Tuesday, 21 March 2023

Address to Parliament

Governor’s speech

Address-in-reply

Debate resumed on motion of Martha Haylett:

That the following address, in reply to the speech of the Governor to both houses of Parliament, be agreed to by this house.

Governor:

We, the Legislative Assembly of Victoria assembled in Parliament, wish to express our loyalty to our Sovereign and to thank you for the speech which you have made to the Parliament.

And Tim Read’s amendment:

That the following words be added at the end of the motion: ‘but respectfully regret that the speech fails to announce a ban on new coal and gas projects’.

Ros SPENCE (Kalkallo – Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Community Sport, Minister for Suburban Development) (13:16): I am very pleased to make a contribution to the address-in-reply to the Governor’s speech, and I do so as the first member for the new electorate of Kalkallo in Melbourne’s outer north. The boundaries of my previous electorate of Yuroke were altered significantly during the redistribution process, and the renamed electorate Kalkallo, whilst retaining the suburbs of Mickleham, Kalkallo, Oaklands Junction, Yuroke and most of Craigieburn, now also stretches further north to take in the suburbs of Beveridge and Wallan. I acknowledge former member for Yan Yean Danielle Green for her many years of service to Wallan and Beveridge. I am also thrilled to be joined in this place by the new member for Yan Yean Lauren Kathage, who I share the suburbs in the north with, and also the new member for Greenvale Iwan Walters, who is now representing the southern part of my former Yuroke electorate. I know that they will both serve those communities exceptionally well.

I am incredibly excited about the third term of the Andrews Labor government, building upon the achievements of the past two terms and continuing to deliver for our community. The community that I represent is diverse, it is vibrant and it is growing. They look forward to seeing the progress and the completion of existing local projects. The massive Craigieburn Road upgrade project is well underway and once completed will really transform one of the major arterial roads in the outer north, reducing congestion, slashing travel times and really boosting safety for all road users.

Having just opened two new government schools last month, building on the nine schools that have been opened in Yuroke since 2014, I am really glad that the commitment to building new schools continues. So far there are at least five more schools on the way, with one primary school in Kalkallo and another one in Mickleham due to open next year. We have got another three schools in the pipeline, and I look forward to welcoming local students to all of those schools over the next few years.

Craigieburn community hospital is on track to open next year, and this new public hospital will provide a range of day hospital, outpatient and community health services, providing that critical care much closer to home. The 24-hour ambulance station in Craigieburn North is set to open later this year, meaning more emergency response services for our growing community.

The new 501 bus route, a new high-frequency shuttle bus service between Donnybrook station and Craigieburn station, will commence service soon, and this will provide residents with better access to train stations. Of great importance to Kalkallo residents, a new slip lane at the Donnybrook Road and Mitchell Street roundabout will really alleviate traffic pressure in Kalkallo.

I look forward to seeing the completion of projects where we have partnered with Hume City Council. I look forward to seeing the completion of the Craigieburn Sports Stadium, which will provide local families with three additional, much-needed multiuse courts. I look forward to seeing the 5-hectare active open space at Grand Boulevard reserve and a new community centre in Craigieburn that has had funding allocated from last year’s Growing Suburbs Fund.

I am also pleased that we will deliver on the local commitments that we made prior to the election. These are all really important projects that were made for our growing community’s needs. Local sport is getting a really big boost thanks to the re-election of the Labor government, with $5 million towards stage 1 of the Greenhill recreation precinct in Wallan. This will ultimately be a major sporting and aquatics hub for the region. We are also providing $50,000 towards a master plan for a brand new recreation reserve in Beveridge. Families right across Mickleham, Kalkallo and Donnybrook will enjoy some free water play with $450,000 going towards a new splash play space in the Donnybrook Road corridor. We have seen how much families enjoy the water play space that is already at Anzac Park in Craigieburn, so no doubt this one will be just as popular. Of critical importance, we have contributed $130 million to the upgrade of Watson Street and the Hume Freeway interchange for road users, cyclists and pedestrians in Wallan. All of these projects are important for local residents in this growing electorate, and no doubt there will be more along the way. That is the nature of a growing area, and I am absolutely up for that challenge, just as I have been for the past eight years.

I am also delighted to be returning to this place as the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Community Sport and Minister for Suburban Development. It is a privilege to be asked to continue as the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, and it was with the collective pride of this government that I was able to announce the acquittal of the 227 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence. However, in making that announcement I also made it very clear that this is in no way the end of our work. Whilst we have much to be proud of, we have also got much more work to do. Victoria is leading the nation in family violence reform, and from the outset I do want to thank all victim-survivors who have helped to support, to inform and to develop our work. We set ourselves a 10-year time frame to build a new family violence system, and really good progress has been made. But as I have said, the journey is not over. There is still much more work to be done.

The Orange Door network is now operating in 17 regions across the state, assisting more than 267,000 people, including 107,000 children since opening in 2018. More than 100,000 workers have been trained to recognise, assess and respond to family violence risk through the multi-agency risk assessment and management framework, and information is shared across a range of service provision systems to ensure a robust infrastructure exists to support victim-survivors. We have passed legislation establishing a new model of affirmative consent, but again, we know that the work does not end there. The foundations laid since the royal commission in 2016 are sound and they really will set us up well for the future, and I am very keen to continue this important work.

In my role as Victoria’s first Minister for Community Sport I know that the government deeply values the role of community sport and rec right across the state. At the end of the last term we had invested a massive $1.6 billion into community sport and recreation infrastructure, and we will continue to build on that investment, having committed a further $190 million towards community sports projects at the last election. These projects are all about increasing participation and making sure that Victorians right across the state have access to facilities that support that participation. Whether it is a $600,000 investment in female-friendly facilities for the Keon Park Soccer Club in the electorate of Preston or investing $10 million for a new aquatic centre for Altona Meadows and Point Cook, we are committed to creating spaces for all participants in community sport to thrive in.

We are also removing barriers to community sport. Whether it is financial barriers through the Get Active Kids voucher program or the tremendous work of the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation, this work and these investments are making a real, tangible difference with more opportunities, better access and a fairer approach.

As the new Minister for Suburban Development, I am really excited about the opportunities to work with my colleagues in grassroots communities to ensure our suburbs are front and centre in the decisions that we make. This includes our suburban revitalisation boards, which partner with communities to help them renew and prosper. In addition to the four returning board chairs, I am really confident that the new members for Broadmeadows, Preston, Tarneit and Monbulk will do a great job on their local boards. I believe that there are no better experts on local communities than the residents that live in them, so I look forward to ensuring that their views and their lived experiences are heard.

I do want to thank all the staff in my ministerial office, who support me with these portfolio responsibilities: Grant, Rebecca, Nat, Ann, Shannon, Hannah and Ryan. We have got a great office culture, and this would not be possible without their commitment and their dedication. A similar thankyou to recent ministerial staff for their support and their hard work: Varnan, Matilda, Rachel and Jo. I want to thank my electorate office staff: Josh P, Josh S, Jo and Shraddha as well as Rachel and Emre. Thank you all for everything that you do to make sure that the electorate is well served. It is vitally important that we always put the community first, and I thank them all for sharing that priority with me.

To everyone who was involved in the campaign, I say a huge thankyou. Our movement was built on the grassroots work of our volunteers, and I am immensely grateful to all of them for their help. Your contribution was absolutely central to the election result, whether it was helping out on pre-poll, hosting a garden sign, talking to family or friends, or helping out on election day. Anything and everything that was done to assist was greatly appreciated and contributed to our collective success. I cannot name all of the volunteers, but I do want to thank a few who were always there to do whatever was needed: Drew, Casey, Avtar, Guri, Emre, Mitchell, Caitlyn, Kayla, Geoff, Mahru, Rakesh, Ravinder and all of their families and friends – thank you to all of them.

To my family, thank you always for your support, in particular, thank you to Kos for putting up with the conversion of the house into a campaign office for a couple of weeks.

Michaela Settle: And the cats.

Ros SPENCE: I am getting there. With Adam having moved out into his own place, we had space to do this, so that was very good, although the cats probably disagreed with this. I cannot contribute to an address-in-reply without mentioning the cats. So unfortunately, we have lost the second dog since the last election, but the four cats are still there. Marvin, Minx, Maximus and M are still with us, and they were not overly impressed with other humans being in their house. It is inconvenient for them that the two of us are in the house longer than it takes to feed them, and increasing that number was a bit of a problem. But I am sure, like our political opponents, they individually and collectively spent a lot of time plotting our demise, albeit unsuccessfully.

I will just make a couple of comments about my opponents. I want to thank my Liberal opponent Bikram Singh for his courtesy throughout the pre-poll period. Equally, the Animal Justice Party candidate Frances Lowe conducted herself with honour, and there were also many volunteers and a number of parties that were cooperative and courteous throughout this time. I raise this issue because we needed to take a cooperative approach to look out for each other in light of what was incredibly appalling behaviour by the Victorian Socialists. This included harassment of electors, harassment of candidates and harassment of volunteers. It was completely unacceptable, and we had to work together to protect each other and the community from what was incredibly appalling behaviour. This cannot continue at future elections, and I hope that the Electoral Matters Committee seriously considers ways to address what happened, not just in my electorate but in several electorates across the state.

Finally, to the residents that I represent in Kalkallo: I am incredibly grateful that I have been given this opportunity again. I will continue to work with you and for you to improve our community, to deliver the many projects that we have underway and to deliver on the commitments that we made prior to the election, and I am very proud to do this as a member of the Andrews Labor government.

Members applauded.

Melissa HORNE (Williamstown – Minister for Casino, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Local Government, Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Roads and Road Safety) (13:29): I too am delighted to make a contribution to this debate, and I would first like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which Parliament stands today and the lands that cover my electorate, the Kulin nation, and pay my respects to elders, past, present and emerging.

Secondly, I would also like to thank the people of Williamstown for trusting me to represent them in this place for another term. Our vibrant, tight-knit community is compassionate, it is diverse, it is generous, it is concerned about the environment, it is concerned about people who are vulnerable, it is concerned about people who are less well-off than them. And whether that is represented through organisations such as the variety of RSLs we have got in the electorate, through people that participate in the Hobsons Bay Community Fund, the Lions groups or the awesome Altona Men’s Shed, who are currently in the Newport Railway Workshops doing volunteer work to restore some of those beautiful gardens and some of the heritage-listed sheds, it is truly a wonderful community to represent.

We are part of a community that has a rich industrial past, and many of the challenges that we face as a community are part of that legacy. But within that legacy too comes enormous richness, and I know particularly just how dearly the Williamstown electorate holds our maritime history. From building some of the first boats through to some of the Anzac frigates, Williamstown has got this incredible maritime precinct. I am really proud to be part of a government that is investing $6 million towards critical repairs, and this was part of our election commitment to support the reopening of Workshops Pier – one of the piers down in the Seaworks precinct, established when Steve Bracks was Premier, still in public ownership and doing amazing work through the acting chair Patsy Toop – through to $11 million to rebuild Altona Pier, which will truly transform the Altona community and foreshore. And of course there is $11.3 million to redevelop the Williamstown Swimming and Life Saving Club. Williamstown Swimming and Life Saving Club is the biggest swimming and lifesaving club in the state and is truly one of the most diverse and community-minded groups that we have. This investment will breathe new life into our foreshore and ensure that these much-loved assets can be enjoyed for generations to come.

I would also like to pay tribute to the Honourable Jill Hennessy, because in the redistribution of the Williamstown electorate I picked up most of Altona, and the work that Jill did over a decade there has been a legacy and a testament to her incredible work. For example, without Jill’s advocacy and hard work the $8.3 million investment in Altona College would not have been possible. This enabled the college to expand from a P–9 facility to a P–12 with a brand new senior centre and upgraded classrooms. We are a government that believes that quality education close to home is so critical in ensuring the best start in life for all members of our community. That is why it is terrific to not only have that, but build on our investment of several million dollars in Bayside college and Williamstown High. I cannot wait to see the works start very soon at Wembley Primary School. There will be a new student centre and administration block that was co-designed by the kids there, and I really cannot wait to see that. On top of that, we committed in the election to work that should start after the budget at Altona Primary School. That was a $1.16 million investment to reimagine the playgrounds there and for a new school fence, which will be a fantastic addition for those kids.

I want to take a moment to talk about inclusion and diversity in my community, because it is so much of a hallmark of the Williamstown electorate that we are home to a really diverse community but one that is tolerant and inclusive and supports vulnerable people. Because what we have seen in the last few days has been a vile hate spread, and it is astonishing that we are living in a time when other people think that that is okay. These ideologies hurt and demonise many in my community and have no place in 2023.

It is astonishing to me that there are parties that continue to preselect and support candidates and members who hold these views, particularly as, standing on polling booths and pre-polls – and I know we all did it for those two long weeks throughout the four seasons in one day that we have in Melbourne – you hear the vile hatred spread at polling booths by some who are in the other place. It is just not on, because you cannot be a voice for all communities and also be representative of transphobia and antisemitism.

My community does not support homophobia; my community does not support transphobia. So my message to the LGBTIQ+ community in Williamstown is that we see you, we hear you and we stand with you. That is why words without action only mean so much. That is why this government has taken action to support our most marginalised and vulnerable communities. I am really proud to be part of a government that outlawed gay conversion therapy and removed the need to have undergone sex affirmation surgery before being able to apply for a new birth certificate. I was really proud in the previous term of government as well to be the responsible minister that decriminalised sex work, because we know that so many people working in that industry are vulnerable and can be discriminated against. We have criminalised the public display of Nazi symbols, and I am really proud to be part of a government that have committed to a legislated ban on the public display of the Nazi salute. We have committed $3 million towards an anti-Islamophobia campaign that will directly benefit people in my community, and we are strengthening our anti-vilification laws so that people who discriminate and spread hatred are penalised. We will also establish a multicultural and a multifaith law reform consultative committee to ensure the voices of diverse communities are heard and considered in the development of Victorian laws.

We can never do these speeches without thanking so many people that support us along the way and work tirelessly to ensure that the Labor government can continue to implement life-changing and life-saving policy. I would like to give a shout-out in particular to Sam and Takara. To Jen, Cindy, Steve, Ann and Effie, your constant work and your constant counsel were invaluable during the campaign, and of course nothing is done without the support of their families too, who gave up their loved ones to be able to support me and the Australian Labor Party. To my former ministerial staff, Chris, Kasey, Hailey, Miriam and Ross, thank you for your hard work and dedication. To my friends and to the Williamstown electorate branch members, who are too numerous to name in their totality – and I will always risk leaving someone out – thank you so much for your support and your generosity. And there is my family. It is always a wonderful privilege to have your father come down and get into his old role of being a former member of Parliament, a former marginal seat federal member, and get out there and enjoy the cut and thrust of campaigning. I can see that also being reflected in the pests that I am bringing up: my eldest son Phoenix – it is an opportunity to get ‘pests’ into Hansard again – and also to my youngest one Sacha. I am so incredibly proud of you and enjoy seeing your activism spread throughout your school years.

In the remaining time that I have allocated to me I would like to just touch on one of the portfolio issues that I have that is very dear to my heart. I feel incredibly privileged not only to have retained the portfolio of ports and freight but also to have picked up roads and road safety and retained local government, because I think this is a perfect combination to be able to build on the success of many of the ministers who have gone before me but also on the commitment of the Andrews Labor government to build on the key economic wealth generator in our state, because the livelihoods of many Victorians depend on a functioning and efficient road network. It is why we have been really quick to prioritise repairs to the road network in the wake of the last year’s devastating floods. We have invested $351 million in helping regional Victorian communities recover, with half of that going to road repairs. There was a $165 million emergency road repair blitz that has been finding and fixing potholes and shaping and repairing road surfaces damaged by those October rains. But it is even bigger than that.

We have been focused on getting more resilience into the network so that events like we have seen do less damage. We want to prepare the network for the future. On top of that, we have made considerable investment in the state’s rail freight network, because it plays that vital role in the state’s economic wellbeing. I think if I had a dollar for every time that I said ‘We are investing in our rail freight network’ – because we recognise at the heart this drives wealth into regional Victoria. Having those functioning rail lines and having that functioning road network drives productivity for our primary producers, and to be able to do that and achieve that and see some of the best product in the world go out through our ports is truly wonderful. We have got our port rail shuttle network up and running, and it has been backed in by industry. Only just a few weeks ago we saw the commitment of $1.8 billion by the private sector to Somerton intermodal rail freight terminal to be able to really back in government policy.

We have got a freight plan, which is about giving those indicators to the private sector that we have to get more freight on rail, because we know not only is this more efficient, it is beneficial to our environment and it also gets many of the heavy trucks off our streets. We have also invested in technology as a means of boosting the capacity of the road network. The $340 million Smarter Roads program, which was a legacy of the former Minister for Roads and Road Safety, is one of the most significant of these investments and seeing out on the ground three key traffic hotspots, which are in the west, east and the south-eastern suburbs, is really changing the lives and the commute for so many of those communities. I appreciate that there is a mountain of work left to go, but I am standing on the shoulders of giants, and I am so honoured to be in this place to continue that important work.

Members applauded.

Darren CHEESEMAN (South Barwon) (13:43): It is with some pleasure this afternoon that I rise to make my contribution to the address-in-reply to the Governor’s speech. I must say I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this Parliament House is built, the Woiwurrung people, and of course I would like to recognise their ongoing connection to the land and waterways of greater Melbourne. I would like to pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. I would like to also acknowledge the traditional owners of the Geelong region, where my seat is located, the Wathaurong people, and pay my respects to them and their elders and acknowledge their ongoing care for country in the greater Geelong region. I very much look forward to working closely with them as we strive for treaty and voice over the coming period of time. I would also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge all other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who might be listening to us today.

From my perspective, my journey in this place commenced in 2018 – so just a little over four years ago – and I must say that from the moment that I was preselected to represent the Labor Party at the 2018 election I was tremendously grateful for the hard work of the Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews and his very capable Labor team, because I had the opportunity to campaign in South Barwon, a noted growth corridor of Victoria and indeed the fastest growing regional growth corridor in this country. Very pleasingly, despite not holding the seat of South Barwon, the Andrews Labor government not only had a very clear plan to deliver that growth, to deliver that economic opportunity, but also had a very clear plan around delivering the infrastructure that that growing community needed. In so many ways, whilst it was a lot of work, it was very easy to get out there and tell Labor’s story in that community, to represent the Andrews Labor government and indeed the Labor Party with a very strong plan, a plan that was based on recognising the challenges of that community and indeed the challenges of the broader Geelong region, which is a very proud community – we have the greatest football club of all time, in the Geelong Football Club – and I was able to take up Labor’s cause in that seat with a tremendous team of volunteers.

Through the last term, over the last four years, we were able to build on that tremendous record, a record of achievement, locally. We had a very strong plan that we took to the voters in 2018, and of course in the first half, really the first 18 months or so of that term, we worked exceptionally hard as a government – I worked exceptionally hard – to make sure that we were delivering the things that we said we would deliver, and make sure that the ministers in the Andrews Labor government were clear about what we took to the election and were clear about the things that we said we would do and that we had a strong plan. We got on with it in those first 18 months or so.

Then the global pandemic came along, a one-in-100-year event, and none of us with any clarity were sure where that journey would go. I very much want to acknowledge again the leadership of the Premier of Victoria in staring down the naysayers and standing up for the health of every Victorian. That was not an easy thing to do, to get out there every single day and to prosecute, with a storm of words coming back at him, what we needed to do as a government to make sure that we could get our community through the global pandemic. Every single day for months and months and months the Premier was out there on his feet prosecuting those arguments on behalf of all of us against a huge wall of noise. I think when we got to the last 12 months of the last term, we were through the worst of the global pandemic, we had made the necessary decisions to protect the health and safety of every single Victorian and we had put in place the necessary mechanisms to help support small business, and our economy was so much the stronger for it.

In terms of the election held late last year I think of an age-old saying in politics which is true – and it is so true in so many other walks of life – and that is that you cannot fatten a pig on market day. You have got to have a strong plan in politics. That plan has to be clearly communicated to the Victorian people. They have to be brought on that journey with the parties that seek to govern, and that is indeed what we did. If you reflect on what we had achieved and the fact that we were able to remind people what we had achieved and also go into the Victorian election with a very clear plan about the things that we would seek to achieve on behalf of the people of Victoria if we were given that great gift of government, the Victorian community roundly endorsed us for that clear plan.

When I reflect on the offering that we made to the Victorian people, I think there are a number of things that very much shine through to me as a strong plan for the people of Victoria which they considered and they reflected on and they judged at the ballot box. One was the redelivery of the State Electricity Commission, and I must say when I was out and about doorknocking or phone-banking or down at pre-poll talking to voters, this was a piece of public policy that resonated with so many people and very much provided a set of strong reasons for the Andrews Labor government to be re-elected. That was a hallmark of my campaign and a hallmark of the conversations that I was having. We also must think about the other important issues in my part of the world, and I would certainly say treaty, the Commonwealth Games, the delivery of free kinder, the delivery of free TAFE and of course the commitment to put in place nurse-to-patient ratios particularly for midwifery nurses. I think these things very much made an important contribution to our re-election.

I am very fortunate to be part of a very strong local Labor team, and we have seen already two fantastic additions to the Labor team of Geelong in the new member for Lara and the new member for Bellarine, who both made outstanding inaugural speeches in this Parliament. I would very much like to acknowledge both of them, along of course with the member for Geelong Christine Couzens, who I have had the opportunity of working very closely with over the last four years. I think the four of us will hunt as a pack. We will certainly pursue with some vigour all of our ministerial colleagues to make sure that we deliver for the people of Geelong.

I must also take the opportunity to acknowledge that the labour movement is built on the shoulders of an amazing volunteer army. I had an amazing team that came together to help support my re-election, people who were willing to go and doorknock, to go out and phone bank, to spend time putting up signs and writing to newspaper editors and the like, and that hard work, that hard investment of their time, very much meant that we as a Labor Party had the opportunity to again win the support of the people of South Barwon.

In my final few moments I do very much want to acknowledge Hutch Hussein, a great friend of mine, a person with tremendous integrity, who took on the challenge of attempting to win the state seat of Polwarth and got awfully close. I look forward to working with Hutch, as a Labor Party veteran, in the Geelong community for many years to come. She is a person who I have been close to and a friend of since the mid-1990s, and I look forward to helping her and supporting her to hopefully take, for the first time for the Labor Party, in years to come the state seat of Polwarth. That seat is up for grabs, from my perspective, and I would like to acknowledge her.

I will also take the time in the last moments to acknowledge a fantastic Labor team at HQ. I have had the privilege of working for a couple of decades now, I think, with Nicola Castleman, the assistant secretary of the Labor Party. She has been a good friend of mine for a long time, and I continue to look forward to working with her. I will also take the opportunity to acknowledge the team built by Chris Ford. There is absolute truth in the saying that the Victorian Labor Party and the Victorian Labor Party branch led by Chris are the most formidable campaigning machine in Australia. I think given what we faced at the recent election they stood up and shone through as an amazing campaign outfit. I might also in the few seconds I have got left particularly acknowledge Young Labor Left. I was a member of Young Labor Left a few decades ago, and I would like to thank them.

Pauline RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (13:59): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to take the time to thank the community of Cranbourne as I respond to the Governor’s address. How honoured I am to be able to serve the community again for four years – the community of course being the people of Cranbourne West, Cranbourne East, Cranbourne South, Devon Meadows, Junction Village, Clyde and Clyde North – and be joined by my colleagues in Narre Warren South, Narre Warren North, Bass and my new colleague in Pakenham, who have joined me in the south-east in being able to ensure that we are serving our community and providing the infrastructure and the services that the community need and expect. Like so many others before me –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for question time. The member will have the call when we return to the address-in-reply. I ask the Clerk to ring the bells.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.