Wednesday, 28 May 2025

Appropriation (2025–2026) Bill 2025

Appropriation (Parliament 2025–2026) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motions of Danny Pearson and Mary-Anne Thomas:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Katie HALL (Footscray) (14:50): I am delighted to continue my contribution on the budget appropriation bills and note that this has been an outstanding budget for the electorate of Footscray and in particular my passion for upgrading every government school in my electorate of Footscray. Yesterday I spoke about the $493,000 contribution that is going to be provided to Yarraville West Primary School, and I have worked closely with the school council and with the principal, Karen, at the school to prioritise this project. Anyone who knows this school community knows that the entry to the school is right on the footpath. They really need a secure entry to the school, new first aid bay facilities and a new foyer entry for this wonderful government school in my electorate of Footscray. In addition to that, the Maribyrnong College commitment for planning funding out of a $10 million allocation within this budget means that Maribyrnong College, whose school council and principal have been working tirelessly to look at the academic buildings that are onsite and what needs to be upgraded, have secured planning funding in this year’s budget.

One of the most exciting things that is happening in my community of Footscray this year of course is the opening of the new Footscray Hospital. It is a $1.5 billion investment in the most world-class infrastructure for our community –

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Katie HALL: It is $1.5 billion, member for Frankston – and in this year’s budget there was more than $300 million allocated for that hospital to get going, which means that it will be operational and the new emergency department and the wonderful mental health facilities that will be at that new hospital can get operational.

But in addition to that, I have been working hard with the Minister for Public and Active Transport to make sure that people can get to the hospital via public transport. We have a fantastic tramline in the 82, heading up Droop Street, and I was delighted that $26 million has been allocated for four sets of accessible tram stops on this line, from Droop Street through to Gordon Street. The new tram facilities will be an absolute game changer for our community. Whether you are going to Footscray High, Footscray Hospital, Maribyrnong College or Highpoint, the entire line will be serviced by these new next-generation trams. I am delighted that we will now be building the infrastructure that we consulted with our community on and that we are now delivering accessible tram stops, so if you have got a pram or if you are in a wheelchair, you will be able to get on the tram along Droop Street and Gordon Street and get to where you need to go.

It has been a fantastic budget, not just for the health infrastructure but also for our emergency services infrastructure in Footscray. We all know how hard the Footscray SES worked during the Maribyrnong floods. The Maribyrnong floods were devastating for my community, and floods have a really long tail. There are still people in Maribyrnong who are trying to recover from the devastating impacts of that flood event. One thing we know for sure is that the Footscray SES were there when we needed them most, and for a long time I have been working within government to advocate for new facilities for that SES unit. Last budget we secured the planning money, and I am delighted that in this budget we have secured $14.5 million for new headquarters for the Footscray SES.

Of course the Footscray SES also covers the City of Melbourne. They do a power of work. I am delighted that they will have a new home in Maidstone, and I know that they are also very pleased down at the Footscray SES that they will be receiving these new facilities.

One of the things I have been working on as the member for Footscray and as someone whose office is in the heart of Footscray is that there are a number of people who are experiencing disadvantage, homelessness, and drug and alcohol addiction – a small number of people who really need help. After the tragic shooting that happened in Footscray a couple of months ago now, we know that acute mental health situations need to be dealt with by experts in mental health. So I went to the Premier and I asked for assistance. One of the things I modelled an idea of assistance on was the work that happens between Cohealth and the Salvos in the city – we know it is really effective. We already have Cohealth doing brilliant work on alcohol and other drugs outreach in Footscray. They have a clinic that supports people experiencing homelessness and of course the very well loved former trade union clinic on Paisley Street.

I am really pleased that $350,000 was allocated in this budget for specialist homelessness outreach service providers to work within the heart of Footscray. I have been working with Maribyrnong council on renting a location in Footscray where people can come in and have the dignity of getting help and getting a shower and getting their clothes washed. If they need connection to Centrelink, housing services or alcohol and other drug services, those helps can be triaged there with a warm meal and with kindness and empathy, and police can continue to do their important work in central Footscray. So I am very pleased that $350,000 has been allocated to that project that I proposed. I look forward to the EOI process providing a suitable service provider to deliver that outcome in Footscray.

One of the great things about the budget outcomes over previous years is that 2025 is going to be a magnificent year for the people of Footscray. We have the West Gate Tunnel opening, we have the Metro Tunnel opening and of course we have the new Footscray Hospital opening. The new tram depot is almost completed, and we will have the new 82 tram, the G-class low-floor tram, operating throughout Footscray. This work takes time. Over a number of years I have been advocating for these different budget outcomes, and I am really pleased that in this year’s budget we have secured the funding to get those things done.

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (14:59): It is my pleasure to rise and make a contribution on the Appropriation (2025–2026) Bill 2025 or budget reply, as it is more commonly known. I will start off by saying you are never going to get a good budget when you have a government of the day that has spent beyond its means, and that is clearly what this government has done. You cannot have a good budget when the government’s own figures show that we are headed for a state debt of over $194 billion, which means interest repayments of $1.2 million an hour. That equates or extrapolates out to $28 million a day or a billion dollars every six weeks in interest repayments.

The Minister for Finance was in here yesterday and described the government as being fiscally responsible. He deadset should be a stand-up comedian if he thinks that is the case. I would like to see him try and sell that story on any street corner anywhere in this state. The fact is that no matter what members on that side stand up and say about what they got in the budget for their local area, the bottom line is the government has completely stuffed this state’s finances. I have heard some MPs on that side that have made contributions talking about a new toilet block they got, or they might have got an intersection upgrade or a new extension to their school or whatever it is. But the bottom line is that the finances have been completely mismanaged to a degree that it will take decades for this state to get its finances back on track.

Ministers have also spoken about funding in their portfolios. Technically, every health, roads and education budget should be record funding. CPI increases and population growth would dictate that every year, in every budget, if we are keeping pace with those measures, we should have record funding allocated. So there should always be record funding, but we do not even have that in a number of these key portfolios. We have seen budget cuts as the government tries to rein in this massive, massive debt that it has incurred, all the while continually striking new taxes to pay for that spiralling debt.

I was out at the rally on budget day on the steps of the Parliament there last week, and amongst everybody that was there, the thousands that were there, there was one sign being held up that resonated with me. It said ‘Spending more than you have, Jacinta, then expecting us to pay.’ How true is that. This is really what we have here.

In 2014 this government inherited a debt of less than $20 billion, and it was a debt that was reducing. It blames, to a large degree, COVID for the current state of our finances, and that is just not right. COVID accounts for one-third of our current debt; the rest you can put down to mismanagement. All other states went through COVID as well. It is not an excuse, it is just a simple fact that other states managed it better. Other states have not had the billions in cost overruns on projects. So we should be spared the commentary of ‘I got a toilet block or an intersection or an extension to my school’. What we want to know from people standing up over there is how they are going to pay off the $192 billion in debt that we are headed to. That is what we want to know. That is what Victorians want to know. Let us not talk about minuscule surpluses, let us talk about paying off what we owe, because that is what is important.

Let us talk about interest repayments for a moment. Let us just forget the debt; we will put the debt to the side, and we will simply talk about interest repayments – $1.2 million per hour in interest alone. $1.2 million per hour would build a fire station every 3 to 4 hours, and I need at least two new ones in my electorate. It would build a new police station every 5 to 10 hours – I need a couple of those in my electorate, at Maffra and at Orbost. And it would build a new country hospital every week or so just on interest repayments. Imagine what it would do for our roads. Builders have told me – and admittedly this advice is maybe a fraction out of date – that about a kilometre of new road equals about a million dollars, so let us just use that measure for the sake of this argument. That means every day we could repair 26 kilometres of road on the interest repayments alone. Every week we could repair and rebuild 200 kilometres of road on interest repayments alone. And get this: with one year of interest repayments we could fix 10,000 kilometres of road – and yet members on the other side want to stand up and talk about what good financial and fiscal managers they are.

Page 135 of budget paper 5 covers a measure about the road surface area that is addressed, treated in regional Victoria. Last year the government target was a little over a million square kilometres. Less than 10 per cent of last year’s target was done – unbelievable. The roads are not that good that we can afford to have another budget cut in this space. The road area to be resurfaced has also been cut on both what was budgeted for and what was delivered. So what was budgeted for is one figure, but what was actually delivered was far less, and now we have got another cut on that reduced figure that was delivered.

Moving on from roads, we missed out on the fire stations and the police stations I have spoken about. There are also cuts to regional development, cuts to our agriculture budget in a period of drought for much of the state and cuts to tourism. Even the things that will not cost money to fix were not fixed. The green element of the bureaucracy is leaving many of our home owners in rural and regional Victoria without firewood this winter. The government was warned about this time and time again. We simply do not have enough, and because we are not giving people access to the bush to collect firewood – and the current season closes in a few weeks – we are going to have low-income earners and pensioners freezing this winter because they simply cannot afford the inflated prices of buying their firewood off commercial contractors. The government touts its $100 power saving bonus. That is going to do nothing for these people that need access to cheap firewood. It is just ridiculous, and it is an easy fix. Let people into the bush; let commercial contractors into the bush to be able to provide our householders with affordable firewood over winter.

The government has spoken about there being no cuts to frontline staff. Fisheries officers: are they not frontline staff? I mean, seriously, what do we call them if they are not frontline staff? The Victorian Fisheries Authority has come out – I know a couple of the boys in the Victorian Fisheries Authority – and for a few years they have been trumpeting and spouting that there are a million recreational anglers in Victoria. The Target One Million program – we all remember that. So we have got a million recreational anglers. The Victorian Fisheries Authority has come out and said 90 per cent of anglers do the right thing. So that means we have got 100,000 anglers who are not doing the right thing. That is their figure; that is their commentary. A million recreational anglers, 90 per cent do the right thing, so we have got 100,000 that do not. So what is our response to the 100,000 anglers? That is a fair few, I am sure you would agree, that are not doing the right thing. Well, we cut fisheries officers. As I said, I know a couple of those boys in the fisheries department, and they would not have done this without budget pressures. They know the value of our fisheries officers, but they have been put in a position where they have to cut their budget. Our communities suffer when those frontline services disappear. We lose workers in our area, people who have families, their kids at primary school, support our local economies; their jobs are gone.

Let us look at the emergency services tax for a moment. We have the Premier saying that the emergency services tax is for volunteers. Well, those volunteers on the steps of Parliament last week were not saying thank you. They know that this new tax is to service debt – they know that. On one hand, we have a Premier, and I have heard her in this place, saying we need to be aware of climate change and we need to be supporting our communities. But if that is the case, then we have got to provide appropriate drought relief to our communities. The level of drought relief that has been offered to our farmers in the majority of the state has been quite pathetic when you compare it to what farmers are able to access over the border in South Australia. You cannot have it both ways. If we are going to support communities in relation to climate change, we have got to support the farmers in drought. They go hand in hand; they are one and the same thing.

I would also encourage – and I have done a constituency question on this today – the minister to consider some of the areas that are not currently included in drought provisions, like the Omeo–Benambra area of my electorate, and have them included.

We have got cuts to the feral animal control programs. We have had calls to the office this week saying that the one feral pig controller – who is busier than a one-armed bricklayer in Baghdad at the moment, trying to keep the pigs under control – has lost his job. He has lost his job. He has been servicing that rural community in north-east Victoria – I can tell you that the feral pig numbers are absolutely out of control – and he has not been recontracted. That is a huge issue for those farmers up there. ‘No frontline services,’ they say, ‘We’re not cutting any of them.’ What is this bloke if he is not a frontline service provider?

A lot was said about the school student free travel. We have one public bus in Bairnsdale, which operates outside school hours. I have been lobbying for a long time for an extra V/Line service out of Bairnsdale in the morning. We have one that leaves at 4:27, and the next one does not leave till early afternoon. We have got a huge gap there for a major country town, which can easily be fixed. Many of our people who have appointments in Melbourne have been asking for a mid-morning service, and it just has not been delivered.

In summary, let us just have a look at our state of play. We have got a debt heading towards $200 billion. We have got interest out of control on that debt at $1.2 million an hour – just an incredible level of disaster in servicing that debt. Jurisdictions around the country when they have a high level of debt often sit back and say, ‘Yes, we’ve spent a lot of money, but look what we’ve got to show for it.’ Well, let us have a look at what we have got to show for our debt. We have got a road system that is falling apart, with freight companies and bus drivers saying it is the worst they have ever seen it. We have a health system in crisis to show for our debt, we have a mental health system in crisis and we have utilities bills going through the roof. So we have not got a lot to show for our nearly $200 billion in debt. This is not a good budget at all. It ignores the vast majority of the state and confirms that Victoria is a financial basket case heading for worse times. The government has to take some real action to start balancing the books, or our future generations will be paying for this for decades into the future.

Lily D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park – Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for the State Electricity Commission) (15:13): I am absolutely pleased and excited to speak on the Appropriation (2025–2026) Bill 2025 and of course the Appropriation (Parliament 2025–2026) Bill 2025. I say that because there is a lot to be proud of in the fact that, understanding that there are significant pressures on Victorian families right across the state with cost-of-living pressures, this budget delivers record investment in providing immediate relief and support to Victorian families right across our state. It is about ensuring that we actually provide the assistance and use the balance sheet of our government to support the balance sheet of every family in this state. And it is about doing that at a time that those families need that support, not in five years time, not in 10 years time, but now – real relief when they need it the most. And it is about governments prioritising and focusing on the things that really matter most to Victorians. That is why this budget is a classic Labor budget. It is a classic Labor budget because it has at its very heart support for Victorians, ensuring that people are not left behind for a whole range of reasons out there, some of which are globally inspired and others not so much globally inspired but other circumstances that get in the way of Victorians being able to get by and do okay for themselves and their families.

That is what Victorians want to be able to do – live a life, raise family if they have children and ensure that they have the best opportunities available to them and possible for them.

That is a really important way for us to actually understand why budgets are designed the way this budget has been designed. The real help with the cost of living, focusing on what matters most to Victorian families – is it any wonder that free public transport for under-18s has been so well received by people in my community? I have done a lot of doorknocking since the budget was handed down just over a week and a half ago, and the number of people who are actually relieved and happy to hear the news that if they have got children under 18, they will be able to travel any day of the week, seven days a week, anywhere in Victoria for free – the amount of money that stays within the family’s budget that will not be now going out the door to pay for public transport will come as a welcome additional source of funds for the family to be able to deal with other challenges and costs that they have in their lives. Of course we know that seniors are a really important part of our program of supporting people when they need it the most. Free weekend public transport for seniors statewide is about making it easier for people to connect with family members – and this is a really important way for us to do it – but also to be able to enjoy all of the offerings that are available across our state, whether it is going to parts of regional Victoria or coming into Melbourne to enjoy a lot of the free assets, the natural environment, that we have or indeed other things that we promote as a government.

I really do want to talk, importantly, about free pharmacy care. Our government has made so many firsts in public policy that are being copied – or borrowed, let me say – by other governments, including the federal government. Understanding the trust that people have in their local pharmacist, being able to go in there and get that hopefully simple advice that means that you do not actually have to go to the doctor – booking the doctor has out-of-pocket expenses – is a really important way to provide that cost-of-living relief. If we can reduce for many families who are struggling that choice between paying for the doctor’s bill or buying that food for the dinner that night – if we can reduce that choice, an awful choice that many families are faced with, then that is a good thing, because we want Victorians to be able to get that medical attention and that care that they deserve and are entitled to and of course be able to feed their families or pay other essential bills. Saving time, saving money on GP visits, making sure that we can actually have more conditions that can be treated by the well-qualified medical staff at the pharmacy is a really important way that we can deliver that real cost-of-living relief immediately when families need it.

Of course we know that when kids go to school, in Victoria we have got a really fantastic school system, we have got great –

A member interjected.

Lily D’AMBROSIO: It is fantastic, absolutely. Our public school system is founded on the notion of free access to education, and that is really important. But to take part fully in all of the school activities can often mean again families are making the choices about whether they can afford to have their child go to that camp or that excursion or take part in a sporting event. We are increasing the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund payments to $400 for eligible students, and that is going to go such a long way in meeting those additional costs that are a barrier for young kids to be able to fully participate in education – in all of the ways that they receive education – and sport and engagement and socialisation with their friends and other students is a really important way of providing education.

Certainly we have got more of the Get Active Kids vouchers. They go such a long way. 65,000 of them for concession card holders – a really well designed, targeted program that goes to those people, again, who are the most in need.

We know that sport can play a really critical role in the way that young people, young kids, can actually build up their own confidence in terms of their own physical exercise. And if they are not the greatest sportsperson, who cares. But they can go out there and do their best and get some exercise. It is great for their physical health and great for their mental health, and it is a great opportunity to break down barriers, because families themselves often accompany their young kids to those sporting events. They sit down and meet other families, strike up friendships and support networks, share their experiences of how they are getting by and support and encourage each other. That is about building communities.

On this side of the house we believe in communities. We believe in the power of people coming together and working together, improving themselves and their communities and being in harmony, because that goes such a long way to the respect and the value that we place on each other as humans in a communal sense. All of that is really important because all of these things are not just individual elements of cost-of-living relief, but taken together they are well targeted to ensure that during the toughest of times Labor will always be on the side of those families. During the toughest of times we will be on the side of every family.

That is why I am really pleased also that the power saving bonus – the fifth round of the power saving bonus – is returning. That will enable those people who are on a concession card to apply for a $100 power saving bonus from around August this year. That is when they get their gas bill in particular, their energy bills. We know that winter bills are really tough, especially during cold winters, and we can already feel the cold of this winter starting up. So giving that additional relief will go such a long way for Victorian families who need it the most to be able to make ends meet. We do not want them choosing between paying an energy bill and putting food on the table or buying breakfast.

Just on that front, there is the continuation of the breakfast clubs in all the public schools, and I do want to mention last year’s budget, which basically means that from 1 July every government school will be eligible to have a breakfast club. I have visited a number of the schools in my electorate, and they go down so well. And again, there is no shame; there are no questions asked. Kids come, they get dropped off, they sit there and sometimes one of the parents or the carers might come in too and have a bite to eat, no questions asked. And that is how it should be. Everyone should have pride in the way that they engage in our community, the way they raise their children and the way they can support their children. If we can lend a hand, that is exactly what we should be doing, and that is exactly what we are doing.

There are many other things of course, including additional support for food relief. We have heard loud and clear from many of the food relief providers across the state. There are far more Victorians seeking help than ever before because of a lot of pressures, whether it is mortgage stress or whether it is the inflationary pressures of grocery prices and how that impacts and contributes to the stress around paying bills. Getting that emergency food relief is so important. But we know that a lot of these providers do more than that too. They actually lend an ear. They actually are looking at expanding their services and providing greater education opportunities – learning how to cook, learning how to perhaps grow their own food. All of these are ancillary, but they enable Victorians to have a plan about how they can get on top of the cost pressures that they are under, so that hopefully they come in and out of that really stressful relief situation that they so desperately need. But for those of course that may be in it longer term for a whole range of reasons, we will always be there to provide support when they need it.

Investing more in frontline services is really critical. We know that in early childhood education, continuing that free kinder is saving families up to $2600 a year on fees per child. There are free TAFE, upgrades and new schools.

There are many here and I will not touch on all of them, but certainly I do want to touch on the roads and potholes. Again, there is record funding for the better roads blitz to fix potholes and resurface roads. All of these things are moving along really well and are being well received.

I want to do a shout-out to some of the other commitments that we have made to the local community in the Mill Park electorate. From this budget we have committed $200,000 to construct two new cricket nets at Mill Park Lakes Recreation Reserve. The South Morang Cricket Club, a fantastic group of people – volunteers that do such good work – were absolutely excited to get this news. The South Morang Football Netball Club: we are providing them $150,000 towards a significant upgrade to the kitchen facilities. That facility is shared with the netball, football and cricket clubs, and everyone is going to benefit from that. These are all champions, these people. They are all volunteers, and they provide more than sport; they provide real comradeship. I say that in the most genuine of terms because these sporting clubs are often the second family for a lot of people in our community; I can tell you that is exactly what the South Morang Cricket Club and the South Morang Football Netball Club are in the area of Mill Park, South Morang et cetera.

We are also providing $250,000, matched with the same contribution from the City of Whittlesea, to do a massive upgrade of the oval lighting at the west oval of that same recreation area reserve. That is going to go such a long way to enabling women’s football and men’s football to play extended hours so that there is fairness in the way that that reserve can be utilised. Construction of new 100-lux LED lighting in this project includes light tower crossarms that allow space for additional lamps to be installed in future years, with the goal of upgrading lights to 150 lux.

I want to thank all of the committee members: president of the cricket club Dean Parker, secretary Bree Slater, treasurer Janine Slater, junior president Darren Slater, assistant treasurer Sarah Watson – yes, there are families that run these clubs, and this is what we have got here – and of course the football and netball club chair Gary Kallinikos, secretary Mark Stefanile, treasurer Nick McIntyre; football operations Mark Muscat, senior football vice-president Grant Pell, senior vice-president Damon Lansfield, junior football president Marco Volpe and junior vice-president Vince Alessandrino. All of these people and more are the lifeblood of the community, and I really do want to thank them for their advocacy. They have been really clear about what their needs have been, and this will go such a long way to supporting all members of those clubs.

We have also got upgrades that will be coming to our bus networks locally, so members of the community in the Wollert area of my electorate will see new bus services delivered for the first time.

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (15:28): I rise to give the Greens budget reply speech for the 2025–26 budget handed down by the Victorian Allan Labor government.

Members interjecting.

Ellen SANDELL: You are daring me to go for an hour? All right. State budgets outline government’s priorities and what they think is important, or, to adopt this government’s by-line, what they think matters most. Conversely, budgets also tell us about what governments think are less important or what this Labor government thinks matters least. The Treasurer’s speech is a good place to start, to look and see what this Labor government thinks is a priority or is not. Guess how many times the Treasurer mentioned the words ‘climate change’ in her speech? Zero. I have said climate change in my speech more times than the Treasurer did in her entire speech. This says a lot. Look at what is happening in New South Wales right now: historic one-in-500-year floods east of the Great Dividing Range, historic drought to the west of it, drought across large swathes of Victoria and South Australia – and yet climate change does not rate a single mention in the Treasurer’s speech. It should be a top-line priority for every government, in every state, in every country, in every budget, every time.

The Treasurer also did not refer to the environment once in her speech, unless you count her mention of the business environment. That is despite the fact that Victoria is in an extinction crisis. It was recently revealed that we have over 2000 threatened species and ecosystems in Victoria, and the latest state of the environment report showed that most of our biodiversity indicators are poor and declining. In a budget where Labor says it is focused on what matters most, the absence of any mention of climate change or any mention of the environment is telling. It tells us that Labor does not want to take the bold, urgent action on the climate and ecological crisis that is demanded by the science – that this is not and will never be a top priority for Labor governments. That is exactly why I am proud to represent the Greens, because for us these things are a top priority. Leaving a livable planet for future generations for us is a top priority. Protecting the environment, which we actually rely on to breathe the air and drink the water that keeps us alive is a top priority. Taking action to ensure we actually have a stable climate to live in – these are top priorities for us and they always will be. These are the very reasons why I got into politics in the first place, because I knew that Labor and Liberal and National governments would never put climate change and the environment at the top of their priority list. Labor’s budget and the fact the Treasurer did not even mention climate change or the environment once in it, is an example of that.

At a time when scientists are telling us that we urgently, immediately need to move away from fossil fuels, the statement of finances in this Labor budget made it very clear. It says in this document that Labor is committed to fast-track new fossil fuel gas developments in Victoria off our coastline. That is exactly the opposite of what the science tells us we should be doing if we care about protecting ourselves, our kids and our grandkids from climate catastrophe. Labor’s budget also does little to help us adapt to the climate change that is already in the system. A recent parliamentary inquiry heard evidence that our government needs to do so much more to protect the community and help us adapt to the warming and extreme weather conditions that are already baked into the system.

When it comes to nature and our beautiful natural environment here in Victoria, we have had several years of cuts to biodiversity environment programs which this budget does nothing to restore. The small amounts of funding that we see in this budget for nature are actually only there as a result of the Greens putting forward our budget bids to the government, such as two more years of funding for the Landcare program. Funding for Landcare, which funds facilitators to assist volunteer community groups to look after and restore our precious environment, as well as small grants for these groups to do the work that governments really should be doing – this should be a top priority. Yet Landcare’s funding was lapsing in this budget. The Greens advocated to the government to continue and increase their funding, recognising that they have not had an increase in 10 years, meaning that we have 80 incredible people, Landcare facilitators, out there across the state who are stretched absolutely thin. They are having their hours cut back and they are working many unpaid hours to compensate. They have got very low wages and no job security. We are really pleased that our advocacy has given Landcare two more years of funding. But all the department would support in the budget bid they put up was two more years of business as usual, which shows just how hard it is to get environmental funding out of this Victorian Labor government.

We are also pleased to have negotiated with the government through our budget bids to restore annual funding for Trust for Nature, which was cut by about a quarter. Trust for Nature does crucial work securing legal covenants to permanently protect nature on private land. The Greens also received a commitment that Labor will fix eligibility issues with Trust for Nature’s covenant account for vacant land, which will enable them to unlock $2 million to covenant more private properties to permanently protect them for conservation purposes.

These three wins are proof of what can be achieved when the Greens have the balance of power in the upper house, where the government needs to negotiate with us and we can get better outcomes for people and the planet. But it also shows just how hard we have to work to get Labor to fund anything to do with the environment and what would happen if the Greens were not here at all. When it comes to climate action, the Greens and many community groups have also been advocating to reincorporate ceiling insulation into the Victorian energy upgrades scheme. We have made this a key part of our ongoing negotiations with the government as well, and we are really pleased to see $12 million in this budget to add subsidies for insulation into homes that do not have any insulation or have very little at the moment.

I want to acknowledge there are a couple of other really important initiatives in the budget when it comes to this transition around getting us off gas. There was a small amount of funding to plan the offshore wind targets and temporary expansion of the heat pump and hot-water upgrades. We acknowledge the Minister for Energy and Resources’ fight to keep these programs in Victoria alive, and we know that we will need to do a lot more to get our economy off gas. The Greens are here and ready to do that work to assist the government to get homes off gas in Victoria.

Despite these exceptions, there really is little to no new funding for climate and nature in Labor’s budget. For example, the budget has nothing to fund the national parks that Labor promised us all the way back in 2021 or the future parks Labor also promised after finally ending native forest logging in Victoria. In fact year after year we see Labor cutting away frontline ecological and environmental organisations. Last year those cuts came down hard on Parks Victoria, which lost millions in funding around the same time they started a new organisational review. There was even a leak of an internal proposal to halve the number of services delivered by Parks Victoria, meaning a potential end to feral pest control, rubbish collection, the junior rangers program, bush kinder and more. Many of these programs have already been cut, and I have constituents contacting me all the time talking about how sad they are that their favourite junior ranger program or the rangers in their local national park have lost their jobs.

As we wait to see exactly what survives of Parks Victoria, it is now the Victorian Fisheries Authority’s turn to be drastically cut. For months fishers and environmentalists alike have raised the alarm over the VFA’s plan to restructure, which would get rid of around 70 frontline fisheries officer positions and replace them with less than 40 so-called engagement officers. Last week we heard that, in a small silver lining, Labor plans to partially back down on the overall cuts, but instead of losing 30 officers we will now lose 15. It might not be quite as bad, but Labor’s restructure still risks two VFA stations, at Braeside and at Altona North, and this would be a really terrible outcome for both regional jobs and sustainable fisheries. There is an ideological shift going on right now. According to the performance statements in the budget, Labor still plans to halve the number of fisheries officers during priority fishing periods, a plan that reflects the evolving focus on community engagement as part of maintaining compliance. But let us be clear what this means and what is actually going on: fisheries officers do the crucial and often thankless work of ensuring that people are not overfishing, that they are fishing according to the rules and not taking more than the law says they can, to ensure that our fisheries are sustainable into the future. But actually it does not seem Labor really gives a stuff about any of that, because what Labor wants to do is expand the number of people fishing. They want lots of people to go out and buy boats and fishing equipment to add to regional tourism, but they do not really give a stuff about the monitoring, about whether we are seeing overfishing or illegal fishing. In other words, they care about the money, but they do not care about the fisheries, the habitat, the environment or the sustainability that underpins our fisheries. And without all of that, our fisheries could collapse. It is an incredibly short-sighted approach, but it is actually not really surprising for this government to not be thinking into the long term.

This change in staffing and ideology has been slammed across the board, by recreational fishers and environmentalists alike, because many recreational fishers actually do the right thing and want to make sure that other people are doing the right thing so that fisheries are sustainable into the future. The health of our marine ecosystem relies on these fisheries officers enforcing the rules, and they are proud of their work. Getting rid of them makes no sense unless you do not care about the marine environment. The Greens have written to the Minister for Environment about these plans before, and we reiterate our plea to stop the cuts to fisheries and to national parks.

When it comes to climate change, programs to increase insulation or encourage more renewable energy are great, but they mean little unless the government listens to the science and bans new fossil fuel projects. You cannot pour fuel on the fire with one hand while claiming to put it out with the other – that makes no sense whatsoever – and it is especially worrying in a year when Labor has to make some pretty big choices here in Victoria. For example, Labor is still considering approving Viva’s gas import terminal in Corio Bay. Victoria drills for gas and exports it to other states because they have been sending theirs mostly offshore; now we are going to import it back for us to use. I mean, make that make sense. We send gas to Tasmania, South Australia and New South Wales. Australia is the world’s second-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, all for next to no royalties, because we are at the end of the day a country that is pretty much run by fossil fuel companies.

There is not a better example of how much fossil fuel companies run this country than the decision that was just made about an hour ago. The Albanese Labor government has just made a decision to approve the expansion of the biggest and dirtiest fossil fuel project in Australia, Woodside’s North West Shelf project in WA. This Woodside project will emit more emissions –

Jess Wilson: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, this is in relation to the state budget, not happenings in Canberra.

Ellen SANDELL: On the point of order, Speaker, the lead speaker of a party has licence to give a wideranging speech on the budget.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): I will rule on the point of order. It has been a wideranging debate. I draw the member back to the budget, but it has been a wideranging debate.

Ellen SANDELL: I was speaking about this budget paper right in front of me, where the Victorian Labor government say that they are committed to fast-tracking new gas developments here in Victoria, and I was relating that to climate change, which is affecting Victoria very much. The example of Labor governments, not just here in Victoria but around the country, approving new fossil fuel developments is very relevant to Victoria because we are the ones that are in drought, experiencing climate change right now. The Labor Albanese government has just approved an extension of Australia’s biggest and dirtiest fossil fuel project, the Woodside North West Shelf gas project off the coast of WA. This is a project that will emit more than the equivalent of 12 new coal-fired power stations. This Woodside project will emit more than 10 times Australia’s entire emissions. It is an absolute heart-wrenching disgrace that we have a Labor government that say they care about climate change but are happy to approve Woodside’s absolute climate bomb. And we have Greg Bourne, who was an executive at BP, so hardly –

Lily D’Ambrosio: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I know that we all have latitude in conversations and discussions in this house. I feel that this is now becoming a platform for the de facto federal member for Melbourne to enter the federal debate.

Ellen SANDELL: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, as I said before, I am the lead speaker. I know that we have had a lot of speakers in between the Labor and Liberal lead speakers and me, but I am our lead speaker, and the lead speaker actually has licence to give a wideranging debate, and I have been relating it to the impacts of climate change on Victoria.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): There is latitude given to the lead speaker in the budget appropriations bills reply, and I will allow the member to continue. There is no point of order.

Ellen SANDELL: I will just make a few more remarks on this issue. Greg Bourne, who was a former executive at BP – hardly an environmental company – himself said that Labor have just approved one of the most polluting fossil fuel projects in a generation, fuelling climate chaos for decades to come. This is criminal; there is actually no other way to talk about it. And I hope that –

Lily D’Ambrosio: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I am sorry, but I really do take issue with the fact that the member is trying to use this debate to attribute actions of a federal government to the Victorian Parliament or this budget. The two are absolutely unrelated. I mean, there is not even a tangential relationship.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): Can the member for Melbourne please come back to the state.

Ellen SANDELL: I would just say that I think this decision is criminal, and I do not know how Labor members can sleep at night knowing that their kids and grandkids will have to bear the consequences of this decision. But bringing it back to the Victorian budget, budgets are about choices; they are about choosing what matters. And it is in directly comparing choices that the Allan Labor government has decided to make – where to provide funding and where to cut it – that we can see what matters to the government. How else could we interpret the fact that the state Labor government has decided to secretly delay meeting its funding commitments under Gonski, essentially cutting funding from public schools by $2.4 billion, while at the same time it has somehow found $350 million for luxury upgrades to corporate boxes at the grand prix and $1.6 billion for prisons. Cutting funding from public schools to fund prisons and the grand prix is reminiscent of a Liberal Kennett policy from the 1990s. I almost did not believe it when I first saw it – to think that a Labor government would make that decision – but they did.

In another example of priorities gone askew, the government passed legislation last year to give people who buy apartments $61 million worth of stamp duty exemptions when buying off the plan. This was a plan that was touted as being about housing affordability, making houses more affordable, which is something the Greens very much support. But the thing is that research has since shown that the vast majority of these stamp duty concessions go to the very, very wealthy – people who do not need it, people who already have multiple apartments. One real estate agent proudly proclaimed in the Age last week how his client received a $1.1 million stamp duty sweetener from the government to buy a $20 million penthouse in Armadale. They would have bought that home regardless. They did not need $1.1 million in a handout from Victorian taxpayers to help them buy their $20 million penthouse in Armadale. The Greens tried to move an amendment to this scheme to cap the value of homes that could be eligible for this stamp duty rebate – to say that no, if you are buying a family home, if you are a first home buyer, then you can get a little bit of help from the government, but not if you are buying a $20 million apartment. But of course Labor and the Liberals rejected that, and now what this budget does is it actually extends this incentive to buy multimillion-dollar properties by another 12 months.

If handing out million-dollar sweeteners on $20 million penthouses seems bad enough, consider that at the other end of town the budget reported that the average wait time for priority women seeking housing transfers due to family violence is now 17.4 months. The target is 10 months – they say it is okay for family violence victims to wait 10 months. I do not think that is okay, but that is what the budget said the target is. But it has actually blown out to nearly 18 months. Yet at the same time, the budget cut almost $5 million from programs for the primary prevention of family violence. A woman fleeing family violence should not be waiting almost a year and a half for a home.

The thought of a woman being forced to choose between living on the streets and violence for a year and a half I think would make most people feel physically ill, but to know that there are no basic homes for women fleeing family violence available, yet the government is cutting prevention programs and it seems we can afford to give million-dollar sweeteners to people buying $20 million penthouses – I think that most Victorians would think that those are not the right priorities.

Then we look at the so-called law and order spending in this budget – billions and billions of dollars for police and for prisons. This government continues to decide to invest at the wrong end of the justice system, which is why we are no safer than were 10 years ago. Here in Victoria I do not think we would try to replicate the failed US healthcare system, yet the state government continues to double down on trying to replicate the US-style justice system from the 1980s and 90s, a system that sent several US states bankrupt while entrenching some of the highest crime rates across generations anywhere in the Western world. Nations with the lowest crime rates, the safest countries, spend multiple times more on crime prevention programs – things like the education funding that this government has just cut, things like the family violence funding that this government has just cut and things like programs to keep young people out of the justice system, which were cut last year. Instead we are spending more than $700 million of new money in this budget on new prison beds that will just entrench offending cycles. Victoria Police this year is getting more than $4.5 billion. That is almost double what Victoria Police got when Labor came to power a decade ago.

When we talk about the wrong kind of spending, do not even get me started on the private toll roads that are adding to our debt, like the North East Link and the West Gate toll road – all really proposals from private companies like Transurban that make them rich, that make their shareholders rich but make Victorians poorer and put us into debt.

These are all choices. It was a choice when this Premier took journalists on a tour around a prison in budget week; that was the choice that she made, the thing that she thought was the biggest priority to do during the budget week, boasting about how many more people will be held on remand this year. When faced with a bad-faith Herald Sun and Liberal Party campaign Labor responded by funding police and funding prisons instead of the things that we know get to the root cause of crime: early intervention programs, keeping kids out of trouble; mental and physical health services; and good, stable public housing. It is a choice not to fund our First Nations organisations, who are doing the hard work of community support, and instead put billions into prisons.

So in Victoria this budget says it is focused on what matters, but what it says is that there is limitless money for prisons, police, the grand prix and million-dollar tax handouts that benefit millionaires buying penthouses. But unfortunately Labor cannot seem to find money to fully fund our public schools, to protect nature, which we actually need to breathe and to drink water, for family violence and for mental health. The Labor budget says these things do not matter as much as toll roads and prisons; the Greens say that they do. Keeping women safe, addressing the housing and rental affordability crisis, addressing climate change, protecting the environment and investing in public schools and the future prospects of Victoria and our children – that is what matters to the Greens.

I listened to the Liberals’ budget reply speech, which predictably focused on debt and crime, whipping up fear. That is what they do; that is their playbook. But while they decry Labor’s debt, they say very little about what they would actually change or, importantly, what they would cut. Debt is not always bad if it is used to fund productive assets that make people’s lives better, but overspending on prisons, police, private toll roads is not what Victorians need. It is not good economic policy, and it is certainly not good social policy.

The thing is, there are actually real solutions on the table right now for how we could do things differently. There are ways to raise money to fund the things we need for a good life, rather than bowing to reactionary, short-term politics. Those ideas exist. For example, an idea that the South Australian government tried to implement when they had a Labor government was a tiny extra levy on the mega profits of Australia’s top banks. We could generate $16.5 billion in revenue over the next decade. Remember that the Commonwealth Bank announced an after-tax half-yearly profit of over $5 billion earlier this year – just in six months; they are not crying poor. We could raise $16.5 billion to put into climate action, public housing, free and properly funded schools and so much more, just with a small rounding off of the big banks’ super profits.

We are happy to give this idea to the government. You can have it. We love it when Labor steals good Greens policy ideas. It is never too late to do the right thing, to tax the big banks and corporations, to look at the actual evidence to improve community safety, not just look at what the Herald Sun says, and to focus on the things that really matter: public housing, universal health care, truly free education and long-overdue action on the climate and ecological crises that we are facing. That would be the kind of budget we could really get behind, and it would be the kind of budget that Victorians need to improve their lives.

Natalie SULEYMAN (St Albans – Minister for Veterans, Minister for Small Business and Employment, Minister for Youth) (15:56): What a pleasure it is to stand to contribute to the Appropriation (2025–2026) Bill 2025 and Appropriation (Parliament 2025–2026) Bill 2025. On this side of the house we are really proud of delivering a budget that is focused on what matters most for families, for children, for seniors and for households across the community, and we know that many households are doing it tough when it comes to the cost of living. That is why this budget is focused on delivering – delivering for families and delivering for young people – because we know that Victorians are working hard to deliver a better future for themselves and their families and their local communities. With this budget we are doing what matters most when it comes to delivering services and supporting families. They know that this is a government that they can rely on when things do get challenging.

We know that the Allan Labor government is supporting my local community in the electorate of St Albans with over $2.3 billion in cost-of-living relief. And I know one aspect – and peeling it down – is providing $100 in the new power saving bonus for pensioners and concession card holders, which is really important for my electorate, a vulnerable community that relies on these sorts of concessions. And there is the free public transport for under-18s every day, and I know that is something that the student council of CRC in St Albans has been advocating for and writing in about for a number of years now. The student council leaders have been advocating to get this on the agenda, and how important it is for the kids under 18 to get free public transport. This is something that I am really proud that this budget has been able to deliver. Even more, the budget will provide for grandparents and seniors to be able to travel free over the weekend across Victoria. That is also very important.

Locally, again, I am extremely excited when it comes to the $12.1 million for a new bus route connecting more residents in Cairnlea. Cairnlea has been working with me in partnership over the last two years, and I do want to thank the residents and locals who have worked with me to deliver this, together with the hardworking member for Kororoit. I know that this bus route will not only serve Cairnlea but also serve Deer Park residents. I know that this is a real opportunity to provide that extra service into Cairnlea, which will assist Victoria University Secondary College, the local primary school in Cairnlea and of course local kinders.

This is really important, and I know that in addition to that we are delivering a budget that funds bulk billing and in particular the Sunshine urgent care centre and of course the women’s health clinic at Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital. This complements Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital and of course Sunshine Hospital by providing one of the best health services in the west. There is no doubt when it comes to delivering the best quality health care, whether it is for a child or looking at the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital, it certainly continues to grow and expand in its service and care. I do also want to thank Western Health, all the staff and the team there, who do a super job each and every day caring for my constituents.

We are also backing education through investment in more free TAFE, and I know the work that Victoria University does in St Albans campus and of course Sunshine campus, providing those opportunities with free TAFE so that people can transition into secure jobs, which is absolutely important. This complements the jobs and skills centre at Sunshine, and I know that the additional support and expanding free TAFE into our local schools is absolutely something that the community is looking forward to.

Furthermore, what I am absolutely excited about is St Albans North Primary School, a school that has a long history. I know that many locals have certainly passed through the gates or know the school well. Just recently I had the opportunity to meet the new principal, Cameron Black, and I want to thank the principal, who hosted me. It was supposed to be a meet and greet for the new principal, but it ended up being more than that, and I had the absolute honour of sharing the good news that St Albans North Primary School will be part of the $10 million planning funding. This is something that the school community has been looking forward to and again working with me on in partnership for the last 12 months. I could not have been happier to deliver that news to the new principal and of course the teachers and the school community just last week. This is fantastic news for that local community – an opportunity to build important infrastructure regardless of the postcode, regardless of which suburb you live in. It is so important. This complements our delivery when it comes to delivering new school rebuilds, with Monmia Primary School at Keilor Downs and of course St Albans Heights Primary School, which is just about to complete $15 million worth of works. It has been really important to be able to work with our local school community to develop these local projects.

On top of that, of course many locals have raised, whether it is by writing to me or seeing me at the local shopping centre, the issue of Taylors Road in Keilor Downs. I know my locals have been expressing the fact that they want to feel safe, and there have been three particular intersections that continue to need to be improved. I am really happy that this year’s budget will upgrade and improve safety along the three intersections on Taylors Road from Carbine Way, all along in front of the Brimbank Aquatic and Wellness Centre and of course in front of my office at Keilor Central shopping centre. These are important works, and again I want to thank the local community for working with me to deliver these important works for my local community.

I do also want to again add my absolute support when it comes to local community groups delivering food relief for locals. We are seeing that additional funding of $18 million, and I know my local Loaves and Fishes food bank in St Albans does incredible work each and every day – volunteers feeding families across the electorate and even beyond the west. I am really delighted to see that additional funding that can help our not-for-profit groups deliver their important work.

So when it comes to delivering for families, we are helping families during cost-of-living challenges and, more importantly, doing what matters most for hardworking Victorian families. On this side of the house we know that good health care, better transport, quality education and helping families in times of need are things this government is delivering.

I know the member for Laverton was here a moment ago, but I do want to thank the member for Laverton. When it comes to this budget, we are seeing the building of the new super-hub station. The Sunshine super-hub station is a game changer when it comes to fast-tracking airport rail. We know in particular in my electorate there are many, many workers that travel to the airport and back, and I am very happy to see this project come to fruition. We will also see the rebuild of the Albion station, and I know my locals in Ardeer and Albion – you know, it has been a number of years, probably many –have been looking forward to seeing that rebuild at Albion station. I want to thank the member for Laverton for her strong advocacy and leadership on this project, because this is a game changer.

This complements the Metro Tunnel, which we will see towards the end of the year, again, connecting my electorate in particular when it comes to getting into town and of course accessing the four brand new stations along the Metro Tunnel. And we have other infrastructure that will help and assist the west, and that includes the West Gate Tunnel as well. So we can see that we are connecting more and more of the west with game-changing projects like the Sunshine super-hub, airport rail and new stations, and I am proud to say my electorate is now level-crossing free thanks to our government. I am absolutely happy to see that it is also safer, with accessibility from one side to the other. It is thanks to our government.

I can talk about our commitment and investment when it comes to veterans in this year’s budget. We will see the Shrine of Remembrance with an additional $2.4 million over two years to continue to deliver their valuable service to our community. On top of that will be ongoing funding of $4.2 million that is provided every year. Our government has supported the shrine since 2014 with record amounts of funding. Each year we have seen an increase when it comes to our funding for the shrine. I do want to thank the shrine for the work that they do, and the leadership of the Shrine of Remembrance. We support their vital role every day and in particular on Anzac Day, Remembrance Day and with the hundreds of services that are conducted each year.

We have also allocated an additional $800,000 over two years to extend the public sector veterans employment strategy. I do want to thank Major General David McLachlan for his leadership in this space. He has done mammoth work together with younger veterans so that they can transition into public sector jobs – good, secure jobs – and already we have supported over 500 younger veterans into public sector jobs. This is important work. I know that our veterans give so much, and this is one thing, one small thing, that we can give back to our veterans, who have served our country and our state. It is only right that we give them something back in securing their transition into jobs and into our community.

We have invested in small business, and we have invested in employment. And most importantly, when it comes to youth as well, in the youth portfolio we have seen the investment for our community support groups from the south-east to the west, delivering on important work and the work that they do to continue to support young people in our community.

Just today I met with the Youth Affairs Council Victoria, under the incredible leadership of Mary and the team. Thank you very much for all the work that you do. The Centre for Multicultural Youth, with Carmel and many –

A member interjected.

Natalie SULEYMAN: Yes, Carmel. Many know Carmel and the great work that she does for our young people, in particular our multicultural young people, across this state, not only in the south-east and west but also in regional Victoria. We will continue to invest in and support programs that are important for young people, that get young people on track and support young people in their journey so that they can continue to study or transition into employment, which is really important for our community.

This is a budget, as I said from the outset, that really does deliver. It delivers for families, it delivers for small business, it delivers for the future, but most importantly, it delivers on what matters most to our families in Victoria. We will continue to invest to support families, seniors and all Victorians during these challenging times. As I said, this is a budget that delivers for the electorate of St Albans and Victoria.

David HODGETT (Croydon) (16:11): I thank the Government Whip for coordinating the time so we can get a couple of speakers up on the budget this afternoon.

Members interjecting.

David HODGETT: Yes, a good whip – cooperation. I want to use my time really to focus on local issues in my electorate of Croydon. There will be plenty on both sides who talk about aspects of the budget and tax and different things that are happening statewide, but I would really like to focus on my local electorate because I want to point out some local projects and issues that I have been advocating for and working hard for and fighting for for many, many years indeed, which were overlooked or ignored. I want to continue to highlight those to the government in seeking future funding for those. But I have got a couple of positive things today. There are a couple of positive things in the budget that I would like to touch on, where there have been some small amounts of money put towards some projects that I have been fighting for for many, many years. In allocating some small amounts of money to those projects, it raises a number of questions about when these projects will commence, when they can be completed, how much money has been allocated and when more money will be coming. I will put those on record so that my community might get a better understanding of when some of these projects will be delivered.

Labor are good at this – they are very good at this. They go to an election with an election promise, and then they do not fund it for a period of years. Then towards the back end of the cycle they will drop out a little bit of money, a little bit of a trickle to get people excited that the project is coming along and will be delivered. But then if it is going to be delivered into 2027 or beyond, that is really an invitation to various people that have an interest in those projects to either vote for Labor again so it gets delivered – or is it that they have failed to deliver it as promised? That is that is in the eye of the voter, I guess. But I will point out a couple of those projects.

The first I want to speak about is the new Maroondah Hospital, or the Queen Elizabeth II hospital, as the former Premier Andrews promised back at the 2022 election. Just to go back a step further, the Labor government promised in 2018 a brand new emergency department at Maroondah Hospital, and all we saw were two portables and a tent. That is what we got there for a period of time. Then in 2022 the then Premier Daniel Andrews came out and announced $1.2 billion, I think it was, to redevelop the Maroondah Hospital, to rebuild it from the ground up. I used my members statement today to talk about that, because that was a promise that was made in 2022 and here we are in 2025 and we have not seen any money committed to it or any planning committed to it – no shovels in the ground. We are no closer to actually getting that brand new hospital built. I will go back to Dan Andrews’s tweet at the time. He said:

A re-elected Labor government will redevelop and expand Maroondah Hospital from the ground up.

That was a $1.2 billion commitment, and it was a captain’s call, as I understand it. He said at the time that it is going to be renamed the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in honour of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, but of course all that did was upset some local community groups that went on to explain the Indigenous background to Maroondah.

I am all for consideration of a name change, but I think there is a process we need to go through for that. If the Premier or the government of today wants to change the name of Maroondah Hospital to Queen Elizabeth II, I think they should need to go through a consultation and community process to achieve that outcome and get a bit of feedback. As I understand it, ‘maroondah’ is an Aboriginal word that means ‘throwing’ and ‘maroon’ means ‘leaves’. A local group did start a petition at the time explaining the name Maroondah. ‘Maroondah’ is a word from the language of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people which means ‘throwing leaves’, and using the word for a suburb of Melbourne is a simple and positive way to acknowledge the languages and culture that have been practised in the area for over 60,000 years. So again that raised a bit of a bit of annoyance to some local community groups that were not consulted on the name change.

But back to the budget: we see in the budget papers that there is a Hospital Infrastructure Delivery Fund statewide. There are three hospitals listed there, or in fact four if you count some redevelopment to two of them. One of the lines in that Hospital Infrastructure Delivery Fund statewide is ‘a new Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Melbourne’s east’, and I will come back to that. What was most concerning and what I would like the government to clarify is that it says in the same budget paper:

The TEI has reduced by $12.990 million due to a revised project scope.

Again, community members are saying, ‘What does that mean? Why has money been pulled out of that project scope? Is that for the other hospitals mentioned in there? Are they are going to be reduced? Is that for the Maroondah Hospital or the Queen Elizabeth II hospital?’ The government has cleverly said ‘Melbourne’s east’ because there has been a rumour for some time that this hospital is going to be closed and relocated to Wantirna. If that is going to happen, then the public deserve to know that.

I know Maroondah City Council – the mayor and the great CEO there Steve Kozlowski – has done a power of work, an important piece of work, to put in a plan that would see the Maroondah Hospital rebuilt in Maroondah on a parcel of land near the Eastland Shopping Centre, which seemed to be an ideal solution to this because the existing hospital could continue to function and operate rather than being knocked down and rebuilt, which will obviously have a huge impact on the health services. But a new hospital could be built while the other one functioned. Then that could be closed, and the new one, which would still be in Maroondah, could be built. The second advantage with that plan, as Maroondah City Council points out, is that it is closer to public transport. At the moment, where the Maroondah Hospital is located, I think some buses service it and obviously taxis and Ubers service it, but it is quite some distance from the railway station, whereas a new Maroondah Hospital built on that parcel of land near Eastland would be much closer to Ringwood station, so that would be an advantage there.

So they are the questions that remain. How much money in that budget paper is being allocated to the new Maroondah Hospital, or Queen Elizabeth II hospital, as the government lists it? When they say ‘Melbourne’s east’, is it still going to be built in Maroondah? And what is the timeframe? Because this was promised in 2022 as an election commitment, and here we are in 2025, some 15 months or so till the election, and nothing has been done. I think you do not have to be too smart to realise that it is very unlikely that this hospital is going to be commenced before the next election, let alone future budgets. We watch that with interest and we put that on record, asking either the minister or the Premier to clarify: how much money? Where is it going to be built? Is it going to be closed and relocated to Wantirna, as the rumours suggest? And what is the timeframe for this project?

I will move now to another one where again there is a little bit of positive news – Melba College. I have the Shadow Minister for Education at the table here, who is well aware of this project. Melba College has been promised its stage 3 works for quite some time. In fact, again, Labor has form on this. They do a full redevelopment for a school, which I am pleased with – I get a school in my electorate that is going to be rebuilt. There are plenty of new suburbs and new areas that get brand new schools built. It is not often that you have a lot of redeveloped schools in existing areas, so it is pleasing to see that. But when you commence a project, it has got to be finished. I remember we fought for Yarra Hills for years and years and years when I was first elected in 2006, because they committed money to stage 1, then it was a long time before stage 2 came, then it was a long time again. It was 10 years – a decade – before stage 3 was completed.

I remember there were some students that went to that school in, what was that, year 7, and they had finished their schooling before the new facilities were available, so they never saw the benefit of those brand new, state-of-the-art facilities. The same is happening at Melba, exactly the same, where stage 1 is promised, stage 2 is promised, the whole project is promised but of course it is trickled out. They do the new buildings for stage 1, we fight hard for stage 2, the school community waits and waits and waits and stage 2 eventually comes and now we are waiting for stage 3 to finish off. So you have not got a project that is finished, and it has gone on for years, much to the frustration of the school community and much to the frustration of the principal and leadership team there. In fact there was an embarrassing situation where the money was in the budget a couple of years ago, and they jumped for joy, only to be told by the then education minister, ‘Oh, that was a mistake,’ and it was pulled out of the budget. So again, they have had to wait and wait and wait.

Now we are wondering how much of the $12.7 million originally promised for stage 3 is actually going to be delivered, because it looks like only approximately $3.3 million has been funded for the stage 3 Melba College works, and it looks like those final-stage works will not be commenced until next year and will not be completed until after 2027. So again we have this situation where it will be a new Parliament, well past 2027, whatever flavour of government that will be – whatever colour government, red or blue, that will be; hopefully blue for our sake. But those works will have to be fought for again well into 2027 and beyond the government of the day. So how much of the $12.7 million is going to be delivered, when will the works actually start when they say 2026, and when will they be completed? The Melba College community, students, school team, leadership team and school council deserve to know those answers so they can finally get stage 3 finished with a whole brand new site and not have to worry about it for another 50 or so years.

The third positive, if I can say, that was in the budget paper is funding that was allocated – the 2025–26 budget provides some money for 19 projects in partnership with the Commonwealth government to upgrade local roads across suburbs. One of those happens to be the Maroondah Highway–Yarra Road intersection and Kent Avenue upgrade works, but it is only for planning. So again, we have fought for this money for many, many years –

A member interjected.

David HODGETT: Yes, it is good; if we can get the project done I will be happiest. But we were promised $4.6 million back in 2018; we fought for it again in 2022. That $4.6 million that was promised to ease congestion so we can get to work and school easier and have better pedestrian safety was funded. I hazard to say that that project is probably two or three times that now, and this is only the planning work. So again, great – it is a positive, but we would like to know when we could expect that these works would be actually undertaken so that the important work on pedestrian safety and the congestion at Maroondah Highway, Kent Avenue and Yarra Road will be completed. Once again, if you do the planning, there is an expectation that the project will be delivered. We do not want to see planning happen and then the project be put on the never-never for years and years.

I will turn my attention now quickly in the couple of minutes I have left to just a couple of things I will continue to fight for that were ignored or overlooked in the budget, and the main one there that we have been fighting for for many years is the funding for the redevelopment of the Mooroolbark Heights clubrooms. Mooroolbark Heights is home to the Mooroolbark Football Club and Mooroolbark Cricket Club. I have been working with the federal member Aaron Violi, the member for Casey, for many years to look at the redevelopment of the clubrooms there. It is a great success story in terms of the way the club has grown, with women’s teams, veterans’ teams, their men’s teams and their juniors, but the facilities were built back in about 1950 and are very much outdated so in desperate need of an update. I will continue to be a strong champion for the funding to deliver that necessary redevelopment and upgrade. It is disappointing that it has not been funded and disappointing that it has not got the attention of the government, because it is a terrific project that would service the area for many, many years to come.

The duplication of the rail line between Mooroolbark and Lilydale is going to need some attention at some time, and again it gets no attention in the state budget. That is a project the member for Evelyn and I are very much interested in, in terms of people using the Lilydale line all the way up there.

The other ones that I always have a keen interest in are the local charities that I support in the local area, ones that do some terrific work and for very little money. The Babes Project looks after perinatal and pregnancy services for women. Hope City Mission, the Dining Room Mission, Elishacare, SALT Sport and Life Training and the Eastern Karen Community Association all do fantastic work in our local community and deserve to be supported. Some of those groups could do a lot of work with small grants of $25,000, $50,000, $100,000. I know if SALT were given a million dollars, they could do some tremendous work across all of Victoria. I am sure some people in the house are familiar with the terrific work that Sport and Life Education do, run by Dave Burt and his team. They have some fantastic outcomes, and if they got a bit of funding, they could really make a difference. What is really annoying is when we see some of the waste, the mismanagement and the money that the government spends elsewhere that could actually go a long way to funding all of these projects and would last well into the future. I will continue to fight for those worthy projects and get them in front of ministers and the government to try and get them the attention they need and the funding in future budgets.

Pauline RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (16:26): I am very pleased to take only a couple of minutes to highlight some really important funding and budget announcements as part of my contribution on the Appropriation (2025-2026) Bill 2025 and Appropriation (Parliament 2025-2026) Bill 2025.

I am very pleased to say that Cranbourne is actually the education district inside the Education State, and I am very pleased to be able to update the house that Rangebank Primary School, under the extraordinary leadership of Adriana Allan, is going to have an amazing refurbishment. This is a school that is very well loved. What goes on inside the school is something that should be celebrated at every opportunity, but they certainly did need a refurbishment. I was very pleased to be able to have that opportunity to call Adriana. I was also pleased that Casey Fields Primary School is being expanded. Cameron Heath, again, has been a terrific leader, and the school have been so successful that their extraordinary numbers mean that they are ready for an expansion, and I am looking forward to watching those plans as they go forward. And of course Cranbourne West Secondary College will also be expanded under Rob Duncan. They are really important examples of the education district inside the Education State.

I was also pleased to call Casey Thunder, an inclusive football club with a great women’s team that have been amazingly successful. They will now have some seating that will make sure that the families that enjoy watching the team can enjoy it in comfort, and it will also benefit the cricket club.

As I wait for the sparkling member for Kew to return, I will also let people know that free public transport is going to be very welcomed by the people of Cranbourne. An amazing cost-of-living opportunity, free public transport for children and for seniors is very important.

I will take now the opportunity to commend this budget that is delivering for Cranbourne, delivering for the state and delivering cost-of-living measures that recognise that people need to be able to do what they need to look after their families, and that also includes a power saving bonus. With those few words, and with the great joy that this appropriation bill – a sensible and balanced bill – will bring to the community of Cranbourne, I look forward to the passage of this bill, and I commend it to the house.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (16:29): I rise today to talk about this disastrous set of budget figures that have been brought to the Parliament this week. I am indeed puffing, because I am a 53-year-old man who is relatively not fit and I have just spent the last 10 minutes on ABC radio because, unlike this government, ABC radio have actually listened to country Victoria and are broadcasting live from the good seat of Polwarth today. And why are they there, with hundreds of people, at the Farmers Arms Hotel in Beeac? They are there listening to the heartache and the hardship that is rampant in country Victoria today, and this budget has thrown fuel on a desperate fire in regional Victoria – a terrible load of toxic fuel on farming communities and farms and regional organisations right across country Victoria. This budget does nothing except rip more money from desperate communities, from one end of Victoria to the other. It rips that money out not to help them at times of drought, not to help them at times of national emergency or times of despair – which many, many people in country Victoria are facing at the moment. It is truly desperate.

A constituent of mine wrote on one of our many local Facebook pages this week that the cost and the availability of water are so desperate that a family with three kids can no longer even have a shower at home. They are having to go into the local caravan park each day with the kids before school to have a wash and a clean-up because they simply do not have the water at home. That family is asking what is in this budget for a family like that, because what is in this budget for that family is a big, fat new tax on their farm. In a few weeks time, when the rates notices are struck – the de facto State Revenue Office, which our 79 local councils are being turned into – they are looking down the barrel at more money being taken from their farm, taken from their pockets to come here to Melbourne to pay for the vanity projects of this government – a reckless government that is not honest with Victorians about how much its projects are costing. We have heard about the Treasurer’s slush fund – that is what it has turned into. More money now is buried in the books than in any other state in Australia. This government is hiding money there so it can write out sly cheques to pay for projects that are over time, over budget and simply not delivering a benefit to all Victorians.

This budget this year has delivered a promise to reverse a broken promise in last year’s budget for one school. One school in my electorate is receiving some money, which this government went to the last election promising that they would have had already. Not only that, but it is the most disadvantaged school I have in my electorate, Colac West Primary School. It is a great school with great principals and great leaders, but they have got a really tough cohort of kids that they have got to help look after in a very old and antiquated building. The minister in the other place and a candidate who thought that Labor could better represent the electorate of Polwarth stood before the front page of the Colac Herald and promised that community a school. The last budget cancelled it, and in this budget they have said, ‘After the next election we promise we’ll deliver you that.’ Why would that school community believe this budget. The only little bit of hope in the budget – why would that community believe it?

They only have to look at another part of the electorate of Polwarth, where this government went to two elections, 2018 and 2022, and promised a hospital in Torquay. They have got a lovely big sign – in fact the government are so broke they cannot even afford to take down a sign that is now living history. It is a living lie to the community that ‘this is the site of the new Torquay hospital’. That was cancelled in last budget. This budget delivers nothing for health care in Torquay. If you read the rhetoric online about the need for the Surf Coast community to have its brand new hospital to deal with the 20,000-odd people that live in that community – this government has now cancelled it. They have not just said they will push it into the never-never, they have cancelled it. It is not happening. The land is sitting there, and that community is going to have to continue to do the 20, 30, 40, 50-minute drive into Geelong to receive basic health care. It is not in this budget.

In this budget the fire services levy comes on top of many other taxes that have also managed to go up. The fire services levy is particularly mean because it is just a property tax by another name. It has used the goodwill and the good name of our SES volunteers and our CFA volunteers to create yet another property tax here in Victoria. That property tax from the Polwarth electorate alone is over $20 million. In a few months time this government is going to steal $20 million extra out of my three local government areas. At a time of drought that $20 million will mean the Colac Otway shire, the Corangamite shire in particular and even the Surf Coast shire are not going to be able to step up and help support their farming communities with perhaps some rate cuts, rate subsidies or rate deferrals. Any fat that might have existed in local council rates has been taken by this government to pay for overblown projects and vanity projects here in Melbourne that will never be of any use or value to the people of Polwarth.

At the same time we heard the Minister for Roads and Road Safety trying to justify why in this budget there is a reduction of some 96 per cent – can you imagine that? – in the amount of road surfacing they are going to do. On one hand, we had the minister out and the Premier – I think she may have been involved at some stage – talking about record funding for roads. Read the Weekly Times, read the Stock & Land, read the RACV and other auto journals – you name it. They have clearly identified south-west Victoria as having the roads in the worst condition. For quite some time, probably the last five years, this government has regularly told the community that the roads are in such poor condition because of the floods. Hello, minister for roads. Hello, government. We are in a three-year drought at the moment in south-west Victoria. We have record low rainfall. You have to go back to 1900 – you have to go back to before cars were even on roads – to find a time that is as dry as we are experiencing now.

For our communities to hear this government say, ‘It’s because of the floods. It’s because there’s too much water around,’ – is there more that this government could do to sound disconnected from the people of regional and rural Victoria? They have thrown new taxes at them, not just a little increase. The community often cops a 5 per cent increase, maybe on a bad day a 10 per cent increase, but no, we are going the full hog: a 150-odd per cent increase for farmers, 100 per cent for households, 100 per cent for shopkeepers. These are massive increases. At a time of cost of living and of drought, this government’s response is more taxes. They are not going to repair the roads. Let us face it: you would actually get more bang for buck repairing roads in a drought because you would have less delays, and curing and sealing of roads would probably be more successful. But no, we are seeing a 90-odd per cent cut in the amount of effort this government is going to put into patching and repairing roads. That is a huge disappointment.

I will tell you something else that has really disappointed the community, and I am sure it will be a topic of conversation at the Farmers Arms Hotel with 774 this afternoon. Every single business, every single household and every single farmer in my electorate is going to be paying a lot, lot more, but there is a cohort of people that are actually getting a really good deal. They are getting about a 95 per cent reduction in their fire service tax. If you are a big-box retailer down here in Melbourne, a big blue-and-yellow furniture sales shop that might just happen to be Swedish and have allen keys – I do not know whether there is a connection with the allen key there or not – and you are owned by one of the richest families in the world, this government has said, ‘Do you know what? We’re going to give you a 95 per cent reduction.’ Acting Speaker, can I tell you how galling that is to farm communities?

In winter last year we saw a wind turbine catch fire, and it could not be put out. We learned that when a wind turbine malfunctions and catches fire we cannot put it out. We have to let it burn. To the north of my wonderful electorate of Polwarth we have the world’s biggest wind farm being built at the moment, owned by the big blue box furniture retailer that is foreign owned by one of the wealthiest families in the world. That is sitting there to the north of my electorate, along with many, many others owned by companies from Spain and China and all around the world. They are potential fire hazards. They certainly have the odd little spark fire during construction, and we often see our local CFA volunteer crews going out to keep the community safe and put out the little spot fires. But that is okay. They are industrial enterprises.

How do you think those communities feel when they are trucking in water, trucking in feed, losing money hand over fist and this government says, ‘But hang on a minute, big multinational companies, we’re going to give you a 96 per cent reduction in your fire service levy. On the Golden Plains wind farm, for every billion dollars we’re going to save you about a million dollars a year’ – that is extraordinary. This government’s whole argument is ‘We have to have this big new tax to keep people safe from climate change, we’ve got to keep people safe from increasing emergencies and we’ve got to have more money to spend in Melbourne on vanity projects. We need to do that.’ Yet they are saying, ‘Hang on, biggest, richest multinational energy companies, we’re going to give you a heap of money back.’ That is certainly not going onto people’s bottom lines in lower energy prices or lower costs – no, siree, it is certainly not. In fact – all the evidence came out this week – we are seeing massive increases to energy prices. This government has given away money to multinational companies in regional Victoria for no clear benefit for those communities. I can tell you now that is yet another nail in the coffin of this operation here in Victoria at the moment. It is grossly unfair. It cannot be justified. It is another reason why this budget this year is yet another example of how this Labor government has completely lost touch with the community and is refusing to listen.

Before the budget was handed down, in the last opportunity in the sitting week before, I raised again on behalf of the Polwarth community the need for urgent funding down in Apollo Bay for the surf lifesaving club. The Apollo Bay Surf Life Saving Club has a huge amount of rescues every year. It is one of the major surf lifesaving clubs that keeps our tourists, our visitors and our locals safe every year on the Great Ocean Road. This government has had an opportunity now for about five budgets in a row to support that organisation to make sure it has the facilities it needs to keep people safe on the beach but also to reward the effort of those emergency service volunteers – mind you, they will not be getting anything out of the big new taxes that they are all paying down in Apollo Bay. Here is this opportunity this government could have had to do a wonderful deal with the local P–12 school in Apollo Bay and the surf lifesaving club on a joint venture to fix up that facility and provide a real hub of excellence for young people to learn about blue-water ocean safety, and this government has not taken that up.

They also did not take up the opportunity to look after the Birregurra Recreation Reserve, which has been lobbying long and hard for an upgrade of facilities. In fact in the main areas of the rec centre hall there are literally holes in the floor. It is in very poor condition. It is antiquated. It is a good 60-‍plus years old in terms of its shower and change rooms. It is a really important hub. There is the cricket club, the netball club, the tennis club, the car club in the local community and the footy club. These are important bits of local infrastructure that this government has not seen fit to back and support.

To finish up, we then get to the fact that – if I can just take a minute on the fisheries – this budget has locked away enormous cuts to fisheries. In an electorate like mine, where one whole southern boundary is of course the wonderful Great Ocean Road and the ocean is out there, we should have a thriving and sustainable fishing community. We have had fisheries officers for a long, long time making sure that people do the right things in those communities. This budget sees the end of that sustainable, well-managed fishery along the Great Ocean Road. It sees the end because the fisheries officers and the inspectors that the community relies on to make sure people do the right thing will be eliminated.

This government talks a lot about ‘The Liberals will cut things’ – it is not the Liberals that cut services and cut good governance and good management of the state, it is the Labor Party. The Labor Party has cut that, because again, you do not need fisheries officers in the seats in suburban Melbourne – no, you do not. You need them out in regional Victoria – and yet another cut. Regional Victorians in this budget will be paying more and getting a lot less – less on their roads, less in their services, less protection of our fisheries and nothing to help with the drought situation that is crippling Victoria. It is a high-taxing, low-output budget.

Belinda WILSON (Narre Warren North) (16:44): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.