Wednesday, 3 May 2023

Government integrity

Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (16:31): I grieve for the system of government in Victoria – the fact that corruption, nepotism and governing for mates have become the norm in this state and the fact that any form of Westminster accountability has been lost. As I go through my contribution we will hear about the ministers that in any other state or in any other Westminster system would actually have to resign for the things they have done wrong, and that is just not happening under the leadership of the Premier – and it starts from the top. The Premier is the worst at this, and we have seen that in recent times. It started with a Premier who broke his biggest promise of the whole lot after the 2014 election. He stood on the steps of Parliament on election eve, talked to Peter Mitchell on the news camera and said, ‘Peter, I promise all Victorians I will not introduce any new taxes and I will not increase taxes.’ And we have got 40-something new taxes and increased taxes – 44 in that particular time. So the Labor Party has a culture of promising everything before an election and then crab walking it back over the next four years, and we see that all the time. We are seeing that now with this pipeline of major infrastructure projects, that what was promised before the election is being walked back because, surprise, surprise, the state has actually run out of money. Debt is at a record level and expenditure is at a record level, and who is going to pay for all this? The taxpayers of Victoria. So on those ‘no new and no increased taxes’, come the end of May when we get a budget, I am sure that that promise will be broken even more in the future.

The Labor Party has actually lost its way when it comes to the reason to be in government. It is not a right of the Labor Party to be the government of Victoria. It is a privilege to be the government of Victoria and it is about serving all Victorians, rather than what the Leader of the Opposition said about it being for mates, by mates so they get the advantage out of being in government. It is not about the people of Victoria getting into government. In 2014 the Premier was supposedly elected on a commitment of accountability and transparency for the Victorian community. That could not be more wrong if you look at the history over the last eight and a bit years. This government is mired in secrecy and corruption. You just have to –

A member interjected.

Peter WALSH: The minister on the other side keeps talking, but you only have to go to the most recent report, the Daintree report. If you look at that report, it started with the Ombudsman. It was referred to the IBAC because the Ombudsman felt it was more serious than her remit, and we have a report there that says that:

A culture that permits improper political interference to occur magnifies the risk that it will lead to corrupt political behaviour.

And I think we see that every day here in Victoria now. The report also found:

… ministerial offices giving privileged access and favourable treatment to special interest groups to the detriment of the public interest …

and I think for a regional Victorian there is no greater example of that than the former minister for environment’s office.

Members interjecting.

Peter WALSH: The former minister for environment in the last government – 2018 to 2022, if someone else is feeling more guilty – when MyEnvironment, Sarah Rees and those groups effectively had a key to the office. And we see what happened with the timber industry over that particular time – that minister and the Andrews government have actually destroyed the native timber industry of this state. They have destroyed the communities that rely on that industry, and all those jobs will be lost and all those dollars will actually leave the state in importing timber rather than growing timber here in this state. Last week I went to the Barmah Muster, and for the first time ever there was no woodchop. There will be no woodchop at the Melbourne show, because you cannot get logs to chop wood because of those decisions that have been made by the Andrews government. It is an absolute disgrace. It takes just five trees to get a whole woodchop event going, and they cannot get access to five trees to have a woodchop.

Danny O’Brien: Have those groups paid their money back yet?

Peter WALSH: Those groups still owe the government more than $2 million, and as I understand it the minister’s office has effectively said, ‘Don’t pursue that money into the future.’

Apart from the Operation Daintree report, which has been well canvassed in the last few weeks, this year as I understand it there are still at least two more reports to be tabled from the IBAC. Operation Sandon is investigating corrupt conduct involving councillors and property developers in the City of Casey, and there was some byplay in the previous contributions. I suppose the key question that I want to know is: how much did the dumplings at the Flower Drum actually cost for the lunch with the Premier? How much were the dumplings worth? The dumplings were probably worth a lot of money to the Labor Party in donations, but obviously the member for Mordialloc was not invited to those particular things. You have got Operation Richmond investigating corrupt negotiations between the Premier and the United Firefighters Union and Peter Marshall. Everyone I talk to in regional Victoria asks me, ‘What has Peter Marshall got on the Premier of Victoria so that he could get such a good deal out of the Premier to destroy the volunteer side of the CFA and enrich the paid firefighters of the CFA? What has Peter Marshall got on the Premier of Victoria that would enable that to happen?’ Both those IBAC cases, as I understand it, are held up in the Supreme Court, and I wonder how much money is actually being spent on legal fees to make sure these reports are not released into the future.

We have the Assistant Treasurer, the wolf of Spring Street, sort of mired in this ‘I’m not sure if I’m doing my share transactions or I’m actually running the state.’ The two lines have got so blurred, and I think that is a culture of this –

Danny O’Brien: It’s the same job.

Peter WALSH: It is the same job. It is the culture of this government, where the Assistant Treasurer owns shares in quite a few companies – and good luck to him being prosperous and having those shares. But to own the shares and make decisions about where taxpayers money goes, make decisions to put the Future Fund in the Commonwealth Bank, make decisions around other Commonwealth Bank accounts, make decisions about the awarding of contracts to Telstra and make decisions about government money going to Beach Petroleum and to CSL – that is corruption. That is just straight corruption when the Assistant Treasurer cannot understand that if you are a minister of the Crown, you should not be in the room when decisions are made that actually benefit a company that you hold shares in.

The Premier has led the Labor Party since 2010. Back in September 2015 the Premier actually said he takes responsibility for each and every thing that happens under his leadership. It is a good refresher for people. In 2015 the Premier said he takes responsibility for everything. For those that watched the Coate inquiry – and some of us did that; I sat there and watched it in my office – 27 times the Premier said, ‘I don’t recall’. That is not an example of someone who is taking responsibility for everything that happens under his watch. The Coate inquiry, for those that have dulled this out of their mind because of the COVID lockdowns, was about the decisions that were made for hotel quarantine. About $80 million of taxpayers money was spent on the hotel quarantine program, and as questions were asked about who made the decisions, who effectively signed the cheque, no-one knew. A new part of the vernacular in the politics of Victoria came into place where decisions were made by a ‘creeping assumption’. So you had $80 million of taxpayers money spent on a creeping assumption, where supposedly no-one made a deliberate decision to actually spend that money and no-one made a deliberate decision to actually employ private security guards that did not have the appropriate training, which led to more COVID cases there. That to my mind, again, is not someone that takes accountability for the things that happened on his watch. That is someone who is obfuscating about true leadership in this state.

Operation Watts has also been mentioned, about the misuse of public funds by the Labor Party and branch stacking there. The red shirts was very well canvassed. Supposedly the government did no wrong, but the Labor Party actually paid the money back. Well, why would you pay the money back if you had done no wrong? Again, no-one took responsibility for those particular actions. For those that have forgotten the shameless partisan Our Fair Share ad campaign, it was actually supposed to get Bill Shorten in the Lodge – $1.7 million of Victorian taxpayers money was spent deliberately campaigning for a federal Labor leader to be in the Lodge. I think fortunately for Australia – for Victorians, for everyone – that campaign failed, and we did not end up with Bill Shorten as the Prime Minister of this country.

The other issue that impacted severely on my community, and there are a number of MPs in this house who have border communities, was the horrendous decisions around border closures. The Victorian Ombudsman found that they were unjust and some of the most questionable decisions that she had ever seen. The classic example of that was when the Premier-in-waiting, who was the Acting Premier at that particular time, on New Year’s Eve, absolutely botched the decision-making, as the member for Ovens Valley has said. At about 11 o’clock that day she did a press conference and did not say anything about the borders being closed. At about 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon she said the borders were closing at midnight. People were hours and hours away in New South Wales. There was a panicked reaction to try and get back to Victoria. The queue at Moama was about 6 hours to get across the bridge. The queue at Genoa was I think 70 kilometres long to get the cars back into the state.

Mary-Anne Thomas: On a point of order, Speaker, I draw your attention to standing order 118. Throughout his contribution the member for Murray Plains has proceeded to impugn a number of members in this place. The Deputy Premier acted at all times on health advice. I ask you to advise the member – counsel him – to stop impugning both the Deputy Premier and the Premier and indeed the Assistant Treasurer.

The SPEAKER: Order! I will not take the point of order at this point because the Leader of the Nationals has referred to actions that he believes were taken, but I do remind members that imputations – I am listening very closely – will not be allowed.

Peter WALSH: Thank you, Speaker. Obviously some people were not in this house when the former member for Melton let loose on everyone in this particular place, which brings me to probably some of the most corrupt behaviour we have seen in this Parliament, the fact that we had a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker of an Andrews government in Parliament that actually had to resign after rorting their entitlements as Speaker and as Deputy Speaker. I think that was just one of the lowest points I have ever seen in Victorian politics. Those two officers of the Parliament who were here to uphold the integrity of the Westminster system actually rorted it. I think that was a disgrace. That was an absolute disgrace. We saw the issues in the upper house with some actions around printing allowances and other things.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Peter WALSH: That is on my list, but I will probably go back to what I was saying at the start: that the Labor Party has lost its way when it comes to morals and how you actually govern a state, how you actually treat taxpayers money, how you actually make decisions on behalf of all Victorians rather than just your union mates. I think that is the issue that has been lost on those that sit on the other side, because there has been a creep. It is not a creeping assumption; it is actually a creep to corruption, to nepotism and to a reduction in standards. It is actually a blight on our society. The Westminster system has stood, in the parts of the world that have used it as a government system, well for over 700 years. If you look around, we have become a Third World country when it comes to the standards of government. We have become a Third World country. You may as well be in a South American republic or the middle of Africa when it comes to standards of government in this particular state – because it is not just about winning elections, it is about serving Victorians.