Thursday, 20 February 2025

Bills

Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (15:01): Before we were interrupted for lunch I was talking in support of the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2025, particularly those reforms as they pertain to the circular economy and the work we are doing as a state government with Merri-bek council to help build a more sustainable local community, particularly through our waste and recycling reforms. In 2023–24 there were 12,900-plus tonnes of commingled and recycling glass collected by council’s recycling trucks. This equated to a 4.9 per cent reduction on the prior year, resulting from the move to fortnightly commingled recycling and the introduction of a four-weekly glass collection system. But dare I say the container deposit scheme has also helped to offset some of those collection rates. 17,300-plus tonnes of food and garden waste was collected during that time, a 31.5 per cent increase year on year following the doubling of collection frequency of the green bin. 26,400 tonnes of garbage was also collected via the red bin, which was a 7.5 per cent reduction on the year prior. It shows if we give people the options to recycle and take part in the circular economy, we will divert waste from landfill. When combined, this all signifies that locally our state’s work is making a difference across Merri-bek in this respect. I want to particularly acknowledge the workers and the drivers of Merri-bek City Council’s waste management trucks and the transport workers for what they do every early morning, an invaluable service along the kerbside.

Also, as I said, the rollout of the container deposit scheme by the Circular Economy (Waste Reduction and Recycling) Act 2021, which is included in this bill, is very much continuing to play a driving role towards us becoming a more sustainable community. Since its launch on 1 November 2023 the CDS has returned more than 1.3 billion bottles, cans and containers, which is huge, absolutely phenomenal ‍– the highest take-up rate, I believe, of any other state or territory for that same period of time. Across my community of Merri-bek, locals have enthusiastically been collecting and depositing their cans across a growing number of local sites, including around 10 reverse vending machine sites. The Minister for Environment is in the chamber today, and he appreciates this work of course firsthand. We have rolled out a record number of local sites: at Dairy Drive in North Coburg, which is operated by First Nations social enterprise KARI; 59 Sydney Road, Coburg; 801 Sydney Road, Brunswick; 10 Moreland Road, Brunswick; the Oak Park Sports and Aquatic Centre on Pascoe Vale Road, which now also has a CDS site; 13 Domain Street, Hadfield; the Glenroy newsagency at 773 Pascoe Vale Road; and three recently installed sites across Brunswick West that I was proud to deliver at Union Square, AG Gillon Oval and Dunstan Reserve. These are in addition to our very friendly over-the-counter sites at Pascoe Vale Central News and Lotto on Cumberland Road, Coonans Hill bottle shop on Coonans Road, O’Hea’s convenience store at 156 O’Hea Street – a great milk bar near Coburg North Primary – the Friendly Grocer at 23 Merlyn Street in Coburg North and the IGA Xpress on Major Road, Fawkner. Across Merri-bek, as of the end of 2024, these sites have helped collect over 11 million cans, bottles, cartons and containers for recycling, providing locals with over $1 million in refunds as of October 2024.

However, while we have seen commendable collection efforts across the north, it appears that it is Sayo Leahy that has become the de facto canbassador for the northern suburbs and is leading the pack. After we shared Sayo’s story at the official opening of the North Coburg Dairy Drive site on 14 February 2024 we had no idea just how gangbusters her story would go, having since been covered on the front page of the Age on 3 February and covered on Channel 10 news and Sayo having been featured on an interview on the Project. Sayo has thus far collected over 150,000 cans and bottles, equating to over $15,000 in refunds being provided. If you had to provide a seat for every one of those cans or containers, you would have to combine the MCG, AAMI Park, Rod Laver Arena and Coburg City Oval to accommodate every single one of those cans – so quite the feat. And along with doing her bit for the environment, Sayo has also said the CDS has very much given her a renewed sense of purpose and is very much helping with her overall health, wellbeing and mental health, and the additional funds she has raised are going towards her rent, car costs and health appointments.

But along with Sayo there are many others in our community doing great work through the CDS: Pascoe Vale South Primary School, Pascoe Vale North Primary School, Westbreen Primary School, Dunstan Reserve kinder, Nourishing Neighbours and the Moonee Ponds Creek, and Merri Creek and Edgars Creek friends-of groups. I particularly want to acknowledge as well young Noah Venberg, a year 10 student doing work experience in Parliament this week, from Coburg High School, who is in the gallery behind me. Thanks to Brenda Kittelty, another constituent as well. Noah understands firsthand; he is doing environmental studies, and he knows the importance the CDS will have when it comes to building a more sustainable future going forward. That is why this bill is so important. And for those wanting to take part in the CDS, people can come by my electorate office at 180 Gaffney Street in North Coburg to collect their free CDS recycling bag as well.

Along with strengthening our circular economy the bill will provide outcomes for the management and oversight of our waterways and creeks, seeking to amend the Water Act 1989. We have been doing a lot of work of course with our local creek groups: there is $10 million for the Moonee Ponds Creek reimagining project; another $5 million has been added by the Albanese federal Labor government. There is 460 grand to revitalise the Merri Creek through Coburg as well; 115 grand to support the Edgars Creek; and 25 grand further for the Moonee Ponds Creek, building on previous planning controls as well along the Moonee Ponds Creek corridor. And the Minister for Water just recently announced community consultation for further planning controls to protect other creeks and waterways across the state, 17 creeks and waterways, including Moonee Ponds Creek, Merri Creek and Edgars Creek across my community, and these changes aim to encourage responsible development around our waterways to help conserve natural habitats, safeguard local wildlife corridors and protect the health of waterways across both public and private land.

Some of these changes that are being proposed and being consulted on, which people can have their say on up until 16 March through the engage.vic.gov.au website, include ascertaining of a planning permit for new developments or significant alterations to buildings on properties along the waterway when the siting of a development is less than 50 metres from the bank of a waterway, to protect the landscape along the waterway; building a development above 6 metres in height or a development with a floor area greater than 50 square metres along a waterway; changing the ground level by 600 millimetres near a waterway; constructing a fence other than a visually transparent fence, such as a post-and-wire fence, close to the waterway; or removing any native vegetation along that waterway.

The bill also contains changes to the Domestic Animals Act 1994 – and I want to just acknowledge the pet census that we undertook recently, which analysed the state’s pet ownership rates. In Merri-bek we have got 13,950 dogs registered and 8332 cats registered as well, so we love our pets; we love our animals. I want to acknowledge Project Underdog pet rescue in particular on Sydney Road, Coburg, who do a wonderful job in rehoming and supporting our animals in need.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (15:08): I rise today to talk on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2025, and as many speakers who have stood in the chamber before me today will say, this is a bill where we are making amendments through different parts of this whole bill that has been put through; it is an omnibus bill. The bill takes into account the Adoption Act 1984 for the Attorney-General and the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996. We are cleaning stuff up all the way through child protection, so you know, if we are making parts of these acts better in child protection and in births, deaths and marriages stuff, that is great. The environment – we have just seen the former speaker, the member for Pascoe Vale, who walked out just now, very passionate about the circular economy, and it is great that we can do stuff there as well.

There is the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability Act 2003 – and we move through. We have got agriculture. We have got energy and resources, mineral resources, finance – it is a plethora right across the board of what we are trying to change here. There are small changes that need to be done, but we do not want hidden things in these particular amendments and reforms, especially for things that may hold up our small businesses – things that may need changing but put in extra layers of work for people that run a small business.

Acting Speaker De Martino, I know you yourself would know how hard it is to actually run a small business. There are a lot of rules and regulations that we do need to do and achieve so we are compliant in running our small business, whether it be at a federal level or at a state level. We need to be making sure that we are doing the right thing. Sometimes when we do amend some of these bills, we make changes which cause unintended consequences on some of our small businesses, and we need to make sure that we are supporting fully our small businesses. I get out and amongst people in the Latrobe Valley, and whether they are tradies, as formerly I was, or they are people that are running florists or coffee shops, at the end of the day it is the person at the forefront that is actually doing the work in these small businesses, who has to sit down and do all the regulatory work to make sure that their business is complying with all the bookwork that they need to do. We want to make sure that that is as smooth as possible, because we need to be looking after and supporting our small business people.

There is also a bit on the EPA, on environmental protections. You have only got to walk around your local municipality now and see that there are concerns with rubbish being dumped on our roadways and also in our forests, if you get into them. One thing that I get told all the time, and from our local council officers also, is the amount of rubbish that is being dumped around our waterways as well, which impacts on one of the other particular components in here. We need to make sure that, one, we are on top of it, not allowing these people who are doing the wrong thing to dump their rubbish – and it is not domestic rubbish; sometimes it is building rubbish which is being taken out by the trailer load and put into our parks and also thrown in up against our waterways. We need to make sure that we have rules and regulations that we are maintaining, making it harder for these people that are actually going out and doing that. It is not only a concern in my electorate; it is a concern right across Victoria, and I am sure, for other members sitting here at the moment, it is being raised at their level.

We also have changes to the Housing Act 1983 and the Subdivision Act 1988, so it does give us a little bit of scope to be able to talk on housing and planning and the subdivisions. I know we obviously talk a lot about the crisis of trying to get people into a home and getting a roof over their head. I know in the Latrobe Valley, especially in and around Morwell, we have a crisis down there trying to assist people who are homeless that are living in cars and living on the streets. The workers working in organisations are engaging with these particular people. There are some people, I must say, that do not want to live with four walls around them and a roof over their head, and we just need to make sure that we are looking after them as best as we can, but we do have people in our community that need that security of a roof over their head, somewhere to call home. I think whether you are renting or you are a home owner it makes a huge difference if you have got the security of being able to have that home environment, that safe environment, for you and the family. I know, talking to the providers, that stocks are virtually nearly at zero down around through the Latrobe Valley and pushing through to East Gippsland. I think at one stage we actually had more people looking for crisis accommodation than we had available houses.

We need to be mindful that no matter if we are making amendments on these reforms or we are talking about housing and bringing more houses on line, people are relying on us to make the correct and the right decisions to give them the opportunity to be able to do that. On the planning with the Subdivision Act 1988, I also talked to developers. It is interesting to hear the red tape that they have to jump through to actually bring these subdivisions on line. At the end of the day we do have the houses, which are great, that come through, but there is a lot of work that is done before those houses actually get built, and there are all the hoops. Sometimes we need to make sure that the developers are doing the right thing, but there are hold-ups at local level and there are hold-ups sometimes with state acts and what they need to provide and with water providers. I know for sewage and for water and putting everything in, a subdivision does not take half a year or 12 months to get through; it can be up to five or 10 years in the making from when they decide to do it. We need to make sure that we are bringing these developments on line and allowing the developer who is putting his hard-earned money into that development to bring it on line at an acceptable pace. They realise it takes time, and there are bits and pieces they need to do to get services and roads and so forth in, but we need to make sure when we are making decisions in here that we are not putting an impost on the developers and then on the poor old home owner as we move through there.

One of the other things – and I am sure we get it all across the state – is domestic animals. I know we have got a couple of changes here and amendments for that. It is one of the upticks in my office now, and I think it must be because the local council and local government are getting sick and tired of people coming through who are living next door to dwellings which have an unacceptable number of pets. In particular, down here in Traralgon and through Morwell and Moe, it is the unintended consequence of having dogs barking 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is one of the big upticks for people that are contacting my office at the moment, and probably, coming back from COVID, when people were a little bit locked in their houses, they needed something to do. A lot of people started being breeders, and we have got the offshoot of that now – a lot of places in and around our streets that have a lot of animals that are causing a lot of grief around the place. Barking dogs is a huge one. Also coming through now are stray cats that are moving through the municipality.

As our lead speaker said, we do not oppose this bill. We know that we need to make changes as these acts get a little bit more age on them to make sure that they do suffice in 2025.

Bronwyn HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (15:18): I also rise to speak on this legislation and in support of a bill that, as we have all been saying, is an omnibus bill that looks at amending various pieces of legislation for all sorts of different reasons. There are the ones that we have spoken about before, where there are just differences in the way we do things compared to when the legislation was originally brought into effect. There are also changes in technology that then require updated legislation. And of course the most important part of legislation is amendments and new bills that are there to protect Victorians in every aspect of life. It is always a balancing act. When you want to introduce legislation to protect and support Victorians, it often means it is about regulation and ensuring that when things go wrong, or there is a group, an organisation or a company that is not doing the right thing, there are avenues that Victorians can pursue in order to ensure that they receive justice.

This legislation is about doing all these things in different ways. I will not be able to talk about all the changes, because there are a number of them and they cross over many different pieces of legislation, but I would like to talk about one aspect of the changes and that is around the amendments to the Environment Protection Act 2017. This act, when it was introduced, was about giving more teeth to the Environment Protection Authority Victoria in order to ensure that our environment and people’s urban environment are protected better and that there is better compliance and better assurance of that compliance. This change that we are talking about in this piece of legislation really is something that will be a great benefit to the residents of Thomastown.

The dumping of litter or rubbish has been happening all over the Thomastown electorate. Whether it is in the established suburbs of Thomastown and Lalor or in the newer suburbs up around Wollert and North Epping, it has become a huge problem with people dumping household rubbish, but more often it is industrial waste that is being dumped in dark corners, in parks or on people’s nature strips. The current regulations provide that a registered owner or authorised user of, say, a vehicle that is dumping products or whatever cannot be found guilty by the court. Even if we have temporary cameras to watch and identify vehicles, for example, that are doing this, if we cannot prove that the driver or the person doing it is a particular person or their identity, then nothing happens. This piece of legislation will ensure that the business owner responsible for the truck or whatever it is that was carrying the rubbish and committing the crime will be able to be charged with the illegal dumping. Hopefully this will be another, while a small change in one sense, way of ensuring that all the levers are there to make sure that people that do the wrong thing are held accountable and can be brought to justice.

I am going to keep talking about this for a while. I am sure residents are going to be really happy that we are trying to ensure that the areas that we are all living in are kept clean and that they are treated with respect and that we can have pride in our neighbourhoods and in our streets. This is just one small step in the list of things that have been looked at in order to try to get under control what is going on in the area. There are a lot of great things that are happening. This is not all over the place, but it is in every corner. As the Premier has said many times, we are listening to Victorians, and I am hearing over and over again that there needs to be something done.

In fact this issue has also been raised by me with the council on many occasions, because in many, many cases the areas and what is happening are the responsibility of council. I know through that advocacy there have been additional compliance officers employed, and I believe at the latest council meeting there was discussion about the setting up of a taskforce. Rather than dealing with each individual dumping site and collecting the rubbish and using some portable cameras here and there, they are looking at a more systemic approach. I understand that they are looking at involving the police because, depending on how much and where these things are occurring, it could be a criminal act that the police could be actioning. In other cases it could be the Environment Protection Authority, so the aim is to have this taskforce include the EPA as well as council officers – again, all levels of government coming together in order to fight this problem and hopefully do something that is going to change it ongoing rather than this constant cycle of problems.

When you have just bought your house and you have just moved in – it is a beautiful house and you have been waiting for years for it to be built, to buy the right land to put it on and so on – you do not want your first experience when you get those keys and walk in the front door to be looking out the window and seeing a whole lot of mattresses or paint cans all piled up all over the place. I think this, as I said, is a really important piece of legislation. Of all the changes we talk about, this is something that I believe residents of Thomastown will be very excited about.

There are also amendments that are really, I guess, rectifying past wrongs when it comes to things like forced adoptions, and there have been a number of pieces of legislation and law changes around the issue of forced adoptions. This legislation provides further small changes that hopefully will make it a little easier for those that may be looking for their parents or for parents looking for children, just taking at least one other barrier out of the way in order for them to continue that journey to be reunited with loved ones. The example of this in this bill is a strange thing where the Secretary of the Department of Justice and Community Safety, for example, is not able to disclose adoption information even if there is a court order or a subpoena. There are many steps, many hold-ups and many hurdles for people seeking that information – even with court orders it does not happen seamlessly and quickly. This legislation is making very meaningful changes to ensure a better experience for those seeking out loved ones that they were parted from at birth or soon after.

Other examples of some of the changes and amendments in this bill are strengthening some of the legislation around pet animals and dangerous animals just to ensure that there are stronger and greater safeguards for people. Again, I think we can see in some of these legislative changes that they are really local, neighbourhood-type issues that are being addressed. It is not always the really big overarching reform in the law that people are looking for. They are also looking for legislative change that can make life just that little bit easier in the way they go about their work or their play or their home, that ensure that they can exercise their rights in any way or ensure that they are protected. These small changes make it that little bit easier.

As I stated at the start around technological change, who would have known that water corporations cannot serve a notice of a board meeting by electronic means at the moment? This is modernising the legislation so information like notice of meetings can be provided to board members electronically, which is such a great step forward.

John PESUTTO (Hawthorn) (15:28): I rise to speak on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2025. Today we see that Victoria has the highest unemployment rate in the country. In the half year to December Victoria accounted for 30 per cent of insolvencies nationally. Business vacancies in the CBD are rising compared to lowering rates in other comparable cities like Sydney and Brisbane. Median house prices have trended downwards, while in other states they are going up. Approvals for properties are going down in Victoria; they are going up in New South Wales and in Queensland. Regulatory reform in the way that governments deliver services and price those services is vital. More to the point, it is not only vital, it is urgent. It is urgent because at the moment we are seeing businesses in Victoria flee to other jurisdictions. If they cannot flee, they are thinking about it and will do it as soon as they can.

We see that for a number of reasons. We have the highest taxes in the country. Regulation is so onerous that many businesses find it easier to do business elsewhere. The cost of energy is growing at such a rapid rate that it is just not viable for many businesses to survive if they stay in Victoria. So regulation, regulatory reform and the efficiency and proficiency with which the Victorian government delivers and prices its services are crucial, and you would expect that the government would bring measures to address the exigencies of those things I have mentioned just then.

This bill which is before us today does a number of things. We will not oppose them, but they do not address those pressing matters, and I will come back to those in a moment. To the extent that the bill addresses things like adoption, which is more in the nature of a social reform rather than a regulatory reform – one would have expected it in its own distinct piece of legislation – we will not be opposing that. It is overdue as a reform, and we support it.

There are some other aspects of the bill. I will not touch on many aspects, but I do want to mention a couple which emphasise the mixed priorities of this government. First of all, seeing it as a priority to ensure that the commissioner for environmental sustainability can moonlight on the job is I think an undesirable act of public policy. I think the nature of commissioner positions is such that if they are worthy of being created, then they deserve a wholly dedicated occupant of that role. Just why the government has felt it necessary to do that and, more to the point, how a person occupying that role can discharge the functions and duties of that role – putting aside the salary, but more importantly the significance of the role – is beyond comprehension. Why the government thinks that is a good act of public policy is beyond me. In terms of other actions and steps taken in this bill, you have to scratch your head as to whether the government understands the urgency of the reforms that are needed in this state.

I want to turn more to what this bill does not address. Two years ago the Department of Treasury and Finance undertook an options exercise to give the government some things to consider by way of economic reforms which would save businesses in the state costs. They presented a series of options to the government, all told in the order of around $1.6 billion in savings to the government. These are easy red tape reforms which the Allan Labor government could undertake at a moment’s notice. Were they in the bill? No. You would think it would be an easy win for the government to deliver some relief for businesses that are already struggling in this state by implementing those red-tape reforms, but no, they are still sitting on the desk and there is no evidence that they are anywhere in this bill. Despite the second-reading speech of the minister, nothing in this bill will actually provide relief to businesses. That was a missed opportunity.

We saw late last year the Business Council of Australia deliver its Regulation Rumble 2024 report. It found on costs and regulations Victoria was last – eighth in the league table of states and territories – in terms of costs and regulation. When it came to property taxes we were last. When it came to payroll tax we were second last. It does not tell a very good story. The CommSec report into the state of the states in October last year put Victoria in a position where it is slipping as a state. The NAB regulatory impact analysis, which came later in the year, reinforced the reality that for businesses in Victoria life is hard and getting harder, and certainly harder than it is in other states.

Against the backdrop of that you have to ask: what did the government do when it was confronted with this mounting evidence last year and in 2023 about the importance of regulatory reform? It delivered an economic growth statement, and it had four action items in that economic growth statement. I will deal with the two that are most relevant to this bill and the subject matter of this bill. The first was that it would open doors. In the course of that, it has created what I count to be no less than eight new bureaucracies or offices that will need to be funded by government to help grow the economy. I would have thought growing the economy was providing a regulatory environment that sees private sector investment grow and expand. But what is more peculiar is in the next step, cutting red tape. The government boasts that it is going to reduce the number of regulatory agencies from 37 to 18 and that it is going to deliver $500 million in savings to red tape by 2030.

Now you have to ask: how do you deliver those? How do you deliver red-tape reforms when you are creating more bureaucracy? Just two or three pages preceding the red-tape reduction part of the growth statement, the government has created additional offices and bureaucracies, including the investment coordinator-general. Really? I would have thought that business knows what to do to employ more people and invest more capital if you just provide it with the right regulatory environment. There is a natural resources marketing coordinator. I mean, really? These are offices that will be funded by government to help businesses grow. As I said, you do that by providing a regulatory environment for businesses to make decisions that gives them certainty, not this approach by the Allan Labor government which surprises business with new taxes, changes to regulation and a higher cost energy environment and which does not allow them to grow. This bill is that missed opportunity I talk about.

Where we sit in the federation is that once upon a time we were the driver of economic and federation reform. Victoria has gone from being a driver to being a passenger and now to being a patient. We are a drag on economic growth in this country because we are becoming an economic laughing-stock. It is why premiers like Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas in South Australia are eyeing off businesses – he personally contacts business leaders in Victoria to try to drag them across to South Australia. Chris Minns takes a similar approach.

The point I want to finish on about regulation is this: it might not appear to be a very exciting subject for those observing these types of debates, but when governments get it wrong, it has very profound consequences. In Victoria we have seen an unhappy and sorry case study where onerous regulation, supported by higher and growing taxes, drives away investment. For governments, as much as they can ride on the taxpayer dime for a very long period of time, sooner or later moments of reckoning start to occur. The ratings agencies S&P and Moody’s are sounding stronger alarm bells about the direction of our economy, but even more than that – even the Reserve Bank, buttressed by advice from the IMF and the OECD, says when governments grow, when they get regulation wrong, they not only crowd out private sector investment, which is the key to economic growth and prosperity, but drive down productivity and make it even harder for economies to recover. That is what the Reserve Bank is saying: collective state debt and the level of regulation are driving down economic growth over the cycle and into the longer term. The way we address that is by getting regulation right so that we are efficient as a government and proficient in delivering for all Victorians.

Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (15:38): I also rise to contribute to the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2025. It has been a very wideranging debate. The member for Hawthorn’s contribution was very engaging, but I am not entirely sure it was especially germane to the contents of the bill; it was more of a matter of public importance or a grievance. But I think those on the opposition side are missing out by having that level of economic competence on their back bench rather than their front bench.

Nonetheless, speaking about the substance of this bill, I note this is one of those interesting debates where there is ostensibly bipartisan support, but commencing with, I think, the member for Evelyn, who was the first speaker of the opposition, there was 30 minutes of thundering off the long run against it before a tacit acknowledgement at the very end of the speech that the opposition, the coalition, will not be opposing it. I would suggest that if there is so much wrong with the bill, where are the amendments circulated by those opposite to consider what is apparently so wrong with it.

I think fundamentally this is a really good piece of legislation that reflects the quite painstaking, very unglamorous – as the minister in her second-reading speech noted – but ultimately important work of ongoing regulatory reform that is the duty of governments. While the member for Hawthorn suggested that this somehow represents a lost opportunity, I think that the measures in this bill, in contrast, actually reflect a contribution towards ongoing productivity-enhancing reform and supply-side reform that do make a difference. He also talked about Victoria’s mantle as being a contributor to reforms across the Commonwealth in that vein, and I think that this is a government that has inherited and built upon the mantle of the Bracks and Brumby governments in exactly that endeavour, and this is yet another piece of legislation that contributes to Victoria being a better place to do business.

These are, as we know, substantial regulatory omnibus bills that cut across multiple domains of government. There was some conjecture earlier in the debate about whether there were 16 or 14 different acts that were impacted by this piece of legislation. I will take my lead from the minister who introduced it in commenting that there are almost 40 separate proposals across 14 different acts and 10 ministerial portfolios.

There are many important and worthy measures within the bill. The member for Nepean and others talked about some of the provisions relating to adoption, and there have been some very impassioned and engaging and worthwhile contributions in that direction. Initially the aspect of the bill that I wish to dwell upon is the amendments to the Domestic Animals Act 1994. As a representative within the Hume local government area, as I know the member for Broadmeadows and the member for Sunbury, who are also in the chamber, are, I am well aware of some of the challenges that Hume City Council has had in monitoring dangerous dogs. The member for Sunbury knows sadly too well the cost of a dangerous dog roaming in his electorate and the impact that had on local residents, and that is why these are not arcane or meaningless pieces of legislation or regulatory change. These make a difference by making our communities safer.

When I am out doorknocking through suburbs and when I am meeting with people in my community, one of the things that arises quite regularly is people’s fear about roaming dogs, whether that is into their gardens, in the parklands where their children are playing or just menacing dogs that are not necessarily being properly maintained. Obviously it is the responsibility of local councils, including Hume in my area, to ensure that local residents are being compliant with dangerous dog laws. This goes some way to improving the capacity of council to ensure that compliance, and it does make a difference because it will mean there are fewer instances of dangerous dog attacks. That is worthwhile. That means there are fewer presentations to emergency departments and there are fewer children who are traumatised by having a dangerous dog rear up at them or attack them.

Again, superficially, it is a small thing in the context of what we do in this place, but it is actually something which makes a difference in the lives of those in our communities. I see it as part of the broader swathe of work that this government has undertaken to improve animal welfare and to support pets and indeed their owners. The member for Pascoe Vale touched upon some of those earlier in the context of the animal census. We have also banned the cruel practice of puppy farming, with the strictest breeding rules in the country – a worthwhile reform. As somebody who has been enabled to keep a pet as a consequence of our reforms to enable renters to keep a pet, I know very well the value of that kind of reform to the way in which Victorians can live and the freedoms that they have as renters to keep animals and to be responsible pet owners.

Another dimension of the bill that I wish to discuss is the amendments to the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Amendment Act 2023, which will allow the minister to redact confidential or commercially sensitive information when responding to requests from anyone who has paid the prescribed fee for a copy of a work plan or work plan variation that was registered before the commencement of a new duty-based regime as introduced by that amendment act. That is a bit of a mouthful, but what it means in practice is that it will improve the confidence and certainty of investors to take part in a very significant and growing economic sector in our state. Again, by contrast to the member for Hawthorn, who, in keeping with many other speakers on his side of the chamber today, bemoaned the economic lot of Victoria, this government’s work to support our critical minerals sector is incredibly important. It is positioning Victoria to be at the vanguard of growth in an incredibly significant area of the economy. Unlocking new supplies of critical minerals will inject billions of dollars into our regional communities, including in areas of Victoria where I formerly worked and taught, like Stawell. In the Wimmera there have already been significant rare earth and mineral sands projects which are already exporting valuable commodities internationally and also contributing to supply chains for manufacturing in our own country and our own state.

Unlocking the reserves of critical minerals that exist up near Swan Hill at the Goschen rare earth and minerals sands project and the Avonbank mineral sands project in the Wimmera has the potential to produce around 311 million tonnes of minerals, including zircon, titanium and other rare earth minerals, which are absolutely integral to battery manufacture and solar panel manufacture and other things which are the very cutting edge of advanced manufacturing and where we need to position ourselves as a state and as an economy. If we can capture more of that supply chain from the extraction of rare earths through to the manufacturing sector and then ultimately to their use by consumers and in the industrial sector, we will position ourselves for substantial and sustainable growth and economic activity into the future. I believe that those projects that I alluded to before alone have the capacity to deliver a $3.5 billion economic boost to western Victoria and to have spillover effects for the rest of the state equating to a further $15 billion.

In the time that remains to me, the last dimension of this bill that I wish to discuss is the enhancements to the Environment Protection Authority Victoria’s powers and the strengthening of the regulatory tools that are available to it to keep our environment cleaner and the communities that we all serve more livable. This is, again, a superficially small but incredibly important piece of regulatory change because it will improve the capacity of the EPA to target those who are perpetrating criminal acts in our community, who are spoiling the natural landscape and who are inflicting their household and industrial refuse on others. Whether it is in parks, roadside verges or any other area across our community, it is an intolerable situation that we have those in our community who are able to do this without adequate consequence. So it is really important that the EPA have every tool that they need to crack down on illegal dumping and to ensure that those who are perpetrating it are brought to justice, that there are penalties for it and that Victorians who are trying to live in great communities are not subject to that behaviour.

Mary-Anne THOMAS (Macedon – Leader of the House, Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services) (15:49): I move:

That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.