Tuesday, 20 February 2024
Business of the house
Program
Business of the house
Program
That, under standing order 94(2), the orders of the day, government business, relating to the following bills be considered and completed by 5 pm on 22 February 2024:
Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023
Education and Training Reform Amendment (Early Childhood Employment Powers) Bill 2024
Firearms and Control of Weapons (Machetes) Amendment Bill 2024
We have got a really important and significant legislative program this week, and I know that members on this side of the house are very much looking forward to the opportunity to speak on these very important bills.
I might start by just talking a little bit about why it is so important that the Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023 is debated this week in this house. Let us be clear, when it comes to energy in this state, only our government has a plan to bring on the supply that is needed to ensure that Victorians have access to the energy they need. Only this government understands that the way to ensure a secure energy supply for the future is to ensure that you invest in renewables, that you have a vision and a plan to transition from those fuels that will no longer be available into the future and that you make sure that you have in place both the wind and solar power needed to ensure that you can deliver the electricity supply that Victorians need. I know members on this side of the house will embrace the opportunity to speak to our government’s vision, our government’s preparedness and our government’s investment in the energy future of this state.
We will also have the opportunity to debate the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Early Childhood Employment Powers) Bill 2024, and members across the house will no doubt have welcomed our government’s investment in early learning centres but most importantly in delivering government-funded early learning centres that will provide child care in childcare deserts. We know that once again this is an area that the previous federal Liberal–National coalition government comprehensively neglected, and indeed it amuses me, if I might use that word in this place, when those on the other side get up and talk about child care, not understanding that it is a federal government responsibility and that failures as they exist in child care sit firmly with the previous federal Liberal–National government. But our government has made some investments to address the shortage of childcare places in some communities across our state, and I am delighted that in 2025 we will see sites coming on board at Eaglehawk, Fawkner and indeed Murtoa, with other sites to be delivered through to 2028.
We also have the opportunity to debate the Firearms and Control of Weapons (Machetes) Amendment Bill 2024. This is a bill that is an excellent example of what this government does. We are not about grandstanding, we are not about stunts in the Parliament, we are about getting on and responding to the issues, and those include the personal safety issues that Victorians are experiencing at any given time. So when we see a problem, we work to resolve it, to fix it and to make Victoria a safer place for all Victorians. Of course as we have heard already from members on this side of the house it is the Andrews–Allan Labor governments that have invested in community safety. It is our government that has brought on more police across our state. It is under our government that the police academy is full, and we have very proudly given police the resources, the powers and the tools that they need in order to keep our community safe.
Finally, we have reflected on the apology that was made in the last sitting week and how significant that was for care leavers, whose tragedy was writ across their faces. I think we were all deeply moved by the apology, and there will be, as is appropriate, an opportunity for other members in this place to speak to that apology while it remains on the notice paper.
I would hope that the opposition would support the government business program, but knowing their ideological opposition to investing in energy supply in this state they will no doubt oppose it. But I commend it to the house, and I look forward to, as I said, perhaps some reason from those on the other side and perhaps some support for this government business program.
James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:53): For clarity, this is a procedural motion before the house on what the house is considering this week. The opposition will be opposing the government business program, primarily because again the coalition went to the government and asked if we could consider in detail one of the bills that is being proposed for the house to consider this week, and the government declined the opportunity to consider that bill in detail. Thinking through the last three terms, each term the government has agreed to one opportunity of consideration in detail in each four-year period, and we saw last year the government agreed to consideration in detail on the WorkCover bill after I went to the minister directly. In this instance of asking for consideration in detail, the government declined. So I would say that it is unfortunate that the ministers do not feel that they have the capacity to debate a bill in a consideration-in-detail stage, and I understand why they feel they do not have that capacity.
Mary-Anne Thomas: Deputy Speaker, on a point of order, as was previously raised by the Manager of Opposition Business, again, this is a narrow procedural motion. It is not an opportunity to attack members of the government, and I ask you to bring the member back to speaking on the procedural matter.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Points of order need to be succinct, as was mentioned earlier. There is no point of order.
James NEWBURY: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. The coalition will be opposing the government business program. The Leader of the House spoke to the bills that are being considered this week. Picking up the points that were raised, the Leader of the House spoke to the climate change legislation and the importance of secure energy supply. I can assure you, having seen the biggest blackout in our state’s history last week, that is absolutely an important matter for this house to consider. So we agree entirely with the Leader of the House that there should be a fulsome debate on secure energy supply. The fact that we have just seen the biggest blackout in our state’s history means it is an important opportunity to talk about the capacity to deliver energy and the capacity for our system to work into the future, because these matters are serious, and this bill will be an opportunity to do that.
Secondly, the Leader of the House spoke about the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Early Childhood Employment Powers) Bill 2024 and the early learning centres that will be delivered as part of that package. The Leader of the House spoke about the locations of the centres, and I do note that 10 per cent of those centres are in Liberal electorates and 60 per cent are in Labor electorates. So when the Leader of the House talks to the way that they pork-barrel, it is an important opportunity to talk about the locations, because we need to do so much better. We need to ensure that these services are available to young families. I am sure the entire house agrees that we need to ensure that we have these services available to our families, to our kids, but of course I note, as the Leader of the House did, the locations where, just like school funding, pork-barrelling is absolutely rife within this government.
Finally, in relation to the Firearms and Control of Weapons (Machetes) Amendment Bill 2024, which the Leader of the House spoke to, the coalition does note that the government has taken up the opposition’s call for action in this space, looking at the debate that occurred only some 20 minutes ago. Community safety is something that the coalition is deeply concerned about. The reduction in police numbers year on year – 3 per cent down in the last year, 5 per cent over the last two years – and 43 stations having their hours cut significantly are concerns. So in terms of the bill more specifically, the coalition did propose amendments, which the Labor Party has picked up, which we accept, but we will be opposing the business program.
Pauline RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (12:58): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in what is going to be an incredibly productive week here in Victoria’s Parliament. We have got some ripper and really important legislation to debate. As has already been foreshadowed, we are going to be debating the Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023. It is fascinating for me because this renewable energy and storage targets bill is something that the people in Cranbourne are passionate about. When the opportunity comes through, as it often does, for me to talk to the community, they are often just gobsmacked at the sheer quantity of important legislation that passes through this place as it relates to environment and energy legislation under that really important area of responsibility. So it is an opportunity for me this week to be able to go back to the community that I serve – and for all of us to go back to the communities that we serve – and speak about what that debate involved and the different ways and pathways that people were able to take forward through debates. It is an opportunity for me to say we often have so many speakers on so much of this important legislation. We have so many people who are putting their hands up because it is so important to members on this side to be able to contribute to debate and bring in different opportunities to provide that insight that comes either from life experience or from their own communities. These debates are important. So consideration and debate are always deeply and purposefully undertaken by those on this side of the chamber.
The second piece of legislation that has already been discussed today is the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Early Childhood Employment Powers) Bill 2024. I am really pleased that Ms Blandthorn from the other place has worked so hard to continue the legacy of those who had her role previously and to be able to bring forward legislation for our early childhood sector – and we do see it very much as an early childhood sector; it is an early childhood education sector – to make sure that people have what they need in the communities that we serve.
It was terrific to hear about all the different places where these early childhood education centres are going to be offered, and it is often curious to hear those on the other side use phrases like ‘pork-barrelling’ and talk about stations. I thought they were talking about train stations, because I know that there have historically been some well-known train stations that were obviously unable to be delivered. I was reflecting a little bit on that while I was watching Nemesis the other night when I saw I think our previous Premier refer to them as ‘ministers A, B or C’, and then there was ‘Minister F’ under the previous Liberal federal government and his propensity to be able to forget, obviously, the state that he was representing. I know that he also had a propensity to speak about the importance of matters that were in his purview.
That brings me back to the other very important piece of legislation – before you pull me up there, Deputy Speaker – which is the Firearms and Control of Weapons (Machetes) Amendment Bill 2024. Of course this government is getting on with so much important work that acknowledges, as was perfectly unpacked by contributors on this side of the chamber just half an hour ago, the importance of reform in the area of making sure that our community is safe and secure. When it comes to understanding the importance of victims and understanding the importance of making the changes that are necessary, I thought that my friends here the member for Frankston, the member for Bayswater and the member for Tarneit were really able to unpack that well.
I am looking forward to debate. I am disappointed, obviously, to hear that those opposite are opposing the government business program, but I know as well that when it comes time for us to take note of the apology it will be the really important work of making sure people who experienced institutional care are really recognised. I thought that last week we had a very solemn and important opportunity to acknowledge those people who have experienced trauma in that setting, and I am very grateful to those who are putting forward important information on that matter.
Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (13:03): I rise today to speak on the business program, and I note, as the member for Brighton said earlier, that we will be opposing the business program. Look, there is stuff on here that I am sure we will all get up and talk about. There are a few bits and pieces, including the Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023. Others have spoken about how it is going to secure our supply of power moving forward. I do note that with the weather events that we had last week – and the member Gippsland South has now left the chamber – the people of Mirboo North are still in the throes of having no power supply up there. The work that the member for Gippsland South actually did on the ground with other people in and around Mirboo North just continues on. We talk about wanting to have security of energy supply. Why did it fall over – our energy supply to areas right across the state, from one end of the state to the other?
I still have issues in my electorate of Morwell with energy supplies coming back on. But it will be nice to be able to dive into the climate change and energy legislation. A lot of the data that goes through this – with percentages of where it is all at, trying to reach net zero and trying to reach all these targets and goals in 2035 and 2040 and 2050 – is getting lost on the general population down in my area, because they are worried about their prices going up. So it will be great to be able to dive into this one and try to articulate to the house on both sides of the chamber what people are actually taking out of the climate change and energy legislation, because it is a huge issue and it is an issue that affects everybody in the whole state of Victoria. As I said, at the moment we are in the throes of trying to get power back on for people that have lost their food supplies that were in their freezers, so we have tunnel vision on trying to help them out and get the power supply back on.
The education and training reform – mums and dads that are down in the electorate of Morwell are also coming to me about not being able to get in. It is called ‘education and training reform’, but it is to have their children looked after so they can actually go to work to earn money to pay for their cost of living going forward. It is one thing to be building these new assets, but it is another thing to actually have the people that we can have to look after the kids and teach the kids in early learning, which is an important part. I think absolutely on both sides of the chamber we know how important early learning is for our children. As I said, it is one thing to be able to build the places for it to happen, but we need to make sure that we can staff them so mums and dads can have the confidence that they are going to roll up to a facility and they will be able to get their children in, whether they have got one child, two, three or four.
Firearms and the control of weapons of course are a huge issue right across Victoria. We talk about the security of people walking around on our streets. These days if you walk down the main street of any town, you can actually see the looks on people’s faces who are feeling concerned about certain people in our community, crossing the street to walk away from them because they do not want to engage with them at all, because they do not know if they are carrying weapons on their body. Community safety is a huge thing that is going on everywhere.
As I said, we will be opposing the business program this week. Even though we will dive into a lot of this stuff, we need to be broader and we need to do more. There are some parts of it which we are going to be happy to talk about right through, and I look forward to being able to talk in the chamber and hear from both sides about the business program this week.
Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (13:08): I rise to support the government business program, and I am just so sorry that those opposite are not getting on board as well. It was a bit of a shame that the member for Brighton did not say which bill they wanted to discuss in detail – and to be honest it really could have been any of them – because we know that rather than looking for progress, they are looking for an opportunity for scaremongering. And that could be for any one of these bills. For example, it does seem a little bit like unusual timing that this is the week that we are discussing our new storage and energy targets, with the recent storms we have had, but the fact is we are always introducing legislation on this because we are making careful and continual progress towards the transition to the future. It is a sensible transition, and we are carrying on step by step in getting that done. But it is not a surprise at all that they are looking to make hay with that, because we are talking about renewable energy targets and storage targets, and the only target they have got is 2026. That is all they are looking forward to. They cannot see beyond that, and people see through them, to be honest. It was funny – I picked up today from the library the book I had on hold, Alan Finkel’s new book Powering Up about the transition, and I do not think we are going to see any of the names of those opposite on the hold list for that book, because that book is about the facts, and I do not think they are interested in knowing what those facts are. It does not assist them in their 2026 target, and what a shame to be so short-sighted.
We are also discussing this week as part of our work the Firearms and Control of Weapons (Machetes) Amendment Bill 2024, and this is absolutely the government that backs police and backs community safety. Actually, speaking of scaremongering, I met with the Mernda and Epping police just a fortnight ago and we discussed a local crime issue, and that crime issue is that the perception of crime is much higher than actual crime. We talked about what could be contributing to that. What is contributing to this growing sense of unease when the police are telling me that the crimes that we were discussing are actually lower than pre-COVID? They spoke about the role of social media in unfortunately raising people’s perception of crime, and I would hope that nobody in this place would contribute to that. What a shame that would be, because we back our police, and in this firearms and control legislation we discuss today we will be taking the next step with our firearm prohibition order scheme. The reason why I say so strongly that we back the police is because when this order scheme was first discussed in this place those opposite raised a concern that police would use it if they had a gripe on a member of the community. Fancy speaking about our police officers in that way, as if they would be so improper. You would never hear that from someone on this side of the house, because we know that police are professional, they work hard and they do so much for our community.
I am looking forward to speaking on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Early Childhood Employment Powers) Bill 2024. This is another step in our Best Start, Best Life program. It shows a government that understands the needs of family. It is no surprise that we do. As I stand here my daughter is in four-year-old kinder with the wonderful Harpreet and the wonderful Kylie. They have been working on her letters for the last couple of weeks. I give her an A+; I am not sure what I would give those opposite. This is about the education of our kids, but we are also talking about jobs. As we heard from the member for Cranbourne, this is a sector which has jobs and has infrastructure. There is so much to the Best Start, Best Life policy, and I am glad that we are taking the next step towards that, because children are precious, and I am sure we will hear more about that in the take-note motion later on this week.
Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (13:13): I rise to oppose the government business program as already stated by the Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Brighton, and the reason we are opposed is, as the member for Brighton said, we would have liked the opportunity to be able to have consideration in detail on these bills that we will be debating on the business program this week.
As the member for Yan Yean has just said, there are many questions that could be asked on many of these bills, and for very good reason, so I am not sure why we would be opposed in being able to question the government and actually get clarification. One of the clarifications I was seeking was why, on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Early Childhood Employment Powers) Bill 2024 powers, we have to legislate to pay childcare educators, administrators and cooks. I did not realise that was part of legislation for nurses or ambulance officers, and I want to understand why that is in this particular bill when we have the appropriation act that I thought covered that. I would love some clarity on that, but there are no opportunities under this government. For the last three terms we have had one opportunity each term, so once in four years do we get the right to be able to get into consideration in detail on the very bills that will change the laws and affect our communities and possibly result in unintended consequences. The ability to seek consideration in detail – I find it extraordinary that the member for Yan Yean says it is unnecessary. That tells me that this is a government who think they already know everything and do not have to be scrutinised or have any of the bills that they put forward questioned in any detail, because clearly they believe they have got it all right.
We have seen many examples over those three terms where we only had one opportunity each term to put those questions forward in detail, clause by clause. We have seen many mistakes made by this government where we had to come back and fix those problems. We saw that in one of the things put through the Parliament this week by the member for Malvern, who has put forward his private members bill to make sure we strengthen the bail laws rather than let somebody who has committed an indictable offence out on bail without having a tougher rule to have to answer to. We are taking into consideration making sure our community is safer with this amendment to the bail law and that private members bill, but unfortunately the government will not even let it be debated. What could possibly be wrong with debating such an important subject and making sure we get that right? Unfortunately, under this government we do not see that ability. We see that the government under the Allan regime is as dictatorial perhaps as it was under the previous Premier, Daniel Andrews. You would expect that given the training that went on. We saw the inability for anyone to question their way forward. It is their way or the highway.
But we do have several important bills, the first one being the Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023. I think that there would not be a person here that does not agree we should leave the environment in a better way than we find it and we should be transitioning energy in a responsible way that makes it affordable, reliable and dependable. Under this government we are not seeing that; we are seeing a lot of pretending. Just see what happened last week with the lack of maintenance that has taken place, resulting in our transmission towers buckling and turning into a mush of metal. I heard from the opposition on the other side during the discussion by my colleague, the member for Morwell, that trees had fallen on them. Well, I do not think trees would fall on transmission lines and buckle them like we saw. It is purely because of lack of maintenance.
James Newbury: What about Hastings?
Roma BRITNELL: That’s right. Thank you to the member for Brighton for reminding me of the irresponsible nature of the way this government is handling the Hastings situation, where there is Ramsar environmental protection in place. It is World Heritage listed, and here we have the government bowling through, destroying the environment. I do not think I can trust that they will do any better than that in Portland, where we have got a whale migration pathway. I am very concerned about the irresponsible process that they will undertake to pretend that everything is fine when it probably will not be. We will not be able to trust that process given the experience they have given us in Hastings.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Melbourne, by leave. Is leave granted?
Leave refused.
Assembly divided on motion:
Ayes (54): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Darren Cheeseman, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Will Fowles, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Lauren Kathage, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Tim Pallas, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Emma Vulin, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson
Noes (30): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Annabelle Cleeland, Chris Crewther, Gabrielle de Vietri, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Emma Kealy, Tim McCurdy, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Tim Read, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, Ellen Sandell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Nicole Werner, Jess Wilson
Motion agreed to.