Thursday, 7 March 2024

Ovens Valley electorate

Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (17:12): (573) My adjournment is to the Premier, and the action that I seek is that the Premier join me in the Ovens Valley electorate prior to the Victorian May budget to tour some of the facilities that are in dire need of some financial support. We would start at Cobram and look at the football netball clubrooms there; for a growing community there is a lot of work to be done there. We would then take the Murray Valley Highway to Yarrawonga and see the poor state of that road and the work that needs to be done there. At Yarrawonga we would stop in at the P–12 high school. Stage 3 is desperate for some funding there. It has not had funding since we were in government some time ago. We would then go to Wangaratta –

Mary-Anne Thomas interjected.

Tim McCURDY: Yes, it is 10 years that you have not invested in Yarrawonga P–12 school, and that is really disappointing. Ten years we have been asking, and in 10 years you still have not delivered. But if the Premier comes to Yarrawonga, I am sure that she will –

The SPEAKER: Order! Not ‘you’.

Tim McCURDY: Sorry, my mistake, Speaker. Then if we got to Wangaratta, we would see the investment that is needed in the health system there. Northeast Health is a growing hospital, and certainly with the mergers and the lack of funding in some of the other regional hospitals, it is important that we keep the big ones in tiptop shape. Myrtleford CFA is desperate for an upgrade, and then we would go to Bright and have a look at the urgent care needs up there. If we had time, I would then wander over to Mount Beauty and Dederang to look at the battery energy storage that is being proposed there and talk to the community, because the proponent is certainly not talking to the community over there – Mint Renewables. Then we would slip down to Meadow Creek, and I would take her through another proposal for a solar factory that is wanting to be set up down there and talk to locals down there.

Should all that be done early in the day, we could slip over to the King Valley. There are some exceptional wines in the King Valley. We all know that the King Valley is an exceptional wine-growing region, but I do warn the Premier in advance that the road is pretty ordinary out there, Wangaratta-Whitfield Road. I warn her in advance that that is a very tough road out there. Then finally, when she leaves the Ovens Valley electorate and heads back to Melbourne, she could look at the hundreds of acres of solar panels out at Glenrowan and then ask herself if she would like to wake up seeing that many solar panels right next to her house and see whether she would be happy to do that. If she could make a time to do that visit before the May budget, I would appreciate it kindly.