting the state electorate of Gippsland East with high levels of money, and I am sure that that will continue into the future. But it is for that reason that I disagree with this motion and find it very difficult, because it has not been the case in my patch.

Ms COUZENS (Geelong) (12:51): I am pleased to rise to contribute to this take-note motion, because what it does is give me an opportunity to say what many in my community are thinking about this federal budget and to raise many of the issues that they have raised with me. I want to mention some of those because I think this is really relevant, and many regional communities around Victoria will be thinking exactly the same thing.

There are major concerns discussed over the cuts to arts. We know the arts were one of the biggest sectors hit by the COVID pandemic, and yet in this budget there is no new funding for any of the arts, which is an absolute disgrace. I know in my community and, as I said, around other regions there has been a real reliance on government funding, both from the federal government and from the state government, and I know we have contributed an enormous amount of money to the arts in my community. There has been that funding through the Regional Industry Sector Employment program, which many in my community also received, but the last of that has been distributed, and my understanding is that there is not going to be any further funding in that area. So in the arts in my community and right across Victoria they are quite disgusted at the decisions that have been made.

I also heard a great deal of nothing of note on climate change. It is one of the biggest issues facing this country and there is not any real commitment to dealing with climate change. Particularly for young people, who I heard mostly from over the last week or so, there are major concerns that there has been no listening to what they are saying—but not only that—or to what the experts are saying on the crisis that we are facing. It is this state government, the Andrews government, that is leading the way in this country on climate change and making sure that we are dealing with the issues of this crisis, but from the federal government there is absolutely nothing. There is great concern about that.

The cost of living is another one that was raised with me many times over the last week or so, and people are really doing it tough. It is all very well for the Morrison government to come out and say, ‘We are focusing on the costs of living for people’, but it is almost nothing when you think about people getting $250—that is barely a quarter of some of their power bills. They cannot see how that is going to help them in any way, so there are major concerns about that. The growth in wages—or the no growth in wages, I should say—is impacting on so many people, not only in my community but right across this state. It is really concerning for those people to think that nothing is going to change for them and in fact it is only going to get worse. If you add on top of that the cost of petrol, it is really significant for them.

There are the cuts and the impacts on social and community services—such valuable services that we rely on in our communities. I know on this side of the house we work very closely with them. From the Andrews government’s perspective, we fund them to deliver many of those services, but so does the federal government. That is their responsibility, and they are not stepping up in relation to the vital community services that we have in our communities and rely heavily on, particularly with the cost-of-living issues that we are facing.

I am really proud of our Big Housing Build, the $5 billion commitment in Victoria. Just imagine what it would have been like if the federal government had matched that. How many people would we have been able to house—

Mr Edbrooke: We wouldn’t have an issue.

Ms COUZENS: That is right; we would not have an issue. The member for Frankston raises a really valid point, because that could have dealt with so many of the housing issues that we have in this state. And it is not just Victoria that is dealing with a housing crisis, it is right across the country. My thoughts go out to those people in New South Wales and Queensland who have lost their homes through the flood crisis they are experiencing, but that is going to add more and more pressure on all states across this country. Housing is such a big issue, and for the Morrison government to talk about home ownership programs—I get that that is significant, but it is not going to address the housing issues for people that cannot afford to buy a home. It is just not realistic for many in our community. I talk to people every single day about housing issues, and what the Morrison government has come up with is not going to meet their needs for housing at all. They cannot afford to buy a house. Even if they had a no-deposit opportunity, they still cannot afford home ownership. There are so many issues relating to housing, and I think public housing and social housing should be where our investment is. I am really pleased that the federal Labor opposition have committed to increasing those housing opportunities if they have the privilege of winning the election when it is called.

The other big one that people have raised with me is the aged care crisis. What has been done in terms of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety? Very little. The Morrison government keep saying they are pouring money into it, but the royal commission recommendations are really clear about what needs to happen in terms of aged care and ensuring that people are getting appropriate, safe care, not some of the horrific stories that we have heard about aged care through the royal commission. The Morrison government has got a lot to answer for in terms of that royal commission, and I think it has gone on for a couple of years. We need immediate action on aged care, and I am really pleased that the federal Labor opposition have committed to that as well.

And of course there is no ICAC. For them to be able to do whatever they like and get away with it—the fact that they think that that is okay is really disturbing. And a lot of people in my electorate—even conservative voters—are concerned about the attitude towards an ICAC.

Mr Edbrooke: Another broken promise.

Ms COUZENS: It is another broken promise—they have not kept up with what they committed to do at the last election. There is also Closing the Gap funding. The Aboriginal communities across this country are outraged. There was a new Closing the Gap agreement signed off last year and there was to be significant funding contributed to that. Aboriginal community leaders across this country are outraged by the lack of commitment to closing the gap. These are issues that are absolutely shameful; the federal government should not be able to get away with that. They have expressed great disappointment and asked if we will ever close the gap under these circumstances.

It is interesting that those opposite in their contributions cannot bring themselves to stand up for Victoria. There have been contributions from those opposite that talk about what the Morrison government has done in the past, but can they give us something that is committed to in this budget? That is what this motion is about—it is about the budget that was handed down last week. The member for Murray Plains made the claim in his contribution yesterday that Victoria’s infrastructure business cases are no good and that is why we did not get any money, which I do not believe. But at least we have them, because there are other infrastructure projects that have been funded in other parts of the country that have no business cases. They need to be a bit careful about what they are saying here. We have a federal Treasurer who is a Victorian but clearly does not have any commitment to Victoria. I mean, they have deliberately ignored Victoria. The Morrison government should be hanging their head in shame. And what did the opposition leader do? He welcomed this federal budget with open arms. What a pathetic display of party politics. Instead of standing up for Victoria, he has openly said what a great federal budget it is. We have Bev McArthur from the other place who was happy for us to lose GST funding; she is quoted in the media saying that. We need to be calling them to account on what they are saying.

Sitting suspended 1.01 pm until 2.01 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.