Tuesday, 27 May 2025
Bills
Appropriation (2025–2026) Bill 2025
Please do not quote
Proof only
Bills
Appropriation (2025–2026) Bill 2025
Appropriation (Parliament 2025–2026) Bill 2025
Second reading
Debate resumed.
Emma KEALY (Lowan) (18:01): Labor cannot manage, and consistently it is Victorians that are paying the price. Never has that been so clear than in this budget, a budget which is clearly titled on its front page ‘Focused on what matters most’. And it is very clear to anybody who picks up this tome and the multiple tomes that go with it that what matters to the Allan Labor government is more and more taxes. They want to take more of your money – more of the money that you have worked very hard to put in your bank account; more of the money that you have put aside to pay for energy bills that keep going up, to pay for the groceries every week, to pay to put your kids through school and make sure that they are able to participate in after-school activities and be the best person possible; and more of the money to make sure that businesses have got money in their accounts so that they can employ more people locally, so that they can grow and prosper and expand and show that Victorian industry is not dead, as it is under Labor, but actually can grow and that we can support businesses to do what they do best, which is put their money where they see it is best for the business, best for the community and best for Victoria.
Instead what we see from the Allan Labor government is a lack of trust that Victorians can make the best decisions about how their own money is spent. What we see more and more often are taxes taken by the government and not used in a way that gives people their fair share, particularly those people who live in rural and regional Victoria. What we see is an increasing debt level. I recommend every government member familiarise themselves with the Barefoot Investor, who has strategies in place on how you can manage your debt level to bring it back to a responsible level so you can have more money in your pocket and so that you can achieve all those aspirational goals that you want to achieve. You can put your plans in place to start your own small business, employ more staff or choose educational outcomes for your children and support them to achieve those. That is what we should see in a government. But instead from Labor what we get are more taxes, more debt and less support on the ground.
Let us just look at the emergency services tax. It is a cruel tax that hits every single Victorian in the hip pocket. Every single householder: if you own a home, you will pay twice as much tax under this budget. You will pay twice as much tax if you are a renter in Victoria under Labor’s budget. All businesses will pay twice as much tax in Labor’s budget. But it is the farmers that will be the hardest hit. They will pay triple the amount of tax under the Allan Labor government’s budget, because those opposite are ‘focused on what matters’. They are focused on just grabbing more and more taxes, taking money out of rural and regional economies in particular – out of our communities, out of people’s back pockets and out of businesses – and it will have a catastrophic impact on the economies of our rural communities into the future.
This emergency services tax is a huge amount of money. In fact it is $3 billion over the forward estimates – a $3 billion tax grab by the Allan Labor government. Look at the increases in taxes by LGA. These are small rural LGAs. They do not have large economies. They have massive road networks; they have got a lot of public infrastructure that they have to manage. We are seeing money stripped away by Labor to put into the budget black hole which we all know as the Suburban Rail Loop, which will not deliver any benefit for the people who live in my electorate of Lowan. We do not get our fair share back.
More importantly, taking those millions of dollars out of our communities, out of the pockets of private individuals and out of businesses, means that there is less money for donations to fundraisers; there is less money to sponsor the local footy club, netball club and other local sporting clubs; there is less money to create jobs and support employment in the local area; and there is less money for other aspects of supporting your community and growing your business. It is going to kill rural and regional Victoria. We cannot believe the government when they say this is all coming back in emergency services, because we are not seeing it. In fact there is an emergency services budget cut at the same time as there is a $3 billion increase. We are not getting any of our fair share back. If you have a look at the budget papers, there is a cut to the roads budget. We have got a cut to the amount of potholes that are going to be fixed. It is a ridiculous cut. We are going from over 1 million square metres to – it is a very small amount; I have not got the number at my fingertips. It is a cut to 70,000 square metres in this coming year for roads, so from over 1 million square metres to 70,000. It is a ridiculous cut.
We look at cuts to agriculture. There is a nearly $100 million cut to the agriculture budget –
Mary-Anne Thomas interjected.
Emma KEALY: It is in the budget papers. The Minister for Health should bother to read it, because she might also work out there are cuts to small rural health services in there. There are cuts to mental health locals in there. The amount of money that has been allocated to mental health locals will not run the seven additional mental health services that have been promised, and there is no money for capital, so how are they going to operate a new mental health service when there is no building to service them out of? It does not make any sense; it just does not stack up.
There are cuts to regional development, including the number of jobs that this government expects to deliver in regional Victoria. This is a significant cut. We are looking at a cut from what they have delivered very recently. In 2023–24 they delivered 1500 jobs – this year, 250. The government is not creating any jobs in country Victoria. They are not focused on regional areas, and this is why the people of Ripon are speaking up. That is why they are emailing me. That is why they are putting messages on social media. That is why they are reaching out publicly and saying, ‘We have had enough. We elected our member for Ripon to come to this place to stand up for our views.’ That is her job – to do that. She voted for this massive tax that will take about $4 million out of just one council in her whole electorate. She could have crossed the floor and voted with the people who elected her to be here. She was silent; she did not speak on the bill. She voted for it. It is an utter disgrace, and that is why the people of Ripon are angry with Labor – because they have not got a member who represents their views. They have got a member who is just going along and ticking the box –
Mary-Anne Thomas: Yet they kicked your lot out.
Emma KEALY: and they are refusing to have anything to do what this government stands for. The Minister for Health can say what she likes over the table, with the cheap shots that are so familiar from her, but we know that this government has failed the people of Ripon, who they promised to deliver for. It is a colleague of the Minister for Health who will not be in this place in the forwards. This is exactly the problem: you have got certain people in the Labor government that only care about city votes and do not deliver for country Victoria.
On rural financial counsellors, at a time when we are in extensive drought across rural and regional Victoria and about the only support the government has made available is to push people, push farmers, towards rural financial counsellors, there is a cut to the budget. There is a cut to the budget hidden in the budget papers for rural financial counsellors.
Not only that, but we have also now got a situation where they are completely inundated. There is over a six-week wait, and this is about the only mental health support that is available to farmers in my electorate who are facing critical drought conditions. This is what we see from Labor. We see more taxes and more and more and more debt. In fact the consequence of that debt is that the government is spending $29 million each and every day on interest payments on that debt alone. $29 million of taxpayer money is paid to the big banks each and every day on interest on the growing debt in Victoria.
Let us put this into perspective. What was not in the budget papers was funding for By Five. By Five is a project which was funded through the Wimmera Southern Mallee partnership. It has had incredible outcomes for about a thousand children between the Wimmera and up to the border, up to the Mildura area. These are children that are at risk of falling out of the education system, of not getting appropriate health supports. These are vulnerable children. They are only asking for $3.5 million over the next four years. It is 3 hours worth of interest payments. These are children’s lives –
Danny O’Brien interjected.
Emma KEALY: Three hours of interest payments could have instead gone to support children. I hear quite often that Premier Allan and this Labor government are all about children, all about families and all about supporting women. Well, you have let down so many children in the north-west of the state. You have let down parents and women, who have no antenatal services between Mildura and Horsham. This service delivered upon that. You have cut off access and supports for teachers and for nurses to link into other services through the Royal Children’s Hospital – that has been axed. That is the cost of bad decision-making by the Allan Labor government.
Mary-Anne Thomas interjected.
Emma KEALY: I again hear the Minister for Health. She should be coming in to bat for this. She should be coming in to bat for By Five, because it has had significant outcomes. It has been reviewed. It has been researched. It has peer-reviewed papers that are available. We have got comments on the record. In fact I think the Minister for Health, when she was Minister for Regional Development, spoke about how good the By Five project was. But in this government, when we can see a government that is ‘focused on what matters’, it is not children in rural and regional Victoria – they are not important. It is an utter disgrace that this government would try and pitch themselves as being for families and for women and for children when they are cutting an amazing program. I urge the government to find $3.5 million somewhere hidden in this budget. We know that there are slush funds in there. We know that there is talk of programs for antenatal services for areas which do not have equitable access – that is the Wimmera Southern Mallee. I urge the government to immediately fund the By Five project, because it is utterly disgraceful that they would cut a program that makes such a difference to so many children’s lives and so many families’ lives. As Dr Felix Ritson has said, it has saved lives. That is worth every single dollar. It is not a lot of money – find it, fund it.
I need to go to the drought, and today we have seen the Victorian Farmers Federation put out a statement about expanding the drought supports for our farmers, who are doing it exceptionally tough. I urge the Premier to take this message very seriously and to immediately match that funding and deliver, because at the moment our farmers do not have funding to put aside for more on-farm infrastructure. They need fodder, they need water, they need to be able to keep their stock going, and they need to be able to survive this winter, because our farmers have done it tough. It is not just low rainfall. In vast areas of the state they have been battling fires all over the summer. They are now being slugged with a massive new tax, and there is barely any drought support provided by the government. In fact less than one day’s interest has been allocated to supporting farmers in drought relief. It is essential that we support our farmers.
I have not got a lot of time, but I would like to just read out one small passage. This is from a letter that was sent to me in my electorate, and I have got so many examples of these:
A drought is very challenging financially and mentally, but we knew we would have to deal with the possibility of it, when we become farmers, and we try our best to plan accordingly.
But it’s the human instigated actions that hurt the most.
Not, because it may be good for my country, or myself, but regularly there are actions, that are help to someone in a bureaucratic department, or maybe a way to get some money from someone who has an asset, but doesn’t have a voice.
It hurts, it’s tiring, it’s depressing, I feel forgotten and I feel used.
I condemn the government.
That the debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.