Wednesday, 8 June 2022

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2019–20 Financial and Performance Outcomes

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (10:23): I would like to refer to the Report on the 2019–20 Financial and Performance Outcomes, tabled in May 2021, which was produced by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, and I would like to make note and give a special shout-out to my good friend and colleague the member for Gippsland South, who has completed 27 inquiries to date on PAEC. Congratulations for surviving that long period, member for Gippsland South. One of the important elements of these financial outcomes is just how the state budget is being spent and then examining whether that is being done in a fair and equitable way.

Now, what we find in rural and regional Victoria is so often we simply do not get our fair share when it comes to allocations from a Labor government, from a Labor Premier, to make sure that country Victorians are well supported in their infrastructure needs. In our regional areas we have a much higher demand for infrastructure spend. Whether it is through managing our road network, which is so extensive and so much larger—it is thousands and thousands of kilometres per local government area, as opposed to some LGAs in Melbourne that simply do not have any roads that they have to manage. Councils do not to manage it—it is all done in a different way—whereas our councils have to manage that. We also have extensive infrastructure around our schools, our hospitals and our police stations as well. It is a lot to look after. CFA stations, SES I should mention as well, ambulance stations—there is a lot of infrastructure that must be maintained. But unless there is a budget that can back that up and ensures that we can keep those important assets up to date and up to scratch and workable, then regional Victoria will fall further and further behind.

For too long regional Victorians have been denied their fair share of state government funding. We hear from this government, and we heard yesterday, that they are very upset to be called out, I think, that they were spending such a small fraction of the infrastructure budget on projects in rural and regional Victoria. In fact in the 2021–22 year only 11.4 per cent of the asset budget was allocated to rural and regional Victoria, and in this year’s budget it was about 13 per cent. This is despite rural and regional Victoria making up 25 per cent of the state’s population.

The Liberals and Nationals have come out and guaranteed rural and regional Victoria their fair share. They have guaranteed that 25 per cent of all new government capital investment projects will be dedicated to and funded in regional Victoria. We did hear yesterday some pushback from the government saying, ‘Oh, we’ve done more than that’. The Premier was very adamant, ‘Oh, we’ve spent a little more than that in regional Victoria’. But I just wonder how accurate that is. We go back to, of course, the country roads program. The country roads program you would think would be delivering on country roads and bridges in regional Victoria. That project actually delivered 48 bridges, but 10 of those were in that very rural area of Mulgrave. The Premier’s own electorate in Melbourne was the site for nearly one-fifth, or 20 per cent, of the state’s country bridges. I really dispute that you can trust anything that the Premier says when he says he is investing in country Victoria, because he counts bridges built in his own electorate as being in country Victoria. That is not supporting the roads and the bridges that we desperately need to see fixed in our rural and regional areas.

You also cannot count statewide projects. We want key infrastructure upgraded and new infrastructure in our rural and regional areas. Recently Yarriambiack Shire Council—in fact it was late last year—put in a funding submission to the state Labor government to build a new childcare centre in that Minyip-Murtoa-Rupanyup area, but they were told they were not eligible for funding, even though they met all the criteria and they could show demand, because it was not in a growth area. There is no child care available in that local area, none at all. There are women there who have to withdraw from work—either cut back hours or not work at all—simply because they cannot get child care. These are ICU nurses, they are agricultural specialists, they are working in many, many jobs right across our community—and even as childcare workers—and cannot access child care.

Unless we see an infrastructure guarantee and an absolute 100 per cent commitment that rural and regional Victoria will get 25 per cent of future infrastructure budgets, then we will always see regional Victoria falling behind. Labor cannot be trusted when it comes to a fair and equitable investment in rural and regional Victoria. Only The Nationals can be trusted to make sure that we get a massive 25 per cent of all new infrastructure projects guaranteed across country Victoria and give country Victoria its fair share.