Thursday, 20 September 2018

 Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (11:09): My question is to the Premier. As the Premier for Melbourne you have repeatedly short-changed country Victoria. You spent country roads money on Mulgrave. You have broken your promise to spend 10 per cent of the port lease money in country Victoria on new transport infrastructure. You have allowed the gap between city and country education standards to widen. You will not help when the country is in drought, and you have botched the once-in-a-generation project, the Murray Basin rail project.

Honourable members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! I ask the Leader of The Nationals to resume his seat. There is too much shouting across the chamber and from the table. I warn members again: people will be asked to leave the chamber.

Mr WALSH: As the Premier for places with only tram tracks, why have you broken your election night commitment to govern for all Victorians and made it clear you just do not give a stuff about country Victoria?

Honourable members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for South-West Coast and the member for Macedon can leave the chamber for the period of 1 hour.

Honourable members for South-West Coast and Macedon withdrew from chamber.

 Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (11:10): I do thank the Leader of The Nationals for his question. If only his fixation —

Honourable members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Gembrook!

Mr ANDREWS: It is great being lectured on the country by the member for Gembrook, isn’t it? It is great. The Leader of the National Party has asked a nonsense question. I suppose you could double the amount of investment in country schools, but that would apparently be a bad thing for regional Victoria. You could have a job growth rate that is more than double the rate delivered by those opposite, you could be investing in hospitals the length and breadth of regional Victoria and you could rebuild TAFE essentially from the ground up because of the cuts of those opposite, and apparently all of that would be a bad thing for regional Victoria. If only the Leader of the National Party’s record matched his rhetoric, and if only his work rate for regional Victoria matched his work rate to get a white car, maybe this question would have some credibility. Much like the party that he represents, it has no credibility whatsoever.

 Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (11:12): Premier, you have let down country Victoria for four long years. Their energy bills are higher than ever, their roads are crumbling, the drug problem across rural and regional Victoria is the worst it has ever been and you are still trying to destroy the Country Fire Authority. Will you finally admit that you care more about Greens preferences in inner-city seats than you care about the welfare and the wellbeing of country Victorians?

 Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (11:13): I do not actually know that there was a question in there. The Leader of the National Party thinks he can come in here and just read from his latest leaflet and that passes as a question. More jobs, more investment in health, more investment in schools, more investment in roads, every single passenger train line in regional Victoria being upgraded —

Honourable members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Polwarth can leave the chamber for the period of 1 hour.

Honourable member for Polwarth withdrew from chamber.

Mr Walsh: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, there was a very clear question there which I would ask you to bring the Premier back to answering, and that is: does he care more about Greens preferences for inner-city seats than he does about country Victoria? That is a very clear, simple question, and I ask the Premier to address that question.

The SPEAKER: It is a very broad question, but I ask the Premier to come back to answering the question.

Mr ANDREWS: The answer to the question is no, but I do wait to get the call from the National Party about Labor Party preferences in a few three-cornered contests, member for Murray Plains. I will wait for the phone call. I have received them before, and no doubt I will receive them again. There are a number of tight three-cornered contests, so we will see who wants Labor Party preferences.

Speaking of which, let me take the leader to the Morwell electorate — a $51.27 million education funding boost under our government. Under the government he was a member of, $292 000.