Wednesday, 1 November 2023

 Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (16:31): I am delighted to rise and follow the member for Sunbury on the grievance debate, as he spoke about the cost-of-living pressures. I also want to grieve on the cost-of-living pressures. I do believe the member for Sunbury has rose-coloured glasses. He may have missed out on a few points that are causing the cost of living, and I will make sure that I cover those in my contribution.

We all know that Victorians are hurting because of the cost-of-living crisis in metropolitan Victoria and certainly regional Victoria, and the Allan Labor government refuses to address some of the cost-of-living pressures that are hitting every Victorian. Not only are they refusing to address them, they are actively fuelling some of them. Whether it is energy prices, energy options, tax on schools, health tax, land tax – you name it, the Allan Labor government have got their fingerprints all over it. You name it, they have taxed it.

The cost-of-living crisis affects all Victorians. Whether you are a home owner, if you rent, if you are a family, if you are a professional, if you are a pensioner or if you are single, employed or not employed, the 52 new taxes hurt everybody. The cost of food, for example – everybody needs food; 8.2 per cent it has gone up. That is through production costs going up for the farming sector; then in turn the cost to transport the produce to market has gone up. The wages to harvest and the manufacturing costs – whether it is energy or wages – have all gone up, and families now need to find another 8.2 per cent of their budget to buy the same food that they bought 12 months ago. Housing has gone up 10.4 per cent. Whether you are building, buying, renting or have got a mortgage – the lot – everyone deserves the respect of a roof over their head, but the squeeze is getting tighter and tighter. The cost of living is harder to survive. The Allan Labor government simply does not care.

The school tax and the health tax are two examples where Labor simply demonstrates this. Education is supposed to be free. Well, you talk to people in my electorate – the Ovens Valley – and they say it is not free when you look at the cost of uniforms, fees and excursions. When you try to put a child through primary school and secondary school it is quite expensive. It is certainly not free. The health system – we are now seeing bulk-billing coming into jeopardy. They are some of the concerns with cost of living that the member for Sunbury neglected in his contribution, so I wanted to make sure I got those on the record.

How did we get here? We got here because of a big bill – that is not the Big Build but a big bill, a massive bill. It is a financial tidal wave that we are facing now, and changing the chairs on the deck of the Titanic is only window-dressing. Premier Andrews out, Premier Allan in – we have still got the same debt; it remains. We have still got waste and mismanagement – that remains. We have still got a health crisis – in fact it is getting worse – and we have still got a roads disaster. Substituting Premier Andrews with Premier Allan is the same as substituting the Cain era with the Kirner era. We have seen that movie before, and it did not end well. We all paid a massive price.

Energy costs are through the roof – electricity costs are 20 per cent higher, gas prices 28 per cent higher. People simply cannot make ends meet. It is one thing to be ambitious about renewable energy, but it is another thing to be just plain stupid and bloody-minded in making the targets that they are trying to achieve. It is just putting everybody’s costs up higher and higher without doing it as a stepped and staged process. ‘Cost-of-living crisis’ is not a slogan, it is a fact. But I will tell you what is a slogan, and that is ‘Bringing back the SEC’. We heard the member for Sunbury talk about bringing back the SEC, a billion-dollar slogan that is going to deliver absolutely nothing for Victorians. If you ask the member for Morwell, whose seat is in the Latrobe Valley at the heart of the SEC, he says it stands for ‘soaring energy costs’ – SEC – and I think he is spot on, because that is all we are seeing as we bring back the SEC. Energy costs are up 20 to 30 per cent. The Allan Labor government is motivated by ideology; it is not driven by empathy and care but by Labor thought bubbles. No matter what the cost, the state pays – you pay and your family pays.

Earlier this week I met with Financial Counselling Victoria. They provide counselling services to people in need. They told us about the Australian National Debt Helpline. Calls to this helpline have increased in the last 12 months by 23 per cent across Australia, which is unprecedented – a 23 per cent increase in calls to the Australian National Debt Helpline. They went on to tell us that in Victoria that increase is 47 per cent – that is double the national average. The cost-of-living crisis is biting more and more in Victoria than it is in any other state in Australia, yet the funding remains the same. There are 310 practising financial counsellors across Victoria. All they ask for is another 10 financial counsellors each year for three years, a mere $1.5 million per year. Labor spill that in a morning, let alone being able to give $1.5 million to help support people who need that financial counselling. Labor looks away – ‘Nothing to see here’. There is a cost-of-living crisis, and Labor turns the other cheek.

If we want to get to the bottom of the cost-of-living crisis, look no further than the 52 new taxes introduced since this government came to power nine years ago. Why have we got these new taxes? Because of nine years of waste and mismanagement on infrastructure, tearing up contracts, massive cost blowouts and cancelling the Commonwealth Games, or the ‘con games’ as we all know it now – a litany of financial stuff-ups. When Labor run out of money, they come after yours, and Victoria now bears the brunt.

In the 1970s Victoria had a debt of $6 billion. In 2014 when the coalition left government Victoria had a debt of about $18 billion. It took 44 years to go from $6 billion in debt to $18 billion in debt. Under this government in only 12 years we will be at $200 billion – in just 12 years. We are not talking 44 – 12 years. It has gone up very quickly. That is nearly 12 times – incredible. You wonder how we end up with a higher cost of living – because they need the tax to get themselves out of this mess that we are in. We have got an interest bill we cannot jump over, so Victorians pay the price of reduced services, less road maintenance and poorer health outcomes. We have got no clear plan. We have changed the Premier, but the problem is it is the same priorities. Swapping Premier Allan in and Premier Andrews out is still a nil–all draw, if you ask me – nothing changes. It is still the same cost blowouts. The Suburban Rail Loop is going ahead – billions of dollars, another ego-driven Premier. As Margaret Thatcher said, sooner or later socialists run out of other people’s money, and that is where Victoria sits now during this cost-of-living crisis that all Victorians are facing.

People in the Ovens Valley say to me, ‘We don’t want another expensive tunnel, we just want an ambulance to come when we call one.’ They also say, ‘We don’t want this ideological state of renewable energy, we just want power bills that we can afford.’ The Victorian government is not listening. They need to get out of their caucus meetings, their faction meetings and their union meetings and talk to people on the streets and talk to people in the community, about cost-of-living pressures and see what they tell them. Do not just take it from the notes that you get from the minister; listen to the people in your community. You will find out people are really hurting in your community and my community and every community in Victoria.

On top of those feeling the cost-of-living crisis, we have got those flood recovery victims, and I have spent a few weeks at the Seymour, Rochester and Shepparton inquiries for the floods. We have had them in Echuca and Melbourne. At those recent hearings, people were saying the government has deserted them. Some are still living in caravans, still waiting for help, and they were saying these hearings were the first that they had heard from the Victorian government. And sadly, the only reason why those flood inquiries got up is because we dragged the government kicking and screaming to come to the regions and listen to the people, listen to what happened. But sadly, the MPs, the metro MPs, scuttled back to Melbourne as if nothing ever happened. You do not hear them coming back saying, ‘Well, we’ll put one of these projects in Melbourne on hold while we get these families back into their houses, these flood victims that need a roof over their head.’ It is like they came, they listened and then did nothing about it.

If that is not enough, we have now got Labor’s friends in Canberra wanting to do more water buybacks to serve their agenda. Of course we all want healthy rivers, we all want a better environment – but not at the expense of communities. 450 gigalitres is on the federal minister’s hit list, and for every hundred gigalitres that leaves our communities, so do 500 jobs. So on one hand we have got a cost-of-living crisis, and one way to get out of that is higher productivity, but at the same time, the federal Labor government is now hitting us, smacking the regions and wanting to take water that will reduce our productivity – not even keep it the same. Minister Plibersek will appease inner-city voters at the expense of regional economies. It does not need to be either/or. It is called coexistence, and we can have both – healthy rivers and healthy communities.

We know Labor cannot manage money. That is a given. It is the same tired Labor show. History repeats itself, and the same people pay. The same business model – and all Victorians pay that price. As we grieve for Victoria’s cost-of-living crisis, I look at Victoria’s $4 billion interest bill last year. That was just last year. It will be higher this year and it will be higher next year. We all know that. That is a given. That was in the report that was handed down yesterday. Currently $11 million a day – and that is going to head to $20 million. Currently $11 million a day – and I look at what we could get for $11 million a day. In my electorate, in one day, by this time tomorrow, Yarrawonga would have had their final stage of the school finished – $11 million would have fixed that. In three days time, or by Friday, as Ross and Russ would say, Bright would have its new hospital – in three days of interest bills. By next Friday, I would have 110 kilometres of resurfaced road in my electorate – Cobram to Wangaratta, Yarrawonga to Myrtleford – 100 kilometres by next Friday, just on the interest bill that we are paying on a daily basis. As I say, one Premier has gone, cleaned out the cookie jar, and Victorians are left to clean up the mess. Premier Allan cannot expect a different result if they continue down the same path. Something has to change and it has to change now. If this broom cannot sweep out the cost overruns and the waste and mismanagement, you had better start looking for a new broom. Time is ticking and it is ticking fast. The cost of living is hurting businesses, families and communities.

Cancelling the Commonwealth Games hurt the regions badly. I know the member for Bass would know the Silverwater estate has missed out on hundreds of thousands of dollars for accommodation that was going to come to Silverwater in San Remo. That is gone, and so many businesses around regional Victoria have similar stories to tell. They were planning on that; they needed this business, and now the Comm Games has just ripped it out from underneath them.

Victorians deserve better. They are now relying on Foodshare and they are relying on the Salvation Army, church organisations and community spirit, while our rates go up, our registration goes up, child care goes up and of course WorkCover charges go up as well. Financial counsellors, as I said – 10 new financial counsellors a year for three years at $1.5 million. It is a no-brainer. The very least this government can do is put on those financial counsellors to give people who are struggling – and that is many – an opportunity to try and resolve the financial debts that they have got.

As Victorians wake up each morning worrying about how they are going to pay their bills, they can have comfort in the fact that the former Premier, who created the $200 billion mess, is on a golf course somewhere waiting for the bronze statue. Hopefully it will have a mask on it. But I can guarantee one thing: that statue will be over budget and it will be over time. We have seen that movie before. The Cain–Kirner – we have seen that movie. That was in black and white. Now it is in colour and it is on a big screen. It is on a $200 billion screen. Victorians deserve better.