Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Appropriation (2022–2023) Bill 2022

Appropriation (Parliament 2022–2023) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motions of Mr PALLAS and Ms ALLAN:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (10:44): As those listening intently yesterday to this contribution will know, I was cut short by 7 minutes 10 seconds. There is no good news in this budget at all for many of the self-funded retirees across the Polwarth electorate, because this government is addicted to gobbling up the benefits of years of hard work that so many self-funded retirees across my electorate have put into small property purchases, small commercial investments—things that they worked hard for to buy to sustain their retirement. This government has now become totally addicted to land tax. Land tax now is completely out of control.

In fact I had to deal with one particular constituent in my electorate who had operated a small farming enterprise in a beautiful location in the Otway Ranges, with views in the distance of the sea, only to find out that after her husband had died and she no longer kept 50 or 60 cattle on that property that this government has now deemed it land taxable. It is no longer an agricultural enterprise. For her and her husband’s pride and joy, something that they had had and built since the Ash Wednesday bushfires in 1983, this government presented her with a backdated $853 000 tax bill. Now, the property is probably worth only marginally more than that. She has no capacity to pay that. But this is what this government is doing, and increasingly the hardworking constituents of my Polwarth electorate who have a small factory or a couple of shopfronts or things that they rely on to be self-funded retirement investments—people who want the dignity of having their own control over their retirement—are continually being overtaxed and charged by the government. And this budget offers no relief; indeed this budget just continues the trend. We see skyrocketing receipts being used to prop up the overblown budgets and the out-of-control projects here in Melbourne, and it is so many of the hardworking self-funded retirees in my electorate that in fact enable this government to do that. On the financial attack that continues on Victorians, that is one critical sector that is very important in my community.

But the overall fundamentals of this budget do not go well at all for Victoria’s future and do not go well for not only older Victorians but Victorians of the future, who will inherit the debt. We have learned in recent weeks that the debt now has ballooned completely out of control. In only eight short years this government has taken the debt from around $20 billion to heading north of $110 billion, with the forward estimates now predicting $160 billion, $180 billion, and that is if things do not continue to blow out of control with rising inflation. But what that means is that Victorians now are carrying a debt equivalent to Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. This is a huge mountain of debt. It is equivalent to 26 per cent of the state’s economy, and it is a noose around Victoria’s neck that will prevent it from being able to invest in the things that we will actually need in the future—the things that we will need in our growth suburbs, the things that we are going to need in rural and regional Australia to cater for the growth in those areas. And we have seen unprecedented growth, which this budget does so little to support.

One of the biggest shortages we have is land supply. This government continues to keep a lid on land supply. It is not working with local government and councils to fast-track land release in so many of our regional communities. Of course across the Polwarth electorate towns like Colac, Winchelsea, Camperdown, Terang and others are wound up for years and years in order to get simple planning approvals through that will allow them to create the land supply that will allow new homes and houses to be built. And as Shadow Minister for Housing I am continually bombarded by community groups, private individuals and others who want to do more for the housing crisis—the housing affordability crisis, the housing supply crisis—but just cannot get there.

One of the great concerns that we saw outlined in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee earlier this week was some of the stats around housing and housing affordability, which this budget does not do much for. The government has trumpeted its $5 billion investment into government housing, which is an amount of money it set aside now nearly two years ago, and the government is still touting the fact that it is going to build 12 000—in fact the member for Burwood announced today it is going to be 14 000—homes under this program. Unless this government budget is a magic pudding—many out there believe it is actually a magic pudding, but this magic pudding is managing to build now 2000 more homes with the same amount of money from two years ago when the minister himself admits that costs in the housing sector have increased by up to 35 per cent right across the spectrum, whether it is construction materials, labour supply, availability—

A member interjected.

Mr RIORDAN: Steel is up 60 per cent. All sorts of materials have increased dramatically. In fact the Big Housing Build provider that the government has contracted, among others, is in deep negotiations with this government on how it can continue to provide the houses it has promised at the prices it had originally said. This budget is full of fantasy. It is wanting to build magically even more homes than what was initially quoted two years ago when these homes are in fact costing so much more.

One of the other great disappointments that this budget has revealed to us in housing is that people are now waiting 16 months on public housing registers and lists. That is up from 10 months a couple of years ago, which was not something to be proud of, and it is now well more than double what the waiting lists were when we were in government back in 2014. So despite the government’s rhetoric on public and affordable housing, it is simply not delivering. It has not released the land to allow private sector and other investors to create more homes. They have allocated money in a ham-fisted way that is seeing inflation gobble up its true value, and as we stand today this government is poorly underachieving on its ability to provide the homes that Victorians will need, particularly country Victorians.

The budget that was handed down this year is a budget that Victorians can be duly sceptical of. We have talked about how the trains were promised four years ago for the Warrnambool line. They were put into the budget and taken out after the election. We expect to see trains put into this budget and then taken out again after the election, because this government talks big and delivers little.

Mr CARBINES (Ivanhoe—Minister for Child Protection and Family Services, Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers) (10:51): I am pleased to contribute to the Appropriation (2022–2023) Bill 2022, the 2022–23 Victorian state budget, and I commend the Treasurer and his team for their leadership and hard work in bringing together all the contributions of my colleagues in the Labor caucus—our engagement with community and stakeholders and our community service organisations and the significant work that has gone into setting further foundations and support across the community as we not only work our way through the recovery from the pandemic but set the tone and the investments that are going to shape the future for so many Victorians.

I would like to start in relation to some of my portfolio responsibilities and the significant investments that continue the work of the government for some of the most vulnerable people in our community, particularly around my work as Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers. The budget provided some $146 million to replace and refurbish beds at many of our public sector residential aged care services. Of course we provide very significant residential public sector aged care services across Victoria. Most of those services that we provide are in rural and regional Victoria, and in the breakdown of some of those figures in particular we are seeing an investment of $34.64 million at the Camperdown hospital campus for 36 beds to be replaced. That is going to be a really important outcome for the people of Camperdown. I know that they welcome that.

There is a $62.84 million redevelopment at Mansfield District Hospital. That is 72 beds to create a co-located facility. The old Buckland House will be refurbished for hospital use—a really significant investment for the Mansfield community. We are putting a stake in the ground and saying to those Mansfield community families, ‘We want you to be able to stay in your community if you need aged care residential support. Your family can be in the town, be close by and know that you’re going to be in a modern first-rate facility’. It is a huge investment for the people of Mansfield and surrounds.

At the Mornington Centre there is an $800 000 investment to develop a 60-bed facility that will include 30 aged-persons mental health beds and a 30-bed specialist dementia unit. Beyond that there is a very significant investment of some $45.36 million at Orbost regional hospital. That is going to include refurbishment and a new 38-bed facility. It is going to combine Lochiel House and Waratah Lodge and replace 38 beds. The $45.36 million redevelopment at Orbost regional hospital is welcomed by that community and is a very significant investment in public sector residential aged care services. It is part of a $146 million package right across the state, particularly in our rural and regional communities.

There is also funding of $1.52 million at Bright so that we can do the planning to replace Hawthorn Village, which is a 40-bed facility. There is also planning money of $1.66 million for Heywood so that we can replace Heywood nursing home; that is about a 45-bed facility. So we will do the planning work, we will put the flag in the ground and notify those communities that the further investment is being considered for the next budgets, but the planning work will be done there. And the capital investment work on those other sites is about to begin.

I also wanted to touch on the $271 million across child protection and family services, which builds on the $1.2 billion that we allocated to support at-risk children, their families and carers. Since 2014, 1180 child protection practitioner positions have been funded by our government. We support that child protection workforce, and I want to commend them. Right through the pandemic, every day our child protection practitioner workforce was out there looking out for and supporting vulnerable children and keeping families strong and kids safe. I want to commend them for their work. There is also the investment of $5.7 million across a range of initiatives to attract and retain those workers. There are so many great opportunities across the health and human services workforce because of the investment from our government, in particular around child protection and family services. There has been more than $71 million to support existing demand for residential care, $19 million to improve support for our most vulnerable children and nearly $13 million to continue the care hub trial, which provides wraparound support for children who have entered care for the first time.

I also wanted to acknowledge a particular commitment that has been welcomed by kinship and foster carers: a $5.8 million new help desk service that will provide better support for our carers navigating an array of supports available for them. When they need to organise all those life administrative matters—Medicare cards and other services and supports for the people they care for—we are going to have that carer hub there that is going to support them, that new carer help desk, so that we can support our kinship and foster carers to get through the maze of paperwork and other administration that is really important to support the young people that they care for. We have prioritised that service as something that will help them. It takes a bit of pressure of the workload of our child protection practitioners too, keeps them focused on their very important work and provides a very long-term and clear support for the priority of our kinship and foster carers. I am very pleased to work with them on co-design and make sure that that carer help desk is effective and meets their needs.

I also want to touch on a couple of other key matters. One is the Change Your Reactions public education campaign that will continue to improve and lift the attitudes that people have towards and their understanding of Victorians with autism—and not only that, but the disability state plan, which we launched just recently. There are more than 1.1 million Victorians who identify as having a disability, and we are going to back our investment of that plan with $15.1 million in this budget. There is also further funding around our Changing Places initiative, which is about providing appropriate disability-supported services and amenities for toilet facilities around many places in Victoria. This helps the tourism economy and helps provide opportunities in rural and regional Victoria so that more families and carers and people with a disability can travel around the state and know that the facilities and supports that they need are available to them.

I did also want to touch further just on a couple of other elements in relation to our child protection and family services, in particular that under our Aboriginal Children in Aboriginal Care program our authorised Aboriginal community controlled organisations have an opportunity to actively work with children’s families and with community and other professionals to develop and implement our child’s case plan and achieve their permanency objective in a way that is culturally safe and in the best interests of the child. And at the end of April 2022, 102 Aboriginal children were currently authorised to the CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, VACCA, and 87 Aboriginal children were authorised to the CEO of the Bendigo and District Aboriginal Cooperative, BDAC. The previous state budget had made funding for our ACAC, Aboriginal Children in Aboriginal Care, ongoing, and it will support the authorisation of up to some 396 Aboriginal children and young people by 2024. Our government continues to work alongside our Aboriginal community controlled organisations and community service organisations to support Aboriginal self-determination. Aboriginal Children in Aboriginal Care recognises that the needs of Aboriginal children are best met by Aboriginal community services that are culturally attuned, and we want to make sure that we help support them to build their capacity to care and support more Aboriginal children in Aboriginal care. We are very committed to that ongoing work.

Can I also take the opportunity to perhaps touch on a couple of investments locally in my Ivanhoe electorate and particularly the Waratah Special Development School—$6.81 million. I want to pay tribute to Jenny Wallace, the long-term principal there, who retired just in the last week or two. Of course Waratah Special Development School provides services right across the northern suburbs. It is based in Bellfield. It was built in large part by a Rudd government investment, and to add the further expansion of that service in Bellfield is really important to families right across the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

There was funding for the Good Samaritan Inn project in Ivanhoe, and I want to pay tribute. There is $11.2 million for several family violence refuges and crisis accommodation, but for the Good Sam Inn project in Ivanhoe, as part of that project we are going to see $1.7 million in capital investment for those 10 units that are going to provide great support for women and children experiencing family violence and homelessness. I want to commend my Ivanhoe community, who fought hard in the planning processes to get that through council, and council for supporting that project and for making sure that there is an opportunity through the Good Sam Inn in Ivanhoe. It shows a lot about the values of my community and the values of our church services and our communities there to put to good use community facilities. Let us invest in them, let us make them fit for purpose and meet some community needs right now for women and children experiencing family violence. The fact that there is this funding allocation and also some ongoing funding of $1.6 million over four years and further recurrent funding of $484 000 ongoing I think is just a real commitment, and I know people fought hard in my community to deliver that project. We are pleased to be able to support it with that funding. It is going to make a big difference to the lives of women and children fleeing family violence, with so much of that connected to homelessness, and those 10 units are going to go a long way to changing lives and saving the lives of young people and vulnerable women in my community.

We also have for Macleod Park pavilion $1.5 million, and Banyule City Council is going to match that—so $3 million down there at Macleod Park. And for the record: yes, my daughter, who turned 10 yesterday, is enjoying her football in the under-11s at Macleod Junior Football Club. For a very long time they have been patient out there, the Macleod juniors that play at the Macleod Park facilities there. I think the last plaque there is from when I was on Banyule City Council back in 2005, so more than enough time has passed for us to uplift our investment there, particularly around change rooms for men and women and for boys and girls. It is the junior football ground up there, so the $3 million—$1.5 million from us, matched by Banyule—will see a great redevelopment for all the young families with young children and a community space there at Macleod Park. That really comes off the top of previous investments in the senior club down at De Winton Park that we have opened in the past couple of years.

For Rosanna Primary School there is nearly half a million dollars for some minor capital works that we need to do. It will go a long way to some of the work I think we would like to further do with the school long term on the final part of the redevelopment of their administration and classroom wings, but this will go a long way to addressing some immediate concerns. For my old school, Viewbank College, there is half a million dollars to upgrade and refurbish canteen and toilet amenities and the like. It is a big school. It is a great school. We have previously spent around $11 million there on the redevelopment in our first term in government of the performing arts centre and classrooms at Viewbank College, and so I am really pleased that these minor capital works have been provided for in the budget so that we can continue to prioritise the day-to-day activities that are really important at Viewbank College.

Further to all of that there is obviously a range of other investments in my electorate. Of course time does not permit me to get through them all on this occasion, but I did want to just touch lastly on a couple of other things I think more broadly are really important to the community and I know have been responded to well through other cost-of-living matters, such as the quarter of the billion dollars that is being invested in this budget for households to access the one-off $250 power saving bonus. That is a direct support that will also help them find the best deal on their power bills. We have provided a lot of support to people in more recent concessions support that has been provided through the member for Mill Park and Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change around some of those power saving matters. They have been hugely successful and welcome in the community.

I did want to touch on the work we provided with the Premier’s leadership on the free RATs for people with disability and their families. It has had a huge uptake and is something that I am really proud of and pleased to see through great leadership from our government.

I think it is also important to touch on the fact that there has now been a total of $1.6 billion of new funding that has benefited Victorian Aboriginal communities, including $400 million in this budget alone, off the back of that $1.6 billion of new funding since we were first elected in 2014.

I am pleased too about some of the other elements that were outlined in the budget, particularly some of our forecasts that show that at 4 per cent the statewide unemployment rate is now at the lowest since current records began, and the regional unemployment rate is even lower, at 3.2 per cent. Employment in regional Victoria has increased by some 80 000 people since November 2014. But can I just say in closing to the people of the Ivanhoe electorate that they have not only made very clear to me their priorities over the time I have represented them in this place, but have worked together with me to deliver on every one of the commitments that we have made, and we have resourced those. I want to pay tribute to those in the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and the Department of Health and the work that people have done day in, day out to support vulnerable people in our community and put them first and provide great support to them. I look forward to our continued work together.

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (11:06): I rise to speak on the state budget here in Victoria. I want to highlight why this budget is more spin than delivery than any budget I have actually seen, even from Labor. I note that the member for Gippsland South is here. It started off when you went to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) and saw the questioning from the member for Gippsland South to the Premier about Melton hospital. It was highlighted to the Premier that instead of having funding amounts over the five years to construct the hospital, which their media release had stated, it had ‘to be confirmed’, ‘to be confirmed’, ‘to be confirmed’, ‘to be confirmed’, ‘to be confirmed’, with no funding. Then when the Premier tried to justify it by reading in the footnotes, the look on his face when he realised the footnotes did not even state they were going to build the Melton hospital—and it is not in the state budget.

But luckily there is an alternative, and that alternative is on 26 November when Victorians, and particularly those in Melton, will have an opportunity to change government. With a change of government we have guaranteed we will put the money in the budget to build Melton hospital, because they have been misled by Labor for too long. It is time they had some positive news and got the hospital underway and constructed to service the growth happening out there in Melton. That is essential.

On growth areas, I represent—and proudly represent—a growth area in Gembrook, and I hope to represent the growth area of Berwick after the next election. I would love to be out there and still representing that area. One of the things from this budget that we know this government will do if they are re-elected on 26 November is increase taxes on first home buyers and homebuyers throughout my electorate. As we have grown we have seen land tax increase and we have seen the new windfall tax come in, which is going to impact on land prices all the way across the state. Developers want to get on with what they need to do and have land availability. That is how you reduce prices. It is about supply and demand, and the supply dries up when the government fails to act.

Not only that, we have seen increases on trades and tradies—already and on top of the cost increases they have had because of timber, steel, employment and labour. All of these costs are impacting and get passed on to, eventually, the final person, which is the homebuyer, and that is unfair. There is an alternative. From 26 November, if we have a Liberal-Nationals government here in Victoria, we will get rid of the tradies tax. We will reduce that so tradies can get on with what they want to do, so tradies can get on and build your house without having to put extra costs on every single time they come out and do work for people here in Victoria.

On the Clyde North police station, the government promised, put out media releases and even recently came into this place to brag about the fact that they were going to deliver the Clyde North police station, which they promised would be ready, open and operating by November 2022. But every resident in Clyde North I remind of this: the government has now admitted they have not even signed contracts for land. They have not bought land in Clyde North to build the Clyde North police station, and they are now saying, ‘We might build it before the 2026 election’—‘We might’.

I will stand here today and say with a change of government—you have got an alternative—we will build the Clyde North police station. There are too many residents down there and too many stories about increases in crime, about people feeling unsafe in their homes, to not have a police station in one of the fastest growing areas in the state.

When I travel around my electorate and I speak to businesses, what are they after? They have had support; they have had assistance from federal and state governments. They want to get on with their business and operate normally, and they want certainty. At every business throughout my electorate I have gone to and talked to about it, they have wanted the certainty of no more lockdowns. They want a government who can come out and say, ‘We’re going to let you operate. Any chance or change we have in the COVID pandemic, we’ll be working with you to ensure that you can continue business’. We want to make sure that they have got the certainty so they can invest in the future, so they can get the staff they need to increase and grow their businesses. It is essential to the services and businesses throughout the Gembrook electorate and the future Berwick electorate.

The 000 crisis here in Victoria, this budget and the Ashton report have all highlighted one thing. Every time the Victorian government have come out and said it is COVID, we now know from their own report that in 2016 Victoria Police, the fire services and ambulance services had all gone to government and said, ‘000 is causing delays. We need to fix it. 000 is creating issues with people calling in, and we are not getting our services out on time’. That was in 2016. The Ashton report, the government’s own report, said this continued through up until COVID, and then when COVID hit there was no plan for how to deal with the surge capacity that they were going to need within 000. And what have we seen? We have seen up to 21 people die because of the failures of the government with the investment, the training and having people available in 000 and in our health network—an absolute and utter failure.

During the two years of the COVID period, when we were at the peak, of which the Premier will say, ‘That’s the reason we have had all the issues’, they cut staff for ambulance call takers at ESTA—2.3 full-time equivalent staff less over that two-year period than there were between 2016 and 2019. The Premier said they had met every target in ESTA since 2016—‘each and every target’ was what he said here in this place, and then when we came out with his own annual reports that said that was not the case, he doubled down, misled this place again and said that they met those targets every time. When your own reports are coming out saying you have not, that is a problem.

There is an alternative: a change of government on 26 November. We have already committed; we will make sure the 000 service works. We will have the staff required to answer your calls. We will ensure we will work with the unions, staff, management, whoever it takes, to ensure that we can change the training, change the operations and the structure so when one group—police, ambulance or fire services—are quieter and another has a surge, staff can transfer across through systems so every call is answered within that 5 seconds, because that is what Victorians deserve. That is what everyone deserves.

When it comes to Victoria Police, the Police Association Victoria were calling for more police—1500—and this budget has only delivered 502. That is one-third of what the request was from the Police Association. There are staff shortages throughout Victoria Police. Laverton North police station has been closed for eight weeks. When asked at PAEC, the government could not tell us how many 24-hour stations were not offering customer service—front counter service—for an 8-hour period or more in the last eight to 10 weeks. They could not let us know how many were closed. And now we are hearing today that Victoria Police are being called out more and more for the mental health crisis we have got here in our state.

Now, I have worked on the van. You go out and you support the paramedics here in Victoria when required for someone who is agitated or violent or when there are safety risks. But now they are being called out to more and more mental health emergencies and mental health cases because there is a lack of ambulances and they have to then transport them to a hospital. This is taking vital resources from Victoria Police off the roads. We have committed—26 November—that we will work with the Police Association Victoria to ensure that we can get the police back out where they need to be, protecting Victorians. We will rebuild the service to make sure that we can work with people on the road and have vans where they need to be, protecting people and preventing crime here in the state.

Beaconsfield railway station—I have campaigned for Beaconsfield railway station for a long time, and the failure to put money in to upgrade that station is appalling. We are not asking for a new, modern, super railway station; we are asking for minor upgrades at the moment and some cover so people do not have to wait out in the sun and the rain. At the moment people living with a disability have to walk or go in a wheelchair down to the other end of the train station to get onto a train or off the train. It does not matter the temperature, if it is bucketing down rain or 40 degrees, they have to wait with no cover at the other end of the railway station, and that is simply just not fair. It would not take much to make sure there is cover down that end of the station so people living with a disability have the same protections from the environment that everyone deserves when they go to a railway station.

The toilets are closed. We have asked for them to be opened for a long time. The government’s answer was: ‘It’s not a manned station. You can’t have the toilets open because it’s not a manned station’. Yet in Hallam they managed to put toilets onto a platform at an unmanned station only 12 months before they knocked the station down and rebuilt the whole station. To be honest, we would be happy to take the second-hand toilets and put them down. We have already got the plumbing there. Put them at the Beaconsfield station because people are already highlighting the issues of having no facilities at the Beaconsfield railway station. An alternative, on 26 November, is that we will ensure that those people living with a disability at Beaconsfield railway station are treated fairly, and we will have toilets opened at that railway station.

FRV and CFA—we know there was a campaign from the government to form FRV by merging CFA and MFB, and we now know that it was more about the political spin than outcomes that they aimed to achieve. Point 1: the enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA), after you have merged the two systems, still has a division A and a division B, effectively MFB and CFA. An extra staff member at Vermont on a day shift cannot go across to Boronia, just 11 kilometres away, if they are one short. Boronia has to get someone from the division B contract, not division A. That means Boronia—and this has happened—has had a person travel from Warrnambool to come and do overtime in Boronia whilst a person at Vermont is a spare on the shift and cannot literally travel the 11 kilometres to support them.

We have seen in this EBA—because it is so poorly written in the cost impact—positions where you can travel up to Mildura from Pakenham to do overtime and you get 650 kilometres assistance for your travel and you get overtime rates for 6½ hours for your travel. You get that on the way up and the way back for a night shift. If you are doing two night shifts, you get that four times—up, back, up, back—even though there are only 10 hours between the shifts and you would not be able to travel back. What is worse, there are occasions where this has happened, and the person getting all of those allowances and overtime hopped on a chartered plane and flew up at the expense of FRV and still got all those allowances. It is such a poorly written document, and it is still creating the division that this government promised to fix. It is actually worse; the division in there now is worse. And until you have one EBA that covers all, you are never going to see changes. It is costing Victorians a fortune. On that, we asked in the parliamentary committee hearings what community safety outcomes have improved to justify a $915 million budget, up from $600 million. The answer? ‘We’ll have to take that on notice’, because no-one has any idea if there are any improvements.

Let us have a look at the one improvement that should happen, structural fires confined to room of origin. The actual for 2020–21 was 83.9 per cent. The expected outcome this year is 78 per cent. They are now getting to fires and they are going outside the room of origin, which is the key point to clarify and justify what fire services do. Also, the response times are dropping from 85.1 per cent when they reach their target to 81 per cent across Victoria. That is an increase in the amount of time it takes to get out to protect Victorians. We are spending more money for worse outcomes. This is not the firefighters’ fault; this is simply an error of the government in the way they have set up FRV. We will fix it. FRV needs to make sure that they can get out the door on time, every time, and we will work with whoever it takes to put community safety first. This budget is highlighted by the fact that it is more spin and no delivery, not just for my electorate but for all the services across Victoria.

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (11:21): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise and speak on this year’s Appropriation (2022–2023) Bill 2022 and Appropriation (Parliament 2022–2023) Bill 2022. I cannot start my contribution today without reflecting on the member for Gembrook’s contribution and the beginning of his speech. It makes me so angry that I feel almost as red-faced as the jacket I am wearing today. For him to stand in this place and talk about growing communities and our Andrews Labor government not delivering for growing communities—well, let me tell you about my growing community in Wyndham. We have the equivalent, just like the member for Cranbourne talked about this morning, of four classrooms full of kids being born each and every single week. That is about 110 kids being born each and every single week. This government has spent billions of dollars in Melbourne’s outer west—billions. We have spent $1.8 billion on western roads upgrades, and we are not stopping there. There is still more work to do. But to stand here and say that communities like mine have a choice on 26 November—let me tell you about my community over the last nine years of a federal coalition government and what they delivered in the City of Wyndham: absolutely nothing. Nine years of nothing. Not one project did they deliver, let alone the funding that they ripped from this state.

During the federal election that has just unrolled in the City of Wyndham—the Liberal candidate, what did he offer voters? The Libs running in Gellibrand and Lalor, what did they offer? They offered nothing. They did not have one policy. It was something that the newly re-elected federal member for Lalor and I were talking about—not one policy, not one local commitment announced. Imagine that—a guy running to be a federal representative of one of the fastest growing corridors in this country and not one local commitment. Thank God that the newly re-elected member for Lalor has received a commitment that the Albanese Labor government is now going to build a $57 million WestLink to deal with the traffic in one of Melbourne’s fastest growing municipalities. Not one thing was delivered under a federal coalition government over the last nine years, and now you have the member for Gembrook saying, ‘Well, people in growing communities have a choice on 26 November’. Based on what? Based on what their mates have delivered over nine years of a federal Liberal government or what the Victorian Liberal Party think they can deliver for our growth areas, Melbourne’s outer west and Melbourne’s western suburbs? There is nothing that they will deliver, because the last time they were in government they delivered nothing for people in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Let me tell you, come 26 November people will remember that, and they will also remember the billions and billions of dollars worth of infrastructure alone—the bricks and mortar alone—that is going into Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Just on election night I was driving to the newly re-elected federal member for Fraser’s afterparty. We were driving through Footscray and my son said, ‘Oh, my God, Mummy. What’s that?’. It was all lit up. Do you know what it was? It was Footscray Hospital under construction. It was massive, and it was wonderful to be able to say to my son on the way to an election victory party for the federal member for Fraser, ‘This is what Labor governments do, not only in Victoria but in this nation’. That is why it was so important on the weekend to finally have an Albanese Labor government elected.

Now I have got that out of my system I want to talk about the incredible budget that has just been handed down. This is the fourth budget and the fourth time I have stood in this place and talked about the many, many wonderful things that the Andrews Labor government is delivering for all Victorians and in particular my part in the outer west, in Tarneit. I have to say, in reflecting on the budget this year, it suggests to me that Victoria is successfully bouncing back. No-one here in this chamber would dispute that the past couple of years have been extremely tough, very, very tough, on Victorians, but what we are seeing now—and I have said all the way through this global pandemic, this one-in-100-year health crisis—is constantly the resilience of Victorians shining through. On this side of the house we have time and time again stood here in our darkest moments talking about that resilience, which is what helps Victoria stand apart from other states and makes us such an amazing, amazing place to live and raise our kids. As of today Victoria’s economy is 8.7 per cent larger than where it was when we were re-elected in 2018, and unemployment is at 4 per cent, a record low. In regional Victoria the unemployment rate is 3.2 per cent, a full percentage point below the national average.

But there is still so much more to do. Like the Premier and the Treasurer have said, now is not the time to wind back spending, right when we see and we know that it is working. Unlike those opposite, we on this side of the house know that harsh, slash-and-burn policy of savage cuts and winding back on services will do nothing to help Victorians’ resilience. It is not going to benefit our economy, not one bit, and I say this for my community. If this is the opposition’s approach, then it is communities like mine in Melbourne’s outer west that will pay the price of an austerity-focused Liberal government here in Victoria. That is something communities like mine will think about and reflect upon by the time we come to the election at the end of this year, because as much as people have been hurting over the last few years, we cannot and we will not go back to the paralysis that defined that previous Liberal government last time they were in power.

I want to take a lot of the time that I have got left today to talk about our record investment in education, because it is record spending that we are doing in the heart of my community, and I truly believe that this is one of the Andrews Labor government’s greatest achievements and greatest legacies. In 2018 we committed to Victoria’s reputation as the Education State. I always laugh about that, because in my house we talk about the Education State a lot. My mum lives way up in northern New South Wales, and when she talks about the education my Emily and Leo get here in Victoria she always refers to us as the Education State, as I think she really does truly believe my kids will be receiving a better education down here in Victoria than they would have received in New South Wales.

Over 100 new schools over eight years and a slew of school upgrades and improvements is what we have been getting on and delivering. Tarneit and Wyndham in particular have been among the proudest recipients of this commitment. In this term alone seven new schools have been built in Wyndham, including three in Tarneit. It seems like a lifetime ago, I have to say, that I opened the first of these schools. We had Dohertys Creek P–9 College in Trug, then we went on to Davis Creek P–6 in Tarneit and then I was able to open the beautiful Garrang Wilam P–6 in Truganina. Just this year Dohertys Creek P–9 opened their doors to students in years 7 to 9 for the first time. It was a very proud moment for me personally because this is a wonderful school and parents really wanted to see that second stage delivered. We funded it, we built it and it is now open.

But we are not stopping there. Another two primary schools are set to open in Tarneit next year. In the last budget we funded land acquisition for a new primary school and a new high school in Tarneit, and I am very pleased to say that both these schools, Tarneit North primary school and Riverdale secondary school, have received construction funding in this budget and are going to be opening their doors to students and families in 2024. But they are not the only ones, I am very pleased to say, because in Trug $41 million has been allocated towards building the junior campus for Truganina North secondary school and additional funding will see a brand-new primary school, Truganina North primary school, also built at the same site. Both will now open their doors in 2024. Tarneit, the suburb, is an incredibly fast-growing postcode, and right beside it, less than a kilometre away, sits the almighty Truganina, growing just as fast.

The last two schools in particular have been a major triumph for my community, with land purchased in Elements estate last year that would have otherwise become housing, and my community did not want to see that. It was land that was set aside for an independent school, and they could not find a purchaser. The developer was going to go ahead and put more houses on that site, and this is a really big site—because remember that we are going to have an onsite kinder, a primary school and the junior campus of a massive high school. This is a really big site. A lot of houses would have been built on this site. I am very, very, very thankful to the Minister for Education for not only listening to my advocacy but, more importantly, listening to the voices of families in my electorate—listening to the families and people in Melbourne’s outer west. I am very pleased to be saying that not only will these families in Elements estate and Truganina be getting their secondary school at the site but they will have the primary school, which is going to be brought online years and years and years ahead of schedule, and we are also going to get that onsite kinder, which will just be next door or there on the site of the primary school.

You see, in my community—and I am sure this is the case in growth suburbs and growth corridors all across this state and all across this country, which the member for Gembrook, if he really understood what it was like to be a member of a growth community, would know—more and more people are saying that we need to try and get ahead of the curve; we are in catch-up mode, and we need to get ahead of the curve. And to get ahead of the curve means governments have to listen to communities, they have to invest and they have to fund projects not just for the here and now but also for the future forecasted population, which is what those opposite failed to do for four years the last time they were in government.

In 2010 we knew that there would be a population boom here in Melbourne and indeed in my community in Wyndham, and yet what did they do for the four years they were in power? Absolutely nothing. In fact not one new school was built in my electorate. The first school that was built when we came to government was two years after—they had nothing on the shelf—and we opened that school two years after coming into government, in 2016. That is what the Victorian Liberal Party will deliver for people in these growth corridors, and that is what they will fail to deliver for families in Melbourne’s outer west. I am very proud to tell my community time and time again that we have built more schools in Wyndham than anywhere else in Victoria. Ten have been built over the last six years in Tarneit alone. So when I saw this number 10 I thought, ‘I kind of feel like we’re missing something here’, so I went and did a recount. Isn’t that a wonderful problem to have—to have to recount your schools because you have so many. When I did the recount I realised, ‘Yes, indeed, we are missing one school’, and that is because we do not have an open date yet. And that is because in this budget we announced land acquisition for another primary school for Tarneit in the fast-growing Tarneit North, which will be Riverdale North primary school. In coming years that too will be open to deal with the four classrooms of kids that are being born each and every single week.

In the 90 seconds that I have left, based on our population growth and the number of kids being born some of the things that we need to make sure of are that, yes, our schools, our roads and our rail are all able to keep up with our growing community, but we also need to make sure that our health services and health infrastructure can cope with our growth. That is why I was very, very pleased to see that this budget delivered $109.6 million for a doubling of the capacity of the emergency department at Werribee Mercy Hospital. This is very much needed. It is the second upgrade that we have undertaken. $109.6 million—that is government delivering for people in Melbourne’s growing communities and in Melbourne’s outer west. Werribee Mercy is a much-loved hospital for people in my community. That is because a lot of us are going there and having our babies—110 babies are being born each and every single week in my community. That is significant investment on top of the billions of dollars that we are injecting into Wyndham alone and Melbourne’s outer west. I am very proud that this government is delivering for families in my community. We will continue to deliver through this budget, and if we are lucky and privileged enough to be re-elected in November this year, I have no doubt that the Andrews Labor government will continue to deliver for people in Melbourne’s west.

Mr Dimopoulos: Here comes the negativity.

Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (11:36): Yes, member for Oakleigh, I am going to start with negativity. I normally would say it gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on the budget, but I have done 7982 days of Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC), or so it seems, and so unlike most members of the house I have probably just about had enough of the budget. But having made that comment, I am actually going to start with some of the positives that are delivered by good local members who advocate for their community. In spite of a Labor government that is only focused on metropolitan Melbourne, sometimes we do get a few things. There are a couple of good things that I certainly am excited about in the budget, one being the Yinnar Primary School—$7.3 million for Yinnar, which is going to be a new part of my electorate. I suspect the government forgot and did not realise that Yinnar is not in the electorate of Morwell anymore and in fact is now in the electorate of Gippsland South, but I had already written to the Minister for Education about this issue and I was very pleased to see that funding.

There is $3.7 million for the South Gippsland Specialist School, and I was interested to hear some of my colleagues comment yesterday that Heather Braden at South Gippsland Specialist School, like when I rang her, had no idea that there was funding coming—there was no particular project—but of course was very, very grateful, so that is good. With the Sale and District Specialist School, which was initially funded by us in government—we actually did fund schools when we were in government—and topped up by the current government, we will have two excellent specialist schools in Gippsland South.

There is money for an overtaking lane on the Strzelecki Highway between Morwell and Mirboo North, which I am a bit perplexed about given the lack of availability of spots to put one in. There is already one good, long one there, funded by my predecessor Peter Ryan.

The McLoughlins Beach jetty—and I will give credit to the Minister for Ports and Freight on this one because this is an issue that has been going for a long time—has seen a big community campaign from the McLoughlins Beach community, which is not a wealthy community and certainly not in any way, shape or form advantaged and yet has fought very hard for this and has finally achieved $1.5 million to rebuild that jetty. That is the good.

But of course even in my electorate there were plenty of other things that were missed out. For five years now I have been campaigning for Foster Primary School to have a full rebuild. We took that to the last election, and there has been nothing in the last four budgets now. There are the Coal Creek bends on the South Gippsland Highway and likewise what is known as ‘kamikaze corner’ in the middle of Leongatha, which is a debacle and requires stage 2 of the Leongatha heavy vehicle bypass to address the intersection there, which is really a very ordinary intersection. There is no money for that.

Sale College received planning money last year, but we have heard nothing since on what is actually happening with the consolidation of Sale College onto one campus, preferably a greenfield site. There was an early flurry of activity, but there has been nothing since and certainly no funding announced in this year’s budget.

The member for Gembrook and others have mentioned CFA brigades. After seven years of campaigning, the CFA board has indeed identified capital spending for Yarram, Foster and Mirboo North stations, but there is still not a single cent coming from the Andrews Labor government to support those upgrades that are crucially needed for our volunteers.

And of course the perennial one, the Traralgon bypass—we finally, finally got the Andrews Labor government to commit funding to match the federal government funding for the Princes Highway duplication between Traralgon and Sale. That is now well and truly underway, the final three stages of that important project, which leads us to the next important project on the Princes Highway through Gippsland, and that is the Traralgon bypass. The government did provide some funding for community engagement and further planning back in 2017, and it has gone nowhere. Nothing has happened since then, and to be honest it is an issue that the people of the Valley and eastern and central Gippsland now treat as a bit of a laugh whenever you mention the Traralgon bypass, because it has been on the drawing board for decades and nothing has happened. There is certainly no further movement towards it in this year’s budget despite the fact that there are 10, soon to be 11, sets of traffic lights going through Traralgon, huge congestion for the people and businesses of Traralgon but also huge delays for people like me and people in my electorate heading further east. Yet there is nothing there for it.

I want to turn now to the bigger picture, and as said, I have had plenty of time perusing the budget papers over the last couple of weeks in my role as a member of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. I want to talk a bit about the spin that goes with this budget. This budget is a budget for an election campaign. It is not a budget to address the issues that Victorians need.

I will start with health, because it is most critically the most important issue already. We have got a health crisis in this state. We have got an ambulance crisis and a 000 crisis, and the government papers over things to make itself look better. I will start with the claim that there is a $12 billion investment in this budget for health. Let us have a look at it. In budget paper 3, pages 54 and 55, there is $3.5 billion of that supposed $12 billion investment there in the 2021–22 column. So these are significant funds, but they are funds that have already been spent. The Premier tried to argue back at me, ‘Are you suggesting, Mr O’Brien, that we need to go out and revaccinate people? Because that is money that was spent on vaccination programs and the like’. Well, exactly, Premier. But you are now counting it towards your $12 billion investment in the health system: $3.5 billion of that so-called $12 billion has already been spent. I might add—and the budget papers confirm this at note (a) and note (b)—that almost all those 13 line items in 2021–22 are 50 per cent funded by the commonwealth. So it is spin to suggest that there is an enormous amount being spent this year, because there is the first $3.5 billion of it that has in fact already been spent in 2021–22.

We can then turn to assets, and I will not go to into it in detail, because others have as well. The Barwon women’s and children’s hospital and the new Melton hospital both have TBC there. Everyone will jump in and say, ‘Oh, but you’ve got to look at the total estimated investment at the end’, so $1.5 billion supposedly for those two projects listed there as TEI, which means it is not actually in the budget papers. I can give you an example. If you go back to 2016–17, there was a similar project listed in the assets for the health department for a new proton beam therapy project. It was in the budget papers, it was all TBC with a TEI at the end and it never happened. So it is very easy to get out there and say that we are spending all this money on health, but in fact there is $5 billion of that proposal that is not actually in the budget papers or has already been spent.

I want to go on to highlight some of these things. If you go to budget paper 3, page 220, which is the output summary for the Department of Health, there are a hell of a lot of brackets in the final column. We know what brackets mean; brackets mean reductions in funding. That is cuts. One of the ones most particularly that I mentioned in the PAEC hearings is a $24 million cut to dental services. If you go to page 239 of budget paper 3, it shows that because of that $24 million budget cut there will be 44 000 less Victorians this year getting dental treatment through the public health system—44 000.

I thought it was quite telling that when I raised this with the Premier in the budget hearings the best he could do was point to budget cuts by the federal coalition government in 1996. That was the Premier’s defence on these. That is all he had. And I must say when he came up with that I thought, ‘Well, that’s as good as it gets from us’. The Premier—

Ms Ryan: I was 10.

Mr D O’BRIEN: The member for Euroa was 10 when that happened. I think I did reply to him, ‘What happened under the Fraser government, and what happened under the Menzies government?’. I mean, for the Premier to be trying to defend himself by going back to 1996—that is 26 years ago—just shows how much focus the government has on politics at the expense of outcomes. That is a significant cut that will hurt Victorians who are in need of public dental services.

We can go through the budget papers, and I would venture to suggest that I probably know these papers better than most people, perhaps with the exception—maybe not—of the Treasurer. But—

Members interjecting.

Mr D O’BRIEN: I know them pretty well. Yes, I absolutely know them pretty well. From listening to those opposite making their commentary on the budget, they certainly have not actually picked up the budget papers. It is very easy to get your briefing pack from the Premier’s office—all the nice things in your electorate and all the talking points about what it is. Have any of them actually opened up the budget papers and had a look at what they say?

I mentioned health—page 220, the health output. The revised figure from 2021–22 to the budget this year goes from $27 billion to $25 billion. That is a $2 billion cut overall to the health budget. It is there in black and white.

Mr Eren: It’s federal.

Mr D O’BRIEN: No, it is not federal. It is the state budget papers, member for Lara. Have a look at the budget papers.

The Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions—there is a 31.2 per cent, $80 million cut from the regional development budget. I think the member for Murray Plains would tell me it was a 50 per cent cut on last year. Is that correct? So that is two years in a row of massive cuts to regional development spending. And on that, the government that supposedly has a commitment to my region and to the Latrobe Valley Authority gives the Latrobe Valley Authority $7.5 million out of that. We discovered last week that $5 million of that goes to continuing to pay the public servants. There is no grant money left for anyone to try and establish new businesses and new industries in the Latrobe Valley. We have now been told that some of the money has been given for the new CEO, the former Labor candidate for McMillan, to develop a transition plan. Well, hallelujah! Here we are five years after the LVA was established and now, just now, they are being asked to develop a transition plan for Latrobe Valley. That is just a disgrace.

We can go through other parts of the budget. The agriculture portfolio has been cut $46 million on last year. The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning—this is one that is interesting in the context of the weekend’s election—a 16 per cent cut to climate change programs and a 36 per cent cut to Solar Victoria. So all of the spin we have heard—

Ms Ryan: That’s $100 million.

Mr D O’BRIEN: Yes. These are actually in the budget papers. You could open them up and have a look—I could even tell you: page 168, members opposite—because you need to have a look at some of this stuff because it seems that you are just taking the spin.

We see housing assistance on page 197—a 19.5 per cent cut. We see the Office for Disability—a 50 per cent cut. We heard in the public hearings on Monday the minister fluffing around with his papers, and eventually he told us that that was a mistake, that in fact some money for the Office for Disability was put in a different line item. It makes you wonder: can you trust anything in these budget papers, because there are so many mistakes?

Then the one that is particularly close to my heart of course is the road asset management budget, which again had a 4 per cent cut. When our roads are at their worst after two wet years and two years of cuts by this government to road asset management, it is disgraceful that the government is not putting more money into this.

But there is a bright light. If you turn to page 313, never fear, because the Department of Premier and Cabinet has got an 18.5 per cent increase in funding for itself—so the Premier’s office itself. More public servants, less boots on the ground but more suits in Treasury Place to look after the Premier—an 18.5 per cent increase and the cuts just highlight how badly this government has got its priorities wrong. I think if you want to know anything more about that, have a look at the front page of the Herald Sun this morning—

Mr Dimopoulos: Oh, yes, a reputable paper, that one.

Mr D O’BRIEN: with the ‘Hospital bedlam’ story, where people from the Australian Medical Association, a nursing and midwifery training organisation and the hospitals association—all of them—highlight how this government is failing Victorians in a crisis. And if you actually happen to read it, member for Oakleigh, you will find all the comments talking about how this was a problem before COVID and how wrong it is for politicians and the Premier and the Minister for Health to say ‘This is just COVID’ and ‘We are struggling to cope because of COVID’. Have a look at it.

Mr Dimopoulos: Mate, I’m not going to read the Herald Sun and pretend it is fact.

Mr D O’BRIEN: Well, open up the budget papers and you might learn something. This is a budget of spin and for an election, not for the people of Victoria.

Mr EREN (Lara) (11:51): I am delighted and pleased to speak to the house today in relation to the Appropriation (2022–2023) Bill 2022. I feel like offering some cheese and crackers to the member for Gippsland South for all the whines that he did through that contribution. It is nothing but whining and whingeing, and it is all doom and gloom. We have heard it all before. Every budget for the last eight budgets we have heard the whining that goes on. For what it is worth, it is in good hands. It is in great hands under the Treasurer and of course the Premier and all of the other ministers that worked so hard to present a budget under difficult circumstances, and that is exactly what has happened over the last couple of budgets in relation to COVID and dealing with COVID.

One thing we have learned through this period is that our health and wellbeing is the most important thing. I think COVID has taught us that. And look at our track record of investments. Of course when we look at public health there is no government like our government that invests in public health. And the same goes for public education. We are the party that leads the way in terms of understanding the needs of everyday Victorians and when you consider the investments that we are making strategically.

I listened to 3AW this morning. Danny Hill was on, and Neil Mitchell was pressing him to obviously raise concerns about what is going on. I totally get the angst that is associated with some of the services in relation to ambulance services, and my heart bleeds for those people that are affected by it, the deaths that are occurring as a result of it. But one thing that Danny Hill did say was that the ambulance response times were at their worst—these are not my words, this was Danny Hill saying it—after the 2014 election and between that time of 2010 and 2014 and were at their best in 2019, the best response times. Again, these are not my words, this is Danny Hill saying it. And he said obviously COVID has had an impact. Now, Neil Mitchell did not know what to say to that except to say, obviously, ‘What can be done about it?’.

What can be done about it? We have got an action plan and a track record in relation to dealing with difficult circumstances in relation to health and wellbeing. So when you listen to the opposition, they are not disputing the fact that $12 billion is being invested; they are disputing the fact that some of it has already been invested. It is not a matter of the delays that are occurring. It is not of our doing. When they were in government it was their choice to cut back on these services. It was not our choice. It was a choice of obviously dealing with the once-in-a-century pandemic where not only emergency services but ambulance service officers were being affected by COVID. So there was a shortage in relation to people in those highly skilled areas who were sick themselves and being exposed to COVID and obviously had to be treated accordingly, and other associated issues.

Now, I just want to get back to this: as a state, prior to COVID, for what it is worth, this was the best state, and it still is the best state when you look at it in terms of jobs growth, in terms of economic growth and in terms of being the sporting capital, the major events capital and the arts and culture capital—all of these things that make us a great state in which to live, work and raise your family. Of course the announcement of the Commonwealth Games is a massively big deal, particularly in the regions. It is going to boost the economy. It has already created so much excitement in the regions, and I know that the 18 members of Parliament that represent the broader regions in Victoria are indeed very excited, like their constituencies are, in relation to it.

I just want to get back to my electorate. I have seen massive investments in my electorate. For all the talk that goes on about some electorates that are blessed with having a huge majority in terms of two-party preferred, I am one of them. Some call it a safe seat. I do not see any seat as a safe seat. But there have been strategical investments not because of the area of constituency and how they vote but on the basis of need. That is a fair government, and now it is going to get fairer, obviously, under an Albanese government, because we have been denied so much funding. I know from the committee reports that we have handed down under the Economy and Infrastructure Committee—it is a bipartisan report that we handed down, which includes members of the Liberal and National parties—we all collectively agreed that we were not getting our fair share of the GST revenue. That report is still there.

The Morrison government certainly denied us a lot of funding, and hopefully with the new Albanese government that will be rectified to a certain extent. It would add value to our investments in this state and add value to the extent of their listening to what the state government is saying about where they would like their investment. It was no good saying they have allocated—apparently they have looked for this—the $4 billion that they were claiming was for the east–west. I do not think it is there. They were talking about the east–west, but we never went to an election with an east–west promise. We went to an election with removal of level crossings. We had a target of removing those level crossings, and we were unanimously voted in at the last election, from what I know.

Of course, in dealing with some of the federal issues and trying to play politics, wedge politics, look what happened to Josh. I think there are a number of seats in Kooyong and Goldstein and other areas where they have actually realised that talking down their own state does not work for them. Talking down the state in terms of how we are dealing with COVID does not work for them. So if members of the opposition would like to continue with that trend of talking down the state, by all means they are welcome to it. It has not proven them right so far, and we have seen that through the federal election.

My electorate over the past few budgets has done quite well. The early parenting centre, the children’s rehabilitation centre and the acute mental health beds, all in the McKellar Centre, which is in my electorate, show millions of dollars worth of investments happening in the areas of need. I am also pleased that the drug and rehabilitation centre in Corio is now operational with 30 beds. Those people that are dealing with addiction can now be treated with a 24/7 nurse on site. They are things that we need, and these are happening in my electorate. I am so pleased about that.

So looking at some of the issues relating to the budget, I just want to point out that the Victorian budget 2022–23 will invest over $12 billion to put patients first with a pandemic repair plan for more staff, better hospitals and obviously first-class care. Our health workers have copped the brunt of COVID, and they still continue to do so. It is still amongst us. COVID is not gone. COVID is still here. Our healthcare workers have been on the front line—there is no question of that—of this pandemic, and we know how important it is that we support them going forward and into the future.

We are backing our healthcare workers with training and the extra pair of helping hands they need so that they can give you the best of care, and obviously that is very important. That is why the budget is delivering funding to train and hire up to 7000 new healthcare workers, including 5000 nurses. We will provide 1125 new registered undergraduate nursing positions and 75 new registered undergraduate students in midwifery roles over the next two years. We are also recruiting up to 2000 expat and international healthcare workers through a global workforce recruitment drive.

That is one of the challenges I think everyone is experiencing right across the nation, these shortages of staff. As much as governments invest money into health care, if we do not have the staff then it becomes extremely difficult to implement some of these strategies and policies that we have to deal with COVID and the recovery from COVID. That demand is right across the nation, and demand for emergency services is at an all-time high. Our 000 call takers and dispatchers are dealing with unprecedented call volumes, and as I said earlier, even the ambulance union agrees that our response times were the best ever in state history in 2019—up until COVID, obviously. But it was the worst between 2010 and 2014, and that was by choice of the opposition, or then government, to make those cuts to those crucial areas.

That is why we are delivering another 90 paramedics, which means that we have added 790 extra paramedics to the workforce since we came to government. To help our frontline workers reach Victorians who need help faster we are investing $333 million to add nearly 400 new staff to increase 000 call-taking and dispatch capacity for 000 services, including ambulances, and training more operators to allocate calls across the state. This budget invests in regional health because regional health obviously matters to many of us, including my electorate.

Again I go back to the point of dealing with some of those issues with emergency services, particularly the ambulance services. You wish you had a magic wand where you could just say, ‘Let’s just implement the $12 billion of investment that we’re doing now—voila!’. It does not happen. The opposition can play the politics on this, and they continue to do that. They were probably hoping that it would work leading up to the federal election. It did not work. I think people understand and are pragmatic about how these things work. They need time to be implemented as we go forward.

As much as the member for Gippsland South denies the fact, we have made the commitment of $500 million to the Barwon women’s and children’s hospital redevelopment so that new parents and young kids can get the world-class paediatric treatment and specialist care they need without having to travel to Melbourne, which is obviously very important for not only the environment—you do not have to travel in your car or have congestion issues relating to coming into Melbourne—but also getting the services you need at the location that you live in, which is such an important part of what we do as a government.

This budget delivers better cancer care for patients in Geelong, with a new radiotherapy linear accelerator for Barwon Health. We are also providing $9 million to regional women’s health services and a further $11.5 million to deliver group parenting sessions to support families with children struggling with their mental health, because no matter where they live, every Victorian and their family deserve the best of health care, and that is what this government, the Andrews government, is doing.

My electorate of Lara has been a big winner in this state budget. We have committed some $16 million towards a very important road in my electorate which is very congested. The Lara suburb is growing. It is bursting at the seams with population. The Geelong region generally is the fastest growing regional area in the nation, and obviously associated with that come congestion issues. So there is $16 million funding towards upgrading the six-way intersection with traffic signals to improve safety and connectivity for local families. Nelson Park specialist needs school has $6.4 million, that wonderful school, to replace relocatable buildings with new permanent ones at Illinois Avenue in Corio. Hamlyn Views School will also benefit from a $1.27 million investment, upgrading old playgrounds and basketball courts to give kids better sporting and play areas. There is $3.5 million for the Geelong Project education support program for kids at risk of falling behind across Geelong, so no young person is left behind. We are bringing the Commonwealth Games, as I mentioned earlier, to the regions and obviously the associated excitement with that and the investment that will happen over the next three to four years to accommodate those games. This is a good one, too: we know how important pets are to our health and wellbeing, and we are providing Cherished Pets in Geelong with $465 000 in funding so they can provide additional boarding facilities and critical wellness care for cats and dogs, which is so important. And we are providing a one-off $250 payment to all Victorian households that use the Victorian Energy Compare website.

There is so much to this budget. Again, it is a wonderful budget, dealing with the issues at hand—dealing with healthcare needs, dealing with our education system, dealing with policing issues, dealing with all of those issues that matter to Victorians. I commend this to the house and wish it a speedy passage.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the member for Ovens Valley, can I acknowledge the Honourable Kay Setches in the gallery, a former minister in the Cain and Kirner governments.

Mr McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (12:06): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution on the Appropriation (2022–2023) Bill 2022 and a budget that, as we know, is largely focused on Melbourne. As we hear those on the other side, on the government benches, talk about what a great budget it is, in some respects for them it is, because many projects and infrastructure are being built in Melbourne and are an advantage to them. But certainly in regional Victoria there are some massive gaps, some massive holes, and we see the waste that is going on in Melbourne. The budget is about waste. The Andrews government continues to throw money around like a drunken sailor on project after project and cost blowout after cost blowout. The overruns and stuff-ups are just mind boggling, and this budget continues that.

If Victorian families ran their family budget just like the Andrews government does, they would be bankrupt. No business, no family, can waste money day in, day out without it coming back to bite them on the backside somewhere down the track, and this will happen to Victoria somewhere down the track. We have been on this wilful, reckless, irresponsible spending frenzy for years, and there needs to be some financial understanding that we cannot go from the debt we have—$167 billion—and not be accountable somewhere down the track, particularly when interest rates rise. And there is no end in sight.

Victorians need to be able to live within their means. As I say, every family, every business and every community group have to. You simply cannot spend more than you make year after year. Where will the Andrews government’s ministers be in 10 years time while hardworking Victorians are left paying the bill? The Andrews government’s ministers will be retired in luxury while Victorians pick up the tab. Low interest rates have certainly supported Labor’s insatiable appetite to spend, to think big and to want to be visionary, but what will happen when interest rates go up? There is no vision there. As I say, a normal family, a normal business will say, ‘There comes a time when we’ve got to just pull back a bit. We just need to rein things in a bit. We need to be careful, and we need to tighten the belt and make sure that we are not overcommitting what we can afford’. There are two things that Labor cannot do. They cannot stop spending, and the other thing they cannot do is they cannot remember. I guarantee that none of them, not one of those ministers or backbenchers, will be able to recall down the track how Victoria got into this mess. They simply will not remember. But the rest of us will, and we will be left carrying the can.

Victoria needs to recover and rebuild. Victoria needs to say that our dreams and visions and opportunities for the future are great, but we also need to maintain what we have got. Maintenance is the cornerstone of everything, whether you have got a vehicle, whether you own a factory, whether you have got a piece of equipment or whether it is your own family. If you do not maintain what you have got, it slips away very quickly. It does not matter whether it is your lawn mower, car or bicycle, one day it will let you down if you do not maintain the infrastructure that you have got. And that day is coming around very quickly. Victoria’s road maintenance, cut; Victoria’s 000, failing; Victoria’s healthcare system is in crisis, Victoria’s education system is damaged and teachers, nurses, ambos and police officers are screaming out saying, ‘Our system is broken’.

The federal election results just in demonstrated beyond doubt that people care about the environment, and the message is loud and clear—and I support that view. I genuinely hope that the federal government works within its means to ensure that in the future our children and grandchildren and generations to come can all live in a stable environment and a sustainable environment. While the climate concerns will be addressed—I feel sure that will be the case—we will be left to fix the roads, we will be left to fix the 000 crisis and we will be left to fix our kids’ education. But who will be there to provide for the elderly? Well, certainly not the Andrews government and certainly not the silent backbenchers that continue to spout what is going on in their electorates but are not putting their hands up to support all of Victoria. It is all ‘What’s in it for me?’.

Who will clean up the financial mess of the unfinished projects, those half-baked schemes? Well, we will have to. Whether or not it is the Liberal-Nationals backbenchers like me, people will still be here to try and clean up the mess that has been made by the wilful and reckless spending. We know there has to come a time to steady the ship, finish the task at hand, regroup and bring debt under control. Victoria’s debt is unsustainable. On the current interest rates we can tread water. We can do that while interest rates are like they are, but when the interest rate goes to 7 per cent—I am not even talking the 17 per cent that we all saw once upon a time—we will all be in a world of pain. In places like Victoria with massive debt we are all going to be spending far too much money on debt interest compared to what we are on infrastructure. There comes a time when we need to look out for the future. If it gets too hot in the kitchen, where will Labor be? Well, again I say, they will not be able to recall how we got into this mess. We need to recover and rebuild, and Victoria needs to take financial control and financial responsibility, and we are not getting it at the moment. We are getting excuses and we are getting denial. Victoria, as I say, needs to steady its ship and get its finances under control before it is too late.

There was a vote for climate change in the federal election, and Victoria needs to change as well. We simply cannot rely on those who got us into this mess to get us out of it. Sadly, many on the government benches cannot even see the mess we are in. As has been mentioned by other speakers in this chamber, they have not even read the budget papers. They have read the section that suits them, but they do not understand what that means to all of Victoria. Regional Victoria is home to 25 per cent of Victorians, and yet in the budget we were short-changed again, with a litany of cuts in road maintenance, health, dentistry, agriculture spend and regional development.

Let us start with health. While the government brags about the $12 billion spend in health, my colleague the member for Gippsland South mentioned that, of the $12 billion, $5 billion has already been spent, and if you home in a little bit closer you will find there is only $1 billion going to regional Victoria. So that is not a quarter. That is certainly not a quarter of $12 billion in any language you speak—$1 billion is just not enough.

There is a $24 million cut to dentistry. I had a lady come in from Myrtleford just the other day. She waited three years to get a filling—three years. She finally got the filling, and a month later it popped out. Now, I get that; that is what happens—sometimes fillings pop out. She went back to see the dentist again and they said, ‘No, you’ve got to wait three years now to get that filling put back in’. How can we expect these wait times to be reduced if you are going to cut another $24 million in funding out of dentistry? The public system needs to remain strong. We are simply wasting far too much money on projects that need to be built but can be built over time. Not everything has to happen today, this year or next year. We have got to live within our means.

There is a further $47.8 million cut out of agriculture. Again, we have got a junior minister who simply either does not stand up for her portfolio or just does not care, but another $47.8 million is cut. So with programs like our fruit fly program in Cobram, Shepparton and Mooroopna, the government spout that fruit fly is a shared responsibility between the government and the broader community, and then they go and take $2.5 million out. As I say, you cannot listen to what Labor says, you have got to look at what they do, and there is another example. The fruit fly in our region starts in the towns. The farming communities do a great job of controlling it, but certainly it starts in a veggie patch in Cobram or a plum tree out the back of Berrigan or Barooga, and all of a sudden it is on farms. It is a shared responsibility, but the government cutting another $2.5 million just does not help that.

Regional development—major cuts there. Again the junior minister just does not stand up for the portfolio, and again we are lacking investment in regional development. Childcare services have been cut. Road maintenance has been cut. In the last two years $240 million has been cut out of the roads maintenance budget. Now, just imagine how many roads we could build around Katamatite, Tungamah, Telford, Greta and those sorts of communities. They do not expect the world. They are not after a new highway. They are not even after bitumen roads, some of them. They just want the roads that they have got maintained. What we really need is that investment in maintenance, as I said earlier in my contribution.

Then there are the overruns and the waste and the stuff-ups, like I said before. There is $28 billion in overruns on some of the programs that are being run primarily in Melbourne—that is $28 thousand million that is being overrun. And if that is not enough—to have those projects being overrun, over cost and over time—the Minister for Water has flagged that another desalination plant could be on the cards. Now, that is just ridiculous. We hardly use the one we have got. Again, this is a project that is just pandering to those who tell the government what needs to be done, primarily the union movement. They say, ‘Well, we’ve got to keep these projects going’, and I just cannot believe it. You cannot manage the projects you have got. Why do we start looking at new projects? I am sure they will never learn. They will not learn. But the only way they will learn is when they lose government because they are just not responsible enough.

It is one thing to build shiny new statues like a second desalination plant—another white elephant to go in Victoria’s great sanctuary of white elephants that we have—but you must maintain what you have got. You have got to maintain your health, your hospitals, your schools. Support your nurses in substandard hospitals. Support your teachers in substandard schools, and the students of course. Do not just give us excuses; give us our fair share. Give us a guarantee that you will invest in regional Victoria. Give us a guarantee that the maintenance will be done and not just overlooked.

Spend more money in towns like Cobram. Cobram District Health is failing. We need $20 million to $30 million just to maintain what we have got and keep the services going for that community. Yarrawonga Health is another example. Services are being cut all the time. We need an investment. $20 million to $30 million at the end of the day is a drop in the bucket compared to what is spilt here in Melbourne. Bright aged care—yes, we have got $1.5 million to start to do some plans for Bright aged care. We committed to that in 2014, and here we are now still waiting, waiting, and all we have got is some money for some draft plans. How long is that can going to get kicked down the road in the wait for Bright aged care? Bright is the largest town in Victoria that has no aged care facilities. We need to invest in country communities rather than the waste in metropolitan Melbourne.

What is wrong with doing a feasibility study on Big Buffalo? Let us find out if Big Buffalo could assist our quest for renewable energy. I am not suggesting we build it; I am suggesting we do the feasibility study. There is federal money there to do it, but again the Minister for Water and the Premier have refused to do it. All I am asking for is a feasibility study to look at how we can get a better return from renewables. There are plenty of opportunities there, but it is an investment outside of Melbourne. It is very hard to try and convince the government that we can do anything outside of the tram tracks of Melbourne. If it was within the Melbourne precinct, I am sure it would have been looked at and more than one feasibility study would have been done already.

The Andrews Labor government will go down in history as the greatest neglecters of regional Victoria. I have got no doubt about that. In every budget we have seen—we have had eight years of opportunity. Every year we wait and hope that they will invest serious money in regional Victoria, and they do not. They continue to look at other projects. At the same time they have emasculated the CFA—ripped its heart and soul out to replace it with FRV—and that is a very, very sad state. Our volunteers in regional Victoria are despondent. They are dropping off, and I have major concerns. When we do get more bushfires, which we hope we never will get but we know will come one day, where are we going to get the firefighters? The volunteers who support our communities day in, day out—I do not know where they are going to come from, because the numbers are dropping off because they really have been given a hard time. They have been a target for this government, and we will pay a huge price for that.

So Victoria is in bad shape. We do need to rebuild and recover under good solid leadership, and certainly a Guy-Walsh government would do that in November with some financial management to try and get the books back in the black. As I say, it is one thing to keep spending and wasting money left, right and centre, but it is another thing to even start talking about ‘No, we’re going to build more projects’. We cannot finish what we have got, we have not done it properly, we have wasted and we have overspent, but we are going to continue to do it. The definition of ‘budget’ is ‘an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time’—pretty much saying that is a guess. It is an estimated guess, and Victorians are sick of the guessing that goes on by this government because they get it wrong every year, every time, and then we pay the price because the debt goes up. We are heading towards a $167 billion debt, which is just unheard of—a debt that we are going to struggle to support on today’s interest rates, let alone interest rates into the future. I will leave those comments there. I think this budget could have done a lot more in regional Victoria.

Ms SULEYMAN (St Albans) (12:21): I am delighted today to rise and speak on the Appropriation (2022–2023) Bill 2022. For my electorate of St Albans this is a budget that delivers where we need it most. It is investing in health, education, children and families and, most importantly, creating much-needed jobs. There is no doubt we have seen the last two years of the pandemic creating challenges for our health system. Let me say, our healthcare heroes have really gone above and beyond every day in caring for and supporting people in St Albans. It is no surprise that I am absolutely passionate about Western Health and Sunshine Hospital and the amazing work of our healthcare heroes each and every day. That is why this budget will invest $12 billion to boost health funding. This is something that is much needed not only for the electorate of St Albans but across the west. We have also seen a massive demand for emergency services. It is at an all-time high, there is no doubt about it, and it is across the state. Every day there are thousands of calls through 000, and people want to know—they expect and demand—that when they do call there is help on its way. That is why this budget will provide and recruit more 000 call takers and, most importantly, invest over $333 million to increase the capacity, given the challenges, of the 000 services. This includes our ambulances and of course training more operators to allocate calls across the state.

The paramedics and ambulances will receive a further $124 million boost, and we know why. It is clear that our healthcare services are at their peak and there is pressure. Our government has continued to invest and provide the best hospital facilities that we can think of. Just recently we officially opened the multilevel emergency department at Sunshine Hospital. This is the government that actually built the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital. When we were elected to government in 2014 we had to repair Sunshine Hospital because it was left neglected by the previous government. Now we see in St Albans a health precinct. We have Sunshine Hospital delivering first-class health services to the people of the west; Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital, which is so popular that we are getting requests outside the catchment from mums-to-be who want to deliver their babies at Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital; and we also have across the road, due to the confidence in St Albans and the confidence in our local health economy, an actual private hospital being built as I speak.

We are the government that builds hospitals; there is no doubt about us. Whether we are building Footscray Hospital down the road or Melton hospital to the north, there is no doubt about us. When it comes to the health and wellbeing of the west, the Andrews Labor government has delivered and will continue to deliver in the gaps to fill the pressure points and of course ease the pressure on our nurses, our doctors and our call takers. It is across the system—it is a chain reaction—and that is why we will create a further 7000 new healthcare workers, including 5000 nurses and 400 new call taker and dispatch staff members. Again, not only are we addressing and investing in health but we are also creating jobs and putting patients first. I do have to say a massive thankyou to all our healthcare professionals, including our local GPs as well, working hand in hand together to make sure that the health and wellbeing of our communities is always addressed.

Of course this is the eighth budget for me, and I have to say I am enormously proud of the work that we have done in relation to investing in education. Education is one of my passions in St Albans, because it is so critical for students and children to get the best start. And it starts with our education system—whether it is kindergartens or primary schools and then leading onto secondary, tertiary and uni, this is the path to future jobs but also, most importantly, a path to a better future. We have seen for Victorian students we going to be investing $277 million into senior secondary pathway reforms, and this is extremely big for St Albans. This will replace the old VCAL system with the new VCE vocational major and the Victorian pathways certificate. Students who choose this pathway will be able to choose from12 different vocations, and that is really important because the way things were in the past when I was going to secondary college at Kealba High School have certainly changed. Most importantly, I know that families will be looking at this and seeing that this is another saving, because we will be paying for the learning materials of VET students and saving families up to $1000 per year. Not only does this program open the door to brighter futures but it also creates, as I said, vital jobs and pathways to careers.

Our government is also investing $87.9 million to strengthen the teaching workforce. This includes professional development programs for existing teachers as well as funding for study opportunities because everything changes and learning opportunities change as well, and that is why we need to keep up teachers. This sector needs to keep up with those changes as well. We need to make sure that our kids have the best opportunities available to them regardless of their postcode, regardless of their ethnicity and where they live. They get it equal—it would not matter if you lived on the other side of town. The best education from day 1 is what this budget and what the previous budgets have all been about.

I want to thank the Minister for Education. In 2014 when I was elected I made a commitment that we would invest in every school in St Albans, and let me say, we have. We have invested in every school, and we have rebuilt most schools in St Albans, including Jackson special school and including Furlong Park School for Deaf Children. These are two schools that had never seen this sort of funding in the past, and it is thanks to the Andrews Labor government that we have been able to invest in schools. And I say it again: it is not about a seat in the west; it does not matter where you live, nor your ethnicity or whether you have come from a multicultural community—we invest everywhere, and that is why I am so proud and I am so thankful to the Minister for Education for all the work that he has done.

I was just so amazed when I called up St Albans Heights Primary School and spoke to Effie Sultana, the principal, and informed her that the school had been successful with $13.4 million to modernise a school that was built back in the 1960s and 70s. There were tears—tears from the principal, tears from the leadership group—to say, ‘Wow. We never thought that we would get funding’. Now they are just so blown away by the fact that this is going to create learning spaces, a performing arts centre and also the opportunity to improve their oval so they can have more sporting activities for kids. This is what is happening in areas such as St Albans, and I want to thank Effie. She has been outstanding, and I have just learned today that they have received an award for excellence in their school. It is a school like many schools in St Albans that is reaching for the stars, because we have been the government that has been knocking at the doors of schools and actually providing much-needed funding.

And it did not start this year; it started in 2014. This changes the morale and confidence of school communities, whether it is St Albans Heights Primary School or St Albans Primary School, which received close to half a million dollars this year, or Monmia Primary School in Keilor Downs, who are building their STEM building—and works are about to begin for that. Across the electorate of St Albans we have seen an investment in education, and it has been an amazing boost not only for the school community, the students and the teachers but for the wider community, because our school buildings are actually used by community groups as well, and that is really important—like St Albans East Primary School, where we have language programs being run on the weekend. Now they have better facilities where they can have more participants each week, and that is something that I know my community is really passionate about—a second language and keeping their mother language alive. The Minister for Education has also been quite passionate and dedicated to making sure that there are language programs across St Albans, and St Albans East is one.

So there are many, many investments, and I do not have much time, but this is a much-needed budget that delivers for families. It delivers for St Albans, and it delivers for our multicultural communities. We will see over $6 million to our multicultural communities. Multicultural communities in St Albans are the tapestry and the rich essence of people coming together where we share our cultures, our languages and our faiths. I am really proud of that, and we need to continue to support these multicultural community groups so they can continue to celebrate, and not only celebrate but share with the wider community, whether it is festivals or places of worship opening their doors each year. We see it with our mosques across St Albans or our Indian temples in St Albans who have also received funding in this budget. This is about making sure that communities come together and celebrate and share one another’s culture. So this budget invests in our multicultural communities.

Of course my most favourite part is all these projects, and there are so many that I would need many, many hours to talk about. But we know for Victorians across our state how important it is, and I know how important it is for St Albans families, to have a secure job like these projects create. Since we were elected 560 000 new jobs, including more than 80 000 jobs in regional Victoria, have been created, and we have a plan to create close to half a million further jobs in the future. This is about targeting and making sure that every project across the state creates local jobs. Take removing the level crossings—we did that successfully. The minute we got elected in 2014 the Main Road and Furlong Road level crossings were removed. We are seeing the Fitzgerald Road level crossing being removed at the moment, which has created hundreds of local jobs.

This is a budget that delivers to families and to patients. I know it has been a tough two years. It is time now to lift our communities. We need to lift our communities and really be able to start the repair. As I said, this is responding directly to the challenges we face, and we have a proven track record when it comes to delivering. Our government has not wasted a moment. I certainly have not wasted a moment. We will continue to put our communities first, we will continue to deliver and, most importantly, we will continue to make great investments in our local communities.

Mr ANGUS (Forest Hill) (12:36): I am pleased to rise today to speak on the Appropriation (2022–2023) Bill 2022, the Victorian state budget. I note at the outset that the budget papers are entitled ‘Putting patients first’. I think the correct title for this year’s budget should be ‘Putting Labor first’ or ‘Putting Victorians last’, because we can see—all Victorians, the more they look into this—and as we heard last week at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) hearings, this is another disastrous budget in a whole range of ways for all Victorians. We can see that we have got a big mess financially, and the government has provided no way for us as Victorians to get out of this particular mess. Certainly they are not showing any leadership in that way. It has not got a realistic plan to secure the financial future of all Victorians.

I just want to refer to the government’s own plan from one of the PAEC reports from April 2022. It was a four-step plan, and step 1 was ‘creating jobs, reducing unemployment and restoring economic growth’. That included a whole range of metrics, and the government has basically failed on all of those. Step 2 was ‘returning to an operating cash surplus’, and that is arguable. It is certainly not going to happen in the short term. It may happen in the longer term. Step 3 was ‘returning to operating surpluses’, and we can see clearly that that is a typical Labor pipedream. I will go into more of that in a moment. Step 4 was ‘stabilising debt levels’. Again, we can see that is another delusional Labor matter that they are aiming for. It is certainly not going to be achieved, and I will go into the evidence of that shortly as well.

We have got the dubious honour in Victoria of being the highest taxing state in Australia, but I suppose when we know that we are getting a budget from a government that we know history will show clearly—and does show clearly—just cannot manage money, that is there for all Victorians to see. We have got record levels of debt. We have ongoing infrastructure costs and blowouts; if I get a chance, I will talk about some of them later. We have got public sector wages out of control. And most importantly for all Victorians, we have got outcomes and service delivery results that are far from satisfactory. In fact they are quite disastrous. I could spend hours talking about this, but I will just touch on a few of them.

For a start we have got the ESTA 000 crisis, and that is the absolute nightmare that we have heard about many, many times in this place—the situation where calls to 000, emergency calls, are in the first instance not even being answered. Probably like you, Deputy Speaker, I can think of nothing worse in a time when you need an emergency service, whatever that might be, for the call not to be answered in the first place. Secondly, if you happen to want an ambulance here in Victoria, good luck. We know that we have got the worst waiting times on record, and tragically for Victorians and particularly tragically for the families and friends of those involved we have had 21 Victorians who have passed away as a direct result of not having a prompt response from an ambulance.

That is an absolute crisis that is continuing to dog the Victorian community. I was talking to a constituent the other day, and their child is an ambulance paramedic here in Victoria. They have got down to such a critical level that they are being accompanied by a member of the army. I am also aware that there are members of the SES out accompanying ambulance officers. So they are going one-up to all kinds of jobs. That is evidence clearly that we have got a far-from-ideal system here in Victoria, and that is costing lives.

I reflected in this place the other day that in recent weeks we had a family situation where we needed an ambulance. The wait was 1½ hours, and then the estimated time at the hospital to wait in the emergency department was a further 5 hours—and that was probably on a good day. So it is something that the government has just failed to address. It has been coming for a long time, and they continue to make excuses, but it is something that, for the sake of all Victorians and the health, safety and wellbeing of Victorians, must be addressed as a matter of urgency. The overall issue of ambulance ramping continues. That is a daily episode. You do not have to look very far or wide to see ambulances ramped at your local public hospital, and every van you see there is one less that can respond to a 000 call, should there be one. So we have got a health system in complete crisis. We have got hospitals overloaded and unable to cope. We have got code yellow, code orange, code brown—we have got code disaster. It is just a serious issue for all Victorians, and that is one area of the community that you want to be operating well should there be a case of dire need.

We have got at least 90 000 Victorians on the elective surgery waiting list, and that includes the pre-waiting waiting list—that is, just the ones that are actually in the system. The government keep saying that is going to be rectified and keep saying they are putting money into it and all this sort of thing, but the bottom line is that people are not seeing the outcomes. They are not getting their surgeries earlier, and many, many people out there in the community—many of my constituents and, I am sure, many of yours, Deputy Speaker—are suffering in pain and in complete discomfort and are dislocated from perhaps their work situation and other essential elements in their life through the fact that they cannot get their ailment attended to. So that is something the government must just really look at as a matter of priority.

In the whole justice system—we cannot really call it that anymore, because for many people it is not a justice system—we have got court backlogs in some cases up to years. As the old saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied. We have got people in remand that will be in remand for longer than their ultimate sentence. We have got people in remand that will be found not guilty. We have got all kinds of delays—we have got these sorts of matters. In fact I was talking to someone the other day, and a friend of one of their children has been charged with a very serious offence. That young man has got that hanging over his head. It has been hanging over his head for a number of years, and that prevents him as a young man from pursuing job opportunities, from applying for jobs and from looking at courses, careers and all that sort of thing, because that matter has not come before the court. That is a practical example of a nightmare for this young person and of course for the alleged victim, for the witnesses and for anybody else involved in the countless thousands of cases that have just jammed our system. The government has not provided a pathway forward for those matters to be addressed. We have got multiple-year waits in VCAT, and that is another issue. Many people in the community generally would be familiar with the processes of VCAT and the fact that those delays have got very significant implications for everybody involved in that system as well.

We have got a crisis in the mental health area, and the Parliament’s pandemic management committee heard evidence, led by experts including the state’s chief psychiatrist, just a couple of weeks ago. I watched much of that evidence, and it was very distressing to hear about some of the matters that he was referring to and the fact that particularly for young people, who he was referring to at that time, but also for other people there are dramatic increases in eating disorders, suicidal ideation and self-harm as a result of the pandemic.

It is interesting that a document has just come out—and a press release has been issued today by one of my colleagues—that surveyed 20 000 young people at the height of the lockdowns in 2021, finding nearly half of Victorian 15- to 19-year-olds reported mental health problems as a result of COVID-19. So the government like to tell us what a great job they have done with all these matters and particularly in relation to COVID, but I think that there are all kinds of unintended consequences. The government has been blind to many of those, and we have got a mental health crisis out there in the community as well. My office, like those of many of my colleagues probably on both sides in this place, has been inundated with phone calls from distressed parents and other relatives in relation to the wellbeing of the young people in their world. This is something that the government has got to address.

Many of these issues are caused by staff shortages, yet the most ridiculous thing is that the government continues to sack people pursuant to the vaccine mandates. So we have got a situation where people are needed desperately, whether they are teachers, whether they are nurses or whether they are other healthcare workers. I have spoken to many, many of them in all those categories and other medical professionals that have been sacked because for whatever reason they have not wanted to comply with that, yet the government continues to sack people when they are so desperately needed. So the government needs to really just get rid of those, end the mandates and give people the opportunity. They can be subject to RATs, they can be subject to PCR testing and so on, but they need to let people get back to work so that they can service the needs of the Victorian community, because it is just costing people and causing all kinds of harm in our community. That is a matter that the government could fix today if it had the will to do so, and I urge the government to review this. It is a futile mandate. It is just quite ridiculous. I have spoken on it many times in this place. It makes no sense. It is illogical and makes no sense at this stage of the cycle in the pandemic.

We know financially we have got a precarious situation. I just want to touch on some of the numbers in the budget. Tax revenue just continues to go up. In the 10 years of Labor it has gone up 75.9 per cent, running way ahead of inflation and wage increases. We have got deficits as far as the eye can see, and I touched on that earlier. We have got the revised deficit for 2021–22 of $17.6 billion. We have got that decreasing over the forward estimates. But the reality is that history shows clearly that the forward estimates put out by the government are usually nothing more than fanciful guesses, and they will always end up much, much worse. That is not me saying that; that is what history will show. So these figures here that show a shrinking deficit and then ultimately a surplus in 2025–26 are just fanciful in my view.

If we look at employee expenses, this is an area that should be of concern to all Victorians. We have got a staggering increase of 77.9 per cent in employee expenses over 10 years. That is now going to be up around $35.4 billion, just an extraordinary situation, and the question really for all Victorians is: are we getting value for money? I have talked about the deficiencies in various areas, but then we look at the Premier’s own personal office, where he has got hundreds of staff. He has got spin doctors left, right and centre. This government has got spin doctors in every department, and there is no shortage of employees in those departments. But they are not on the service delivery end, and that is where this government should be ashamed of itself for just spinning to all Victorians rather than servicing the needs and solving the problems of all Victorians.

If we look at net debt, this is probably the most sobering aspect in my view in the budget. We can see that in 2015–16 the net debt was $22.3 billion. That was the actual. It is now estimated in 2025–26 to be $167.5 billion. That is a 751 per cent increase over 10 years. What a staggering situation that is, and the serious problem for all Victorians, of course, is that there is no plan to pay it back. We have got a window at the moment where interest rates have been at record-low levels. That obviously cannot continue. We have already seen the first blip up on interest rates in recent weeks. I am not an economist, but I am certain that that will continue to increase, and then the government will find itself in trouble as it tries to roll over some of that debt. So that is a shocking situation.

We have got in terms of the Appropriation (Parliament 2022–2023) Bill 2022 a concerning situation in my view in relation to some of the statutory offices. We have got the Auditor-General’s office only getting a meagre 2.6 per cent increase in their funding, we have got the Ombudsman only getting a meagre 3.2 per cent increase in their funding and most concerningly to me and probably to all Victorians is the fact that the IBAC is only getting a 3 per cent increase in its funding. We all know from reports and from evidence we have heard in this place and other places the fact that if there was ever an agency that needs more funding, it is IBAC, because they have got so much work to do here, and much of that work is to do with members of this place or associated with this place and the other place. So it is a shocking neglect of duty, in my view, for the government not to be funding IBAC properly. They have obviously got a vested interest in doing so, so that clearly investigations are potentially truncated or not undertaken at all, many of which are going into their affairs.

Just in conclusion, for the Forest Hill electorate, again I have had many, many schools that are sorely in need of funding that have dipped out once again. We have had some funding for some special schools, which was good, but many of the schools in the Forest Hill district that have had ongoing needs for many, many years—and they are well documented; I have spoken about them exhaustively in this place—have again been neglected. Also many clubs, many other associations and many other community groups that have had legitimate funding applications have missed out, so it is a very disappointing budget from a macro point of view and a very disappointing budget from the Forest Hill residents’ point of view.

Ms HALL (Footscray) (12:51): I might cheer things up after that contribution from the member for Forest Hill, because I am delighted with this year’s budget. It continues the Andrews Labor government’s transformational investment in Melbourne’s inner west, where we are rebuilding schools, we are getting trucks off local roads, we are planting trees, we are building cycling infrastructure and of course we are building the magnificent new Footscray hospital. But this budget for Footscray focused on another thing, and it is something I am very passionate about, which is the arts. The budget delivered $8.7 million to Footscray Community Arts. Everyone in Melbourne’s western suburbs, the inner west and perhaps across Melbourne in the arts and creative communities knows that Footscray Community Arts is Australia’s leading community arts centre. It has a fascinating history. It was established by unionists and artists with an overarching philosophy of access for all, and the roots of its establishment date back to the 1870s when the building was used as a piggery on Footscray’s Maribyrnong River. Going from a piggery to a community arts centre was not an easy or an obvious journey, and it may not have happened if the building had not been threatened with demolition in 1976. The campaign to save it united historians, artists, unionists and other community leaders, and every day that has passed since we have been enriched by their success. The site is and always has been a beacon for workers.

Discussion of Footscray Community Arts Centre has to pay reference to two incredible people who helped to establish and preserve it, and those people are George Seelaf and Paddy Garrity, two absolute legends of the west and of the union movement. Paddy Garrity recalled George explaining to him that unions need to understand that their role goes beyond wages and conditions; it is about quality of life and culture. His insights were true then, and they are true today—that the arts are for everyone. Community arts centres offer so much locally. Footscray Community Arts collaborates and cultivates relationships with artists from a number of communities, including First Nations people, the LGBTI community, CALD communities and of course artists with a disability. Footscray Community Arts I think is the only community arts centre in Australia that is an NDIS provider—artists with a diverse range of experiences and perspectives whose work deserves recognition and support. This great history of the Footscray Community Arts Centre marks a new chapter now. A new history is beginning with the largest investment in its history being awarded this year by the Andrews Labor government.

What will be delivered complements the work that is going on along the Maribyrnong River, with a $12 million investment from Maribyrnong City Council and the West Gate Tunnel Project to transform the Footscray wharf and waterfront. Those works are nearly complete. The $8.7 million in this year’s budget will help transform the outdoor spaces at Footscray Community Arts with all of the electrical equipment that they need. We will have a covered amphitheatre and performance space, and it will really maximise all of the performance spaces we have in the outdoors, which is so important in this COVID era. Of course it has also been the home of the Laneway Festival, which I think brought so many people from across Melbourne to Footscray Community Arts.

I have a vision for Footscray’s arts precinct. I want Footscray and the inner west to continue to be a place of arts incubation, collaboration and equity of access. From the Cotton Mills to Kindred Studios to the Dream Factory, the Waterside Metal Art Studio, 100 Story Building, Wrangler Studios, who do so much work with the push for under-age gigs, the Hotel Westwood, Laneway Festival and Pride of our Footscray, Footscray is the place in Melbourne for creative industries and live music. That investment has been supported by the Go West Festivals Fund in this budget—$2.4 million to make sure that we bring the best festivals Melbourne has to offer to Melbourne’s western suburbs, supporting local venues and local artists to participate in festivals like Rising, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Melbourne Fringe. It is an absolutely exciting package for the arts and creative industries in Footscray.

I want to thank the member for Essendon and Minister for Creative Industries for coming with me to Footscray Community Arts on two or three occasions to meet with the CEOs there, Robyn and Daniel, and to have a look, to understand their vision and to of course deliver on it in this year’s budget. That has been complemented just this week by some live music grants for Footscray. I think there is $115 000 going to local live music venues, including Kindred Studios, Hotel Westwood and Pride of Our Footscray. Throughout the pandemic we have supported these organisations as live music venues to keep going. I know that Mat from Pride of Our Footscray has said to me and has also had the opportunity to say to the Treasurer a couple of weeks ago that government support throughout COVID has saved that venue. They are able to throw open their doors again, and this support will help get local musicians back on stage in Footscray.

There is also a really terrific investment in this year’s budget for McAuley Community Services for Women, who are well known in Footscray as a family violence refuge and agency. They provide very important wraparound services to women in Footscray and the western suburbs. They are receiving funding to redevelop an unutilised refuge in Sunshine. I just want to take this opportunity with the short amount of time I have left to acknowledge the work of Jocelyn Bignold, the CEO of McAuley Community Services, who is well known to everyone in the sector but should be well known to all Victorians. She has had her work recognised with a Medal of the Order of Australia, and she is someone who literally saves lives in our community. To have her work and the work of McAuley Community Services acknowledged in this year’s budget just reflects how well regarded they are.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.