Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Statute Law Revision Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Gabrielle Williams:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Michael O’BRIEN (Malvern) (11:00): I am delighted to have half an hour to speak on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, because nothing is more important in Victoria today than fixing up typos in legislation. Lucky there is no cost-of-living crisis, lucky there is no housing crisis, lucky there is no youth crime crisis – the most important thing is typographical errors in statutes, so here we are.

On a semiserious note, it actually does say a fair bit about this government’s legislative priorities when we have so many serious issues confronting us as a state and they choose to fill up their legislative program with typo corrections. As somebody who my current and former staff, if they are listening to this, know to be a grammar pedant – and ‘pedant’ is probably the polite term; there is probably another word that they would use which is not quite parliamentary – I am a big one for saying, ‘Yes, let’s get things right. Let’s get things correct. Let’s not have typographical errors, grammatical errors or punctuation errors if we can avoid it.’

Let us have a look at what this bill does. What it does is make minor amendments to a number of acts to correct grammatical and typographical errors, to update references and for other similar purposes. If we have a look at the list of some of the acts that are being amended, we have got amendments here in relation to the Gas Industry Act 2001. Now, with a lot of issues facing Australia and Victoria in particular at the moment in relation to gas, I might have thought that amendments to the gas act could have gone a little bit further than simply correcting typos in it. I note that today – I think it is in both the Australian and the Age – there is an article saying:

One of Australia’s largest appliance manufacturers has blamed Victoria’s gas policy for the closure of its Albury factory, sending a … message that the … plan will cost consumers dearly.

It quotes the group managing director Jon Seeley, of Seeley International, as saying:

The accelerated disruption to our industry caused by the Victorian government’s inexcusable anti-gas obsession, and using taxpayers’ money to pay consumers to replace Australian-made gas heaters with imported reverse cycle systems, is extremely detrimental …

So we have Victorians losing jobs, Victorians living in Wodonga losing jobs at the Seeley factory, which is to close down and be moved to South Australia, and what does the owner of the company say is the reason for it? It is ‘the Victorian government’s inexcusable anti-gas obsession’. I would have thought that that is a far more appropriate thing to be looking at amending the Gas Industry Act over, rather than correcting a typo or changing a comma to a semicolon here or there. When we see Victorians losing jobs because policy decisions of this government are driving jobs out of this state, it makes absolutely no sense at all.

I think the quote I just read was in the Age newspaper. The same story was reported in the Australian. I thought the director of Seeley International made a very good point. He said:

We believe in the importance of gas in the clean energy transition and recognise the need to plot a sensible path away from fossil fuels, including natural gas.

But a premature exit from gas, without viable alternatives and credible solutions, is entirely reckless and will end up costing consumers the most.

And he is absolutely right. It is important that –

Colin Brooks: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I do realise that with this sort of legislation, which makes minor amendments to grammatical errors and dots and dashes in different acts, it is hard to keep comments strictly to the bill and I think it is fair for people to maybe expand a little bit on some of the bills that are proposed to be amended, but I think it is fair to say that the member for Malvern is now straying into a policy debate, quoting people on a policy issue that has no relevance to this particular bill before the Parliament.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): There is no point of order.

Michael O’BRIEN: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, I would note that there is a longstanding tradition in this place that the lead speaker for the opposition gets a certain amount of latitude in relation to these matters. I might be using that latitude, but it is there to be used.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): I think at the beginning of this debate I will allow some of this wideranging debate –

A member: To some.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): to some – and we will see how we go.

Tim Bull interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Correct, member for Gippsland East. I have not even started bagging the government yet. The Gas Industry Act is an important act, but it does show that decisions made by governments in relation to gas do have real-world consequences. The quote I have just put on the record from the director of Seeley International Jon Seeley shows that he is not ignoring the fact that we do need to transition, but he is quite rightly pointing out and questioning the way in which this government is seeking to go about it. And the way in which this government is seeking to go about it, which is with an anti-gas policy, is simply going to cost money, cost jobs and ultimately cost the environment.

I can say this as a former energy minister: Victoria’s electricity supply is still overwhelmingly coal-based, so if you replace natural gas with coal-fired electricity, that is worse for the environment, right? I am happy for anybody to contradict me, but if you are simply replacing natural gas with coal-fired electricity, that leads to higher emissions and is worse for the environment. Possibly the minister is going to contradict me. It would be very welcome to hear him do it.

Colin Brooks: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I renew my earlier point of order. I respect your ruling – I think it was a good ruling – but the member for Malvern is now straying into a substantive policy debate about energy policy, which has really no bearing on the bill before the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): I will bring the member back to the bill. If we can continue to keep closely to it, that will assist with the rest of the debate.

Michael O’BRIEN: We will do our best, Acting Speaker. No promises, but we will do our best. I see that one of the other acts that is being amended here is the EastLink Project Act 2004. It brought to mind that I was driving down EastLink the other day. It is a great road, EastLink, but every time I get that little beep on my e-tag it does remind me that this was supposed to be a toll-free road. I remember the Bracks government promising that EastLink would be toll-free, and that did not quite happen. It is quite perturbing that every single time somebody drives down EastLink – which of course is facilitated by the EastLink Project Act 2004, just to bring the debate back to the legislation before us – every time they hear that little beep it is a little audio reminder of the broken promise of the Labor government and what it costs Victorians.

Actually, I remember the last time I had Spotify on I was listening to a band called the Cheap Fakes, and I thought –

Members interjecting.

Michael O’BRIEN: Well, it is a very good Australian band. In fact I am disappointed the Deputy Speaker is not here, because he is a bit of an aficionado of Australian music.

Members interjecting.

Michael O’BRIEN: No, I wasn’t actually. Also, there is nothing cheap about the Labor Party’s broken promises. They might be fake, but there is certainly nothing cheap about them.

Members interjecting.

Michael O’BRIEN: It was not just an excuse to get the gag in about cheap fakes. Actually it is very good music. If you are into driving bass and big trumpets, there is a song called Stoink. At the risk of putting Molly Meldrum out of a job, it is a great track. Sand on the Beach is another great one, another great summer track. We are here supporting Australian music.

Brad Rowswell interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Thank you very much. Only 20 minutes to go. Thank you very much, member for Sandringham; I appreciate that. That is fantastic. This could be a very long 20 minutes. I am happy to go through my musical tastes, if you like, but that would probably bore the house a little bit too much.

We also see the Heritage Act 2017 being amended. I say as the member for Malvern that I think I am very fortunate to represent an area where we do have some heritage properties, but obviously there is always going to be a tension between ensuring the adequate protection of heritage and making sure that we are able to get development where appropriate. I do think that is something that we need to get a better balance on.

I do recall that a few years ago some genius decided to try and put up the Eastern Freeway for heritage listing, which just struck me as being one of the absolute dumbest things I have seen in my life.

Brad Rowswell interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: For their sake I will not name them, member for Sandringham, but as a former Bulleen boy who grew up driving up and down the Eastern Freeway all the time – it is a very functional freeway – the idea that it should be heritage listed is absolute nonsense. We do need to focus on what actually matters.

I saw there was a report in the Age recently about the Royal Exhibition Building, which is a fantastic building. It does bring back a few flashbacks from my days as a Melbourne Uni student, having to go to exams there – you always get that little shudder as you walk in. There are also a few memories. I think there were some Chocolate Appreciation Society balls held at the exhibition buildings as well. I remember going to see I think it was Johnny Diesel & The Injectors back in the early 1990s.

A member interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: It is a walk down memory lane, absolutely. That is the sort of heritage that we do need to preserve. This Parliament has seen a lot of work gone into it – almost perpetual scaffolding up to try and make sure that the building is maintained in a safe way and that the heritage features of it are protected. A lot of work went into the stairs out the front to make sure that water could not continue to get into them. We had to do that. It was our forefathers and foremothers – forebears – who actually had the insight to create some of the most amazing public buildings in the country. This is back in the 1850s and 1860s during –

Juliana Addison interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Absolutely, member for Wendouree. We have got some amazing heritage buildings here created during the time of the gold rush. If our forebears had the foresight to create those sorts of amazing public buildings, it is our obligation as the current custodians to make sure they are kept in good repair. So I do ask the government: what is going to happen with the exhibition building? It was the site of our first Parliament. It was where the proclamation was made for the Commonwealth of Australia. It was actually the site of the Victorian Parliament for 27 years, because when the federal Parliament moved into here between 1901 and 1927, we bugged out and we moved to the exhibition buildings. It is a very important building. Given we are talking about the Heritage Act 2017, I think it is an appropriate time to discuss the need to preserve our heritage and make sure that it is handed on to the next generation in decent shape.

This bill amends the Safety on Public Land Act 2004 to remove a reference to another provision of that act which was repealed by the Sustainable Forests (Timber) and Wildlife Amendment Act 2014. ‘Sustainable forests’ is not a contradiction in terms, as much as some members of this place may seem to think so. I am very disappointed in the actions that this government has taken to bring to an end native timber logging in this state, because it is sustainable. It absolutely is sustainable. The amount of native timber which was available for harvesting at any given time is a tiny, tiny fraction of Victoria’s estate of native timber. Most of it is preserved in national parks, state parks and other areas where it can never, ever be touched. Of those areas where it is available for harvesting, only a tiny fraction is available in any given year to provide an opportunity for it to be regenerated.

Tim Bull interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Thank you, member for Gippsland East – 0.04 per cent. It is sustainable. When I see what this government is doing to kill off our native timber industry all in the name of climate change and economic protection, it makes me wonder: where do they think our hardwood is going to come from? We are still going to need hardwood. We are still going to need to build homes. We are still going to need furniture and floorboards. The fact is if we do not harvest that timber ourselves in an environmentally sensible and careful way, we will simply be importing that material from other countries. I fear the countries we import that material from will not have the same environmental rigour and standards and protections that we have here in Victoria.

It is a very shortsighted viewpoint to say, ‘We’re going to protect the environment in our own little patch,’ which I do not believe the government is actually doing. As I say, our native hardwood harvesting has been extremely sustainable. But even if you were to accept the premise of their argument that we are going to improve protections here in Victoria by bringing an end to native timber harvesting, to say then we are going to simply import all of our needs from other countries with far, far worse records makes no sense. Either the environment is a global issue or it is not. Either climate change is a global issue or it is not. The idea that we can simply turn our backs on the consequences of our actions in other parts of the world and the effects that they will have ultimately on environments in other countries and climate change more broadly is nonsense.

I do think that while we are amending the Safety on Public Land Act 2004 to remove a reference to another provision of that act which was repealed by the Sustainable Forests (Timber) and Wildlife Amendment Act 2014, it is a timely opportunity to just once again question why this government seems to be so hell-bent on ending native timber harvesting here in Victoria when it is done sustainably, it is done safely and it is done in an ecologically sensitive way. At the end of the day all it means is that we will be getting our timber from places like Malaysia, Indonesia and other places which, with the best will in the world, I do not think any member here would say have the same rigour when it comes to environmental standards that we have here in Victoria.

The government through this bill seeks to repeal mistakenly duplicated items in the tables in sections ‍56 and 56B of the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007. I am not sure whether when the government passed the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act in 2007 they realised the greatest beneficiaries of that act would be Telstra and Optus, because with the amount of calls I get from people trying to flog me various allegedly free energy upgrades – you could start to pay down some of Victoria’s debt if you could actually monetise some of that, member for Gippsland East. It has got to the stage where I am very nervous about answering my phone these days. If I do not know the number, I am very nervous about answering the phone. In fact the other day I had an unknown to me number flash up on the mobile phone. I answered it but was quite quiet in doing so, because I was waiting for the click to come on the other end and the call centre operator to start their pitch. Then the answer came down the other end of the line: ‘Michael, it’s Jacinta.’ It was the Premier. So there you go: I had mistaken the Premier for a call operator trying to flog me energy upgrades, but in fact she wanted to discuss something else. Anyway, I have now got her number, which is a positive thing.

I have no objection to the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act at all. The only question is: how efficiently are we meeting those targets? That is the real question. Are we actually doing it efficiently? If we just continually throw good money after bad by paying people to try and flog energy upgrade products to people that do not really want them, I do question how effective that is. Yes, we all believe in energy efficiency, but can we possibly find a more efficient way to deliver on that energy –

Darren Cheeseman interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Thank you, whip. Sorry, you are not the whip anymore. I beg your pardon. Sorry, parliamentary secretary. I thought, ‘Do I go onto the do-not-call list in relation to those matters?’ But I thought, ‘No, because there are charities I actually want to hear from and others, so I will continue playing Russian roulette.’ But, yes, I think the Premier was a bit surprised when she got a very brusque answer from me the other day. Anyway, it is all sorted. I will put her number into my phone now so that that will not happen again.

We see the Docklands Act 1991 being amended by this Statute Law Revision Bill 2024. Every time I go down to Docklands, which is not that often – I go to a few games at Marvel Stadium; I must admit I much prefer going to see my footy at the G rather than Marvel, but there are times you do not have a choice – it is still missing something. I know that this government has done a deal with the AFL and provided a significant amount of funding to the AFL in relation to the Docklands Stadium and also to the AFL headquarters. In fact we still have not been able to find out what the value of the peppercorn rent was that Treasurer Pallas gave away to the AFL for their property down there. We have not been able to find out what the actual value of that was.

I saw in the paper last week that we are up for a horror budget. I saw we are up for potentially looking at cuts to community sport, which I am very concerned about. I think that every member here would appreciate how important community sport is in their local areas. We know it is something that encourages physical fitness, we know it is something that is good for people’s mental health, we know it builds a sense of team and we know it is something that creates a real sense of community. If this government is looking at cutting community sport in order to meet its budget problems, then I think the government needs to look harder and look again. For a government that can give literally billions of dollars to the AFL – and I love my footy like everyone else – in either actual grants or peppercorn rent or other concessions when the AFL does not actually pay tax, and if the government is at the same time looking to cut funding to community sport, I do have to say that that is –

Tim Bull interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Something is wrong, member for Gippsland East, something is very, very wrong. That is not where we should be going at all, so I will be looking at this budget very carefully, as I am sure everyone in this place will and Victorians will. But it says a lot about it. I say this as a former Treasurer: budgets are about choices; budgets are about priorities. You would love to be able to fund everything, you would love to be able to tax nobody – that is not an option if you want to put a budget together. But budgets do reflect the priorities of the government. If the priorities of this government are to cut funding to community sport, then this government has got the wrong priorities. So I hope that was an erroneous article in the newspaper. All will be revealed, no doubt, on state budget day in May, but it is a very concerning sign.

This bill also makes various updates to the Road Safety Act 1986. Road safety is something where Victoria has long been a leader in the field, although obviously in recent years we have seen a very troubling uptick in the number of people whose lives have been lost through the road toll. I am sure there are various reasons for that. The state of our roads I think will play a part. You would think that we should be seeing a reduction in the road toll given the improvement in safety and safety technology in cars, but we are not seeing that at the moment.

I do think that one of the things the government has got wrong, with respect, is the abolition of the road safety committee. For many years this Parliament had a dedicated road safety committee.

Tim Bull interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: A very effective committee, member for Gippsland East. In fact I am pretty sure it was that road safety committee that was the genesis of Victoria being the first state in the country to have mandatory seatbelt laws, and I think it certainly had something to do with the rollout of random breath tests, which again Victoria was a leader on. The genesis of many road safety initiatives in this state that made us a leader for so many years was the road safety committee, and I thought it was a really backward step when Premier Andrews, as he then was, after the 2018 election decided to abolish it. I could not understand the rationale. I do not understand how anyone benefits from abolishing a road safety committee, because it is something that does affect so many of our lives. It is something that Victoria was a leader on, and now that is gone. I am not drawing a direct link to saying that because the government got rid of the road safety committee we have seen the road toll increase, but I do not think it helped, and I would urge the government to reconsider. We have got a new Premier now – a newish Premier – and I would urge the Premier to reconsider that decision. I think that reinstating a standalone dedicated and focused road safety committee in this Parliament could do a lot of good in terms of identifying problems and proposing solutions. As we know, not every parliamentary committee’s ideas are taken up by every government all the time, but it is an important enough issue that we should be putting it on the table, and I do think that abolishing that committee was very much a retrograde step.

This bill updates the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 as well to reflect a change in the definition of ‘building practitioner’. We have seen a lot of issues in the domestic building sector in this state in recent months in particular, and pleasingly I note that the government has today announced that it is going to be extending to the customers of Montego Homes the support that has been previously provided to customers of other home builders who have gone into liquidation. I am not quite sure why it took so long. I commend Evan Mulholland, Shadow Minister for Home Ownership and Housing Affordability in the other place, who has been out there calling for this. The government does have a role in this. We have laws in place that say you cannot take on a contract unless you have actually got the insurance in place. The government has a regulator that should be ensuring that those laws are complied with. When somebody breaks the law, yes, that business or that person is obviously responsible. But when the government holds itself out as being a regulator, when the government holds itself out as being somebody that says, ‘We’re actually going to make sure these laws are enforced,’ and then they are not enforced, the government bears and shares responsibility as well. So I do not think it was unreasonable for us to call for the extension of that policy of support to the customers of Montego Homes in the way it was provided to the customers of other home builders that have gone into liquidation recently. These people are going through enough. The last thing they need on top of everything else is the thought that they will have lost their deposits because insurance was not taken out and because the government regulator failed to ensure that the insurance policy was taken out as required by law.

This bill also amends the Impounding of Livestock Act 1994, and I say, looking at the member for Gippsland East, that I have really got nothing to say about that because I would rather defer to experts in the field. Not too much livestock gets impounded around the streets of Malvern and Armadale, I can assure the member of that, so I might leave that particular act to others who know it a little bit better than do I.

We have also got some changes to the Heavy Vehicle National Law Application Act 2013. We have obviously seen through some recent tragic cases why it is important to have strict regulation when it comes to heavy vehicle transport. There is that matter which I believe is still before the courts, so I will be very careful in what I say, but the Eastern Freeway tragedy which saw the tragic loss of the lives of four police officers is still playing out through the courts at the moment. It is important that we do have laws and that those laws are properly enforced. Any vehicle can be a lethal weapon, but a heavy vehicle is very, very much a dangerous missile in the wrong hands, or in the hands of somebody who is fatigued or under the influence of drugs or alcohol or who is otherwise impaired. So anything we can do to improve safety in those areas is very important.

I should say that the opposition does not oppose this bill. I did think about making a request to see if we could go into consideration in detail to debate this clause by clause, but the government has been so reluctant to have that sort of scrutiny I thought I would not even waste my breath. I am not even going to waste my breath in seeking to go into consideration in detail on this. Of course if I had actually requested it the government might have actually agreed to this one just to make me sweat through it all. But we do need to get things right. While this may not be the most important and the most pressing policy issue facing this Parliament and facing the people of Victoria – and it is certainly not in fact, for reasons I have outlined at the start – it is worth fixing mistakes. It is worth getting things right.

Roma Britnell interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: On that basis – member for South-West Coast, I appreciate your support here ‍– I could go for an extension of time, but I will not. I commend the bill to the house.

Colin BROOKS (Bundoora – Minister for Development Victoria, Minister for Precincts, Minister for Creative Industries) (11:30): It is a pleasure to join this debate. At the outset can I say I agree with the member for Malvern that this is a pretty straightforward, dots-and-dashes sort of bill. I will run through some of the acts that are being amended in a very minor way as part of this contribution. Can I just say: what a contribution from the member for Malvern. I am not being too political about this, but with the current dramas on that side of the house around leadership, I think people would look at that contribution and say, ‘Look at what we’re missing out on here.’ There was contemporary music ‍– fantastic. There was a bit of humour. There were some serious policy interjections in there. It was a real tour de force from the member for Malvern. I tell you what, I reckon his leadership stocks are right up there now after that performance – a very good performance, I thought, in this chamber today. He has taken a very straightforward bill and given us a lot of entertainment, and I think the Liberal party room could reflect on that and have a think about how they could bring him back.

The bill, as I said, is a dots-and-dashes bill. I requested to speak on this bill because usually in these sorts of statute law revision bills there is a bit of interesting material to talk about and there are some historic pieces of legislation that are being amended or something that touches on a bill in your portfolio areas where you think, ‘That’s a really interesting change, even if it’s minor by nature.’ This is literally some commas, some semicolons and some brackets being removed. But there are important bills in this legislation that are being amended, and I think it is worth just having a quick reflection on those. The member for Malvern in his contribution talked about the very minor change of a word in the Building Act 1993. The word ‘pools’ is being changed to the word ‘pool’ – a very minor change. Of course he mentioned that the Building Act is a really important piece of legislation, as is the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, and the member reflected on an announcement that was made today around those people that have been affected by the collapse of Montego Homes.

It is worth also just putting on the record the strong performance of this government in delivering its housing statement initiatives whilst swimming against very strong currents heading in the wrong direction at a national level in terms of the cost of building materials and the cost of labour. The building sector across the country is facing very difficult conditions. Certainly we would like to see more dwelling approvals and starts than we are currently now. The policy initiatives that we are putting in place are giving Victorians the very best chance of seeing housing growth and making sure that we are driving as much as we possibly can the development of more homes for Victorians. There has been a concentration on the most recent January figures from the ABS on dwelling approvals. It is worth noting, whilst we would like them to be much higher, that Victoria does lead the nation in the number of dwelling approvals. We are delivering more dwelling approvals, more homes, than any other state.

The bill also goes to the EastLink Project Act 2004 and again just changes I think a semicolon. The member for Malvern talked about the history of EastLink. That is going back a long, long, long way, I think back to the Bracks government. There was no mention of east–west link in that contribution, so I do not know whether the opposition have had a change of policy, whether they have forgotten about east–west link or whether it is still something that the opposition is really committed to. We will have to wait and see, I suppose.

The member for Malvern talked about the Gas Industry Act 2001 amendment. There are a few changes there to, again, just wording in that act. It is important to have these pieces of legislation corrected when we identify wording changes that need to be made or small corrections that need to be made. But in the area of gas and energy more generally we are so proud to be leading the nation in terms of our transition to renewable energy. We know that there are proposals from Liberals and Nationals around nuclear energy across the country. That was not mentioned in his contribution, and of course I think Victorians will be rightly very concerned about proposals to bring nuclear energy to Victoria, particularly models of nuclear energy that have not been proven.

The bill also goes to the Heritage Act 2017, the Heavy Vehicle National Law Application Act 2013 and the Impounding of Livestock Act 1994 – again, all minor changes but important to be made. The Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009 is an important piece of legislation for government, which is rolling out a significant transport infrastructure program. I know in my part of the world the North East Link is being constructed at the moment. It will be a project that links the Eastern Freeway and completes the ring road from Greensborough down to the Eastern Freeway. There are benefits for that part of Melbourne in particular but more broadly for the eastern suburbs for transport and for industry. It will be great for our economy. It is a project that only this government has had the courage to take on and will deliver. On transport infrastructure – my area – as well, the stage 2 upgrade of the Hurstbridge train line is a fantastic project that has seen brand new stations built at Greensborough and Montmorency and a whole range of sections of track duplicated.

There are changes to the Safety on Public Land Act 2004; the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act ‍2007, which I am sure other members might want to touch on; and the Docklands Act 1991, and I will just pause on this change. Again, it is a minor change but an important piece of legislation. There would be many people who would criticise the Kennett government for the way that it set up Docklands and the way that it proceeded. I am not in that camp. I think that it maybe could have been done better, but we have seen significant development of that part of Melbourne. It is worth reflecting on the fact that at the time that Docklands was envisaged it was effectively industrial wasteland on prime real estate. What we are seeing now is a precinct that has been significantly developed. We have seen over the last 25 years more than $12 billion of private investment into that precinct, which is a great benefit for Victoria. It seems to be that in Melbourne we love three things: we love AFL footy, we love our coffee and we love having a crack at Docklands for some reason. I think the proof in the pudding for Docklands is that at a time when the real estate markets are tough and the cost of housing is tough, the demand for housing in Docklands is so strong. The development in Docklands is still powering on. I think one thing that people do not realise is there is still significant availability of development potential in Docklands, and that is occurring right now. There are some 2500 to 3000 ‍people working in construction in Docklands every year, so that is a rolling program of construction. It goes to I think the way that that precinct was envisaged and developed. Are there things that could have been better – absolutely. But I am a big supporter of that precinct. I think it is working well, and that is demonstrated by the number of people who want to live down there.

I was a bit surprised that the member for Malvern went to AFL football, being a Carlton supporter. I do look forward to round 2 when Collingwood unfurls the premiership flag at the MCG, as a Collingwood supporter – but I do not think he will be seeing the Carlton faithful waving that flag for some time to come. Just coming back to Docklands, I think Marvel Stadium works well in that particular area. I think the development that the member mentioned, the joint venture between Development Victoria and the AFL, will be a good one. Marvel Stadium is an important part of the AFL’s infrastructure in terms of being able to play matches that are accessible to people in the city but also many other things, like concerts and performances and other events. Importantly, just before I finish off on Docklands, I point out that it is one of many of our precincts that are delivering housing right now or are in the pipeline to deliver housing in the near future.

This bill, as I said, is a pretty straightforward amendment and clean-up of the statute books, but it does touch on some really important pieces of legislation. As I say, just to finish off, I think the best part about today is we have seen the member for Malvern remind us why he probably would be the best person to be leading the Liberal Party. For some reason the other side of the house have not seen fit to keep him in that position.

Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (11:39): I am delighted to rise and make a contribution on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024. I also want to note the contributions before me. The previous speaker managed to make his full time, as did the member for Malvern – 30 minutes on this bill is quite outstanding, I think, because it really is a bill that predominantly fixes up mistakes, alters words and fixes a few grammatical errors on a whole range of acts. There are a few acts that I want to cover. There are the Impounding of Livestock Act 1994; the Heavy Vehicle National Law Application Act ‍2013; the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, which you have heard from other speakers about; the Safety on Public Land Act 2004, which I will mention; and the Road Safety Act 1986.

If we start with the transport legislation where it repeals definitions that are no longer used, I can see that one of those would be ‘safe roads in Victoria’. That would be a term that is no longer used, because we just cannot seem to find any safe roads in Victoria these days. Particularly in regional Victoria, that has gone out the window. It is not just my electorate of Ovens Valley, it is all through regional Victoria when we look at the state of our roads – seriously. The government have a responsibility to be fair and equitable. I think it is important that when it comes to maintenance we are not talking about infrastructure spend, we are not seeking new roads or new shiny things, we just want the maintenance on what we already have that was put there by our forebears. I can name many, many roads, whether it is the Murray Valley Highway, the Wangaratta-Whitfield Road, the Great Alpine Road, the Benalla-Tocumwal Road – the list just goes on in terms of the state these roads are in. As I said, safe roads in Victoria – that is a thing of the past.

I can just touch on that for a moment to explain the make-up of roads in country Victoria. Obviously you have got the road base, and those road bases are now built to a cost rather than built to a standard that they need to be. When you do not put good foundations in anything, whether it is a building or a road base, it comes back to bite you. And that is what is happening with our roads nowadays, because they are built to a cost rather than a standard. Then you have got the pavement, the bit that you drive on. Once that gets broken, it gets very difficult to come back from there. It turns a small problem into a much larger problem. Then you have got shoulders, and the shoulders are the side of the road where your car drops off the side. There can be a 10-centimetre drop-off with some of those – or more. People in a car or a truck think, ‘Oh, well, that just happens,’ but if you are riding a motorbike, I can tell you it is not a fun place to be when you go over one of those shoulders off to the edge. Adding to that, we have got vegetation on the side of the roads – trees, limbs and native vegetation that then block the drains. When you block the drains, the ground gets soggy and the base gets wet, and before you know it the problem is exacerbated. Hence we have got the roads that we have today. While that water lingers in the drains it makes the whole base soggy. Then of course heavy vehicles going over that just compounds the problem. That is why we end up with the roads we have today, which are dangerous, deteriorated and in some cases a deathtrap. It is not just my roads, it is regional roads all through Victoria.

Roma Britnell interjected.

Tim McCURDY: The member for South-West Coast will agree that down Warrnambool way there are plenty of roads that need work, as in my electorate and every other regional electorate as well.

I will also talk about the Safety on Public Land Act 2004. I have lived in Cobram since 1987 – 33 ‍years. Cobram is on the mighty Murray, and just upstream of us is Yarrawonga. There is so much public land along the Murray River. It is fantastic for camping, fishing, birdwatching, koala-spotting and all sorts of other activities. But when we talk about the Safety on Public Land Act and access to those roads in the bush, I have never seen it so bad in my time, and others who are much older than me have said they have never seen the roads as bad as they are – and the tracks. Regardless of what vehicle you are trying to get in, whether it is a caravan, a car, a camp trailer or a pushbike – and heaven forbid you need to get a CFA truck in there or an ambulance because something has gone pear-shaped with a camper – some of these roads or tracks are impassable. And you are down to 5 kilometres an hour on some of those tracks. Again, the government has a responsibility to make sure that it is safe to get in and out of these places. We all want to use the bush. We want to use it responsibly, and it is being used responsibly.

Some of these roads and these tracks are only, like, 300 meters, 200 meters, off a sealed road or maybe up to a kilometre off a sealed road, but the track is an absolute disaster. Again, we are not trying to make a highway out of it. We are not trying to make it dual lane or sealed. We do not even need a load of gravel to fix the road. A grader would fix it, a road grader. If we had one start at Mildura and one start at Wodonga and they worked their way to the middle – a bit like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge, once they got there they could turn around and go back again – that would fix up a lot of those safety issues that we have. It really is a safety issue. People will make their way in there and then, if there is an emergency, it is very difficult to get CFA or ambulance in there. I spoke to an ARB specialist recently, and he loves it because he is selling more heavy-duty springs, lift kits and all-terrain tyres than he has ever sold before. Again, it is okay if you have got a four-wheel drive, but we should make our bush accessible to people in two-wheel drive vehicles. We encourage people from Melbourne to come up, enjoy what we have got on the Murray River, enjoy the fishing and camping and be responsible, as we are. But not all of them have got a four-wheel drive, and I think we have got a responsibility to make that safer for them as well.

In the short time I have got left I will also touch on the wildlife amendment act. I just spoke about Cobram through to Bundalong, and certainly some of the wildlife we have got along there, corellas and cockatoos, are absolutely destroying our native bush. It is absolutely beautiful native forest. Many people get to use it and enjoy it. But these corellas and cockatoos, if you could see the damage that they are doing to those trees, you would be amazed. You would be astounded. I know if a camper did that sort of damage to the trees, you would throw the book at them. Parks would throw the book at them, and I would support that because we want to make sure that our bush in our rural areas is kept up to speed so that everyone can use it – it is for all our enjoyment. But when you see the corellas and the cockatoos and the damage that they are doing, it really is a public nuisance. I think it is time that we start to look at solving some of these problems, not just pushing them under the carpet and saying they are somebody else’s problems, because we are ruining our bush. As I said, if a camper did the same, you would throw the book at them.

I will also just touch on the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, which has been mentioned by others, and the Victorian government’s aspiration of 800,000 houses in 10 years, or 80,000 a year. Housing is really holding us back in regional Victoria. I have got so many businesses that need more staff. Every business I walk into needs one or two or three or five more people, some more, and the fact is it is the housing that is holding them back from being able to get good staff into the regional areas. They cannot expand, and when they cannot expand, everything just goes a little bit dormant. If you are trying to get your kids into a school, you have got zones and child care, and these are the things that are holding us back. But the housing in particular is stopping good people in Melbourne, which is overflowing with people who want to come to the regions – and we want to invite them to the regions; we embrace that. But we need decent housing for that to happen, and I think it is something that we have to really take seriously.

The minister talked about targets yesterday, and I think it was said that you cannot live in a target or you cannot live in a housing statement. It is about actually getting on and building so we can support our local businesses. Regional Victoria, given the chance, can really kickstart Victoria’s economy. The cost-of-living crisis is hurting everybody, whether you are in metro Melbourne or regional Victoria. But 25 per cent of Victorians live in regional Victoria, and I really think that the Labor government has taken its eye off the ball in building all these wonderful projects in Melbourne, some of which will never get used by 25 per cent of the Victorian population. At the same time we are going backwards in regional Victoria and we are missing opportunities. Certainly that housing aspect is one that I wanted to highlight.

There are a few other acts that I could cover, but I have run out of time. I think that this bill, although it is filled with grammatical errors and altered words, certainly does cover off on many acts.

Paul HAMER (Box Hill) (11:49): I too rise to talk about the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, which as has been stated does make a number of minor amendments to a number of acts to primarily correct grammatical and typographical errors. I think at the outset I just want to put on record my thanks to all of the various departments and their legislation divisions for actually being able to identify and find these errors within the various legislations.

It reminds me of when you are at university preparing major essays or theses and you read the paper so many times that you just miss what to the outside observer might be fairly simple grammatical errors. Often they do not get picked up by the word processor. Maybe artificial intelligence will help some of that and make it improve. In particular some of the typos will be picked up, but often the grammatical errors will not be picked up, and it may just be more of a figure of speech or if a bracket is missed or a comma is missed – even more so when you are talking about different documents. I know in the changes – I think it is in the Road Safety Act 1986 – there is a reference to ‘Australian road or transport law’ which is referred to in another piece of legislation which had been repealed I think about 10 years ago but had been missed from the Road Safety Act when the legislation was being fixed up. In the acts in force, particularly in the printed legislation, you do not have the advantage of having hyperlinks which can connect to all the other legislation that it references. So sometimes these errors do occur and you do need to have this process of clean-up. It would have been a thankless task for all of the departments that were trying to work through this process, so I do want put on record my thanks for the effort that they made.

I do want to just make a couple of comments in reflecting on the member for Malvern’s terrific contribution. I think it was –

A member: Uplifting.

Paul HAMER: uplifting indeed – and a 30-minute performance that will definitely be appearing on his social media pages. I think the highlight for me was his reference to the Chocolate Appreciation Society at Melbourne Uni, a very esteemed institution. Looking back, it possibly was a front club for one of the political environments. I do not know.

Michael O’Brien: Not in my day.

Paul HAMER: I think, member for Malvern, we were probably there at a similar date. I do not know, but when I was there I did not assume it was a front club. But now, looking back, I do not know. I think More Beer was definitely a front club. But definitely I did enjoy my membership of the Chocolate Appreciation Society.

On some of the more serious matters that were raised, I think the member for Malvern said that this was not an important bill in the context of what else is happening in Victoria at the moment, and I would disagree with his assessment of that. I think it is always important that when these errors are discovered we do find a process to actually address them, and this is not being undertaken at the expense of other legislation and other policy; we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Indeed we look at the legislation program for this week: I mean, we are talking about changes to the private security industry, we have just debated changes to the WorkCover scheme, yesterday we talked about the State Electricity Commission and this afternoon we have got the matter of public importance on education. We can still fit all of those debates inside the sitting week.

I had a look at the speaking list, and I noticed that this bill has attracted more speakers from the opposition than probably any other piece of legislation for the entire year, so obviously it is striking a chord there and there are many members of the opposition who feel really strongly about this bill, and good on them. I will be in the chair shortly, and I will really welcome that time listening to all members’ contributions on this bill.

Just in terms of a couple of specific changes and how they relate to acts and the importance of those acts, as has been referenced previously, the bill amends a section of the Docklands Act 1991 to insert a missing bracket. The Docklands Act is an important act – and I know that the member for Malvern had an issue in terms of some of the deals that have been done. Now, I probably am not quite as effusive as the minister was in his assessment of Docklands, but I would remind the member for Malvern that the original vision for the Docklands was quite different from the development plan that was then set out in the mid-1990s. The original one, which was I think set up at the time of the act, which was around 1991, was for a much lower rise, integrated development. And what has eventuated ‍– and I do accept the minister’s point that there has been since then an enormous amount of private development that has gone into Docklands – has also required a lot of after-the-fact investment in community facilities, because a lot of those community facilities had not been properly planned when the development plan came out in the mid-1990s, because it was all about getting the private sector and private development on board without the necessary community infrastructure that would be part of that as well.

I also want to talk about the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007 – the bill will remove a couple of duplicated items – particularly in relation to the Victorian energy upgrades program. I know the member for Malvern is now screening his calls, but hopefully he will not miss any future calls from the Premier. But I do want to remind him that the minister last year – the fantastic Minister for Climate Action – announced that we will be banning telemarketers from making calls under the VEU program. This followed, obviously, the government introducing a code of conduct to try and rein in some of the most egregious behaviour that we had seen from some providers – not all providers but some providers – in taking advantage of this program.

The program obviously is delivering enormous benefits for many, many people in the community, reducing their power bills as well as improving environmental outcomes, and luckily for the member for Malvern consultation is now open. There are currently three policy options on the table. One would ban cold-call telemarketing to all types of consumers and for all types of energy upgrades, option B is a combined telemarketing and doorknocking ban and option C is a phased telemarketing and doorknocking ban, which is the same as option B except for the timing of the bans. The second round of consultation closes at midnight on 18 March 2024, so, member for Malvern, you have still got a couple of weeks to get your –

Michael O’Brien interjected.

Paul HAMER: The member for Malvern would still like to have the option of doorknockers, which is fine. He is perfectly entitled – (Time expired)

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (11:59): I rise to speak on the Statute Law Revision Bill ‍2024. As I said in the government business program about the legislative program this week, the government are out of ideas. This is a bill that is basically correcting typographical errors of various acts.

A member interjected.

Roma BRITNELL: Really, you dispute that? Well, this bill I think says it all. This literally corrects typographical errors in various acts, including the Building Act 1993, the Docklands Act 1991, the EastLink Project Act 2004, the Forests Act 1958, the Gas Industry Act 2001, the Heritage Act 2017, the Impounding of Livestock Act 1994 – it goes on and on and on. It is literally fixing the mistakes – dotting the t’s and crossing the i’s, as I often say it, or the other way around. But it is an opportunity to do things a bit better, and I would like to raise a few issues around some of these bills.

One of the bills, the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, is to be amended to reflect changes to the definition of ‘building practitioner’. We have seen a lot of upheaval in the building industry in the last few years, and consequently some of the legislation has resulted in changes. The government put through legislative changes that they were hoping would improve the situation for renters, but what we have actually seen is a lot less housing available for rent. Landlords are struggling to pay their mortgage and are selling their homes. The increase in the land tax bills has been one of those things, which is just starting to hit people’s mailboxes at the moment. I actually had a phone call yesterday from a fellow who told me that his land tax bill had gone up from $1600 per annum to $5900 per annum, which is actually over $100 per week. Now, what is that guy going to do, do you think? Let us say he has got a contract with a renter at the moment. This is a property in Port Fairy in South-West Coast. He told me it is a $450-a-week rental property. He has got someone in there for the next three years. He is going to lose money and not be able to pay off the mortgage that he has on that property, or he has to sell the house rather than spending the next three years struggling and at a loss. Then in three years, if he is able to hang on to it, he is going to put the property rent up, and that is not going to be by the $100 a week, because it accumulates. He has got to recoup the money that he has lost. I just do not understand how the government can see that as a way to improve the situation. We are seeing people lining up in the streets looking for a rental property and having to bargain. Rents are just going up and up, and it is purely because of the lack of balance that the government have been able to achieve with changes in the legislation that have done the exact opposite to what I imagine they were trying to do.

We have also got changes to the Road Safety Act 1986. In South-West Coast electorate roads are one of the biggest issues. People are really quite mobilised by the fact that the government are not spending the money in South-West Coast that they need to on maintenance. This is now extreme. We have got roads that are crumbling before people’s eyes. The member for Ovens Valley has talked about drop-offs on the verges and shoulders of roads of about 10 centimetres. No – you go along the Woolsthorpe-Heywood Road or the Noorat–Terang road and the drop-offs are 20 centimetres and more. When the roads are in such a state like this it is dangerous. We have got a road toll in Victoria that has escalated. Last year there were 295 deaths; that is a 22 per cent increase on the year before. Already this year we have got 50 people who have passed away – fatalities that have occurred on our roads in Victoria. The shocking part for regional Victoria is that that figure is 20 per cent higher for regional Victorians than it is for metropolitan Melbourne. That gives the impetus, surely, for the government to be actually investing in the roads in south-west Victoria, in regional Victoria, not the opposite. Companies like the road-building contractors are telling me that there is literally no pipeline of work that they able to tender for because there is nothing the government is putting forward to fix our roads or to even maintain them. There has to be just dangerous potholes.

I actually did an FOI recently on the Woolsthorpe-Heywood Road asking them to give me an understanding of where they have fixed the road, because the minister did promise that she was going to do 5 kilometres of work. When I have driven along it there is 3 kilometres of work but there is nowhere that I can see the 5 kilometres, so I asked for the information. What I got was a heap of gobbledegook, but what it did tell me is that over the last 12 months there has been I think it was 1250 ‍potholes fixed. I do not understand how the government think it is smart to just keep going back and filling in potholes when what the government really need to do is recognise that they are just not doing it right.

Instead of building a road to a standard, they are building a road to a cost, and instead of having engineers with experience and who understand the types of material available in South-West Coast – the tuff and the rubble and the materials they use to build the roads with, the base and the percentage of clay versus the percentage of rock – they do not have engineers with that local knowledge. What they are using are economists to put the road specifications and contracts together, so it is no wonder that we are not seeing the work hold up for any length of time. I am really surprised that the government thought it was good to give me information that demonstrated that in 2023, 1250 potholes had been filled on the Woolsthorpe-Heywood Road alone. I mean, surely any person who understands any concept of business knows that you should actually invest in something to last, not just keep patching up and bandaiding, because that ends up costing far more than actually doing it right the first time.

There are also changes to the Impounding of Livestock Act 1994. That makes me come to the exposure draft. The government have put out an expression of interest to have some feedback on the animal welfare laws that are coming up soon, and they are very, very concerning. The government is planning on putting the legislation through but not working out the details of the legislation. The government have put out an exposure draft on a piece of legislation that will have a massive effect on the agricultural industry. The worrying part is that this exposure draft will occur. They will then put the legislation through and work out the details over the next two years.

I spoke with a vet at length recently. One of the things he said to me was that this legislation, by not having the detail, will actually compromise animal welfare rather than improve animal welfare. It is going to have subjective language that is not based on science. What my opinion is of a positive experience for an animal might be very different to what somebody else’s experience is. I have travelled the world on an agricultural scholarship and looked at agriculture in many countries around the world. I saw a cow in Canada that stood in the one spot and was looked after by the farmers there, and for a farmer who farms in Australia and has animals outdoors it was quite a different setting. If I had no knowledge of animals and had not worked with them, I would probably have thought that that was quite extreme, yet those animals in Canada are well looked after. The farmers talked about their animals like I always experienced when I was at a mothers’ group – have they got the right mattress, have they got the right kit, as they call it, and the right diet? But if someone had come to my farms in the past, in winter they might have seen animals standing around a trough with quite a lot of mud around the trough that they were feeding from, and they might have said, ‘That’s an unacceptable way for an animal to be treated.’ If the animal is well and it is not affecting their feet, it is quite normal practice. But somebody who is from the city and who does not understand what animal practice normally is might be quite offended by that; they might think that is a negative experience.

I come to Melbourne and go where I have to stay when I am here from Monday to Friday during a sitting week, and I have seen people getting in the lift with a Great Dane. I was really shocked that people would live in an apartment with a Great Dane. To me that is animal cruelty. That is a negative experience for a dog that I believe should be outside and really enjoying their experience. So it is subjective: what goes for one is different for another. I think that is the point of the animal welfare bill. We need to make sure it is science based and not just opinion. What I saw I was shocked by because I had never seen it before, but that animal may well be comfortable and enjoying life, just like the cow in Canada that I just spoke about. But because I am not used to that, it is the same – a subjective view. This bill is just another Labor bill of filling in time, and I hopefully have done that suitably myself in the last 20 seconds.

Gary MAAS (Narre Warren South) (12:09): It actually really does give me pleasure to rise to speak to the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, because I think what this bill says about this place is that it actually takes scrutiny really, really importantly. To that end, dots, dashes, semicolons and commas are really important, can be interpreted in different ways and can be shown to have ramifications, so having a bill like this that does go and amend all those inaccuracies is very important and, as I said, adds to the suite of scrutiny that occurs in this place. The Statute Law Revision Bill is an important demonstration of our commitment to ensuring that the laws and legislation in this place are clear and accessible to all Victorians. The bill’s purpose is to make minor amendments to fix typographical, grammatical and other errors in legislation to update Victoria’s statutes to ensure that they remain relevant and give competence to the clarity and accuracy of the legislation, and it is very important that these amendments do not change the substantive law, only making minor and technical changes in terms of those typographical, grammatical and other errors. Even though this bill fixes minor errors, it is important to have the utmost care in ensuring the ambiguities, omissions and errors are corrected.

The bill will make specific amendments to typographical and grammatical errors in the Building Act ‍1993, the Docklands Act 1991, the EastLink Project Act 2004, the Forests Act 1958, the Gas Industry Act 2001, the Heritage Act 2017, the Impounding of Livestock Act 1994, the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009, the Heavy Vehicle National Law Application Act 2013 and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007. It also goes on to update the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 to reflect changes to the definition of ‘building practitioner’ in the Building Act ‍1993 made by the Building Legislation Amendment Act 2023, and it removes a reference from the Safety on Public Land Act 2004 to another provision of that act which was repealed by the Sustainable Forests (Timber) and Wildlife Amendment Act 2014. Finally, it also makes various updates to the Road Safety Act 1986, including to repeal redundant definitions and update a reference to reflect changes made by the Transport Legislation (Amendment) Act 2004.

I did mention at the beginning of my contribution that scrutiny in this place is really important. I have the great pleasure of sitting as chair of SARC, the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, an honour in this Parliament, which I know the member for Greenvale had previously. It would be really remiss of me not to speak about the committee, in a very general sense of course, and the work that it does. SARC’s role really is about legal oversight and to make sure that the legislation that is passed in this place works to the best of its ability. The committee assists all of us in this space, but it assists all Victorians as well, who have access to a much clearer set of laws. It is important work, and it is carried out by that joint committee from different parties in both the Council and the Assembly. To that end I acknowledge David Davis, Moira Deeming, Rachel Payne, Sonja Terpstra and Sheena Watt in the other place and of course the member for Shepparton and the member for Tarneit in the Assembly. SARC really is just another cog in the machine of ensuring that bills and legislation that go through Parliament undergo all the appropriate checks and balances. In mentioning the members of the committee, we really are supported by an absolutely superb secretariat, and that secretariat is headed up by Helen Mason, a fine person and indeed someone whose knowledge and interpretation of the law are just absolutely spot on.

I truly enjoy the discussions that she and I, in my capacity as chair, have around her interpretation of words. It really is terrific I guess on an intellectual level but also to have someone in this place who works to support members in this house and who can deliver support in a way that is easily broken down and understood. It truly is a skill, and I commend Helen Mason extraordinarily highly. I also would like to mention Professor Jeremy Gans, who does the human rights charter work – another valuable resource that this place has. Together they truly are the dynamic duo that sits behind the SARC. I also would like to mention the great work that Katie Helme does on this committee with all the subordinate legislation and regulations, as well as Simon Dinsbergs and Sonya Caruana. Thank you so much for all the work that you do so that scrutiny of acts and regulations can take place to the very high level that it does.

I know that those of us around this place all read the Alert Digest that comes out every sitting week, and there truly is a lot of work that has gone into those. SARC alerts the Parliament to the use of certain legislative practices and allows the Parliament to consider whether these practices are necessary, appropriate or desirable in the circumstances. It considers bills and legislation in relation to the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 and reports to Parliament as to whether bills are compatible with human rights. It also makes comments pursuant to the terms of reference under the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003.

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to talk very briefly about the Oxford comma. I know that the member for Essendon sometimes enjoys debate about the Oxford comma, but commas are important ‍– almost as important as a pocket square on a suit, member for Pascoe Vale. Commas are important, and the interpretation of them is important. In doing research for this bill and research on the comma, I found on Twitter a handle by the name of @IAmOxfordComma. I was very interested to see that there is one follower of @IAmOxfordComma from this place – and a shout-out to Ms Shing in the other place, who is evidently very interested in the Oxford comma.

Very quickly, I do note there was a United States Court of Appeals case back in 2017 which involved dairy workers in the United States, O’Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy. The nub of the case was about the misplacement of – or the lack of – an Oxford comma. That dispute between the company and its delivery drivers involved the scope of overtime law. To cut a long story short, as a result of there being no comma in the list of the duties that had to be performed by those dairy workers, there was an unintentional consequence for the dairy company, meaning that it had to pay overtime where it would not ordinarily have had to to those dairy workers. So with no serial comma to be found in the exempted list of activities, it led to that dispute, and the dispute was over whether the drivers fell within the exemption from overtime law or not. As a result of there being no comma, it was found that those dairy delivery drivers in the States got the overtime, as they probably should have anyway. I will leave my contribution there, and I commend the bill to the house.

Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (12:19): Can I thank the member for Narre Warren South for that very good explanation of how the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee works. We all learn something from the contributions that are made in here, and we do thank SARC for the work that they do on behalf of all of us in looking at legislation – but that explanation was very good.

When it comes to the issue of Oxford commas, Louise Asher, who is a former member for Brighton and former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party –

A member interjected.

Peter WALSH: And as the member says, a former English schoolteacher. I had never, ever heard of an Oxford comma until Louise explained to me in great detail one day how you use an Oxford comma. English schoolteachers do have a purpose, they just did not necessarily teach me well enough at school to know that. But they are very important. Louise was always very much the disciplinarian when it came to using that sort of thing and having the correct English as you do stuff. But the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, as everyone else has said, makes a number of effectively typographical and punctuation changes to a number of pieces of legislation. There are a few of those that I want to focus my contribution around, and I suppose the first of those would be to the Forests Act 1958. It changes one word, but more importantly it replaces a semicolon with a full stop. I would have thought that full stop probably is symptomatic of the Andrews government and now the Allan government’s attitude to the forestry industry. It is effectively a full stop for the native timber industry here in Victoria, because it has been shut down.

If you think about what has happened to the forestry industry, it is absolutely a travesty of natural justice for all the people and all the communities that worked in that industry who no longer have employment. They were effectively hung out to dry over a number of years and effectively starved out of the industry. If you think about the third-party litigation by extremists, if you think about the invasion of coupes, the damage to machinery and the fact that they would go in there and they would put metal spikes into trees that then put the lives of operators at risk – if their equipment or saws hit those spikes they could potentially get very seriously injured or killed. But somehow those extremists thought that was the way to stop it. They tied VicForests up in the courts perpetually to the point where they had spent more money on legal action, because the extremists had pro bono lawyers who would act on their behalf but VicForests as a government agency had to pay the market rates for the lawyers to do the work back the other way. So that full stop is, as I said, very symptomatic of the stop to the forestry industry here.

If you think about the forestry industry, one of the things that those on the other side of the house actually do not realise when it comes to the CO₂ debate and the climate debate is that a timber industry ‍– a forestry industry – is one of the perfect stores of carbon into the future with the absorption of CO₂ from the atmosphere. If you actually look at some of the transactions that are happening in Victoria now, recently a German company invested $200 million into western Victoria to buy farming land to grow trees to get environmental credits in Australia for back in Germany. Under their rules, after 15 ‍years those trees can be cut down. The carbon is stored, under their rules, in whatever product is actually made out of that timber – whether it be paper, whether it be furniture, whether it be housing trusses or whatever – and then they grow another lot of trees for another 15 years and get another lot of environmental credits.

I do not believe the government thought through this issue of closing down the native timber industry, because once a tree gets mature it does not actually store as much carbon as when it grows. So there was the opportunity to actually use the public estate native timber industry to have timber to do the things that we need to do in Victoria. I note Opal in Maryvale in the Latrobe Valley has lost another 220 jobs because of two things: one, the lack of timber, and the other, the high energy prices here in Victoria. They reassessed their whole business model based on policy decisions by the Allan government and, before that, the Andrews government. The fact that there is a full stop in the forestry act – I would really appreciate it if the government would actually give serious consideration to how we manage the public estate better. Less than 5 per cent of the total public estate was actually eligible to be logged, and that was logged over an 80-year rotation, so very, very little of it was ever logged in one year. As the forest industry would tell you, every tree that was cut down was planted and regenerated so it could actually grow and actually store carbon. I am disappointed that the collective Labor governments over the last decade have literally taken an axe to the timber industry and closed it down.

Not only is it a valuable employer in our communities, not only does it give us wood products for the things that we need, not only is it an excellent carbon store; the last bit of that jigsaw puzzle is we will still use wood products. We will import it from overseas; we will import it from countries that do not have the environmental standards that we have here in Australia. It is out of sight, out of mind. In some of the South-East Asian countries, some of the South American countries, forests will still be logged, there will be more environmental harm and there will be more species at risk because they do not have the standards that we have here in Victoria. So it is very, very disappointing what they did to the forest industry.

As we see the debate unfolding, now we are seeing the same practices being put in place by third-party litigants in the intensive animal industry here in Victoria, and there are people, including some in the other place, whose stated aim in life is to actually close down animal agriculture here in Victoria. I think it would be a tragedy if the Allan government has legislation in the future that enables those third parties to actually bring the intensive animal industry under the same pressure that the forest industry was under, to the point where they actually vacate the space here in Victoria. That is why I am so disappointed that the Allan government actually supported the upper house inquiry into the pig industry, because the aim of the Animal Justice Party is to close that down. That does not mean that people will stop eating bacon, it does not mean that people will stop eating ham, it does not mean they will not have their roast pork; it just means that it will be imported from interstate or, most likely, from overseas. Again we are losing jobs, we are losing an industry here in Victoria, because of ideology rather than actually having serious, practical ways of doing things into the future.

The other one I want to talk about in my brief time left is the Road Safety Act 1986. We were fortunate a number of years ago to go and be briefed by the Australian Road Research Board, which has now been turned into the National Transport Research Organisation. They have an absolutely brilliant facility out in Port Melbourne that does research on how you build roads and how you maintain roads. I would urge the Minister for Roads and Road Safety and I would urge the Allan government to actually take some advice from the National Transport Research Organisation about how you build roads, because if you look at how the roads are constructed in Victoria now, within a year or two we are seeing major potholes, we are seeing the roads breaking up, because they are not being built to the standard that we need.

In that briefing recently I asked the organisation a question about how you get contracts written that do not blow out and will actually deliver to the specifications that you want. He explained to us that there is a recipe there for how you go through the tender process and how you hold the contractors to account to deliver what you wanted at the price you actually agreed to. I would urge the government to go and actually get some advice on that, because you see the major projects here in Victoria, road projects particularly, just blow out and blow out and blow out. The CEO was a former director of roads in Queensland, and he said there is a way you can actually solve this if you actually do it right from the very, very start. That organisation I think is based here in Victoria. Their research building is out in Port Melbourne. There is a real opportunity for the government to actually build better roads and get value for taxpayers in the roads that are built there, because as you drive around regional Victoria and as you drive around some of the suburbs of Melbourne now, you see the roads are breaking up, you see major potholes there and you see how that is impacting safety.

There is a very, very good saying – it has been around for a long time – that if you fix country roads, you save country lives. We know the road toll percentage-wise is higher in regional Victoria than it is in the city. Part of that is around the condition of the roads. Particularly for those that are not aware of the major potholes and the break-up of the roads it can be very, very dangerous. There are so many 40-kilometre signs now across Victoria. If they spent the money they did on buying 40-kilometre signs and 60-kilometre signs and putting them up, they would actually fix a lot of those roads. Those signs are put where the road is not necessarily bad, and people become immune to those signs and do not necessarily obey them, which is at their own peril. But I wish the bill a speedy passage.

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (12:30): We know that with statute law revision bills, or bills of this nature, the Parliament regularly considers and passes such bills to correct ambiguities, minor omissions and errors found in statutes. I think the member for Narre Warren South has beautifully articulated exactly why we should do this – because of the significant impact they can make, subject to the way any such clauses, commas or otherwise are interpreted should matters go to court or however else the legislation is being utilised, I should say, in the customary way. I therefore would like to rebut the proposition of this bill being a time-waster in itself, because surely when you are varying an act in any way it should be brought as a matter of transparency before the Parliament when you factor in the impact that changes to an act can make, even if it is a comma or otherwise. Whilst I would note that we are not making substantive changes to the meaning of the various legislation that is listed as part of this Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, nevertheless I would have thought that to be consistent in terms of transparency bringing such changes before the Parliament is right and proper. On that premise I hope I have successfully rebutted some of the commentary that has been put forward to date.

A member: Hear, hear.

Nina TAYLOR: Yes, thank you. There is some really important legislation here, and on that note I am going to speak to some of that, because that is obviously my duty when speaking before the Parliament on a bill.

With regard to the Gas Industry Act 2001, there was a bit of a long bow drawn with regard to pursuit of Victorian energy upgrades and investment in renewables and a purported anti-gas sentiment by the government. There are a couple of points I want to say with regard to that. I think those propositions miss the fundamental underlying point when it comes to energy efficiency and reducing emissions. This is the crux that I am coming to: our targets of 75 to 80 per cent reduction by 2035 and net zero by 2045 align Victoria with the Paris goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We have already seen to date some of the dramatic climate changes that are impacting many across the globe, and often the most vulnerable are in the greatest danger when it comes to climate change.

Coming back to the proposition that was made with regard to jobs in gas – I just want to clear this up ‍– Seeley International have made a commercial decision to expand their operations to produce electric cooling appliances for export to the USA. I did actually look on Seeley International’s website, or the media release that they made, and they themselves said there is a really strong emphasis on energy efficiency with the products that they are seeking to export as well – funny that. That is the private market. Consumers in Victoria and across the country are voting with their wallets and are favouring efficient electric heating and cooling appliances to slash their energy bills. Who knew; it is actually consumers who are driving this. We are supporting them and we are driving it for the right reasons, because when you are looking at climate change and when you are looking at controlling power prices, efficiency is just logical. It is actually one of the best ways. When you are looking at cost of living but also making a cleaner and healthier planet, then it all makes good common sense, because there was an inference before that somehow investing in renewables is not really good common sense. I do not know where that came from. That was a slightly odd and obscure comment to make, and I will just be quite candid in stating my opinion on that, but I do intend to back it up with some information as well.

The notion that the government’s policy is responsible for the decision made by a private company is fanciful. Our transition off fossil gas will take –

Members interjecting.

Nina TAYLOR: It is a transition; it is not in a day. It is simply not feasible that our government’s policies have led to Seeley’s decision. Since our announcement in July 2023 there have just under 26,000 new residential gas connections in Victoria. I am not resiling from the commitment to transitioning – that is extremely important – but I think that purely to reduce it to a preface of anti-gas is actually trying to say ‘Look over here’ and ignoring what is glaringly obvious to everyone on this side of the chamber when it comes to the imperative to reduce emissions for the sake of all species around the world, because I did hear the word ‘global’ mentioned before and I think that is extremely relevant. We are all part of the earth, and we all have an obligation to be responsible.

There is another part of the bill which refers to the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007, so I did want to speak somewhat to that. I have already alluded to our very strong targets in terms of reducing emissions by 2035 and of course net zero by 2045. First of all, I would say we are absolutely leading the nation in climate action, and you never hear those opposite talk about anything to do with preserving our planet ever, ever, ever. Talking about efficiency and what has been achieved, we smashed our 2020 emissions target of 15 to 20 per cent reduction – we achieved 29.6 per cent – and in 2021 we achieved a 32.3 per cent reduction. So we do not just talk about it, we are delivering on it. And that is the thing – it is all fine and dandy to meander through these three-word slogans, but actually delivering for Victorians and what Victorians actually want is another thing, and that is exactly what we do. I should say we are decarbonising at the fastest rate in the country, and since this government was elected in 2014 we have cut emissions by more than any other state.

A member: Hear, hear!

Nina TAYLOR: Yes, exactly. That is no mean feat, but that is a commitment by – well, I am not sure about those opposite – so many Victorians.

In fact the other day I had the great fortune – and I think I have mentioned this once, but I will mention it again – to visit Equinix, which is a large data centre in Fishermans Bend, with the Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for Climate Action and Minister for the State Electricity Commission ‍– Minister D’Ambrosio, I should say. We were very pleased to be at this private company, which launched large-scale solar right there in Fishermans Bend because they know the value in terms of energy efficiency in reducing power costs into the future. We know that data centres, which are increasingly important in the digital age, are very energy dense. But here we have somebody ‍– we have a private company; I should not say just ‘somebody’ – that recognises the importance of being energy efficient. And not only that – even in the design of the actual building they have allowed airflow, and they are actually keeping the data information systems at a higher temperature. This is really forward thinking happening right in this state. And why do you think it is happening? Well, on the one hand we have a state which has really strong emissions reduction targets, but we also are incentivising and supporting industry. Not only are we doing it at a government level when it comes to hospitals, police stations, government buildings and schools but we actually helped this particular company with a 25 per cent rebate to make it more affordable for them to invest in large-scale solar.

Members interjecting.

Nina TAYLOR: Oh, you do not like private companies investing in renewable energy. Sorry, it is happening. Look at it. And it is right here in Victoria because we have got real leadership on this side of the chamber and we are not putting our heads in the sand about climate change. We know it is happening, but we are getting ahead of it. Wouldn’t it be nice if one day those opposite did not live in denial? But, hey, that is okay. We will keep doing the hard work. We will keep the lights on. We know we have to do that, and the best way to do that is by investing in renewable energy, because it is the quickest and it is the cheapest.

Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (12:40): It is good to be with you, Acting Speaker Hamer, and any number of colleagues in the chamber at the moment to address the Statute Law Revision Bill ‍2024. I must pay credit from the get-go to the member for Malvern, the Shadow Attorney-General, my colleague Mr O’Brien.

Tim Richardson interjected.

Brad ROWSWELL: You are out of your seat, member for Mordialloc. Don’t you interject from there; that is disorderly.

It was a herculean effort to contribute for 30 minutes as the coalition’s lead speaker on this bill. It was a masterclass in addressing a statute law revision bill. From time to time these statute law revision bills or statute law amendment bills come before the Parliament. They are purposed with fixing up typographical errors and occasionally spelling errors in various acts. As the member for Malvern stated in his contribution, blow me over with a feather, this is the priority of the government – to be fixing typographical errors and spelling errors in acts as opposed to dealing with the issues that are of critical importance to the Victorian people at the moment. Whether it be the cost-of-living crisis, with prices going up left, right and centre, or families, individuals and businesses around the state being pushed and pulled, stretched and contorted every which way just to meet their bill payments, whether it be their energy bills, their school bills, their grocery bills or their mortgage repayments, these are the matters that are front of mind for Victorians at the moment. If only the Allan Labor government would come to this place with a bill that addressed those matters in substance, I am sure that the Victorian people would be grateful.

I do want to pay tribute during the course of this contribution to someone who frankly means quite a lot to me and my team, and that is a lady named Sally Turner. Sally is a staff member of mine whose final day in the office is today. She has been on my staff for a couple of years now, and she is the very heart and soul of the office. She is loyal, perhaps to a fault; she is irreverent; she is competent – she is the very best that you would want in a staff member. Today she leaves my office after a couple of years of service. I wish her all the best, and her partner Danny and their new baby boy Teddy as well. I am going to miss Sally, I really will.

This particular bill seeks to amend a number of acts, including the Forests Act 1958. Now, the Forests Act 1958 – the member for Gippsland South, who is in the chamber at the moment, will no doubt know this much better than me because it affects and impacts his community more than it does mine, but the government’s decision on sustainable forestry in the state is an absolute debacle. It is an absolute disgrace in fact. I mean, the very principle of a sustainable forestry industry in this state is that it is – pause, hold the press – sustainable. What we have actually done by banning a sustainable forestry industry in this state is shoot ourselves in the foot. We are now importing wood – timber – from other parts of the world that frankly do not have the same stringent regulatory requirements that we do here in Victoria. The green left movement in this state have been sold a lie by this Labor government, and it has absolutely done over communities like Mr O’Brien’s and those in the east of the state especially.

The Gas Industry Act 2001 is also amended by this bill. Just think that the Allan Labor government’s intent is to ban the Bunnings barbecue. Could you imagine a Bunnings barbecue run on anything but gas? That is their intent, quite clearly: to ban the Bunnings barbecue, to ban the wok. Where is the member for Box Hill? He is not here to listen to this. Arguably, Acting Speaker – oh yes, you are there. Well, I am pleased you are here to hear this, Acting Speaker Hamer. I just think that the Labor government’s intent to actually ban gas in this state – and that is their stated intent – is un-Victorian. It is un-Australian. I could not imagine a state or a country –

Steve Dimopoulos: Make Victoria great again, hey?

Brad ROWSWELL: Well, we fully intend to in 2026, minister at the table, and just so you know, Hansard will likely record that coming from your lips and not mine.

It is absolutely crazy. As the member for Malvern pointed out in his contribution – and he was rudely interrupted by the minister at the table at the time – any day of the week ending in ‘y’ there are less emissions from gas than there are from brown coal.

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

Brad ROWSWELL: Well, the minister at the table is being very disorderly, and he has drawn my attention to the fact that gas is expensive. I will tell you why gas is expensive: gas is expensive because of the policies of this Labor government, because they do not want to explore any more gas in this state. They do not want to extract by conventional means. Let us set aside the elephant of fracking, because we do not need to do that in this state. They do not want to extract any more gas from Victoria for Victorians, for Victorian households, for Victorian industry. No, they just want to ban it. They want to ban gas, they want to ban the Bunnings barbecue and they want to ban the wok, and that would be a very difficult conversation for a number of Labor members, I am sure.

Act 11 that is amended in this Statute Law Revision Bill is the Road Safety Act 1986, and I just want to share with the house some of the times that I have had the great privilege of travelling around country Victoria. I have met with some wonderful communities recently in Bendigo and further west in the state. I fully intend to, over the course of this year, visit more communities around Victoria again. But something that is front of their mind and something that is certainly front of my mind is road safety, and the lack of road safety caused by this government’s inability to fix potholes. Lowering the speed from 100 kilometres an hour to 60 kilometres an hour is not fixing a pothole, but that seems to be the inclination, the will, of the Allan Labor government to fix potholes. They do not. They do not send the work crews out. I would fully expect members representing rural and regional communities in this place to know full well – better than me, living in metropolitan Melbourne – just how challenging some of those potholes are and just how deep and wide some of those potholes are. I seem to recall the member for Gippsland South actually taking a bag of potting mixture and a couple of plants to try and patch them up himself but also to demonstrate the point that the government is not doing anything about it. Of course they are not, because they have taken out – what is the percentage, member for Gippsland South –

Danny O’Brien: Forty-five per cent.

Brad ROWSWELL: a 45 per cent reduction in the road maintenance budget in the last three years. And you wonder why there are potholes around this state which have not been fixed. In this broad-ranging contribution that I have made –

Members interjecting.

Brad ROWSWELL: thanks to the peanut gallery just over my shoulder – I want to draw the house’s attention to one final thing. That is the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007 and some of the amendments that this bill imposes upon that act. We can have as many targets as we like, targets that actually are not legally enforceable by this place or by the courts, but what the Victorian people need and deserve at the moment is energy security. They need the security to know that when their power bills arrive they will not be having to take out a loan or add to their own credit card to pay them off. They want the lights kept on. They just want their government – and they have not delivered this in 10 years – to deliver them affordable, reliable and renewable energy. We have been asking for it for 10 years. The Allan Labor government have not delivered upon it as yet, but I live in hope.

Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (12:50): It is wonderful to rise to contribute to this impassioned debate in relation to the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024. Goodness gracious me, it has been a wideranging debate. There were spurious claims put forth by the member for Sandringham regarding the cancellation of the Bunnings barbecue. It is a scandal that such falsehoods are being trumpeted throughout this place, but there have been some wonderful contributions. We had the member for Narre Warren South give us a really detailed exposition of the use of the Oxford comma and its importance in the context of legal judgements in the United States, where the lack of a comma resulted in a very significant court judgement that I think very deservedly gave dairy drivers a significant amount of overtime. We heard from the Shadow Attorney-General, who gave a very significant 30-minute address in relation to this bill, which I enjoyed greatly.

It does occur to me that this is not the first statute law amendment bill that we have had the opportunity to debate recently, but I think there have been some comments from those opposite – and I include the member for Sandringham among those and the member for South-West Coast – that somehow we should not be doing this, that apparently accurate legislation does not matter. Of course this week we have had amendments to the constitution, and now we are amending a range of existing statutes in the Victorian statutes books. Accuracy in legislation clearly matters. I take issue with the member for South-West Coast, who I believe yesterday described the debate over the SEC bills as an affront to democracy and yet today sought to disparage the entire existence of this debate. Nothing could be more important than ensuring accurate legislation, as the member for Narre Warren South explained in his contribution.

As I said, the previous statute law amendment bill that we considered in this place was in relation to references to the Sovereign. I know that many speakers found this a fascinating piece of legislation. I was certainly among those, because it spoke to changes in language over time and the way in which language has evolved. Certain antiquated and arcane uses of language, in particular in relation to the Sovereign, have evolved and are no longer seen as fit for the contemporary usage of the English language we have in this place. One example was the removal I believe of all references to ‘His Majesty’s loyal opposition’. I suppose that is apt, given that loyalty is at such a premium among the opposition at this time in this state. But the concept of a loyal opposition is a really fascinating one. It is so central to our system of government, the idea that you can sit on those benches and you can criticise –

Danny O’Brien: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I am not sure if I actually want to even speak, but whilst this is a very broad bill and there is a lot of leeway given, legislation debates are not an opportunity to attack the opposition.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): The debate has been extremely wideranging, but I will uphold the point of order and bring the member back to the bill.

Iwan WALTERS: Thanks very much, Acting Speaker. Certainly I was not reflecting upon the current opposition, merely the concept of opposition, but I greatly appreciate your ruling.

The member for Narre Warren South also touched upon some of the institutions within this Parliament that we as members all rely upon, and I include the chief parliamentary counsel, who has no doubt worked with departments to ensure that the provisions within this bill are accurate and that we are updating legislation to ensure its accuracy. I also acknowledge the work of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, which I was very privileged to chair prior to the member for Narre Warren South, to interrogate every piece of legislation that goes through this place, including statute law revision bills.

I do want to reflect upon some of the acts that this bill seeks to amend. I think it is actually really revealing. Much as the previous statute law amendment bill told us a lot about the evolution of language and the way in which words themselves have evolved over time, this statute law revision bill highlights I think the very core of what it is to be a state government and a state Parliament: acts that touch upon the building industry, acts which govern and regulate road safety, acts which govern and regulate the usage of our forests.

The acts that this bill seeks to amend also tell us a lot about the priorities of Labor governments across different eras. I want to dwell firstly upon the Docklands Act 1991. As someone who was quite young in the 1990s, before this bill came to Parliament I presumed that the revitalisation of Docklands began somewhat later into the 1990s. It was very interesting for me to learn that it was in fact an initiative of the Cain–Kirner governments in 1991. It is worth remembering, as indeed you touched upon in your own contribution when you were not in the chair, Acting Speaker Hamer, just how moribund and decrepit the Docklands area was by the late 1980s and 1990s. With the advent of containerisation within our maritime trade a lot of the former activities of the Port of Melbourne which had once been in Victoria Harbour moved further up the Yarra towards Williamstown and the new container ports at Webb Dock and elsewhere.

Once upon a time, though, Victoria Dock was the largest man-made harbour anywhere in the world. Sir John Coode came out from England in the 1880s and transformed the Yarra, enabling the Port of Melbourne to become the biggest port in Australia, a position it holds today. I think it is worth dwelling upon what happened to bring that port to fruition as a really core part of the global trading network through the 19th and 20th centuries. But by the late 1980s that entire precinct around Victoria Harbour, from Spencer Street down to the Yarra, was, as I say, moribund, decrepit and, frankly, dangerous. It took vision to contemplate what it could one day become, and in the space of little more than three decades we have got a precinct, as the Minister for Precincts emphasised, that is really a core to the lifeblood of Melbourne. The stadium that was built there I think opened for the 2000 season, if memory serves correctly, and is now patronised by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people every single year going to watch football matches, cricket matches and other forms of entertainment. It is also a place that tens of thousands of people call home, and I am conscious that a significant number of those are relatively newly arrived to Australia. It is a place, much as a port always has been, where people come in, they make their first landfall in Australia as it were, they live in the apartments in Docklands and then, as I am very well aware in Greenvale, they move out to new areas of our city and establish their family and their life here.

Another act that this bill seeks to amend is the Heritage Act 2017. I am privileged to represent an area that has an immense amount of heritage. I have reflected on this before in a previous debate regarding amendments to the Heritage Act. We have areas like Woodlands park, Westmeadows village with its historic bridge and its war memorial, and other really important sites of community. The Shadow Attorney-General touched upon the Royal Exhibition Building as something that is a very significant site of heritage, and it certainly is. Those of us who are keen fans of political history would know that it is where Australia itself was first declared a nation and where the first Parliament was opened I think in May 1901 by the Duke of Cornwall, son of the then newly crowned King Edward VII. The Earl of Hopetoun, as the first Governor-General, opened the first Australian Parliament there, and it is to where the members of this house decamped for 27 years while this hall was, I agree, shamefully entrusted to our federal colleagues until they were able to get a village of their own.

The Royal Exhibition Building, much as it does for the Shadow Attorney-General, conjures up some memories for me of going there with a sense of trepidation for examinations, but rather more happily it is also the place where I became engaged to my wife some years ago. It is an important place in our state and in our city – a World Heritage site – and I am glad that the Department of Transport and Planning is currently finalising the strategy plan and the management plan for that uniquely impressive building within our city that is just down the road from us here.

This bill also seeks to amend the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009, an enabling act that creates the framework for so much of what this government has done in building Victoria, much as Labor governments that have come before us have done: major projects like the North East Link, which the Minister for Precincts talked about in his contribution; major projects like the Craigieburn bypass that was built by the Brumby government in 2007 and which is central to my community; major projects like the Metro Tunnel that is shortly to open ahead of schedule and which will free up our rail network and connect people from Sunbury in the north right the way through to Pakenham and Cranbourne in the south. The acts in this bill matter. I commend this bill to the house.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:02 pm.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.