Adjournment
Commonwealth Games
David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (19:00): (251) My adjournment tonight is to the Deputy Premier, and the action that I seek is for the Deputy Premier to resign. Be it the Commonwealth Games debacle or the $30 billion in project blowouts, the Deputy Premier’s incompetence has sent the state broke and is giving us the highest debt in the country – more than New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania combined. This costs Victorians each and every day. It means Victorians do not get the services they deserve, as the government cuts $1 billion from health to make up the shortfall. It means that communities like mine go without and cannot get the basic services right, like our hospital upgrades, our schools that are in desperate need of repair and our green open space. Those opposite talk about so many infrastructure projects, which, again, the Deputy Premier has been responsible for, including level crossings that have blown out. Thirty billion dollars in transport infrastructure has blown out under the Deputy Premier’s watch, and now the Commonwealth Games has $4 billion worth of blowouts. The Deputy Premier today said that this is a legacy that has bipartisanship from both sides, and we supported absolutely the legacy for regional Victoria from the Commonwealth Games. Now the regions do not get the Commonwealth Games legacy. It is questionable as to when they will get it, what they are going to get and ultimately what is the most important part of the legacy that they should be experiencing.
A throwback on the Deputy Premier’s Facebook page said Bendigo was gearing up, just a few months ago, to host the basketball. The throwback was to 20 years ago, when we were gearing up for the basketball for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, and now we were gearing up 20 years on to host the Commonwealth Games. We were grabbing this opportunity ‘with both hands’. In May she said:
Check out Bendigo’s athletes village!
With 1,030 days to go, the countdown to the Victoria 2026 Commonwealth Games is on.
Today crews in Bendigo begin the early works by digging small holes to locate existing underground utilities.
More extensive construction on the site will begin …
Digging holes – the biggest hole that the Deputy Premier has dug is a hole for herself in cancelling these Commonwealth Games. Regional Victorians will miss out. Regional Victorians are still wondering why, how much this is going to cost and ultimately why the Deputy Premier and the Premier signed a contract without knowing how much this was going to cost. Waste, mismanagement – every taxpayer is going to pay the price for the Deputy Premier’s incompetence. Why on earth has the Deputy Premier got us into this mess? It is simply because Labor and the Deputy Premier cannot manage money. She should resign.