Thursday, 20 June 2024

Motions

Nuclear energy

Debate resumed on motion of Lily D’Ambrosio:

That this house:

(1) condemns the federal opposition’s plan to send energy bills sky-high with dangerous and expensive nuclear power;

(2) calls on the leader and deputy leader of the Victorian opposition to rule out nuclear reactors on the Great Ocean Road or in any Victorian community.

And James Newbury’s amendment:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘the Allan Labor government be condemned for failing to provide secure, reliable and affordable energy to Victorians.’

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:22): I move:

That debate be adjourned.

I move that debate be adjourned because this is just another attempt by this government to deflect away from the important issue of the day. That is what we on this side of the house know.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: I will remove members from the chamber. The member for Brighton has the call. Member for Brighton, you have a microphone. There is no need to yell.

James NEWBURY: I am not yelling. I am using my voice, which I am entitled to do. After the coalition attempted to adjourn debate on the previous bill, the government have moved to one of their sledge motions – of course they have. Twice they have avoided the issue of the day, the most important issue to Victorians, and that is the crime crisis in this state. That is how desperate this government is. They have moved sneakily to a debate about nuclear. That is what they have done. It is absolutely outrageous. They have been caught, and that is why I have moved that the debate be adjourned from their sneaky sledge motion. We will not allow them to use their tactics in this chamber, their numbers in this chamber, to try and deflect again from the important issue of today, and the important issue of today is the crime crisis in Victoria.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: The member for Narre Warren North can leave the chamber for half an hour.

Member for Narre Warren North withdrew from chamber.

The SPEAKER: Member for Frankston, were you on your feet for a point of order?

Paul Edbrooke: No, Speaker. I was just going to go to the men’s.

James NEWBURY: I do not think we need permission for that, but what we do need this house to agree on is that this government stop denying crime. That is what this house must agree on. We must agree that the government stop hiding from crime and stop ignoring crime, and when you look at the crimes that are occurring in our community, we must adjourn debate.

Mathew Hilakari: On a point of order, Speaker – thank you for your advice earlier – this is a tight procedural debate, and I ask you to bring the member to order.

The SPEAKER: I think the member for Brighton was on the procedural motion.

James NEWBURY: Thank you for the try. It is outrageous to think that the government has used the sneaky tactics of this chamber to try and twice stop a debate on crime. We have caught them, so we will be having a debate on crime. When you look at the crime statistics in these members’ electorates, they are going up. We saw the horrific incidents of crime in my community on the weekend, when young girls were working in my local grocers. Three young staff in one of my local grocers were attacked by these men with knives. It was outrageous. What did we hear from the government after those crimes occurred? The government talked them down. How outrageous. What gaslighting. These poor kids in one of my local stores who were working hard. That is the type of stuff that the community expects us to be talking about, because my community wants tougher laws when it comes to punishment.

My community wants tougher bail laws, and the only way we will see that is if the Parliament adjourns these silly little sledge motions and talks about issues important to Victorians: a 10 per cent increase in crime, a 20 per cent increase in youth crime, a nearly 20 per cent increase in aggravated burglaries. Do you think it is okay that the government has shut 43 police stations, including Bayside? Bayside station is shut at night, and now when people go to the Bayside station from 5 o’clock at night there is a sign on the door saying that it is shut. It is not good enough. That is why this Parliament must debate this urgent issue immediately. We move fiercely for the Parliament to be provided time to find solutions to these important issues to Victorians. We cannot allow the victims to not have their voice, and that is why the coalition is moving to have this debate now.

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (12:27): Wasn’t that a spirited defence of what was a bit of a faux pas from those opposite. I do not know what the consequence will be for not reading the notice paper and the orders of the day, but goodness me they are in trouble, aren’t they. The member for Brighton led a spirited defence of why we supported the adjournment and the move on to something like the nuclear power motion. This is a really important thing because we know that government business takes precedence over general business, and so anyone who fronted up here today knew that first on the list of government business – and I am reading this out because it is important and no-one has read it on the other side – the subordinate legislation was up. We were on the justice legislation amendment bill, and then anyone who was worth their weight as a member of Parliament would see that nuclear power was third on the list. If I could bottle the looks of confusion on the faces of the member for Berwick and the member for Brighton, we would not need any more stand-up routines. The sheer terror about what is going on: ‘Hang on, they’ve agreed to something that we’ve put forward.’

This is an issue of our time and a generational issue. The nuclear power matter now, after the leader of the federal opposition, cannot be more important. In fact I think this should be a focus and that every single member of Parliament in this place should be on the record. I think this motion needs to be debated from here to Gippsland and back again because we need to have every member of this place on the record as to whether they support the nuclear announcement of the federal opposition, as to whether the Leader of the Opposition will stand up to this and stand up to the policy, and as to what the members for Gippsland South and Morwell think of nuclear energy coming to their communities and the by-product waste that has no plan and no storage. This motion is a motion of our time. It is one of the biggest moments in our state’s Parliament, and we need every member of Parliament and every political party to sign up to a memorandum opposing nuclear power in our state. Every member of Parliament needs to debate this. If there was ever an important motion to put forward for the security of this state and for our time, this nuclear motion is it.

I am going to give the member for Brighton and the member for Berwick a bit of credit here: I actually think they knew this. I do not think they are so slack that they would not have read the orders of the day. I have seen them do leadership challenges where they could not count to 16 as a majority number, but I think they have improved a bit over time. I cannot think that they are so careless that they would not have known the next thing. I will let you in on an even bigger secret. I think the member for Brighton knew this was on the list, because we have seen him try to take on some of the hard right in his party and stand up for climate action. Everyone saw him at Footy for Climate. He could not be any more of a lover of climate action. He was so strong on climate action he took the spot of the minister who was on it. He said, ‘No, no, as the opposition speaker I’ve got this first up. Minister Dimopoulos, step aside. I’ve got this one covered.’ At least he showed a position and a bit of leadership, not ‘We don’t have any plans. I haven’t had a call from the chief of staff to opposition leader Dutton yet to tell me what I should think and feel.’ We know the member for Berwick is in a bit of a conflict with that because Jason Wood, the federal member out his way, is a very strong environmentalist. The member for Berwick gets on that as well. What is the member for Berwick’s view on storage of waste in our south-eastern suburbs? What does the member for Berwick think on the management of toxic nuclear by-products and waste?

What will they say? As potential leadership contenders they need to all be on the record, so this motion goes deeper than anything before. Maybe a few weeks ago when federal opposition leader Dutton did not have a clue what he was doing it was not of such importance, but this is the biggest moment of our time. What does every member of Parliament on that side think of nuclear waste in their communities? Will they front up and offer to store it? Will they offer to store the waste in their communities? What will they do? The member for Bulleen – you know you are in a bit of strife when the chap who has had two goes is still the best answer – has been on the record as being very concerned about nuclear waste in the past, so he might be the answer to the lack of leadership from the Leader of the Opposition. We will be doing a stocktake on every member of Parliament. You know what our position is on this side: we do not support nuclear energy in our state. We do not support it in our state. We have got a better pathway forward, and I ask those opposite who support this motion to step up on behalf of their communities and tell us their views.

Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (12:33): The reason we have moved this adjournment again is because we have got a government that wants to go back to a simple sledge motion rather than talk about the victims in our state. I will go on record every single time and say one of the priorities of this opposition, which should be the priority of this government, is the mounting number of victims across Victoria. It is not just the victims who were in the store in Bayside or who were hit by a car in Berwick with a car that was stolen, and it is not the victims whose homes were invaded; it is the continuous extensions of those with their families. It is those that are absolutely genuinely worried about what is going to happen in their home when they see that aggravated burglaries have gone up by 146 per cent under Labor.

I know that the member for Mordialloc was talking about diversions and trying to get tactics across. Maybe the member for Mordialloc could put a notice on the paper to talk about John Setka in his role to correct men’s health. If you want to fix men’s health, go and put one on the notice paper and put your position forward on what you think about John Setka, and we will talk about crime that is happening across the south-east or the behaviour of those men there. We need to fix youth crime here in our state. We must fix crime across the state. We cannot continue to see –

Pauline Richards: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, this is a tight procedural motion, and I would ask you to bring the member back to the motion before us.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the member was back at the time and should continue.

Brad BATTIN: We are saying that the most important reason why we want this adjournment is because of the crime statistics and victims across our state. I know Labor want to cut me off, and the reason Labor want to cut me off is because members like the member for Point Cook, who wanted to stand up and laugh at crime here in Victoria, would like to send that out to 12,000 victims across Wyndham – 12,000 victims in the last 12 months who have been victims of crime in Wyndham alone. And they think that is a laughing matter. We have got issues all the way across the state, and I think it is important when we are talking about why it is important that we debate it in here.

I have spoken to a victim who was not in the house when his house was broken into. He was in Perth, and whilst in Perth he got a phone call from his daughter and his daughter said, ‘Dad, there’s someone in the house.’ There were three offenders. I could not even imagine what it would be like to be in a different state when your child rings and says, ‘There are three offenders with weapons in the house right now.’ And we cannot get in contact with police. We have had issues with 000 here in this state under this government, and we know in Mildura we have also got police vacancies, which is leading to an increase in crime. We have continuously said we must have debates in this place about protecting our community.

I spoke about the numbers of Victoria Police before, and I know the government want to talk about the EBA decision for the 9 hours and nine-day fortnight in 2027: ‘Not now – we’re putting that off till after the next election. We’re not doing it before the election; we’re going to do it after.’ But what they will not speak about is the fact that we have 317 less police officers in Victoria today than we did two years ago, after the government promised an increase of 502. That is 317 less people in the van to respond to emergencies across our state. That is 317 less police that should be driving around proactively to stop and prevent crime. And what happens when we do not have this? We have an increase in our aggravated burglaries to such a state that people are genuinely fearful wherever they live across the entire state of Victoria.

I can tell you in Berwick we were rated number 2 for aggravated burglaries. Crime in Clyde North, where the government promised a police station and failed to deliver it, has increased. I will note the member for Bass just sort of going, ‘Who cares?’ The reality is there was an increase in crime of 27 ‍per cent in Clyde North. We will explain that to your electorate as well. They are not getting the response they deserve, because Labor failed to deliver the police station they promised. Even if they could deliver it, they could not deliver the police officers for it, because they cannot get new police in there.

There is nothing more important that we need to debate right now here in Victoria than crime and youth crime. We need to get that crime under control. We need to make sure that we get those that we are scared of off the street and not continue to bail them to go out there and terrorise people in their homes, their workplaces or the street. The only way that can happen is if this government gets off its arse and starts to do what we need to do to fix Victoria.

Paul HAMER (Box Hill) (12:38): I too rise to speak on this procedural motion. We will not be supporting an adjournment of the debate. I just want to point out the irony of the two adjournment motions that have occurred today. I have been in the chamber for the entire debate on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Integrity, Defamation and Other Matters) Bill 2024. Each of the opposition speakers that got up, of whom I think there were three – the Shadow Attorney-General, then the member for Kew and then the member for Narracan – took the opportunity to talk about the changes to the Crime Statistics Act 2014 that are in that piece of legislation, and all of them used that opportunity in a very mature and reserved way to talk about what that impact was going to be.

We have heard the member for Berwick use his 5-minute contribution in the first adjournment motion and now his second 5-minute contribution in the second adjournment motion to effectively prosecute the same arguments. There was an opportunity for all of the speakers in the opposition who wished to do so to continue to debate the justice legislation bill and talk about crime statistics or whichever element they wished to talk about, but no, the opposition chose instead to adjourn debate, which under the procedures of the house means that debate is going to move to the next item on government business, which of course is the nuclear power motion.

If the members of the opposition wanted the opportunity to debate issues of crime and justice, they had that opportunity. They were the ones who wanted to move this adjournment motion. That was 40 ‍minutes ago. We could have had another two speakers on each side and gone through to lunchtime or whenever to actually debate those issues. But that is not the approach that the opposition wants. The opposition has called on this adjournment motion, and now it has moved onto the next order of the day, which is the nuclear motion. I think as the member for Mordialloc said, it is a really appropriate time to have this motion debated. I know this motion had been in place previously, but given the events of yesterday and given that the federal Leader of the Opposition has now come out and announced the seven sites across the country where he would like to see nuclear power – now, obviously we have not been given any costs of that or any detail about how that is going to change power prices or how you are going to transport any of the material or any of those details yet; they are all to come – it is absolutely pertinent that a motion such as this gets brought on in the house today so that we can have that debate and learn more detail about what each member of the opposition actually thinks about Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan for Victoria and how they are going to be engaging with their communities about overturning the nuclear-free zone that we have had for more than 40 years, because that is what it is going to require if we are to have nuclear power in Victoria.

This is an important debate that we do need to bring on, and I want to thank the opposition for moving the adjournment at this point in time so that we can bring this debate on. We should be confronting these issues head-on, and I think actually it has given us the opportunity to even put some additional speakers on this nuclear motion. So I really think that it is a terrific initiative from the opposition to bring this debate on. I do want to see this debate coming on fairly soon, so I will leave my contribution there.

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (12:42): I cannot think of anything more important to talk about than the crime crisis that this government has created in this state. This government have done absolutely nothing in 10 years – 10 years of sitting on their backsides and doing absolutely nothing – and now Victorians are feeling unsafe. This government, these members, can smile and joke and carry on, but they are not representing their constituents, who are not feeling safe in their electorates. I cannot think of anything more important to talk about than community safety; there is nothing more important to talk about than community safety.

Members interjecting.

David SOUTHWICK: You can carry on, but what about your constituents? You have let them down; you have failed them. The member for Box Hill got up and said we should be talking about all kinds of other things. Why isn’t the member for Box Hill standing up for his constituency – an 18 per cent increase in crime? You should be up and about in Box Hill; you should be up and about, fighting for your constituents in Box Hill.

Tim Richardson: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, this is a tight procedural debate, and I am just wondering if they can actually say ‘nuclear’. Because they cannot say ‘the motion’, they need to say ‘nuclear’ as the motion.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Points of order are not an opportunity for debate. The member for Caulfield to continue on the procedural motion, please.

David SOUTHWICK: This government have their heads in the sand. The member for Mordialloc has the City of Kingston in his electorate. They have crime up 17 per cent. Why isn’t he talking up his constituents? Why isn’t he fighting for his constituents? They have failed, and on the flip side of that: no funding, no resources, no power. Police are struggling to do their jobs because this government has failed. We have a number – 40 per cent – of crimes that are unsolved here in this state. That means if people go to their local police station, if it has not already been closed, and report something – if they can take a statement from you, because they are under-resourced – only 60 per cent will actually be resolved. Forty per cent will go in the too-hard basket because police do not have the resources. They are exhausted, they are tired, they are under-resourced and they do not have the police powers to do their job, and this government is failing them.

There is nothing more important for this government to be doing right now. Everyone should feel safe in their communities. Everyone should feel safe in their workplace. A federal colleague, Josh Burns in Macnamara, had his office torched yesterday. There should be a focus on dealing with that; there should be a focus on getting to the bottom of that. What are we doing with that? In our workplaces we have crimes being committed on our building sites on the Big Build. We have seen ghost shifting. We have seen wages being put in with fake bills. We have seen Indigenous labour hire firms being kicked off worksites. And who has been doing that? John Setka and the CFMEU. Police could be investigating that if they had enough powers. Where is the government on that? There is silence. We had yesterday a whole lot of questions being asked about John Setka and his illegal bullying and intimidation in workplaces, and not one minister would mention John Setka’s name. This government is running a protection racket on the CFMEU and John Setka. This government is not funding police to do their job. Victoria Police are not able to keep the community safe, because they do not have the resources, they do not have the funding and they do not have the powers.

This government can pull stunts every single day; they can talk about everything every single day, and the only thing nuclear at the moment is your government. That is the only thing nuclear – your government. This government is blowing up. This government is completely blowing up, and it is because this government will not keep communities safe. They will not listen to their constituents. They are ignoring them, completely ignoring them. I tell you what, we should look at every one of those constituents and every one of those crime stats in every one of those electorates from the Labor Party today, because crime is up 10 per cent across the state – 20 per cent for youth crime. We see it, we hear it, we are responding to it and we want to do something about it, but this government has had 10 years to act. It is a tired, lazy Labor government that has failed to keep the community safe.

Jackson TAYLOR (Bayswater) (12:47): I do not support the opposition’s motion, but I absolutely support talking about the federal opposition leader’s pledge to put nuclear reactors right across this country. It is an absolute disgrace. I must say I love the opposition. They try to adjourn debate, but we were already having the conversation in the Justice Legislation Amendment (Integrity, Defamation and Other Matters) Bill 2024, except it was a little bit less shouty. They were saying the same stuff, but they just were not yelling. I kid you not, it was almost the exact same content. They should have stayed on the bill. They were saying the same things, just three octaves lower. I just do not get it.

What we need to be talking about is all the questions that the federal opposition leader Peter Dutton is not answering around his disgraceful plan to put nuclear reactors right around this country – absolutely a shame. He is dodging questions, dodging detail at every single turn. Could you imagine if this was a federal Labor government? Could you imagine if this was a Labor Premier, a Labor government doing what the federal opposition leader is doing right at this very moment? Of course he said the costs would be released in due course, but he did not commit to it before the election. I figure ‘in due course’ was much like those opposite trying to figure out the notice papers. They will figure them out in due course and how that all works. Like I said, they should have stayed on the bill.

I love how those opposite are saying, ‘We won’t shy away.’ We were literally talking about that bill, and I tell you what, this government is never going to shy away from our support of police, our support to back them in each and every single day. I can tell you now, as a former police officer myself, seeing the support when I was in there, when this government came into power in 2014 – the support, the tools, the resources, the laws we have changed to make sure they have got the powers and the tools to keep Victorian safe and to support our communities – this government will never shy away from talking about those important issues. If those members wanted to stay three octaves higher, they should have stayed on the bill. It is the exact same content.

I tell you what, there is lots of dodging over there on nuclear. The member for Caulfield said the member for Box Hill wants to talk about all other types of things. You have got to be kidding me. The member for Box Hill was talking about nuclear, not all other types of things. Come on, seriously. We are in this place; let us get serious. The member for Box Hill was absolutely talking about something that we all need to talk about. What do we want to talk about? There is no dodging over here. I can tell you there is no dodging on where I stand on this. If nuclear reactors are not good enough for Bayswater, they are not good enough for anywhere in this country, certainly when there is absolutely no detail on it. I would simply ask members: do you want nuclear reactors? Do members opposite want nuclear reactors in their electorates? Member for Berwick, a nuclear reactor? Member for Rowville, member for Narracan and member for Hawthorn, a nuclear reactor? If you want to talk about all types of things here, what we want to talk about is a serious issue about the federal opposition leader with his – I cannot even call them half-baked plans. I do not know how baked they are, but they are certainly not baked, I tell you right now. There is no dodging on this side.

I tell you what our side absolutely will never stand for is more delay, more climate wars. That is the last thing that this country needs. We saw 10 years of that, propagated by the Liberals and Nationals and by the Greens party, who voted down an emissions trading scheme in federal Parliament – a shameful chapter in our country’s history. We are so far behind the eight ball. Nuclear energy is the most expensive form of energy. It is not me that says that, it is experts out there. The CSIRO have come out and they have already talked about the issues that exist, that are inherent, with nuclear energy and the fact that we will not even see it come on line for more than a decade. We have got the cheapest forms of energy. We have got wind and we have got solar – the cheapest forms of energy, which this government is already rolling out in record numbers. We are ahead of the curve. We are not just nation leading, we are world leading.

I say again to those opposite: figure out the notice paper. Instead of going, ‘Oh, no, it’s a stunt,’ seriously, figure out the notice paper. Let us talk about the federal opposition leader’s disgraceful tactics and let us talk about making sure that we do not see nuclear reactors and nuclear waste littered over this beautiful country and landscape.

Assembly divided on James Newbury’s motion:

Ayes (25): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Chris Crewther, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Emma Kealy, Tim McCurdy, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, David Southwick, Bill Tilley, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Nicole Werner, Jess Wilson

Noes (49): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Lauren Kathage, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Tim Pallas, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Emma Vulin, Iwan Walters, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson

Motion defeated.

Paul EDBROOKE (Frankston) (12:58): We know the Liberals cannot read a government business program. How are they supposed to run a nuclear reactor? Unbelievable. I must declare that my parents live in Morwell. Last night they rang me up, and they said, ‘Paul, our dearest son, we love you. We’re a little bit confused, though. When did we get asked if we wanted a bloody nuclear reactor in our backyard? Are these people ready to take the nuclear reactor in their own backyard? Will it be the Brighton sea baths power station? Will it be the Mornington nuclear power station? Where will the waste go?’ Mum and Dad are generally very, very conservative. I would say the community on Facebook pages in Morwell right now is going nuts. You should have a read. You should do some polling down there.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:01 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.

The SPEAKER: I acknowledge in the gallery the Italian Consul General Ms Hanna Pappalardo. It is her last day today. I also acknowledge in the gallery Senator Raff Ciccone.