Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Bills

Statute Law Revision Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (14:52): It is a privilege to rise on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024 after the break that we have had. There were some incredible contributions on this piece of legislation, including the effort from the member for Malvern in filling his allotted 30-minute time slot, as well as others.

I want to speak on a couple of the acts within this bill – first of all the Heritage Act 2017. I just want to call out and first of all recognise those locals out in Flinders who worked so hard a few years ago to make sure that the Flinders Pier was saved and achieved heritage listing. While it is fantastic that the pier has achieved that heritage listing, it still does need the investment to make sure that the wooden pier there has the upgrades, the maintenance to make sure it actually stays standing in the long term. It is something that that local community, as well as all those people that visit Flinders – there are a huge number of tourists that come down right throughout the year – can continue to be able to visit, that pier, and it is going to be standing for a long time to come. So can I just put on the record: yes, it is fantastic that it has achieved the heritage listing, and yes, the Save Flinders Pier group and everyone there with the Flinders Community Association have done an incredible job to highlight the need for that, but they certainly need to see also that investment in that pier now to make sure that it is going to be standing there for a long, long time to come.

Secondly, can I touch on the Gas Industry Act 2001. We on this side of the house recognise that gas is a fundamental part of Victoria’s energy future and the future of energy security not just in my electorate but right across the state. We know that this Labor government have failed to commit to investing in increasing the supply of gas and securing a future for exploration for gas but also that they are cutting that supply, cutting gas as a whole. They are going to ban gas, especially recently, as we have seen, in those areas that need planning permits. Heading into the last election we had a comprehensive gas policy. We have been very, very clear on where we stand in terms of gas and its position as a transition into alternative forms of energy, renewable energy and the like, but we need to make sure that we do the transition into whatever comes in the future in terms of our energy supply in a sensible way. We certainly recognise on this side of the house that gas is an important part of that transition.

I also want to touch on the Road Safety Act 1986, which is one of I think – I do not know how many are in there – 11 or so acts as a part of this bill and the tidy-up. On the Mornington Peninsula we have an incredibly high number of road accidents. Over the last five years or so we have been number two or three in the state in terms of road fatalities, and we know, just like all over the state, we need investment in our roads. The number of potholes and roads that are falling apart in my electorate is incredible. I actually got a photo from someone locally recently who was travelling along Marine Drive, Safety Beach – and I would be happy to send the photo, not because I like seeing it – and I kid you not, the back wheels of their car ended up 4 to 5 feet off the ground, with the car in a pothole almost face down, if you can imagine, sort of looking vertical. The pothole situation on the Mornington Peninsula is out of control. In the past decade we have had 75 people killed on the Mornington Peninsula and over 1500 seriously injured. Many of the members in this chamber spend time in my electorate through holiday periods and on weekends. It is not just the locals that are dealing with these roads, it is also those many visitors that we see increase during the peak season.

Can I also put on record, when we are talking about road safety, the fantastic work that TRAG do. TRAG is the Teenagers Road Accident Group. The member for Mornington, who is not here at the moment, would also be able to speak to the fantastic work that this group does. The work they do is quite confronting. I have been to a couple of their presentations, and I would encourage many members of this chamber to come down and see the work that they do or even see if there are groups doing similar work in their electorates. TRAG was formed back in 1999. They have spoken to more than 100,000 year 10, 11 and 12 students. They come in and deliver workshops. They work with the likes of Victoria Police, the ambulance services and the SES. But the really hard-hitting impact of what they do – they are actually family members and close friends of young people who have unfortunately lost their lives in tragic road accidents. It is quite graphic. It is quite confronting, the numbers that they produce and the images they produce for students who are 15, 16, 17 years of age. There is certainly a shock factor to what they do, but for young people, when they are first getting their licence and I think especially now, in 2024, there are so many more distractions in our vehicles than there have probably ever been before. I mean, we all have the little device that we hold in our hand; there are so many people we see on a day-to-day basis driving along holding that, and for young people it is a part of how they live their lives. That phone is attached to their hand almost every waking minute that they are out of bed and going through their day.

You are speaking to and hearing from mothers of daughters who have been killed. In my electorate I drive past regularly the corner of Boneo Road and Limestone Road out in Boneo and there is a cross on the side of the road, and I have heard that mother’s story. As a parent it actually hits you; it hits you hard when you hear those stories. So I want to commend the work that TRAG does, but I would encourage members in this chamber: if you get the chance, reach out to them and find out about the work that they do. They do not just engage on the Mornington Peninsula, they engage right across the south-east. It is something we need to look at, that young person road safety and road safety awareness. So to TRAG, thank you very much for the work that you do.

This bill is going to sail through. It is going to fix up a comma here; I did appreciate some of the members’ contributions about the Oxford comma. There you go; we do not want to see any of that happening. But I will note that this piece of legislation will sail through. It is incredible, the amount of people that want to speak to it, but I just wanted to put those couple of things on the record.

Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (14:59): I too rise to support the Statute Law Revision Bill ‍2024. This is very much an omnibus bill, as we have heard, providing a mechanism for reviewing Victoria’s statute books, and is required in order to ensure Victorian statutes remain clear, relevant and accurate. The bill makes minor and technical amendments to various acts, including updating references and correcting typographical errors. This serves the broader purpose of ensuring these acts remain relevant and accessible to the Victorian community. There have been some wonderful contributions. With a little bit to play with, people have got quite creative, including the member for Narre Warren South, whose contribution I refer members to. However, through my contribution on the bill I would really like to focus on the changes associated with the Heavy Vehicle National Law Application Act 2013 and the Road Safety Act 1986 in the context of the role of our transport and freight sectors, who literally keep the country and the state moving, and the proud transport workers who are the heart and soul of the industry.

While these reforms may be considered minor or inconsequential in the scheme of the broader transport industry, there is certainly nothing minor or inconsequential associated with the role of transport and freight workers. Few Victorians fully appreciate the size and the scale of our freight, logistics and transport industry and the entire ecosystem that lies behind our everyday purchases or services. Whether it be the food you purchase from the supermarket, attendance at school, visits to the hospital, getting to work or when you take that much-earned holiday break via Melbourne Airport, all of these sorts of things would not be possible if it was not for the transport workers who helped deliver the goods to, firstly, construct these places and who continue to transport people and deliver the goods to support these spaces. We cannot take for granted that many of our products and services travel hundreds or thousands of kilometres on our roads, rail, sea or air. It really is something to thank the transport workers for through the entire supply chain. As demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, our economy can only operate and grow if we are able to move goods from primary producers, manufacturers, wholesalers and importers to the consumer either at the shop or at home.

As set out in the Victorian Labor government’s freight plan Delivering the Goods, our freight transport sector continues to be a central economic driver to our state’s economic, jobs and skills prosperity. The freight and logistics sector is one of our most important sectors, contributing $21 billion to the Victorian economy and employing around 260,000 Victorians. Across my community of Merri-bek the freight, logistics, warehousing and transport sectors make up over 2400 local businesses – that is almost 15 per cent of local businesses, the second-highest local business sector behind construction – and employ almost 4000 local residents, equating to 4.2 per cent of local employment for residents. In this respect I would like to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister for Roads and Road Safety and Minister for Ports and Freight the member for Williamstown in this place, who continues to do a tremendous job in steering the sector towards the future, and the Minister for Public and Active Transport too, who has an important role of course.

However, I would like to also acknowledge the work of the mighty Transport Workers’ Union, the TWU, Victorian/Tasmanian branch, who now for over 120 years have continued to remain the collective voice for the men and women working across the Australian, Victorian and Tasmanian transport industries. First established as the Victorian Carters and Drivers’ Union, which became the modern TWU, the union now represents over 90,000 employees and owner-operators nationally through a wide range of industries, including aviation, through pilots, ground services, catering and guest services; workers across all aspects of road transportation, from freight to logistics, including energy transportation; the private bus industry; and waste management. Over the years of course the TWU has been involved in some of the most important and iconic industrial disputes, always advocating in the best interests of members – for example, winning the right to two weeks paid annual leave back in 1945, surging its membership from 20,000 to 36,000 back in 1947 upon securing the 40-hour working week and pioneering industry super back in 1986 with the formation of the Transport Workers (Superannuation) Award 1986. Commendations to Matt Rocks, who to this very day still serves that fund very diligently. In 2012 the 20-year Safe Rates campaign culminated in the passing of groundbreaking legislation to establish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which sadly was later disbanded by the previous Turnbull Liberal government and in recent times took on and won some of the most important industrial disputes in modern times, including against Qantas, and the passage of the closing the loopholes bill in federal Parliament, which I will touch on very shortly.

However, notwithstanding the positive contributions the transport and freight sector makes to our economy and the good work of the TWU, the fact remains that working in the transport sector, which this bill goes to the very heart of through reforms to the heavy vehicle act of 2013, remains one of the country’s most dangerous jobs and sectors to work in. Australian road transport workers are, sadly, 10 ‍times more likely to die at work than workers in other industries. Whether they are operating heavy freight trucks, they are owner-drivers – driving vans, cars and motorcycles – or they are gig economy workers who ride e-scooters or bikes, deteriorating safety standards across the industry have continued to compound safety issues for workers and indeed local communities through which they travel. As set out by the Transport Workers’ Union submission and appearance by Nick McIntosh, the assistant national secretary, at the recent parliamentary inquiry into vulnerable road user safety – and I acknowledge the chair, who is the member for Bellarine, in that respect – since 2016 there have been over 1000 truck crash deaths, and over 250 of those deaths were truck drivers.

Transport is an industry marked by severe financial pressure from the corporates, including major retailers, manufacturers, energy companies, stevedores, freight forwarders and airports. The continued lowering of transport costs, including through the Amazon and the Uber effect, and increasingly late payment terms result in very tight margins and low capital flows through the industry and supply chains, which adds a significant impact on a number of safety issues, including wage theft and the non-payment of superannuation through the industry, which is sadly very rampant. A recent Safe Work Australia survey found 31 per cent of transport employers say workers ignore safety rules to get the job done – that is, to fulfil the requirements imposed on them by their employers – 20 per cent of transport employers accept dangerous behaviour compared to 2 per cent in other industries, and 20 per cent of transport employers break safety rules to meet deadlines compared to just 6 per cent in other industries.

A federal department of infrastructure report in 2016 also noted that heavy trucks are disproportionately involved in casualty crashes. Approximately 16 per cent of road crash fatalities and 4 per cent of injuries involve these vehicles. The ABS data shows that trucks represent just 3.6 per cent of registered motor vehicles in Australia, yet trucking is the deadliest and most hazardous industry. That is why the TWU has been campaigning for over a decade for safe rates. We know that the safety of transport drivers on our roads is linked to the rates of pay and better conditions and standards for drivers but also to improving safety for all road and vulnerable road user communities.

The emergence of the gig economy has also escalated the significance of and the need for safe rates. The Amazon effect of the gig economy is dragging down rates, compliance and safety. Online platforms like Uber or Amazon provide insecure work and inadequate rights and protections for workers, which compromises the safety of drivers and all road users. Again, as we heard during the recent road safety inquiry, gig delivery drivers are people who access work through digital platforms that offer on-demand services – think of Uber Eats, DoorDash, Foodora and others. According to the evidence received by the road safety partners of the state government – and the member for Shepparton is of course part of that inquiry too as the deputy chair – the number of bike and motorcycle riders injured while working increased steadily between 2016 and 2020. Of the 19,707 bike riders and motorcyclists injured in police-reported collisions between 1 January 2016 and April 2021 whose journey purpose was recorded, 80 per cent of cases – 686 – were working at the time of the injury, and three of them lost their lives, very tragically, while working. The number of riders injured while working rose from 93 in 2016 up to 170 in 2020, and analysis of the motorcycle crash times, locations and rider profiles suggests a strong correlation between the growth of the food delivery industry and more motorcyclists on the road.

That is why I am so proud to report to the chamber that, after years of campaigning, only last month the TWU managed to deliver and secure the transport reform that is long overdue through the federal Parliament’s Closing Loopholes legislation. The landmark reforms will mean the Fair Work Commission can set enforceable minimum standards for any sector of the transport industry and is a system for all TWU members, including owner-drivers and gig workers, ending the deadly squeeze from the top of supply chains and the Amazon effect by disrupting the entire industry. For getting this huge legislation from law into the workplace, I commend the TWU for all of the efforts of their members over many years.

In this respect I do pay tribute to the outgoing state secretary of the TWU Mike McNess, who for 30 ‍years has diligently served the transport worker sector so well and achieved so much during his time, including landmark agreements with Toll; securing bus reform and same job, same pay legislation reform; the secure jobs, better pay legislation; and beating Qantas twice in the Federal Court and the High Court. In doing so I also acknowledge my very good friend Mem Suleyman, who has been elevated to the secretary role and will lead the union in very sturdy times indeed. He has been involved in quite a few negotiations to get good outcomes for members with Jetstar, StarTrack, Rivet, Saputo, Dysons, TGE, Searoad and Strait Link, and Mem really will be a steady hand at the wheel for the union. I commend Dissio Markos for his elevation to the position of assistant secretary. His passion for the transport sector started way back in 2005 with Qantas.

Of course this bill goes to quite a number of road safety reforms and heavy vehicle reforms too, which also touch on the entire supply chain. I genuinely do believe this is not an inconsequential bill in many ways, because the transport sector very much welcomes it.

Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (15:09): I note that I have my son here just today. My wife is at a special meeting at her work. He normally does not go to preschool on Wednesday, so he has got to experience Parliament House here and even question time before.

I rise today to discuss the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, which makes a series of minor amendments to a number of acts to correct grammatical and typographical errors, to update references and for other similar purposes. As the member for Malvern noted earlier, it is like we do not have a cost-of-living crisis or a housing crisis or people lining up at food banks or struggling to pay their bills, to find rentals, to get into housing and so on. The government clearly does not have a strong legislative agenda to properly address these issues of critical importance to Victorians, and yet the government has decided during this time to bring in this bill to correct typographical errors in various acts, including the Building Act 1993, Docklands Act 1991, EastLink Project Act 2004, Forests Act 1958, Gas Industry Act 2001, Heritage Act 2017, Impounding of Livestock Act 1994, Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009 and Heavy Vehicle National Law Application Act 2013. The bill also repeals mistakenly duplicated items in the tables in sections 56 and 56B of the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007 and updates the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 to reflect the change to the definition of ‘building practitioner’ in the Building Act made by the Building Legislation Amendment Act 2023.

In an attempt to create greater consistency and compliance with national building standards and to facilitate the ease of movement of labour, the Building Legislation Amendment Act expanded the definition of ‘building practitioner’ in section 3 of the Building Act. The new and amended categories include a building consultant, building designer, site supervisor and project manager. Overall it was about ensuring practitioners have the necessary skills or qualifications to carry out complex or high-risk work, including things like overseeing OH&S on sites and ensuring compliance with the National Construction Code. These measures were of course important in ensuring that constructions were being carried out with a high level of care, which I think is especially relevant today given that Victoria and the whole of Australia are suffering from a shortage of houses.

Indeed Victoria is at the heart of the housing shortage. In December last year 3559 new builds were given the green light, which was the lowest number of new builds for that month since 2011. Indeed this month is not an anomaly but part of a pattern that suggests a chronic housing shortage and indeed a crisis. Infrastructure Victoria has warned that Melbourne needs to build 44,000 new homes annually to accommodate an extra 3.1 million people by 2051. These are huge numbers that we are just not accomplishing at the moment, and with the current shortage of qualified professionals and construction companies to carry out these works, increasing housing supply is going to be even tougher. In this mad rush to build more homes it is also of great concern that rushing construction will significantly increase the risks to quality, like we have seen at places like Culcairn Drive in Frankston South, which the member for Brighton and I visited recently and whose residents and owners have been suffering for years.

While the act last year made a number of strides, it was also a missed opportunity for reform. Investment in proper building design and the accountability of those responsible for the management and execution of works are desperately needed in order to avoid the catastrophic consequences of dodgy builds. Indeed in Victoria there are nine different types of building practitioners, each with up to 30 different subtypes. We have building inspector, building inspector – pool, building surveyor, quantity surveyor, draftsperson, erector and supervisor of temporary structures, project manager, domestic builder and commercial builder. These terms are sometimes difficult to distinguish from one another, and their responsibilities are unclear. A potential solution, drawing on global practices, could be to enhance the minimum competencies expected of builders before they are granted licences. Furthermore, accountability for adherence to design standards during construction could be placed on architects and engineers with the necessary qualifications and expertise to approve final building works. As a result, before initiating a construction venture it could be mandatory for contractors to demonstrate the presence of architects and engineers who assume individual liability and responsibility for the quality of their work.

This framework aims to strike a balance between the business interests of the company owners, who oftentimes prioritise costs and schedule, and the concerns of designers, who emphasise quality and user safety throughout the building process. Such a transition would rectify the current circumstances where the primary contractor, often acting as a project manager, holds minimal or lower responsibility and lacks adequate technical qualifications in many cases.

Indeed the Victorian building industry has been labelled a ‘wild west’ of noncompliance, which is not difficult to see. Last year hundreds of defective balconies were discovered during safety inspections of 339 buildings that received government funding, largely arising out of poor architectural design, defective construction or maintenance issues. In Melbourne’s CBD you hear stories all the time of residents in high-rise buildings fearing for their lives as their apartments creak. As mentioned just last month, I spoke to the residents of 5 Culcairn Drive in Frankston South, the owners there, with the building containing many defects, like balcony collapses, significant cracking, water leaks, rotted-out carpets and wall linings, mushrooms and black mould growing at an alarming rate, a collapsing underground car park that residents could not park in in the past and more. These residents have been going through these issues since 2018, and it is about time that the government intervenes to assist them. Moreover, I think this bill provides us with the opportunity to reflect on these matters, and the definition changes to ‘building practitioner’ are a step in the right direction. But we need to be smarter about how we tackle these problems, which I predict will get much worse over the years.

Moving on to the specifics of this bill, we also have an amendment to 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.

Finally, the bill also makes various updates to the Road Safety Act 1986, including amending a reference in section 84(2)(ea) to a provision which has been moved by the Transport Legislation (Amendment) Act 2004 and repealing definitions of terms which are no longer used either in the act or in regulations made under the act. These are important tidy-ups that ensure that these acts are up-to-date and fit for purpose.

I cannot help being a little facetious with this one. It is a great shame that the Labor government does know how to tidy up a Road Safety Act but does not know how to tidy up the roads on the Mornington Peninsula and indeed in the Mornington electorate. In particular I will address the Forest Drive and Uralla Road intersection upgrades with the Nepean Highway, which Mornington constituents and locals have been waiting for for many years. For context, these intersections in Mount Martha are incredibly dangerous and notorious, resulting in death, serious injury and fear over the years. Even just recently, over the last few weeks, we have had more incidents. The community can no longer afford to wait on these upgrades, which the state Labor government needs to build with the funds provided years ago by the former federal Liberal government.

Locals continue to be let down by substantial delays on these projects and excuses by the state government, who have kept on pushing back the deadlines for this project. This was exacerbated by the Albanese federal Labor government including both projects in their 90-day review for potential scrapping of the funding for these two intersection upgrades altogether. Funds, though, were fortunately maintained after the review went for around 200 days. But during that period no contracts could be entered into, and I understand that contracts were ready to be entered into just before the 90-day review was commenced, so that has further delayed the project by at least 200 days. Locals should not have to drive through these intersections every day, with the fear in the back of their minds of being in a serious car crash or injuring themselves or potentially dying. Locals are fed up and want urgent action on this project now. I eagerly await the Minister for Roads and Road Safety’s response to my representation sent to her on 29 February this year, which has followed many other representations I have made on behalf of many constituents in my electorate on this issue.

To wrap things up, while bills like the one we are debating today may not seem of huge significance, it is important that we ensure that Victorian legislation remains open and accessible to the Victorian community by correcting errors and problems in it, ensuring that these problems are not revisited in acts into the future.

Steve McGHIE (Melton) (15:18): I rise today excitedly to speak about the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, like everyone else that was excited speaking about it, so I will just add to the excitement of this bill. As I get started I would like to acknowledge the work of the Minister for Government Services and her team and of course the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel, who do not get enough acknowledgement in regard to all the hard work that they do behind the scenes in drafting and publishing our legislation. I preface this contribution with the acknowledgement that some of my staff in my office were absolutely thrilled going through the legislation looking for the typos, and it is a good day in the office when your staff are happy about doing that one. I am sure I will have to pay for that at a later date.

I was amused during the member for Malvern’s contribution and at his attitude earlier in that it struck me how long it has been since they have been in government and it brought a bit of a smile to my face. I understand why he found it difficult to fill in 30 minutes in regard to this bill, but he did pad it out to then, and good luck to him and well done.

I want it on the record, on the assertion of my good friend the member for Sandringham, that we are not banning the Bunnings barbecue. It is utter nonsense what he was raising. We are not banning LPG. It is just ridiculous to even assert that. We know that the member for Sandringham likes a snag, and we know he likes to sneak down to Bunnings and get a snag down there, so I can assure him it will be okay; he can still continue to do that.

We often have the opportunity to look at and improve bills in this place. That fixes some uncertainties, clarifies some terminology, updates that terminology and identifies improvements, and of course we fix mistakes. This bill of course makes sure that our laws here in Victoria are clear and current. It makes them easier to enforce, and it is regular maintenance to keep everything running smoothly. As mentioned before, this bill will make amendments to 13 separate acts, including the Building Act ‍1993, the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007. Much like every statute law revision bill, this bill aims to clarify our existing legislation by updating references and correcting grammatical and typographical errors, ensuring the relevance and accuracy of our legislation. We are removing unnecessary semicolons, and we are cleaning up sentences – it is almost like being back at school, isn’t it, the things that we are doing here. But anyway, there is a fair bit to do, and of course we were reminded of the importance of the Oxford comma. For those who missed the member for Narre Warren South’s contribution, I do have an infographic that will help people to understand that and the importance of that, so if anyone wants to see that infographic later, they can always come and see me. I should table it, but I will not. But you can always come and have a look at it if you wish.

This statute law revision bill is incredibly important because it helps keep our laws clear, easy to understand and fair for all Victorians, and the bill will make amendments to correct typographical, as I said, and grammatical errors. I will go through some of the acts that it will refer to and amend, and they are the Building Act 1993, which was Kennett’s legislation; the Forests Act 1958, which was Bolte’s legislation; the Impounding of Livestock Act 1994, which was Kennett’s legislation; and the Heavy Vehicle National Law Application Act 2013, which was Baillieu–Napthine legislation. There will be an update in the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, which was Kennett’s legislation, and in that particular act that reflects changes to the definition of ‘building practitioner’ in the Building Act ‍1993 made by the Building Legislation Amendment Act 2023. There are many other acts – the Safety on Public Land Act 2004, which was Bracks’s legislation – and we could go on about others.

It took longer than 10 minutes to read this bill, obviously, so I just picked a few speaking points out of it. As I say, we come back to just rectifying some of the errors or the typographical errors that are in the acts, particularly the Building Act 1993 and the Domestic Building Contracts Act, and of course, as I referred to earlier, the changes were made by the Building Legislation Amendment Act 2023. Having affordable housing, transport, education, health, entertainment and other infrastructure is essential. A productive and efficient building industry is vital to achieve these outcomes, and a thriving building industry creates these important places where Victorians live, work, build and share their personal and family experiences together.

Of course our building industry is so important. It contributes about $40 billion per annum to the Victorian economy, and it keeps over 350,000 Victorians in jobs across more than 125,000 businesses, so we can see how important it is. While we are talking jobs, I just want to remind the house that we hit our target of 400,000 jobs two years early, and that was a remarkable effort. I think earlier today the Treasurer referred to something like 700,000 jobs that have been created in this state, and that is incredible; that is a great news story for the state of Victoria.

We invested more than $44 billion during the pandemic to protect Victorian lives, to save jobs and businesses, and more than $13 billion in business support and paving the way for our strong economic recovery. Of course our population here in Victoria grew by 1.7 per cent over the year to September 2022, and we have the fastest growing economy in the nation. I think if we refer back to that time of the pandemic, those opposite us were claiming that the sky was going to fall in in Victoria, no-one would come to Victoria and we would never attract another big event. Well, I think that has been so far off the mark and been proven wrong just in the last couple of years. We are, in all avenues across the nation, leading every other state.

The Allan Labor government aims to deliver, as we know, a massive 800,000 new homes across the state over the next 10 years, and Victoria’s Housing Statement focuses on five key areas to tackle the housing supply problem: reforming the planning system, building homes closer to community infrastructure to reduce urban sprawl, protecting renters’ rights, building more social and affordable housing and looking ahead to plan for the future. With Victoria set to be home to more than 10 million people by 2050, it is essential that we have skilled construction workers to ensure Victorians have safe, livable homes. We are ensuring the next generation of the workforce receive high-quality training through 6300 fee-free places in construction TAFE courses. I know Melton is one of the fastest growing areas in this state, if not the country, and it makes sense that we will have a construction-focused TAFE located in Melton over the next few years. The Allan Labor government has contributed $55 million to the building of a TAFE campus in Melton to be run by Bendigo Kangan Institute to provide for 600 construction training positions each year, and that will be fantastic for not only Melton but Victoria and right across my patch in the western suburbs.

I have some history with some dodgy developers around my particular area and the promises that they have made to purchasers in regard to providing footpaths, roads, overpasses onto freeways and railway stations. They made these promises and never delivered, because they do not deliver some of those things. Some of them are council delivery, but overpasses onto freeways and delivering new railway stations is not what they do. Of course then they walk away from the development, and they leave it to the state government to patch up the problems.

We saw issues in regard to developments happen after former Minister for Planning Mr Guy absolutely hung Footscray out to dry, and I notice the member for Footscray is here. It has taken years for the Maribyrnong council to get on top of the Joe road site. That was not fair to the Footscray people, to the ratepayers, to the new residents or to the workers that had to build the infrastructure with no power, water or roads. I know my friend the member for Footscray has raised these concerns here on many, many occasions, and I am raising them again on her behalf and highlighting the problems of poor planning under a previous minister. There were dangerous worksites, and I will put my union cap on proudly: once again, the easiest way to save money on WorkCover – and I have raised this recently ‍– is not to allow workers to be injured. That is our easiest way to do it. This bill is important, and I am pleased to commend it to the house.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (15:28): I am looking forward to the opportunity to speak on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, which is an absolute ripsnorter of a piece of legislation. But I should actually, jokes aside, echo the comments of the member for Melton in thanking the parliamentary counsel. I did not exactly pick up what the member for Melton was saying, but I am wondering who exactly has the job of going through and finding these errant commas and double full stops and the like. One of my colleagues and I were just talking about this. I assume it is the kind of thing where you have a rolling Word document that you just add all these things to, and then parliamentary counsel emails every department and says, ‘Have you got any mistakes you need fixed up?’ I am sure one of the future government speakers might like to enlighten me on exactly how this occurs. It is very difficult to speak a lot about full stops and additional words and the like, but it does give me an opportunity to speak about some of the bills that are here.

I just want to target a couple of the issues pertinent to my electorate in particular with respect to the bills that are being amended in minor ways through this legislation. But first, on a broader picture – absolutely the housing crisis issue is one in my electorate, but it is broader. The bill amends both the Building Act 1993 and the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995. I was interested to hear the Minister for Planning in question time trying to defend the government’s housing plan and talking about creating the ‘right environment for developers to build homes’. It is difficult in question time to be able to rebut some of the points that are made, but I wonder if the minister could explain how adding additional taxes – the windfall gains tax, the additional land tax under the debt recovery plan that the government introduced last year – is helping to create an environment where people would want to invest in property. I note, as I have done a number of times in this place, that of the 53 new or increased taxes introduced by this government since 2015 around half of those have been property taxes. For the government to now say, ‘Oh, it’s just unbelievable. We’ve got this property crisis, this housing crisis, both a rental and a housing affordability crisis,’ is fundamentally bizarre. The government does not understand that if you tax housing, if you make it more expensive and if you make it more difficult for rental providers to pay their bills because you are increasing land tax so much, that is going to be passed through to the people who are trying to pay rent and buy houses. This is one of the most fundamental problems of the government not understanding the simple economics that goes with this.

Likewise coming out of question time is the issue of the timber industry, and this is one particularly close to my heart. This legislation amends the Forests Act 1958. We have seen laid bare today the failure again of the government’s forestry policy, not simply in the loss of jobs at the Maryvale mill, where Opal announced yesterday a further 220 jobs sadly will be going from the Opal business in Australia and New Zealand, and a very large number of them, I understand, from Maryvale. But why I am raising that is because although that is obviously a decision of a private company, the Maryvale mill was central to the government’s decision-making on the forestry industry. Indeed, members will recall when the then Premier announced the end of the forestry industry in 2019 he did it at a radiata pine plantation nursery in my electorate, highlighting that his decision was all about the Maryvale mill. Indeed when he copped some criticism from a union, from the CFMEU, from Michael O’Connor, he came out the next day, the then Premier, and he said, and I quote from the Age on 10 November 2019:

The notion that this package does anything other than secure up to 1000 jobs in Australian Paper is simply wrong and I can quote you the chief operating officer … who made it very clear: these jobs are secure. Up to 1000 jobs at that Maryvale mill, up to 2050.

The Premier, I highlight, was talking about Australian Paper, and in particular the plantation sector, because he knew that the government decision was shutting down the broader hardwood industry and would result in job losses there, particularly among the harvest and haul contractors and particularly among a number of the mills. So he hung his position on the Maryvale mill and said that those thousand jobs would stay.

At the end of 2022, 200 jobs were lost when Australian Paper actually closed its white paper manufacturing line, and again today we understand at least another 45 of the 220 jobs to be lost across the Opal business will be at Maryvale. That is an absolute indictment on the government’s policy. It made this policy decision to shut down the timber industry knowing that it would hurt the native hardwood sector but tried to spin it to say that it is protecting the thousand jobs in the Latrobe Valley. It has done nothing of that. Indeed the facts are on the table now. It is looking like a quarter of those jobs that the Premier said were secure up to 2050 have already gone. If that is not a failure of government policy and a failure of the people of Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley, then I do not know what is.

Continuing on a similar theme and as the neighbouring electorate to Latrobe Valley – and indeed parts of my electorate now are in Latrobe City – this bill also amends the Gas Industry Act 2001. The Gippsland South electorate is home to the vast bulk of gas production; about 95 per cent of Victoria’s gas comes from Bass Strait and comes via the Longford plant in my electorate, just south of where I live. We are facing the wind-down of that. There is no question there is going to be probably slightly more than a decade of gas production, depending on exploration and any finds that there might be between now and then – and that is always an open question. But we are certainly winding down. But there are other opportunities to supply energy to our region, and they cross both my electorate of Gippsland South and that of the member for Morwell here as well, one of which of course is the HESC project, the hydrogen energy supply chain project. That is a project which will turn brown coal into hydrogen, and it will be blue hydrogen in the sense that the carbon from that process will be captured and pumped into my electorate out to Bass Strait into natural formations under the sea.

We have got in this place the absolute policy cretins of the Greens, who are opposed to this project, and they like to say that the Labor government is supporting another coal project. Well, I really do not understand their concern with coal if you are capturing the carbon emissions, because that is what it is all about, isn’t it? Isn’t it about burning coal being the concern because it causes global warming and therefore impacts the global climate? Well, if you are capturing the emissions and putting them back where they came from – that is, under the ground – what is the problem? Either the Greens do not seem to understand that or – and I suspect this is more likely – they deliberately avoid and ignore it. In fact I have heard it time and time again in this place when they simply say things like ‘Carbon capture and storage doesn’t work; it’s never been done.’ It has been done all over the world. There are so many projects either operating now or under development with carbon capture and storage, and it is virtually universally accepted that the Gippsland Basin has some of the best formations, the best geology, for capturing that carbon.

We should get behind the HESC project, because it will actually help Gippsland set up a hydrogen industry, one that will eventually have the opportunity to utilise the proposed offshore wind farms. When they are blowing away in the middle of the day and we have got sunlight on all our solar panels, what do we do with them? We might turn that production through electrolysis into hydrogen. And yet the Greens, who are supposed to be about supporting the environment – and I must say their fellow traveller the Minister for Energy and Resources in the government – are dead opposed to this project just because it involves coal. They ought to be hung out for that, like the Australia Institute, which put out a ridiculously misleading report a couple of years ago and were still banging on about it on ABC Gippsland a couple of weeks ago, saying that this project will create more emissions but completely ignoring the fact that if it goes ahead to commercial scale, it will have to involve carbon capture and storage. They stand condemned for this rubbish.

There is so much more I could say on this wonderful piece of legislation. Sadly, I am running out of time. Roads is just an issue that I could talk about for days in this place, given the appalling state of our roads in this state, but I commend the bill to the house.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (15:38): I am very pleased to speak on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, and it has certainly been an education, watching the speakers before me and how they were able to draw out the most interesting things from such a bill. This bill, and the type of bill it is, is important. It is like servicing your car or doing a weekly tidy-up. It is what we need to do to keep our house in order so that when the time comes for the larger pieces of legislation, there is no misunderstanding or confusion or mishap with other pieces of legislation. It is good and right that we are doing this work. I think the member for South Barwon felt that it meant we were tired. I feel like it shows that we have got so much energy we can even do the housework as well as building the houses, so that is pretty good.

There has been a bit of talk about grammar today, and I just would like to put on the record my support for the Oxford comma. I believe it is absolutely necessary and appropriate. Language should and does change over time. We know how important grammar and commas are. The basic sentence ‘I love baking, my family and my friends’ can really change based on the placement of the comma.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Lauren KATHAGE: ‘Let’s eat grandma’, the member for Gippsland South says. Let us do it. I mean, we have got only a few hours till dinner, so book it in! I am glad that the people who paid the best and closest attention in English classes are doing the work to make sure that our bills are perfect and do what they are intended to do.

One of the acts that is amended through this bill is the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007. We have heard quite a bit from those opposite about energy through the course of this debate. The original 2007 act allowed us to establish the Victorian energy upgrades program. This has been a very successful program to help us reach our progressively ambitious targets for renewable energy and for net zero emissions. This particular program meant that households could not only contribute to our state being a clean and green state but they could also save themselves money. It has also produced lots of chatter on community Facebook groups. It is probably about once every three weeks that the post will come up: ‘There’s a person walking around on the street. I thought you should know.’ People get concerned, but it is actually just lovely people doing their job. I have certainly had them at my home – had all the globes replaced, support with the vents for the ducted heating and the like – and it certainly did made a difference for us. For any people that have not benefited from this scheme, I would certainly encourage them to, because it reduces energy bills and it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Actually, energy savings from the program are expected to reduce Victoria’s electricity consumption by 7 per cent in 2025. For a humble-seeming program, that is quite a contribution. Of course this is all in aid of the transition that we are making as a state to renewable, clean, green power.

But what we are hearing from those opposite is just baseless fearmongering. I did like the alliteration from the member for Sandringham: banning the Bunnings barbecue. I thought those English pedants would also appreciate that alliteration. However, the science students would not be impressed because the facts are wrong. There is no banning of LPG-powered barbecues – nothing of the sort. In fact going all electric is a major cost-of-living support, saving Victorians thousands on energy bills for decades to come. Converting an existing home with solar panels from gas to electricity can save around $1700 per year.

That is a lot of Bunnings barbecue sausages, absolutely hundreds of sausages from Bunnings. So for the member for Sandringham, who says we are banning the Bunnings barbecue, and the member for Nepean, who says we are banning gas: fear not, because your constituents are running towards electric. People are voting with their feet and with their wallets. People are already converting. The Victorian people are leading the way, and the opposition are trailing behind, mumbling something about nuclear reactors, and nobody is quite sure what they are doing. The Victorian government will continue to support putting more money back in the pockets of Victorians wherever it can, absolutely.

This bill also seeks to make changes to acts related to the building industry, the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 and the Building Act 1993. Of course it was not long ago in this house that we looked at domestic building contracts and put through the Building Legislation Amendment (Domestic Building Insurance New Offences) Bill 2023. That introduced two new offences for builders who take deposits from customers without taking out insurance as soon as that money changes hands prior to the construction of building, and this work was really important. We saw today a further announcement by the government that it would provide support for people who have been caught out by builders not taking out the necessary insurance for their customers. I was really pleased to see that that support has been extended by the government to them up until February 2024. Certainly that will be a great relief for people in my electorate who have lost their deposits recently to such builders.

We are working to tidy up aspects of the building industry, but it is part of our broader work around delivering 800,000 new homes over the next 10 years, and we have set out in our housing statement how we intend to do that. We are looking at making faster decisions. We heard in question time from the minister about how many additional applications have been put through planning through some initiatives that have been undertaken. We are absolutely protecting renters’ rights and ramping those up, recognising that for some people renting is their personal choice or might be their circumstance but that does not mean that they should not have the rights and protections that people who own their home enjoy.

I am really excited, especially for the area that I represent, about additional 60-square-metre homes on properties, because there are larger blocks in my area. I really appreciate when my mother-in-law cooks dinner for us, so if it means that we need to build her a place out the back, I would definitely do it for her spaghetti. I am sure lots of other people want to be close to other generations of their family and will look to take that up.

When I looked across the acts that this bill is making small amendments to I noticed that so many of them relate to our free TAFE courses. If you wanted to work in the types of industries that we are talking about through this bill, you could have a free TAFE course – in agriculture, for example, or horticulture, building surveying, civil construction – (Time expired)

Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (15:49): Today I rise to make a contribution on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024. It has been interesting to see the broad range of contributions in the chamber today. The purpose of the bill, as we know, is to revise the statute law of Victoria, for which the bill makes minor amendments to a number of acts to correct grammatical and typographical errors, to update references and for other similar purposes. This is a regular mechanism that is used for reviewing the state’s statute books, and it is required to ensure that Victoria’s statutes continue to remain clear, relevant and accurate for Victorians. The bill corrects typographical errors in various acts, such as the Building Act 1993, the Forests Act 1958, the Gas Industry Act 2001, the Heritage Act 2017 and the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009.

The bill also repeals several definitions in the Road Safety Act 1986. Whilst we refer to the Road Safety Act, I thought I would also reference just some of the issues happening within my electorate in regard to road safety. In the past few weeks there has been a very strong focus in my electorate regarding road safety and the alarming increase in road fatalities. As a state we are experiencing the highest death toll in 15 years. I met with RoadSafe Goulburn Valley for a roundtable discussion recently and they raised many concerns, including the alarming death toll, the appalling state of our roads and the substantial cuts to road safety programs. In fact Labor has cut, as we know, a staggering $230 million from road safety programs, and there has been a 45 per cent reduction in our road maintenance since 2020. I acknowledge the Shadow Minister for Roads and Road Safety in the chamber, and I also acknowledge the hard work that the shadow minister has been doing, particularly across regional electorates. Unsafe roads continue to be a major issue regarding road safety, with dangerous potholes and crumbling, deteriorating roads.

I put a call out to my constituents recently to share the locations of the worst roads that they have experienced, and the response was overwhelming. The response from Brad, a local, was ‘there are too many to mention’. He also shared that he had hit a pothole and had to pay for a new rim and tyre and then another tyre in another incident. Brad said this cost him over $700 and ‘thank goodness for Foodbank at the Shepparton community house’. Vehicle damage is impacting many, causing added financial stress. We are seeing speed reduction signs up as a warning that you are coming up to a pothole, and signs have been up for months, with no work progressing. The Murchison-Tatura Road is a classic example, with signage being up since May last year. This is a major truck route and has been raised as one of the most deteriorating roads in my electorate. There is a responsibility from the government to be fair and equitable with road maintenance and road maintenance funding.

In addition the bill repeals mistakenly duplicated items in the tables in sections 56 and 56B of the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007. Whilst we are talking about energy efficiency, we witnessed more than 500,000 homes and businesses without power, with some up to today with no power, following recent storm events. Victorians are struggling to pay record power bills, and there has been a 25 per cent increase in power costs this past year alone. The cost of living is having a significant impact on people’s lives and Victorians are facing another tough year, all because Labor does not have a plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

Furthermore, the bill updates the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 to reflect a change to the definition of ‘building practitioner’ in the Building Act 1993 made by the Building Legislation Amendment Act 2023. Home building in Victoria has dropped to its lowest rate in almost three decades. The ambitious target of 80,000 houses per year for the next 10 years must be allocated fairly. We have a housing crisis, and my electorate has one of the highest rates of homelessness across the state. We have 2335 people on the housing waiting list, and we are trying to attract professionals to our region to fill the shortages in a range of much-needed skills. GV Health have 500 advertised positions, but how do we get people to the region when there is no housing?

Just this past week I was contacted by a constituent who has been living in a shed for nine years – a shed on a block – following a fire in the rental property where she was living. This property is now leaking; it has holes and just last week she had the entrance of snakes into the building. These are pensioners, and they are people that desperately need help when it comes to housing. I also want to acknowledge a local organisation, People Supporting People, and Azem and his team, who I volunteer for when I can and who are helping the homeless and doing all that they can to provide sleeping bags, clothing and food – a job that should not be theirs.

The Heritage Act 2017 is also included on the list, and it is worth acknowledging the importance of preserving our heritage and history. Over the years we have seen many heritage buildings lost. We have also seen the perseverance of people in actually knocking down buildings, so we need to make sure that we preserve heritage and history. The Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009 is also listed. I have raised many times in the chamber the Shepparton bypass, a project that the state government committed $10.2 million to in the business case back in the 2017–18 budget and a further $1 million in the 2023–24 budget. The state government must stay committed to this project. This is a major project for our region, with over 25 per cent of the state’s trucks registered in the Greater Shepparton region. It is extraordinary that we have to keep fighting for this bypass.

As a result of the bill making minor and technical amendments to various acts by updating references and correcting typographical errors, the bill serves its broader purpose. Whilst I could go and talk about grammatical errors and some extra commas being added, I think I will finish my contribution there, and I commend the bill to the house.

Bronwyn HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (15:54): I also rise to make a contribution on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2024, and as I think most members would know, the Victorian Parliament regularly considers and passes statute law revision bills to correct ambiguities or minor omissions, any errors, but also of course to reflect changes based on experience. This helps to ensure that Victorian statutes are up to date and clear and facilitates the administering of Victorian laws. Some of the previous opposition speakers have in a sense mocked the introduction of such a bill, but it is serious business amending legislation when use and experience have highlighted deficiencies or change is required because of changes in things such as technology, maybe attitudes, methods and procedures, because really the law in a sense is a living thing and is shaped by practice and experience.

In saying that, of course it does not mean that there is a lot to debate within the context of the specific changes and amendments, but this bill will amend various acts. I think on my count it is over 13 pieces of legislation that we are debating today that will be amended as a result of the passing of this legislation. These are changes or amendments to rectify things that were either omitted or a typo or, as I said, to reflect different processes and procedures, but it is also legislation that has been made under both Liberal and Labor governments in the past.

There is a long list of the different acts that are being changed. I will not go through each of them, other than to say there are over 13 of them. They go from some of our really important infrastructure projects, because really every government service is facilitated by some sort of legislation, to legislation in here that we are making minor amendments to that, for example, provide better consumer protections, plus the Road Safety Act 1986 and many others. The government aims to identify and correct these minor changes as soon as possible through these bills, and this maintains the quality of Victorian legislation and ensures that laws remain up to date and are very clear. This bill ensures that there is accuracy and clarity as the government tries to defend the law and deliver state programs and policies, because as I said earlier, pretty well all the things that a government does are backed up or based on or implemented through some sort of legislation and then subsequent regulations and so on.

Because there is not a lot to talk about in terms of those individual minor amendments, I would like to talk about some of the programs and the really important work that the Allan Labor government does ‍– what we are doing and will do – to ensure that we are making better lives for Victorians. I will give a couple of examples. The Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, which is one of the pieces of legislation that will be amended for minor changes, flows into the Building Legislation Amendment Act 2023, which provides protections for homebuyers – consumers that are purchasing homes. I guess what comes to mind when I think about how legislation affects residents of the Thomastown electorate, for example, is the terrible situation with the Porter Davis collapse. That business had not provided the important insurance that each consumer needs, so people were left without insurance and therefore their hard-earned savings. The money that they had scraped together to put a deposit on a home or a down payment had basically just disappeared into thin air. It was the government that responded by supporting those homebuyers and providing some sort of compensation payments that covered the insurance payments. I think that has now been extended. I think there was an announcement in fact today that those –

The SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for the matter of public importance. The member will have the call when the matter is next before the Chair.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.