Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Liberal Party

Mr DIMOPOULOS (Oakleigh) (16:16): I rise to grieve for if the Liberal Party of Victoria was ever to govern this beautiful state. I want to begin by taking a note from the Treasurer’s speech in which he outlined what our investment will deliver to the Victorian people by the end of the budget period.

The year is 2026. The Commonwealth Games are on in our regions, with excited tourists on our streets and buzz throughout the state. We are catching trains through the Metro Tunnel, marvelling at its five new underground stations, before we emerge into a bustling, lively city. The state budget is back in surplus. Seven thousand healthcare workers have been trained and hired so that when our children and our parents need the best care we know they are in the safest hands. The new Footscray Hospital is open, and Melton hospital is taking shape. The West Gate Tunnel is easing traffic in Melbourne’s west, and apprentices are hard at work building the Suburban Rail Loop. Our reform of Victoria’s mental health system makes it one of the best systems in the world. We are producing Australia’s mRNA vaccines right here in Victoria via the Australian Institute for Infectious Disease in a world-leading biomedical precinct—again, right here in Victoria. We are producing test kits for viral infections right here in this state and supplying them around Australia and internationally. Victorian students are walking through the gates of 100 new schools, and 85 dangerous level crossings are gone for good, including eight in my community. 2026 will see this government deliver more schools, more level crossing removals, more healthcare workers, more hospitals and more jobs, because we do what we say and we say what we do.

We can imagine, however, what the year 2026 might look like under the Liberals. $3.8 billion has been cut from mental health supports. The workforce is overwhelmed and underpaid. Schoolteachers have been instructed not to teach a Safe Schools platform. Students experience bullying across the state. There is no funding available for psychological support in schools. Instead the Liberals have opted to fund Tony Abbott’s antiquated chaplains in schools program again in some hope of praying away the gay. Bernie Finn’s new men’s first party is an essential part of the coalition’s minority government. This conservative coalition sees them relitigate safe abortion access zones, conversion therapy and voluntary assisted dying. What a coalition government lacks in vision they make up for in division. The Liberals’ sole major infrastructure project, the east–west link, has made sure that Victorians are billions of dollars poorer. Without any significant public transport infrastructure project other than that one, it does nothing to reduce congestion in Melbourne. The Suburban Rail Loop—investment has been cut, severing the outer suburbs’ chance of infrastructure that is for their needs and accessibility to major transport and other services around Victoria. Oh, and five hospitals have been either sold off or closed to honour a portrait of Jeff Kennett.

This is not just speculation, it is extrapolation. How do we know this? Well, the Leader of the Opposition and his caucus refused to commit to supporting the funding outlined by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. When funding commitments passed the house, the Leader of the Opposition lamented:

What I find astounding are the excuses that then follow to try and justify it: ‘Oh, but it’s for this. Oh, but it’s for that. Oh, but it’s for this’ …

… This is not Argentina under Perón; not everyone can live off the government.

No, not everyone, unless you are the Leader of the Opposition and his caucus. Just the Leader of the Opposition and his entitled caucus can live on the public purse, and they do. They protest with all the tact of a Jaguar bursting through your front fence, and a publicly funded Jaguar no less. The Shadow Minister for Mental Health called a commitment to a funding stream for mental health, a specific commitment to mental health funding, ‘unnecessary’. Their leaders and members have formally promised to amend gay conversion laws if elected and remove Safe Schools from the curriculum and have campaigned against safe access zones for abortions, all on the public record. They have undermined confidence in investment in the Suburban Rail Loop and called for the scrapping of airport rail to Werribee. In doing so they undermine opportunities for private sector investment in this major infrastructure project, limiting the incredible opportunities that co-investment would bring. They have promised to hold up every major transport project through this audit they are proposing, effectively a public show trial, when all the public want is for us to get on and deliver infrastructure projects. That is what the public voted for, and that is what the public expect.

We do not have to go too far to remember that not only in their four years between 2010 and 2014 but under the Kennett Liberal government 17 hospitals were closed down in Victoria—17 hospitals. Ten thousand hospital workers lost their jobs, including 3500 nurses, and 1400 beds were removed from Victoria’s hospital system. It is in their party room today that a portrait of Jeff Kennett hangs high. This is not just speculation, it is extrapolation, and there is no moment worth extrapolating on more than when we most needed them, when Victorians most needed bipartisanship in the pandemic—as was expressed by the South Australian Labor Party and as was expressed by other opposition parties around the world. When we most needed unity and support, what did we got from them? Scores of Liberal MPs, some of whom are in the chamber right now, came out to rile up a group of misled, vulnerable Victorians, who then turned violent against police and vandalised our shrines. They were complicit. The Liberal member for Warrandyte encouraged this group to not just direct their frustration at the medical advice but at the crossbenchers considering that advice. In the name of democracy they are entitled to sit there and consider that advice. No, no, he went for them, naming them directly to the public, to the sounds of jeers and boos. Those crossbenchers—and some have come out publicly after that—would go on to receive threats to themselves and their families amongst the torrent of abuse that followed.

When the former Prime Minister and former Treasurer were backgrounding against and attacking the state’s health experts and when then Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, then Treasurer, were backgrounding against our healthcare workers and those on the pandemic front lines, the Victorian Liberals were cheering them on, because they are Liberals first, as the Premier says, and Victorians second, and I even wonder if they are Victorians second. This is not just speculation, it is extrapolation. That trend will continue if they are to form government. They will continue to sell off services, ignore our outer suburbs and obsess over themselves, like they did yesterday, instead of delivering for Victorians. The Liberals do not have a vision, they just have division. Last election they ran on a slogan ‘Make Victoria safe again’. Safe from what? Who does the whistle blow for this time? Is it the gays? Is it the trans kids? Is it the Africans? Is it the refugees? Who does the whistle blow for? Make Victoria safe from whom? This is what they are about. They are about divisions—African gang race baiting, led by their headkicker in Queensland, Peter Dutton, on the wireless barking down lies about Victorians being afraid to go out to a restaurant, afraid to leave their homes. This is a man who wants to become the leader of their federal party, the alternative Prime Minister of this country—Peter Dutton, who walked out on the apology to the stolen generation because he was too scared to face the past; Peter Dutton, who has publicly stated he opposes same-sex marriage; Peter Dutton, who mocked the flooding of the Pacific Island nations whilst campaigning to prevent action on climate change; Peter Dutton, who referred to the Biloela children as ‘anchor babies’ because that is all he saw in that tragedy of a human story.

At the last election they tried to tell us we were not safe from migrants. At this federal election we were not safe from trans children and adults. Somehow we were going to be overrun in sporting contests from schools right through to the elite level. They do not have a vision; they just have division. They tried using trans kids as a political tool, but it did not work on Australia, and it will not work in Victoria. They do not have a vision; they just have division. Their updated policies are too often outdated. By the time they decide to change a policy it is about 10 years too late. The outdated policies on the other side are too close to some of their members’ hearts for them to change at all, and we saw some of the repercussions of that yesterday.

They are an absolute outfit that does not belong anywhere near government. On climate change they are 10 years behind. They are still debating Safe Schools. They are still fighting over conversion therapy internally. They have not begun to turn their minds to how to support insecure modern work. Every bit of legislation we have passed in this Parliament, whether it be portable long service leave or anything that tries to protect gig economy workers, they have voted against. This is not leadership. This is not addressing the concerns of a modern economy and a modern Victoria. Leadership is doing what you say and saying what you do, being up-front with your policies even if it is not politically popular. We took over Safe Schools, as an example, when it became almost toxic because of the awful narrative of the Liberal Party of Victoria and Australia. We said, ‘No, don’t worry about it. We will continue funding it’ when the commonwealth pulled out. Be up-front with your policies and your values. They do not know who they are, so how can we know? How can the Victorian community know who they are?

I can count—and I will say at the outset this is me having a look at, frankly, just the surnames of those colleagues on the other side of the house, so I may be wrong; I put that at the outset, but I am not far wrong—only two of their members, two out of 30, who hail from outside the United Kingdom. Only two out of 30 hail from outside the United Kingdom in their heritage—two out of 30 in the most multicultural state in Australia. How is that even acceptable for any organisation, let alone the alternative government of Victoria? In contrast, who are we? We are a group of people who are committed to a value set that is consistent with the community’s value set. We are a group of people that has diversity both in—

Mr Newbury interjected.

Mr DIMOPOULOS: Well, it is true. Tell me it is not true.

Mr Newbury interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair.

Mr DIMOPOULOS: Sorry, Deputy Speaker. We have a diverse caucus with over 10 languages spoken between us, over 50 per cent women in cabinet and almost 50 per cent women in our caucus. We are a government, we are a people, we are a values-based organisation that believes in climate change. There is not one of us that denies that. The minute even one person denies that, you stymie the action that that huge public policy issue deserves.

Probably the best way to describe who we are as an outfit compared to—in fact there is no comparison. Who we are as an outfit is best described by an example that the Premier raised in question time today. The Premier and I were at the Victorian Heart Hospital, in my electorate, on the grounds of Monash University. That is not just a hospital; it is a story that we have to tell about our government, a story where we have employed more doctors and nurses than any government previously despite the reduction in funding federally because of the formula adjustment in terms of hospital growth—number one. But it is not only the doctors and nurses, it is actually the build that procures local content in that build, creating a chain of work through the economy, both local and bigger employers and construction companies. But it is not even just that. As the Premier said today in question time, it is Nadia and many others like her who we met that day, who get a chance to train to become apprentices in whatever field—carpentry, building, major construction. And again it is not the end of the story. Nadia gets to train in a free TAFE environment, along with her colleagues and her peers. And then after the heart hospital, as the Premier said on that day, finishes construction at the end of this year, Nadia and her peers have an enormous pipeline of other projects.

So not only do we develop the workforce that a modern Victoria needs, not only do we develop the health care that a modern Victoria needs, but we provide an entire circle around it in terms of the skills we need, provided for free, and local content to create economic opportunities and jobs in Victoria. That is the story—one of many of this Labor government—something that is creative, something that is bold and something that when you look back, you think, ‘How could we have done it any other way?’. But they do not have that imagination, they do not have that courage, because of, frankly, who they are and what they stand for. That is why I grieve should they ever, ever lead this beautiful state. That is why I grieve for the lost opportunity of a Liberal government in Victoria. Thankfully we had a change of government in Canberra, which will be a match partner in terms of our values and a match partner in terms of our investment in infrastructure, recurrent funding in our hospitals, recurrent funding in our schools and in every other major public policy area, including mental health, where the feds, this time, squibbed it. A tiny part of the investment that we have put in for Victoria they have put in for the whole country.