Wednesday, 3 May 2023

Government integrity

Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (17:31): I rise to grieve today for the state of Victoria and the absolute lack of integrity, transparency and honesty from this government. It was actually good to see when the government started in 2014 they set the bar very low, because they have been keeping it there ever since. In 2014, if we remember red shirts, over $300,000 of taxpayers money – over $300,000 – then $1 million in legal fees to defend it, and then they paid it back, but there was ‘nothing wrong’. There was not a problem, there was nothing to see here – ‘We did nothing wrong’. I have found in my life experience that if you spend $1 million in legal fees to cover something up you have actually done something wrong. So right at the start this government set the bar low.

Now what I want to get onto is actually what the government says when they say, ‘We govern for all Victorians.’ That statement in itself is disingenuous. Those of you here that probably heard my inaugural speech would have found out the deficiencies that my electorate of Narracan has. I constantly hear from this government ‘We’re doing what matters; we govern for all Victorians’, and it does not happen. My electorate, the fifth-fastest growing electorate in Victoria, is ignored – absolutely ignored. We need new schools, new roads – we desperately need roads – we need infrastructure right across the board – sporting facilities, schools and the list goes on and on. There just is not the investment in that, so when you say to me ‘we govern for all Victorians’, please build our electorate new schools. Then I actually may start to believe what you are saying.

If this government truly wants to lift the bar on integrity, let us talk about some election commitments and have some conversations about those. I am glad the member that has just left the chamber brought up the SEC. It astounds me that in this place where we stand, where we represent Victorians, the place where honesty and integrity should set the standard for all Victorians, I constantly hear, ‘Jeff Kennett privatised the SEC.’ We know that is a disingenuous representation of historical facts. We know in 1992 it was the Labor government’s Joan Kirner that started the privatisation of the SEC and in fact passed the sale of Loy Yang into legislation. So you sit there as an apprentice fitter and turner at the SEC in 1989 and you think you have got your whole life ahead of you in that industry, but you get told you are not going to have a job at the end of it because we are going to sell Loy Yang and we are going to privatise the SEC under a Labor Kirner government. It would have been nice if the representation of that in this house was factually correct. I would urge everyone if they believe in integrity and honesty to actually start representing it that way.

But let us now talk about the announcement of the new SEC. The Premier got up through the election, hands held high, and said, ‘We are going to bring back the SEC.’ Everyone cheered – that was great. He said, ‘I am sick of big business taking all the profit out of Victoria.’ They were his words, ‘Big businesses has taken the profits out of this state for too long, so we’re going to bring back the SEC.’ Then he said, ‘We’re going to own 51 per cent; 49 per cent is going to come from private investment.’ And the member that has just left the chamber actually just stated that all the money will go back to be invested into Victoria. Some of the investment proposed has been from superannuation funds. Superannuation funds are legislated to give their members a return, so does the Premier have a superannuation fund I do not know about that is benevolent? If my superannuation fund, Cbus, invested in the SEC, I would change superannuation funds, because ‘all the money is going back into Victoria’. That is not an honest representation of what is actually going to happen.

I have been in business a long time – and I am glad that the Shadow Treasurer is here today, because if I get the math wrong, he can pull me up. At the moment there are 20,000 to 30,000 people that work in the energy sector in Victoria. So when you double the workforce to 59,000 people, how does that end up making power cheaper? Call me naive, but to me it does not add up. So I would like this government to give us a true representation of what the new SEC will actually look like and what it will actually cost Victorians. We have to upgrade the whole system to go to renewable – billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars. For this government, with its track record on infrastructure, you can times whatever that cost is by another – just double it; it is easier, because this government cannot run an infrastructure project to save itself. In 30 years of building I never went over on budget the way this government does. It totally amazes me. So when we talk about integrity and honesty, I would love to see honesty come back into this house.

Let us talk about the hotel quarantine debacle – the absolute debacle. Now, everyone in this chamber, I would say at some point in your life you have had a significant event – everyone has. And you will remember that significant event from the time you woke up in the morning to the time you went to bed at night. It could have been when your kids were born or it could have been your first day in Parliament, but you will remember that. I would have thought the Premier, being a career bureaucrat and in charge of the biggest health catastrophe that we have seen in 100 years, could remember the hotel quarantine. Twenty-seven or 30 ‘I do not recalls’ and ‘I don’t remembers’ do not add up. It just does not add up, and the Victorian public know that it does not add up. There are former ministers I believe that were here that could have shed light on the subject, but they are not here anymore. But it would have been nice for the Premier to be more honest with Victorians about what happened in hotel quarantine that caused 800 deaths when they had the inquiry into it, the Coate inquiry. $4.8 million the Coate inquiry cost, and $15 million in legal fees. Again, when you do nothing wrong you do not spend $15 million in legal fees. It makes no sense. It just does not make sense to me that that is only the departments. We never got released the costs of the Premier and the ministers and their defence. It would be nice, again, to see transparency and what that cost.

Brad Rowswell: Good luck.

Wayne FARNHAM: Yes, I know. I do not have a lot of luck, but we will see. You never know.

Integrity gets thrown around a lot, and unfortunately this government has not shown it in its whole time. When we talk about Robert Redlich as ‘some bloke that used to run an agency’ – it is an ultimate insult to call a man of absolute integrity ‘some bloke’. If the government had nothing to hide, why didn’t Mr Redlich get invited to the upper house to talk? Both sides could have thrown questions at him. He could have sat there. He could have delivered his answers with no fear of repercussion. But you either talk about integrity or create integrity – this government has not created integrity. For Robert Redlich to be referred to as ‘some bloke who used to run an agency’ is an absolute insult. It is unfortunate that the Greens did not come on board with us and actually get Mr Redlich in there to talk. But even when Robert Redlich was talking at one of the committee hearings – we had a live feed; Mr Redlich was in there talking – a minister stopped the feed. Why? If you have nothing to hide, why stop the feed? What are you hiding? Why would you do that? Victorians deserve better. Victorians deserve transparency. We are not mushrooms. People out there are a lot smarter than I believe the Premier gives them credit for.

A test of integrity for this Premier and this government will be coming up in the next budget, and the test will be the West Gippsland Hospital. I will tell you again: it is the fifth-largest growth area in Victoria. A hospital is badly needed, and it should have been built by now. We should have been opening a hospital by now, we should not be building it. We have been told the hospital will start in 2024 and will be delivered in 2028. So this budget will be a test of integrity, because as far as election commitments go there is a track record with this government of not delivering. It is even happening in this Parliament as we speak. There is deflection – they play it off the back foot – but there is history. For my community I hope they can actually keep their promise, because they did not keep their promise on Melton, they did not keep their promise on Geelong and they did not keep their promise to the 10 communities they never delivered for.

A member: Eltham.

Wayne FARNHAM: Thank you. So let us hope this time they keep their promise to the people of West Gippsland, because it is sorely needed. When you walk your father up to the hospital and he says to you, ‘I would rather be in a box than do this’, you know that that is a problem, and that is what my father said to me. If this government has got one ounce of integrity, this hospital needs to be delivered, because no-one should have to hear that from their parent when they are trying to get them into a hospital that is not fit for purpose anymore. My leader has seen the hospital and I am sure many people have seen the West Gippsland Hospital, and it is an absolute shambles. Every time they do something they have to shut theatres down. It is long overdue. So I urge the government to show one ounce of integrity and honesty. If you want to lift that bar from where you have set it – so low – you will deliver this hospital for my community and actually regain maybe a skerrick of integrity.