Thursday, 9 June 2022

Gembrook electorate

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (17:09): (6420) My adjournment is to the Premier, and the action I ask for from the Premier is that he come out to the Gembrook electorate and the Berwick area and speak to my constituents. They have sent in many questions for me to ask for them, and I hope he can come out and answer them.

They have asked about mandates and the return to work for many positions, particularly throughout the community. The most popular question is when will the Premier resign. After that is: how does an agency like the one he has formed to monitor the Victorian public have any room at all in our democracy? What is the Premier’s problem when dealing with women whether it is political or not? When are you going to fix the health crisis, especially emergency departments? Can you please provide a balance sheet for Victoria? Will you ever tell us who hired the private security guards for hotel quarantine? When will you tell the truth? How do you get away with everything? Why have you forgotten the outer suburbs while governing just for the inner city?

What has happened to the promised Pakenham community hospital? Why did you take the pay rise in Parliament when Victorians lost their jobs due to lockdowns? When will you release the health advice? What is IBAC questioning you about? How can you justify the overruns on major projects and then have no money to fix our health or 000 systems? What are you doing to assist the backlogs in psychologists and occupational therapists in the state? When are expectant mothers going to be given a guaranteed safe place to give birth?

Can you apologise to Victorians please? Why are you fighting in court to prevent the release of information that was used for your COVID response? How many people are on surgery waiting lists this month? How many operational hospital beds did Victoria have in 2019 and how many do we have now in 2022, considering you promised a further 4000? Why are unvaccinated people allowed to drink at a cafe but not work in one? Why are you not resigning after being questioned by IBAC like the other past premiers have in other states? If you say you put people first, why do you always put us last? Why are you not enforcing public servants to return to work in the CBD at least three days a week because the CBD is dying?

These are questions that have come through when we put out on social media what would you ask the Premier with just five weeks to go—five sitting weeks here in this Parliament. It is a great opportunity for this Premier to come out and tell Victorians why he continues to avoid these questions. When he eventually does release them, he redacts everything. He redacts so much information that he makes it impossible here in Victoria. The man that won government in 2014 on the basis of integrity has zero integrity here in this state, and the action I seek is for the Premier to come out and explain to the community in the Berwick area why he has lost his integrity and what he is going to do to answer these questions to ensure that my community can get health care, can get treatment when they need to, can get a police officer when they need to and ensure the investments are in the right locations.