Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Matters of public importance

Government performance

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (16:01): I have accepted a statement from the member for Brighton proposing the following matter of public importance for discussion:

That this house condemns the Allan Labor government for a decade of debt, deficits, infrastructure blowouts and mismanagement that has driven Victoria into a deepening cost-of-living crisis due to:

(1) delivering reckless and irresponsible budgets that leave families worse off, underfund essential services, and push our state further into debt;

(2) running cash deficits and driving net debt to $194 billion by 2028–29, with Victorians then paying $28.9 million in interest every single day;

(3) wasting more than $1.2 million every hour on interest payments, money that should be going to important services like nurses, teachers and police;

(4) imposing or increasing more than 60 taxes since Labor came to office;

(5) overseeing a record high unemployment rate for 14 consecutive months; and

(6) allowing electricity prices in Melbourne to rise by 16.2 per cent in just one quarter, seven times the overall CPI increase.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (16:02): I rise to speak on the matter of public importance that I have proposed, which is at its core about the government’s budget and economic mismanagement over the last decade and the impact that is having on our state, on our economy and, at the end of the day, on every household in this state. I will start by saying the Treasurer has just returned from New York, where she, at the taxpayers luxury, begged the credit rating agencies to not downgrade our state’s credit rating. And it matters, because our credit rating obviously impacts the costs we pay on this great big ticking debt bomb the government has created but also it reflects what the global community thinks of our state’s economy. It is worth noting that we are the worst graded in this country. Is there any surprise, after a decade of mismanagement? Though the Treasurer would have you believe it was an important trip that was ‘positive’, as the Treasurer said, what did the credit rating agencies say about the trip? They said:

We view Victoria’s commitment to controlling operating costs, delivering promised savings, and slowing growth in debt as important for maintaining the –

current –

… credit rating …

hang on, hang on – and:

However, these goals have proven to be difficult to achieve in recent years.

What does the credit rating agencies’ assessment actually mean? ‘We don’t believe them. We think they have no hope of managing their budget or certainly controlling debt.’

I can start with quite an interesting little find. Most people would not remember this, when this new Treasurer took the reins and gave her first public interview and talked about her job.

Richard Riordan interjected.

James NEWBURY: No, we are going to get to that, member for Polwarth. She talked about one of the important goals she saw in the job back in March. The Treasurer said:

Am I comfortable with our debt levels? No, that’s why I’m taking active steps to reduce it …

That was in March. You would listen to that promise, and you would think, in May, guess what we will get? We will get a budget where debt is reduced. It is a promise: ‘I’m taking active steps to reduce it.’ Well, what happened with the budget? We have seen a debt level that is now making Tim Pallas blush. He is blushing. We are about to get to a record $200 billion in debt. If the Treasurer is actively reducing debt getting it to $200 billion, I do not want her to stop trying. Imagine the level of debt if she stops trying to reduce it and gets it to $200 billion. Imagine what it is going to be if she stops trying – $200 billion while trying to reduce the debt. It is so bad. You can just imagine the ratings agencies scratching their heads in these meetings and thinking, ‘Are these people serious?’

But the Treasurer probably took some important people with her from the department to provide advice. Well, it is funny that she should talk about that, and she did. She talked about how she took the ‘bonds people’ with her to her meeting. That is a direct quote. The Department of Treasury sent a funny little text message to the opposition today that said, ‘We don’t have any bonds people.’ The Treasurer is boasting about taking the bonds people with her on the trip, and Treasury is briefing behind her back, because she does not know what she is talking about. I think it is important to pick up on that, because when you are managing the economy you have got to be able to understand what you are doing. Unlike the first thing the Treasurer said when she took the job – she said the job was going to be fun – if you wreck the economy when you take the job, you should hardly use words like ‘fun’ to describe what you are doing.

Tim Richardson interjected.

James NEWBURY: That is right. ‘It’s only been six months,’ says the member for Mordialloc. I do not know how she can bugger it up any worse. I do not know how much worse she can do in the four months that she has been in there. This is a Treasurer who promised to reduce debt while increasing it. You can just imagine what would happen if she promised to increase it. It is getting up to $200 billion – extraordinary. But the job is fun, she says. It is fun. Unbelievable. We know, and I am not having a go, that when the briefs come in now they are a little bit simpler – no economic terms. I understand that the Treasurer made sure, as the Treasurer personally said, that the economic terms had to be taken out. Fair enough; I have no issue there.

I think probably the lowlight for the new Treasurer, and there have been a couple, was the most recent appearance at the economic meeting where she said to a big group of stakeholders, hundreds of stakeholders, ‘What’s your favourite tax?’ I mean, talk about throwing a dead cat on the table. What is your favourite tax? I am sure every single person in that room could think of numerous taxes they hate, because we are the most overtaxed state. As I often say, I do not like tax, but if people were being taxed and they were getting the best services in the country as a result, if they were getting incredible services, if the streets were paved with gold, if they called an ambulance and they did not die waiting for it, they would say to themselves that maybe some of this big-taxing government’s tax is being spent wisely on government services. But we have got the worst services.

How is it we have the biggest taxes and the worst services? Only this Labor government could do it. When the Treasurer gets up and says to a room of smart people who the government wants to continue to invest in this state, ‘What’s your favourite tax?’, is there any wonder why within moments the room was seething, wanting to send the message out to the broader community that this Treasurer just does not get it? I picked that particular lowlight over the previous gaffe of the Treasurer where she was asked about the great big new dog of a tax, the emergency services tax, a $3 billion tax, and said, ‘Well, Victorians can afford to pay more.’ So we have now got a Treasurer who is not only joking around about the job being fun and joking around and asking people which of the overtaxing burden is their favourite tax but now believes that Victorians can afford to pay more. Well, they cannot, which is why the opposition has already announced that we are going to cut five taxes.

You can see that the Labor members have never even dreamed of getting rid of a tax. What does scrapping a tax look like? I can see the confused looks across the other side. They have never, ever seen a tax scrapped. They have never, ever seen a tax taken off the statute books. All they know is how to increase tax. That is all they know how to do. We know that is true.

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! If the members for Preston and Narracan want to have a chat, I can arrange it.

James NEWBURY: To help the members on the other side understand, we on this side are going to reduce the tax burden. We are going to take less money away from Victorians, because at the end of the day, this is the thing Labor never, ever, ever remember when they are in government: the money that comes in through tax is not their money; it was first earned by a Victorian, and they worked for that money. They worked and they sweated, and then that was taxed and that was brought into the government coffers. It should be very carefully used, and that is unfortunately what this government has forgotten.

So we will get rid of five taxes. We have already committed to that. Five taxes already off the burden on Victorians’ backs – that is the type of structural change this state needs. It will also help get this state moving again, because we know this state has big problems economically. Despite what the Treasurer, whose job is fun, or the Premier try and convince people to believe, this state has serious problems, and because of that it is hurting Victorians and there is a cost burden on Victorians. I have just spoken about tax, but it is in other things too. We have spoken a lot about the energy changes in this state. As a result of the mismanagement by the ideological minister, the cost of energy is clearly one of the most crippling costs on every Victorian household – total mismanagement from this ideological minister, who simply wants to ban gas purely because she does not like it. How could you get to a point as a government where you ban a core resource purely because you ideologically do not like it?

The Treasurer, I do not think, has ever come up with the idea of reducing a tax and before the budget promised no new taxes – on the same day as introducing a $3 billion tax through this Parliament. But there is another one in the budget of course: the expanded congestion levy. What I understand is that the government took the congestion levy measure out of the associated budget bill purely so that they could do it a few weeks later and claim there was no new tax. Very shortly we will see a new tax bill in this Parliament which banks on a new congestion levy which is in the budget papers. That new tax, the congestion levy, is in the budget papers, so to claim there is no new tax is simply wrong, and people can now see it.

Everyone knows the overburden of tax in this state. Everybody can see the economic mismanagement.

Emma Kealy: Not everyone. Not the Premier.

James NEWBURY: Member for Lowan, I think the Premier is very well aware of how hopeless she is. But what we can see from the last 10 years of their budget management is the difference between what was budgeted and the outcome of spending blowing out by $129 billion. No responsible government could budget and then blow out their spending by $129 billion above, over 10 years, what they committed to spend, at an average of $14 billion a year. If you say the budget is worth around $100 million, how could you possibly blow it out by an average of almost 15 per cent a year by accident? It is not an accident; it is totally duplicitous.

This government has totally mismanaged the budget and, as a result, it is tanking the economy. Taxpayers, in and of themselves, are not sitting there gagging for another tax: ‘Which is our favourite?’ They are not sitting there saying, member for Mordialloc, ‘Oh, I don’t know which one is my favourite; I love paying these taxes.’ They are saying, ‘We’re going to invest somewhere else.’ That is what they are all saying. The proof is clearly there. They are moving their money because they know that economically this state is going down the wrong path – as do the credit rating agencies, which they have made clear. This Treasurer needs to come clean and start managing the budget in a responsible way, because taxpayers’ money should be spent more wisely. This government should be condemned for their budget mismanagement, for the economic vandalism that they are causing to this state and for the damage they are causing to every Victorian household.

Members interjecting.

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (16:17): I will repeat myself from last week, member for Polwarth: if I were you, I would not be sitting over there and critiquing the performance of some of the people on the government benches.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Through the Chair, member for Tarneit.

Dylan WIGHT: I am up to make a contribution. I would not say it is a pleasure having to follow the ghastly performance of the member for Brighton, the Shadow Treasurer, and his year 7 explanation of tax receipts in Victoria. I mean, I would rebut some of it, I would speak to some of it, but it was all utter dross. The member for Brighton should hang his head in shame, as should his staffer, who I assume is a member of the Young Liberals, for putting that utter reheated Liberal trash on a piece of paper and bringing it into this place for people to debate. It was reheated Liberal Party absolute utter nonsense. That is all it was, and those on this side of the house will take pleasure in picking it apart, 15 minutes at a time.

I tell you what, I will at least give the member for Brighton a shred of credit for staying on message. At least he is in here talking about financial management, pretending to do his job and talking about the budget, whilst in the other place we have got Moira Deeming talking about who can and cannot use public toilets. They are a party room full of deadbeats that care more about playing politics than –

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I understand that a matter of public importance usually has some colourful words within it and some accusations. However, I believe the member for Tarneit has strayed very far from the MPI that was put forward very eloquently by the member for Brighton.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: On the point of order, it is a very broad MPI; however, the member for Tarneit might have been straying a little. I ask the member to come back to the MPI.

Dylan WIGHT: Deputy Speaker, I appreciate that, and I will try and keep my language in the realms of parliamentary language as much as I can, but it can be hard from time to time after having to listen to the utter trash from the other side. Those opposite care more about politics and drumming up fear in the community than about anything to do with the Victorian economy. I use some colourful words to describe them, but in all honesty my 11-year-old son could join the Victorian Liberal party room and be leader of the opposition in about two weeks because he can use more than 2 per cent of his brain. They are an absolute dangerous show, and every single time they get up in this place and speak they illustrate that, time and time and time again.

In this matter of public importance raised by the member for Brighton and the Young Liberal member that works in his office, we have:

(1) delivering reckless and irresponsible budgets that leave families worse off …

Why don’t we just go to the budget that has just been delivered and the cost-of-living measures that are within it to support Victorian families and to support working Victorians. Let us just go through a few of them. I know the constituents in my electorate of Tarneit absolutely love it. For the extension of the Get Active Kids vouchers program there was $15 million, making sure that every single Victorian kid has the fantastic opportunity to play community sport, because it is not just great for them from a health perspective, it is great for them from a social perspective as well. Communities are built around community sporting clubs. I for one was lucky enough to be able to grow up using one or two myself. This makes sure that every single Victorian kid gets the same opportunities that I got as a child to stay healthy, to stay fit, but also to build social connections and relationships – absolutely fantastic.

The big one: I have been out doorknocking the last few weeks, as you do as a member of Parliament – on this side of the house anyway – and at every door that I knock on free public transport for children under the age of 18 comes up. When does it start? What does it apply to? Can my child use it? Well, indeed they can. My community of Tarneit is a mobile community. People come in and out, they move around, they go into the city and they go down to Geelong, and they use public transport. A lot use public transport to get to school every day, just on a normal bus route because there is not a dedicated school bus. The school does not have a dedicated school bus. So that means that those children that do that every single day that are under the age of 18 now do that for free, saving almost $800 per child per year. It is an absolutely fantastic initiative directed straight at Victorian families. Contrary to what the member for Brighton says in point (1) here, that goes straight to Victorian families to keep money in their pockets.

In the same vein there is free PT statewide for seniors on weekends. We all know people who have or perhaps ourselves have loved ones – grandparents, parents that live outside of our own community, that live a commute away, and this will make sure that those loved ones that are seniors over the age of 60 who need to commute to come and see you or maybe to come and see their grandkids or maybe to come and see their great grandkids will be able to do that for free from 1 January.

What else have we done – we have increased the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund payments to $400. Like I said about the sport vouchers to be able to participate in community sport, this makes sure that every Victorian kid in every state school will not miss out on fantastic things like camps and excursions.

For people that may be less fortunate, people that may be struggling, parents that may be struggling, those are the things – the luxuries – that unfortunately, struggling families cannot afford. Because of this Allan Labor budget those families and those kids will no longer go without. Point (1) on this is just utter trash. The member for Brighton should genuinely be embarrassed for bringing it into this house. Those opposite – well, some of them that can stay on message – bang on about debt all the time. Only some of them do, because like I said, they are a party room full of people that pretty much take their brain out before they speak. They talk about debt a lot. What they refuse to do is talk about economic growth. So why don’t we do that?

Victoria’s economy is projected to grow by 2.5 per cent in 2025–26. What that means is since 2018, which includes the pretty economically debilitating years of the COVID pandemic, Victoria’s economy would have grown by 14 per cent, which is a pretty massive achievement, particularly when you compare it to other states in Australia. What ranking do you think that is of any state in Australia, member for Mordialloc?

Tim Richardson interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Through the Chair.

Dylan WIGHT: Well, I would just ask the Chair, but he cannot respond. That is the best economic growth of any jurisdiction anywhere in Australia. In fact it is 4 per cent higher than New South Wales. It is 5 per cent higher than WA, and it is higher than Queensland – both states that are resource rich, get good receipts from their commodities and have a fair bit of our GST as well. But the Victorian economy still outperforms each of those jurisdictions, and by a considerable margin. The member for Brighton actually knows this; I will give him that much credit. He knows this. When you talk about Victoria’s economy, you cannot just talk about debt in isolation. We have, since coming to government, had one of the largest infrastructure programs that this state has ever seen, probably second only to Bolte, I think, who also had higher debt to gross state product than what this government did, because he believed in building things. Those opposite have never seen an infrastructure project that they have not wanted to rip up, and they will do it again.

The most concerning part about all of this, apart from of course that the member for Brighton thought this was a good idea, is that they want to sit there and say that they will be better economic managers. They want to stop five sources of resource coming in to the Victorian budget. They will sit there and they will say that they will keep the Victorian budget in a surplus, and I am sure they will say at some point that their surplus will be higher. What we have to ask ourselves, what the people of Victoria have to fundamentally ask themselves and what that lot need to be honest about is what they are going to cut. What spending are they going to cut? What cost-of-living measures are they going to cut?

The member for Brighton, if he had the gumption, would be honest about this going into the 2026 election. I cannot really say ‘the member for Berwick’, because we have got no idea what position he is going to be in in two, three, four weeks, let alone three, four, five months, let alone 18 months. I do not think we can confidently say that he will be the Leader of the Opposition. What I am confident in is that the member for Brighton will cut a deal for himself once again and probably still be in that position.

What he should do is come clean coming into the election and tell the Victorian people –

Nicole Werner: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker: relevance.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for the very succinct point of order – worthy of note.

Dylan WIGHT: On the point of order, Deputy Speaker, this is an MPI about the Victorian budget and financial management, and I am talking about them cutting things out of the budget.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: On the point of order, this MPI is very broad, as I said. I think the member may have been straying from the topic, but he can come back to it, because so far we have been pretty well on.

Dylan WIGHT: As I said, we will go to point (2) here, where they criticise the government for net debt, for running a cash deficit and for Victorians paying interest every single day. The only way for that lot over there to reduce any of that is to cut things out of the budget. So come clean. Have the gumption to come clean with the Victorian people and allow them to make a choice – a choice between them and an Allan Labor government that supports Victorian families and Victorian students with free public transport and with the $400 school saving bonus; that supports seniors with free public transport on weekends; and that supports Victorian students, making sure they can go to camps and excursions and do not miss out on the very best parts of school. Even Zoos Victoria – kids go free. They will cut that. They will cut breakfast clubs again. They cut Fresh Fruit Friday last time they were in government. Breakfast clubs will go, meaning that Victorian kids in vulnerable areas in particular will go to school hungry, and we know that educational outcomes are not as good when they do.

I have described those in that party room a few different ways during this contribution. What the Victorian people need to know is that they are a dangerous, dangerous show, and if they ever get their hands on government again, we know that they will slash and burn everything that is important to Victorian families.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (16:32): I rise today to speak on the member for Brighton’s matter of public importance. Upon opening, I would like to take some of the rhetoric out of the debate that we have heard so far, because at the end of the day this is much more than political statements. It is much more than just the numbers which are in the budget papers. It is much more than just having a swipe at the government, at different ministers or at the Premier, because there has been a budget cut in black and white in the budget. This is about the families and the individual Victorians who will suffer as a result of a budget that just applies more taxes, gives back less and less to the Victorian people and takes away the hopes and dreams of Victorians who want to aspire to do more and be rewarded for their hard work and their effort. That is something that we used to be proud of as Victorians and Australians – that if you work harder, you are rewarded for that effort. You get to retain that money in your pocket or in your business, and you get to make decisions about what you want to do for your own growth, for your family’s growth or for your business’s growth, to stimulate the economy and create more jobs.

We are at a tipping point in Victoria where socialism is on full display after 21 of the past 25 years of a Labor government. What socialism means – and this is something I am hearing from very young people as well as older people in the Victorian community – is that the harder you work, the more taxes get taken out of your pocket and out of your business. This is money that is just going into the Labor government, and we do not get a choice about where that money is spent. We do not get it laid out before us before an election. What we hear during the budget is just spin and complete and utter rubbish about inputs and nothing about the outputs. It is never about the outcomes. It just shows time and time again that Victorians are paying the price for a Labor government that is addicted to taxes, is addicted to waste and does not hold itself to account because it is in total denial of the destruction it is applying to every single Victorian.

You talk about things that we would cut. We would cut taxes. We have already committed to cut five taxes. The Nationals and the Liberals will cut five taxes. We have committed to that. We will cut the waste. We will cut the corruption. Let us get back to governing for all Victorians and giving some of that choice back.

There are a lot of people who are doing it very, very hard at the moment. There are people taking on multiple jobs. They are cutting back not just on the finer things in life on the food that they are buying because it is really expensive. Food prices have gone up 30 per cent under this term of Labor. It costs 30 per cent more to feed a family and to make sure that it is nutritious, and they are doing their best for their children. We see bills just going up and up and up. We have had a massive increase to power bills, a 22 per cent increase in power bills since 2021. Gas bills have increased by nearly 9 per cent. There has been a more than 30 per cent increase in people turning to Foodbank to help feed their families. We have got more than 1 million Victorian households in mortgage or rental stress, and yet this government want to talk about what they are delivering.

I thought it was absolutely revolting yesterday to hear the Minister for Health on a question which involved somebody who had died, who had bled out waiting for an ambulance, to include in her response that this is the dividend of what they are doing. Well, it is the dividend. We have got death and disaster and absolutely catastrophic failures right across this Labor government, who have completely lost their way. They are addicted to taxes. They are addicted to making sure that nobody has any transparency or understanding over where that money is going. They are not focused on outcomes to make sure Victorians are safe or to make sure that there are appropriate fire services over the summer. There has been a $200 million cut to emergency services, and yet what are we being told right across the state – we are going to have a $3 billion tax, and that that is going to deliver more funding to emergency services to fix these problems that have plagued the state of Victoria since there has been a Labor government in place.

There is one solution and one thing that Victorians can do differently at the next election, and that is to vote 1 for the Nationals or Liberals in their seat in the lower house and in the upper house. That is the only way we can end this trail of destruction that Labor are leaving. I fear for my children’s future, and I hear this from other families right across the state. They think we are beyond a tipping point. We are heading to a debt bill of $200 billion – that is $200,000 million. This means that our children will be paying. It is not even our children. Very soon, in the next couple of years –

Members interjecting.

Emma KEALY: It will be generations. But in the next couple of years we are going to be spending $1.2 million each and every hour just on interest to the big banks. That is not delivering for any Victorian. It is just Victorians paying the price for a Labor government that is addicted to waste and that is not transparent.

They are only interested in getting into their ministerial vehicles, living it up at different events and making sure that they are living the high life. Labor have lost touch entirely with the families that they say that they represent the best, the people who are struggling. The Labor members here have got no connection to the people who are doing it tough. I talk to them every day when I am out in the community. There are people who are really struggling. I talk to people who are in tears. They cannot make ends meet. Young people are saving up to buy a house but then realise that it is going to cost an absolute fortune; in fact 42 per cent of any home they buy is going to be made up of government taxes, which means that they cannot afford a home. They cannot afford to put curtains in the home. They cannot afford to landscape it. It has killed the Australian dream. This is why we are listening, and it is something that Labor have forgotten to do. They are just relying on the spin doctors, focus groups and what looks good and thinking about how they can line their own nests and get a donation back in return, rather than putting Victorian people first, and that is an utter disgrace.

I think the worst example of that is how the government have completely stuffed up the emergency services volunteer tax and caused so much mental anguish and grief for Victorians right across the state.

It is a doubling of that tax for every single household, whether you are a renter or a home owner. It is a doubling of that tax for every single business in the state, which will just push up the cost of living and the cost of buying goods and services in the community – and it triples for farmers. We know through the drought support that this will be waived for just one year. Now, I might not have finished that crystal ball course, but I am guessing they are going to extend that for another 12 months because I do not think they want the first rate notice to be a couple of months out from an election with a big highlight on there from councils saying, ‘Labor’s great big new tax is going to hit here.’ They are not going to want to do it. So my little punt, my top tip for next year, is that that will be extended for another year.

While I am on drought support, I really do urge the government to get on with providing on-ground support for our farmers. The longer that you leave this, the higher grocery prices will get and the more farmers will leave the industry, and they are great farmers who are looking at selling up. We are losing so much breeding stock at the moment, and while we have got a taste of what could come in terms of farmer support, there is a lot more that could be put in place. We look at waiving water rates, fees and charges, and council rates. We can also look at further supports around cartage. I listened yesterday to Kevin from BlazeAid. Good on BlazeAid, who have come out and said that they are going to provide the freight subsidies. They are going to pay all the freight for fodder out of Queensland. And what Kevin said on Victorian Country Hour with Warwick Long yesterday was ‘If the government won’t do it, we will. BlazeAid will.’ I congratulate and I thank BlazeAid, because every single time there is a fire, they are in my community. They have just pulled out of Willaura. And if I can mention Willaura for just one moment, I would like to congratulate Pete Sporton, not just because he is an amazing Collingwood supporter and makes the best vanilla slice in the state, but I saw on his window he has banned Jacinta Allan from his store. I commend him for doing that because he knows that he is standing with his community, he is standing with businesses, he is standing with his local firefighters and he is standing with every single Victorian that is paying the price for a Labor government that has completely lost its way and must not be re-elected in 2026, in just 527 days.

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (16:42): Well, that was weird, and I do not think a vanilla slice is going to erase that weirdness for some time. But I am going to go and talk on the matter. I do not know who the previous speaker was speaking to, but I am going to speak to all Victorians, which is what we do on this side of the house. We constantly speak on behalf of, represent, advocate, pass bills in this house, hand down budgets and manage the Victorian budget for all Victorians.

When I saw this motion I slightly laughed. I was not really surprised. It goes without saying that those opposite, even the member for Brighton, are not really original in demonstrating what they believe in, what they will fight for – or against, I might add – and what their vision is for Victoria. If anyone here in this place, including those opposite, could articulate their vision for Victoria going forward – they have got some time. The member for Lowan talked about how many days, and I am really glad that she is counting the days and weeks and minutes to the next election. They have some time; they can develop something. There were things talked about here in this place on the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 earlier today that the Libs might be putting forward as policy for the state election following their counterparts in Queensland, but they always default to the usual rhetoric on debt and on deficits. We have seen that from the Liberal Party since forever. As the chair of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, and having spent the last two weeks doing budget estimates, it is all I have been listening to for the past two weeks. In fact I think this motion is actually pretty much a recycled one from last year. If we dig deep into Hansard, we might find that it is. It is certainly a recycling of the member for Brighton’s budget reply speech. Remember that one? If you had to go on the way that those opposite talk about Victoria, you would be forgiven for thinking that this was the worst place to live in the country. Here on this side of the house we stand up for Victoria. We stand up for all Victorians. This is a great, great place to live.

In fact I was just looking at something on my phone, and my staff were talking to me about some kind of recent announcement about it being the most livable state or the most livable city to be in. That is something we should feel proud of, and I am so sick of listening to those opposite talk down this state like it is a terrible place to live, it is a terrible place to move to, it is a terrible place to raise their family. In fact I do not know why they do not get in their cars and hightail it out of this state and head into New South Wales. Let New South Wales deal with them. All you hear from them is that Victoria is broke and the sky is falling in. It is doom and gloom. It is catastrophic politics. They are in total crisis mode. That seems to be what they have in common with the Greens party, constantly being in a state of crisis – the world is in a state of constant crisis. The community do not need its leaders to be acting as though they are in a constant state of crisis.

When you look at what is actually happening in this state, you see that nothing could be further from the truth. We are not in crisis. There are great things happening here. There are great people and great places to visit in Victoria. We have great local businesses. I wish that those opposite could get behind them and support them. They are constantly talking down businesses and the state of business here in this state. There are challenges, yes, to be sure; there are challenges in every state, in every city, in every country in the world. There are challenges, but let me say this: those challenges will never be solved by the bizarre and weird rhetoric of those opposite. You have already heard from two of those members opposite – weird, bizarre and visionless.

All they do is talk down Victoria, and quite frankly I get sick and tired of having to listen to it. You never see them celebrate the great things in this state, like our new schools. New schools are something to celebrate, or indeed our transformative infrastructure projects. Everyone here in this place knows my favourite project since I came into this place is the West Gate Tunnel, mostly because I have been stuck in traffic for – number of years while that tunnel has been built. I tell my husband, ‘The West Gate tunnel is ours, honey.’ It belongs to the western suburbs. But do you know what – those opposite, like the member for Brighton and the member for Prahran, will be able to use that tunnel. You will see the benefits of using one of the biggest tunnel-boring machines in the world to build a tunnel – two tunnels actually. I was down there recently and checked it out. I cannot wait to go back down again. It is going to unlock the traffic, the way in which Westies and others – interlopers, I like to call them – will use that tunnel in and around accessing the western suburbs, accessing the city. It is actually going to revolutionise the way people in the western suburbs travel, including me and including my long-suffering husband.

You never hear about that from those opposite, and I tell you what: I know that they will be in their car or they will be on the platform at a turn-up-and-go service at Metro Tunnel. Maybe they will be at Parkville station, which is my favourite station, mostly because they have got a big sign saying ‘Sunshine’. It is the number one platform from memory, having been down at Parkville station recently. They will stand on that platform for something like 10 seconds. The train will turn up, just like they do in Paris. The glass will be there, the doors will open. They will be able to see which carriage is more congested than another, if they want to see. They will get onto that train, and those members opposite and their families and their children will go, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing.’ The problem is those opposite, the members that sit here in this place, will have to go, ‘Sh, don’t tell anyone.’ But I guarantee you it will blow their minds when they actually get to use it. And that will open later this year, as will West Gate Tunnel.

But I want to talk about government debt and I want to talk about government deficit, because it is true that our government has incurred debt. We borrowed to build. We built new hospitals, like the biggest infrastructure spend in the history of Victoria – $1.5 billion for Footscray Hospital at the gateway of the western suburbs. We need more hospitals in Melbourne’s west. It is why we are building Melton hospital. It is why we are upgrading the emergency department at Werribee Mercy Hospital. We are building Point Cook hospital and we are building Footscray Hospital, which the Minister for Health Infrastructure sitting here at the table I think sneakily told me is the second biggest outside the CBD. It is an amazing, amazing, amazing achievement.

We borrowed to build the transport infrastructure and the upgrades that Victoria needs – projects like the Metro Tunnel, which will revolutionise our train network and unclog the city loop. It will be projects like the West Gate Tunnel, which will, I have to say, and I am now telling westies, save them up to 20 minutes in commute time, to get out of traffic and to get home earlier. This time of year it is a matter of waking up in the dark and getting home in the dark. It could mean getting home in the light and being able to go for a walk, go and watch their kids at soccer training or whatever it is that families like to do. No-one wants to spend their life driving in their car. West Gate Tunnel is about changing that – and yes, we had to borrow to do that.

These projects, as we have said in this place time and time again, are projects that those opposite not only had no vision to build but tried to block here in this place. They tried to stop them. The Premier talked today in question time about those opposite calling Metro Tunnel a hoax and using words like that to catastrophise and scare Victorians about these major visionary projects. Well, the future is now here. Those projects are about to open. They are projects that mean those opposite, in opposing them, would have left my community to rot in their cars for hours a day just trying to get to work, just trying to get home. And do you know what people in the western suburbs think – they cannot wait for West Gate Tunnel to happen. They cannot wait for Sunshine superhub to happen, because we talk about it unlocking electrification, something that those opposite would have blocked and not done.

These are major infrastructure projects. Yes, they have incurred debt and deficit, but let me tell you, when they open and thousands and millions of Victorians use them, including those opposite and their families, with the benefits that they will have and feel and understand, it will be mind-blowing. I say to the member for Lowan – yes, she is counting down the days to the election: well, member for Lowan, so am I, and I can tell you folks in the western suburbs have benefited from these projects and have benefited from this vision. That is why I think this matter is absolutely ridiculous, a cliché, showing the true colours of those opposite – that they do not stand for Victorians.

Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (16:52): $194 billion of debt under this state Labor government: this is not just a number. Let us look at a $1 coin. If you stacked up $1 coins, this amount of debt would go to the moon and back not just once but twice. It means if you were paying $1 million of interest every single day, it would take 530 years to pay back this debt. This is a debt that is worth $38,000 for every single adult Victorian, and even for an adult Victorian earning an average salary a $38,000 debt is a big amount. This is a big amount, and it goes beyond that. It means $29 million of taxpayer-funded interest payments every single day. That is $1.2 million of taxpayer-funded – and I make the point it is not the government, it is taxpayer-funded – interest payments every single hour. Over this 10-minute speech of mine that will be $200,000 of taxpayer-funded interest.

This economic mismanagement is having real-life consequences. It has already meant many cuts to services and infrastructure, and it means we cannot spend what we need to spend on infrastructure and services into the future. It has also meant that this Labor government has increased or introduced 61 new taxes. That is 61 new or increased taxes that impact every single Victorian, and that is driving out new investment – new investment in small businesses, new investment in housing, rentals and more. This government, at the same time as racking up this debt, continues to waste and waste Victorian taxpayer funding that goes towards major projects and more. They have blown out so many major projects it is not funny.

While Labor has looked at a short-term budgetary gain to try and meet their debt, that means long-term pain – long-term pain for Victorians and long-term pain for the economy.

Instead we need an approach that cuts waste, that cuts taxes and that cuts red tape so we can actually grow our economy, so we can grow investment and so we can grow the revenue pie, which means that we can help to pay down this debt, we can have less interest payments for Victorians and we can spend more on essential infrastructure and services. I want to go further into what this debt means for the everyday Victorian. Let us look at roads. It means roads have fallen apart, and with roads falling apart and more potholes, we have more accidents as well – and more serious accidents. On crime, we see reception hours reduced for police stations across Victoria, including in my electorate of Mornington. We see a 1100-police shortage. This is all impacting Victoria Police’s ability to then respond to crime and prevent crime. That includes in the member for Brighton’s seat, in the member for Prahran’s seat, in my seat in Mornington, in the seat of Warrandyte and in so many other seats, including the seats of those opposite who are part of the Labor government.

We have also seen cuts to education. This is something that the Labor Party parrots on about – that they supposedly look after the education space – but we have seen $2.4 billion cut from public schools. That $29 million of interest payments in just a few years time could mean a school redevelopment every single day. Places like Mount Eliza Secondary College in my electorate, which is now 50 years old, has not had an upgrade in 50 years. It is in desperate need of an infrastructure upgrade, and that could be done in one day’s worth of these interest payments. We have to look as well at hardworking parents, including in my electorate and across Victoria, who are paying more for school fees – and at non-government schools as well – including in the Mornington Peninsula, where we are paying metropolitan payroll tax, much more than Geelong and elsewhere that are considered regional. That is despite the fact that we have 82 per cent of the Mornington Peninsula not having access to public transport – so much for ‘metropolitan’.

Small businesses are also already closing due to increased taxes, and that will only continue, which is really not what this government needs. This government needs more small businesses and more investment so they can actually grow the economy and grow the revenue pie over the long term. We see the major impact on individual households as well. As mentioned before, we have a 22 per cent increase in power bills. We have grocery bills going up. Rents are going up, particularly as the increased land taxes are passed on, not to mention the fact that a number of landlords have been selling up, which means less rental stock in the market. Again, with less supply, that means higher rents for those who are trying to get into the rental market to start with. Payroll tax, land tax, stamp duty and all these other costs are having a major impact on Victorians’ ability to live, survive, invest and more.

Let us look at public housing as well and the homelessness crisis across Victoria. We have more than 60,000 people in Victoria on the public housing waiting list. The Mornington Peninsula is now the second highest in metropolitan Melbourne for homelessness and the fourth highest in the whole state. If we could spend this $29 million of taxpayer-funded interest better, let us say we could actually build about 30 homes a day towards much-needed public housing that could over a year house many of the 60,000-plus people on the waitlist.

We also recently saw thousands of people on the front steps of Parliament House protesting against increased taxes with the Labor government’s proposed new emergency services tax. Yes, after much pressure, they have delayed that for a year, but it needs to be scrapped altogether, and that is what the coalition have committed to. The tax will mean much-increased costs for farmers, including CFA volunteers, as well as landowners across Victoria, which are then passed on to renters and so many others.

In the health space we have less funds, given our debt crisis, to spend on hospitals and we have less funding to spend on ambulances, and the ambulance-ramping issue has been going up and up and up. We have not got enough investment in our emergency departments, which is having a real-life impact on people’s health, particularly in an emergency. If they do not get an ambulance in time or do not get to the hospital in time, we see people with more serious injuries and we see people, sadly, pass away as well.

This is also not helped by the GP tax, which when passed through to the patient sees increased fees for patients who are just trying to see their doctors. We also have more taxes for those who just want to have a holiday with their family, no matter where they want to travel to. This is another tax that we have committed to scrapping if we form government.

Yet we have seen a situation in this budget where Labor are not only going into $194 billion of debt, they have on the books things like the Suburban Rail Loop marked as ‘still TBC’.

A member interjected.

Chris CREWTHER: What was that? Still TBC. They cannot even service the current debt. How are they going to service the debt if they add another $200 billion top of that? Instead of looking at these white elephant projects, you have places like the Mornington Peninsula. As I mentioned, 82 per cent of the Mornington Peninsula has no access to public transport. There is no train at all to places like Mornington. There is no train at all to places like Mildura. Perhaps we should look into investing a very small subset of the amount going to the Suburban Rail Loop to actually deliver a passenger rail, to start with, in places like Mornington and Mildura instead of spending more and more taxpayer funding when we cannot afford to do so.

Going more into this situation that we are facing, we are falling behind every single other state on nearly every single metric. This is not just a matter of numbers, it is a matter of public importance. This place must condemn the Allan Labor government for driving Victoria into economic decline and debt dependency and deepening the cost-of-living crisis. We have a situation where we are also in a position now where the government is taxing more than ever – a projected $42 billion in annual state tax by 2026 – and we are still running cash deficits year after year. Victoria’s GDP is now 11.5 per cent below the national average, down from a position of strength in the early 2000s, and household disposable income is now the second-lowest in the country. So I support this MPI message brought by the opposition, and I thank the member for Brighton. This Labor government need to – (Time expired)

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (17:02): I think it is very easy to throw around words like ‘waste’ and ‘debt’, but you need to do a little more homework than that, because what does that exactly mean? I think for the opposition, and I will say ‘opposition’ as opposed to ‘you’, it would be helpful to know exactly what they intend to cut, because they are sort of slashing and putting down everything and anything in Victoria. It is a wonder they still live here. It seems like it is such a hateful, horrible place to be. Well, that is not my experience of Victoria. I think it is a fantastic state. I think we have brilliant businesses, and it is a wonderful place to live. I am sorry the opposition hate living here so much, the way they trash talk it and talk down our businesses and everything else. It is quite depressing, the way they reflect on our wonderful state of Victoria. Anyway, that is what they do. Rest assured, they cut Free Fruit Friday, and that was just the low end of the scale. That is exactly what they would do again if they were to be re-elected.

I also wonder, just thinking about my electorate – there is South Melbourne Park Primary School, South Melbourne Primary School and Port Melbourne secondary school. Fishermans Bend primary school is being built. Actually, South Melbourne Primary School might be an interesting point for the member for Brighton. So many people are moving into Southbank and around South Melbourne that they are going to have to expand South Melbourne Primary School. He thinks that nobody wants to live in the inner burbs and that everyone should move miles out. It is all about choice, so let me say people should be able to live where they want to live within Victoria. We are all about choice. But oddly enough, contrary to his contentions in the chamber, there are a lot of people, a lot of families, moving into the area where I live, which is putting more pressure on local schools. Luckily we have a historic investment in school infrastructure and will have built 100 new schools by 2026.

So when they talk about our approach to education and our lack of investment in education, I think they are very loose words and they are unfounded words, because our record speaks for itself. I think every member can reflect on, I am sure, new schools that are being built all around the state, because they absolutely have been and are being delivered. Would they have preferred we did not deliver? If you put the opposite of that, are they saying it was wasteful to build all these primary schools? And the secondary school in my seat – was that waste? Is that how they classify it? Is the Metro Tunnel waste? Is the West Gate Tunnel waste? I do not know. Loose words without much substance are not really credible when we are talking about such critical elements of the economy and the state of Victoria.

I want to go a little bit further on the issue of education, considering that those opposite were pretty much talking down any of the investments or otherwise that we have put into our education system. We are investing $152.3 million in the 2025–26 budget to increase the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund to $400 per eligible family. They were saying that we have not been helping households with expenses. That looks like a helpful investment in Victorian families, providing these supports. Would they cut them? Do they think they are not valid? In the 2024–25 budget we delivered the school savings bonus, providing $400 to all government school students. Again, I would say to those opposite: would you cut that? Would you have not delivered that? Do you define that as waste? I am just saying.

We have delivered more than 50 million free breakfasts at over 1000 government schools in the state, and we will have a school breakfast club program in every school across Victoria by July 2026. When we are talking about cost-of-living elements for families, delivering free breakfasts, I think, certainly would fall within that bracket. I know in my electorate and across the state there are certainly families who are taking advantage of this for all the right reasons. This contrasts, as I was saying, with those opposite who cut Free Fruit Fridays. I am not confident. Would they continue the free breakfast program in schools? These are all the valid questions that need to be put when people talk about debt and waste.

We have expanded the Glasses for Kids program. If anyone should understand the importance of eyesight, it is me. I have had glasses since grade 3. I was lucky enough that my parents were able to get me to the optometrist, get me tested and get me some. Back then, the glasses were pretty ordinary. The choices were not too good, let me say. But I will come back to the topic. I think this is just the most amazing investment in Victorian kids, because it also means that those who might otherwise not be able to follow in the classroom and do their homework or otherwise be able to read in a very deep and profound way do have already the supports and the investments in them. The expenditure is not going out into the wind, it is actually about investing in Victorians, and I think that line has definitely been blurred in this debate by those opposite.

We are investing over $1.9 billion in our most recent budget to deliver state-of-the-art schools. I was talking about all these government schools, so there is the figure. Do they think that is waste and that we should not build those new schools? They need to put their cards on the table; the Victorian people deserve to know. That is so that students can have the classrooms of the 21st century.

I should also explore further the issue of teachers’ pay and support. Since 2019 our Allan Labor government has invested more than $1.8 billion in school workforce initiatives. Would they cut these? I am just asking and just saying. We have seen the impact that these investments are already having. We have seen 12,000 more registered schoolteachers in Victoria in 2024 compared to 2020. In the past 12 months alone we have seen more than 1400 teachers join the Victorian teaching workforce. Our student-to-teacher ratio has also improved from 12.6 in 2023 to 12.4 and 2024, the lowest in the nation. This is no accident, and it is an indictment of the former Liberal–Nationals government, which made no effort and left our schools behind.

The 2025–26 Victorian budget invests $158.7 million to expand, support and recognise the school workforce. For the limited time that I did teach I did locums, but I also taught immersion German and French and some other topics. I know just the pivotal – I mean, I do not think I need to declare that. It should be obvious the pivotal role that a teacher plays in the lives of students. You remember teachers and the impact that they have had and sometimes the most profound words that they have conveyed or the kindness, the care, the mentoring – this is probably one of the greatest influences in any person’s life, so we are investing in them. Would they cut that? I do not know. Do they think that is waste or do they think that is a valid investment? I say I am backing it in. I think that is a pretty valid investment. Our teachers are vital. I should say that many of these new and ongoing investments are targeted towards sustaining efforts to attract, recruit and retain teachers in schools that continue to face workforce challenges, so we are tackling those challenges head on.

Just looking at the issue of tax cuts, I am actually not going to be able to get to them all. We have had, since 2015, 67 tax cuts since coming to government. There are so many. I am not going to have time to go through all of them, but I am going to start. Motor vehicle duty exemption for mobile plant and special purpose vehicles – that was a tax cut in 2015–16. The land tax exemption for primary production land in urban zone superannuation funds was in 2016–17. Increasing the payroll tax free threshold from $550,000 to $650,000 in instalments was in 2016–17. Tax cut 4, a payroll tax exemption to employers for displaced apprentices or trainees, was in 2016–17. The fifth tax exemption abolished insurance duty on agricultural products in 2017–18. The sixth cut brought forth two increases of the payroll tax threshold by 12 months – $600,000 to $625,000 and $625,000 to $650,000 – in 2017–18. The seventh cut increased the threshold for annual payroll tax returns from $10,000 to $40,000 in 2017–18. The eighth cut reduced payroll tax rate to 3.65 per cent for regional businesses in 2017–18. You would think they would be vitally interested. They are talking about tax and waste and all the other things. I am just listing off all the tax cuts that we have had. What was that again? Let me check that number: 67 since we have come into government. It is odd that they did not mention that.

Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (17:12): It has been quite the afternoon, and here we are. We are talking about this very important matter of public importance about the budget deception from the Allan Labor government. The truth of the state of the economy under the Allan Labor government is this: in the last decade under the Andrews then Allan Labor governments they have accumulated more government debt than there has been in the last 150 years. It is a true story. The Victorian Parliament was established nearly 170 years ago, and in the first 158 years, between 1856 and 2014, the Victorian government accumulated $21.2 billion of net state debt. Fast-forward to 2014, and in a short 11 years under the current state Labor government net state debt has already exploded to $155 billion this year and is forecast to hit $194 billion over the next four years. The cold, hard facts are that the Victorian government will soon have nine times the debt that had been accrued in 158 years before that – nine times more in 11 years than in the past 158 years. Let us just do the maths on that: $21.2 billion in 158 years, compared to the 11 years that this Labor mob have been in government, which has now brought us to this skyrocketing debt of $194 billion. Victorians are seeing this. This is nine times the level of debt. This is just reckless. This is irresponsible. This is vandalism. I have no words to describe it.

And the real tragedy of it is this: Labor has no plan to stop it or to pay down the debt. The truth is that the only way out of this debt bomb is to elect a coalition government. After the coalition’s tenure in government in 2014 net state debt was forecast to actually fall for once, to $19.5 billion by 2018, down from what we had inherited at $21.5 billion. It was in the 1990s that Labor famously drove the state into an economic crisis, thanks to the massive debt under Joan Kirner. It was the coalition government that had to step in. They had to restore the budget, and they had to pull Victoria back from bankruptcy and from financial collapse. History is repeating itself over again. You have got a form of Cain that left it to Kirner, a glass cliff from Andrews that has been gifted to Allan here with the greatest economic crisis of our generation thanks to this Labor mob.

Victorians are desperate for change. The coalition is offering them that change. A Liberal–Nationals government will publish honest, transparent budgets and introduce a public real-time dashboard so every Victorian can see how their money is being spent. We will cut unfair taxes, and we will stabilise the spiralling debt through growing the economy and responsibly managing the budget. We will reduce the amount of taxpayer dollars being spent on interest repayments to service Labor’s debt through responsible management of Victoria’s finances. Victoria desperately needs a fresh start, and only a coalition government will be able to do that.

PSA, ladies and gentlemen: the Victorian government is now targeting everyday people who run small businesses from home by charging them land tax. This just in, because it is pretty common in this day and age for people to have small businesses or side hustles or to work remotely and write off some of their home expenses on tax when they work from home. What these people might not realise is that if they are making money from home, the Victorian government is now going to make them pay land tax. How is that for aspiration? Victorians running everyday businesses from home are now being hit with surprise land tax bills. Thank you, Allan Labor government – not. This includes your startups, side hustles, freelancers, hairdressers, PTs and physios with home studios, Airbnb hosts, online businesses and allied health workers seeing clients from home offices. Why – because Labor lowered the land tax threshold last year to make more properties eligible and force more Victorians to pay up to reduce their enormous debt. According to the Australian Financial Review, the result of these changes is that more than 400,000 Victorians who run businesses from home are now getting land tax bills for the first time. If the business earns more than $30,000 a year and uses part of the home, that business owner will receive a land tax bill. For a home valued at a median house price this could mean a new land tax bill worth thousands of dollars. In the middle of Labor’s cost-of-living crisis more and more Victorians are turning to secondary jobs and side hustles just to make ends meet. Now this new land tax is kicking them while they are down and punishing Victorians who are just trying to get by.

The week after delivering her first budget Victoria’s new Treasurer Jaclyn Symes flew off to New York to desperately beg Wall Street credit rating agencies to please not downgrade Victoria’s credit rating any further. How is it that we have come to the point where our own state Treasurer has to go and beg to not bear the consequences of her own government’s failings? Victoria already has the lowest credit rating in the country, the only state in Australia with a lesser rating than AAA. So what does that mean? A lower credit rating, let alone having the worst credit rating in all of Australia, means Victorians get hit with higher interest rates on our state debt, not because of their choosing or their mistakes but because Labor has recklessly spent taxpayers money and are now considered by credit rating agencies untrustworthy with money.

Let me put it plainly. When Victorians – and they know it – go to the bank and try and get a mortgage on their home, they know that it is important to get the lowest interest rate possible, because it will change their monthly repayments and how much money every month is spent on interest.

They know that it is money that they do not get back. They know that that money does not go towards paying down that loan. They know that it is money wasted, and because they are reasonable and responsible individuals, they know this, but it is not the same for Victoria. If we get downgraded again on our credit rating, the interest cost on all of our debt increases. It will cost Victorians an estimated $300 million in interest extra. No sensible person would seek to increase their interest rate, because it is going to cost them more to pay back that money on their debt, let alone even being able to pay down that debt, be it on your mortgage or on your credit card. They know that it is money wasted and money that cannot be taken back. Yet here is our state Treasurer taking Victorians’ hard-earned money, squandering it in waste, budget blowouts and mismanagement, only to be told by credit rating agencies, aka the lender, ‘Nah, mate, you’ve actually gone too far on this one. You’re actually being irresponsible with the budget. You’re going to now have to be downgraded, and we’re going to have to increase your interest repayments.’

This government are so negligent with the state’s budget and economy that, as discovered through the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee last week, they did not even attempt to model or project what it would look like if Victoria’s credit rating was to be downgraded, even though the Treasurer is throwing a Hail Mary and has flown to New York to plead and beg, ‘Please, no, don’t downgrade us.’ What kind of economic plan is this? It is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, rue-the-consequences, who-cares-it’s-not-my-money-anyway kind of irresponsible recklessness that is on full display for every Victorian to see.

So off the Treasurer goes, begging these agencies not to reduce Victoria’s credit rating, and she comes back the very next week saying, ‘Well, we’re going to have to make tough choices. There are going to be cuts,’ she said. ‘We will have to decrease our spending.’ But it is the same Treasurer who released the budget less than a month ago now, and all we saw were blowouts, debt, TBCs – TBC after TBC after TBC – and mismanagement. Well, Treasurer, can you make up your mind, please? Which is it? Is it reckless or is it responsible? Is it overspending or is it decreased spending? Because it is like a bad ex-boyfriend, and I am getting mixed messages. Why should we believe anything that Labor has to say when they say one thing and they do another? They have been blowing out the budget for over a decade, and every year it is going to be the same. Labor wastes taxpayers and Victorians’ hard-earned money, and Victorians are the ones paying the price.

Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (17:22): I rise to oppose this matter of public importance, MPI, that has been moved by the member for Brighton, which seeks to condemn our Victorian Labor government for the real action that we have been taking on economic management, budget priorities, revenue and Big Build infrastructure projects; our focus on jobs, employment and investments; our support for nurses, teachers and police; and our work in bringing back the State Electricity Commission to transition our energy sector to cleaner, cheaper, renewable forms of energy. Because the reality is that just like a Liberal Party branch meeting – God, imagine what that is like – this motion is one that has been written by the member for Brighton, who should actually be renamed the Shadow Minister for Talking Down Victoria. It has been written in the Liberal Party’s own echo chamber. It has been plagiarised from long-discredited news outlets like Sky after dark, which they are obsessed with. It is a motion that is totally devoid of any real solutions and only focused on the Liberals’ never-ending list of grievances, which continue to accumulate after 10-plus years in opposition. It is totally tone deaf to the current real-world economic and cost-of-living challenges being experienced globally, nationally and across the state. As the Shadow Treasurer, he shows absolutely no vision, no plans, and no idea, through this motion, about what it takes to lead this state’s economy.

Firstly, from the very outset, how can you trust the Liberal Party with a straight face? How can they stand in this place with a straight face and claim they are the party of economic and budget management? This is the party that right now cannot even get its own house in order. It is the party that is totally divided and at war with itself. It is the party that is in the process of suing itself. It is the party that cannot even decide if it can or should cover the costs or legal expenses of one of its own members. It is the party that is in the process of sending one of its own MPs, concerningly, bankrupt, potentially.

If the Liberal Party cannot even manage its own internal affairs, how can it ever be trusted to manage the Victorian economy, the Victorian budget and the household cost-of-living supports millions of Victorians depend on to make ends meet and make life easier? The Shadow Treasurer of all people is the least credible on this front, because it was his own selfishness in wanting to secure the shadow treasury portfolio at the expense of the member for Sandringham that has now left the entire Liberal Party and the Liberal movement in a precarious philosophical and financial position. As demonstrated by the Liberal leader and Shadow Treasurer and by how the member for Hawthorn has sadly and disgracefully been left to his own devices to fend for himself, Victorians know where they stand with this opposition leader and this Shadow Treasurer: they stand on their own.

The Liberals have no credibility whatsoever to lecture this Parliament and the Victorian people on how this state’s economy and budget should be managed. ‘Get your own house in order’ is the message from here to the Liberal Party before they get up and start lecturing on financial and fiscal management. Also, once you do, get a vision. You cannot seek to govern by grievance and campaign on grievance and then seek the support of the people to give you that mandate. Look at what happened to Peter Dutton and the federal Liberals – no vision, no plan.

Secondly, and even more concerningly, for all the stats and supposed facts in this matter, the reality is that this matter does not even mention, not once – I was waiting to hear this in the shadow minister’s contribution but I did not hear it, and I did not read it in the matter – cost of living, jobs, kinders, schools, TAFEs or hospitals, and the list goes on and on and on. Not once are those terms mentioned in this matter that has been put to this house, and the reason why he has not mentioned them is because we know the Liberal and National parties do not support these things. They never have and they never will. If they got the opportunity to get back into government, we know the vicious cuts that they would pursue in office – cuts to all of our cost-of-living supports and measures, cutting free kinder, cutting free dental in schools, cutting the free glasses in schools program and cutting free TAFE. We saw on the eve of the federal election Senator Sarah Henderson make it very clear where the federal Liberal Party stands when it comes to free TAFE – they want to get rid of it entirely – and that is what this state Liberal opposition would do as well. They would cut the $100 energy saving bonus. We have not heard them speak in support of that bonus. They would sack frontline public service workers – nurses, teachers, police officers – like they did before in the 1990s with Jeff Kennett and they would privatise our hospitals, and the list just goes on and on and on.

The member for Brighton’s contribution has demonstrated the Liberal Party are not committed to retaining or expanding any of these essential cost-of-living supports or measures at all. That is why, fundamentally, our approach to economic and budget management is different. On this side we deliver budgets that work for people, families and households, while the Liberals deliver budgets that cost and punish working families and households through their vicious and ruthless cuts. Again, just look at how the Liberals are treating one of their own and a former leader of the party, whom they voted for, for undertaking his duties in leading the party. Make no mistake: if the Liberals ever got back in, they would take an axe through the budget and they would leave Victorians to their own devices.

The Victorian Liberals are trying it on with the Victorian people. They are trying to sell a narrative that they have changed. Just like George Costanza in Seinfeld used to say, ‘It’s not a lie if you believe it,’ and they are believing their own mistruths. I draw the house’s attention to the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza pretends to have a holiday house in the Hamptons – in the Hamptons of all places – and he is boasting to his in-laws in downtown New York about this holiday home that he has got in the Hamptons. They end up calling his bluff. They take him up on his offer. They want to come and see this house in the Hamptons. As they are taking the big drive down to the Hamptons, he is talking about how he has got so many master bedrooms, he has got so many ensuites and he has even got horses at this massive, vast property in the Hamptons. He has got panoramic beach views. But the reality is they drive through the day and through the night and they get to the end eventually of this dirt road on a peninsula where it is pitch black and there is a full moon. There is nothing else to see. There is nowhere left to go. He gets out of the car and finally admits it was all a lie: he does not have a beach house. It never existed. He does not have the horses Smoochy and Poochie, or whatever they were called. And it is the same with the Victorian Liberal Party. They are trying to sell us a lie that they have changed, and they are trying to take the Victorian people on a ride, on a journey, like George Costanza did with his in-laws. But we see through it because we have been there before. We have been to the end of that dirt road with the Victorian Liberals before, and it is all about cuts, it is all about closures and it is all about public sell-offs, and that is the truth. We see through their mistruths, that is for sure.

Again, look no further than what happened. The Liberals and Nationals were decimated at the last federal election. It is the same playbook at a federal and state level. They have not listened. They are not learning. The Victorian people and Australian people overwhelmingly rejected the Liberal–National agenda. They wanted at a federal level to sack public servants across Canberra and across the country. They wanted to force public servants back to the office and abolish working from home for everybody, and people did not buy it. They sought to cut $2 billion in federal investment from the Suburban Rail Loop and also send the signal that all federal money for major infrastructure projects had a big question mark on it. How can you trust a federal Liberal government if it is going to take $2 billion out of that project?

What about the money that they would have ripped out of the North East Link and all the other projects that they have never supported: the West Gate Tunnel, the Metro Tunnel and the level crossings. They wanted to cut $2 billion out of the Melbourne Airport rail link and essentially make the project redundant. Two billion dollars out of the Sunshine station project would have made the airport rail link unviable. Like George Costanza’s drive down the dirt road, you need to fix Sunshine station before you can build the airport rail link. I am not sure if these guys have ever been to Sunshine, St Albans or the Brimbank area, but the Sunshine station redevelopment is crucial to facilitating the Melbourne airport rail link – which the Liberals wanted to cut, and the western suburbs rejected that. They wanted to cut Medicare and urgent care clinics. Cutting HECS debt – where were they federally on cutting HECS debt? Again, they wanted to abolish free TAFE as well and to introduce a tax incentive for business long lunches – talk about priorities; tax refunds on people’s mortgages, which would have driven up the cost of housing and done nothing to support supply; and of course, their infamous $300 billion plan for nuclear reactors.

Richard Riordan: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I just draw your attention to the fact that the member for Pascoe Vale, in his enthusiasm, has sort of mistaken the Parliament that he is actually in. He has spent the last 5 minutes or so – we let him have a little bit of leeway – talking about federal policy.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): You can wrap it up, member for Polwarth.

Richard Riordan: We might draw his attention back to the matter of public importance, which is a state-based issue. And if he would like, we are happy to provide some advice on the difference between state and federal.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): This is a very wideranging matter of public importance, although I would encourage the member for Pascoe Vale to come back to state-based matters.

Anthony CIANFLONE: Acting Speaker, I am always happy to take your guidance, of course. On the big infrastructure projects, which the federal Liberal Party were opposed to, we are not only investing to create jobs and new opportunities but we are bringing communities along. For example, we have got the Myki youth drawing competition that is out and about at the moment. There are amazing competition entries going in, but one that is not being accepted is this one here. We are not going to see this on the face of the new youth Myki, that is for sure, as long as I am in this place.

Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (17:33): Phew, I am not quite sure how to come back after some of those comments from the member for Pascoe Vale. I rise to support the member for Brighton’s matter of public importance:

That this house condemns the Allan Labor government for a decade of debt, deficits, infrastructure blowouts and mismanagement that has driven Victoria into a deepening cost-of-living crisis …

I grew up in Shepparton. I went to local schools. I ran a small business for many years. I raised a family and, like many, I had aspirations and dreams – the Aussie dream of owning a home and having a secure life. In the public housing estate that I grew up in there were many young, hardworking families that had the opportunity to purchase a house at an affordable price, aligned with their income, an opportunity that does not exist today. We have gone backwards. We have not got the opportunities for the next generations that we should have when it comes to housing, when it comes to surviving week by week. The escalating cost of living has put the Aussie dream of owning a home out of reach for many. We know that right now people are struggling to pay their bills, put food on the table and just survive, as I said, day by day. I have never seen things as tough in my community as I see right now, and I have heard little contribution from the other side in regard to some comments from their constituents. I am sure they are hearing very similar comments to what I am hearing. We are in a cost-of-living crisis, and every single day people are struggling to make ends meet. There is no relief, and the financial distress is significantly impacting on people’s lives. Energy bills, groceries, rents, insurances and fuel are all climbing. Yet Labor has offered no support for households.

The Allan Labor government has allowed Victoria to spiral into a cost-of-living crisis. Everything is costing more in Victoria, and we are the most taxed state in the country. Surely that is not something that those on the other side can just continue to ignore. Victoria is known to be the state of out-of-control debt.

The recent, reckless and irresponsible budget has left families worse off, underfunded essential services and pushed our state into further debt. The state’s net debt is forecast to hit $194 billion by 2028–29. Interest payments are set to soar to Victorians paying $28.9 million a day. It is hard to fathom that figure – every single day. This government are trying to tax its way out of the out-of-control debt, and every day Victorians are paying the price, and they have had enough. They have had enough of city-centric spending on pet projects with billions in cost blowouts whilst they are struggling to put food on the table or a roof over their head. Over $40 billion in cost blowouts over the past decade is just astounding. These cost blowouts represent real consequences. This money could have been spent on hospitals, roads or schools or on reducing the cuts we have seen in many services.

This government have their priorities all wrong, and it is distressing and bewildering. This government have imposed more than 60 new or increased taxes on taxpayers since they came into office due to their incompetence and financial mismanagement. They blew $600 million of taxpayers money following the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, another major financial muck-up and disgrace. There has been an outcry over the latest emergency services and volunteers tax. The protest on the steps of Parliament had thousands turn up to call out the Allan Labor government. This should be a clear message that Victorians have had enough of this tax-grabbing, out-of-control government. This government have gone too far in turning their backs on their people.

[NAMES AWAITING VERIFICATION]

My office has been inundated, and what we are seeing are more and more people having to ask for help, many for the very first time. I see the impact on their mental health and on their families. Just a few weeks ago I was contacted by Kelly, who said that her car had broken down and she could not afford to fix it as rent and food had to take a priority, and Jen, who said, ‘My electricity is due and I can’t afford to pay it and I am embarrassed to admit that I need assistance.’

Housing stress and homelessness is a significant issue in my electorate, and we have one of the highest rates of homelessness in this state. Can you imagine having nowhere to sleep tonight? People are sleeping rough out in the cold, in their cars, in tents or on a park bench. We have people like Azem, a community champion who provides for the homeless with food, tents and any support that he can from his small restaurant in the CBD. People like Azem and his volunteers are providing for our most vulnerable when this government does not. I work closely with Azem, and he has said it is not just those sleeping rough reaching out for help. We have a significant public housing waiting list in my electorate, with over 2300 people in need of a home. Many of those are waiting for emergency housing, yet this city-centric government have no plans to help my community when it comes to addressing our significant housing shortage.

The rental market in Victoria is also in crisis, and in the past year alone we have seen a reduction of over 20,000 properties from the market. This was largely due to the increased land tax, and for many it is no longer viable to own an investment rental property in Victoria. Land tax has had a significant impact on investment properties, and we have heard of everyday people with a small investment rental property who thought the income that they were getting from that property would support them in retirement. The increased taxes and costs have made it no longer viable. These are everyday people who are not financially dependent on the government. Where there are rentals available, prices have escalated to levels that are unaffordable for many, and you get 50 people applying for properties. We are hearing from people who have had ongoing increases in their rent that it is unachievable on their income. Property investors are continuing to flee Victoria in the tens of thousands. This government are so out of touch, and the numbers of people homeless will continue to rise.

There has been a significant increase in people reaching out to local community groups and organisations for food relief. Shepparton Foodshare have had a significant increase in demand. We are also seeing local community groups and businesses acknowledging the increase in the need for people to have food support and running their own food drives. For example, Cardamone Real Estate collected 350 kilograms of rice to help Foodshare, and many schools and community groups also went on the rice drive to help feed our community. The Nappy Collective is another initiative helping families doing it tough during the cost-of-living crisis. One in 10 families struggle to afford nappies, and thousands of little ones are going without nappies. This is just another example of communities coming together to help those in need.

When we talk about the budget, we have had no investment in my hospital. We have been calling on funding for an integrated cancer centre. GV Health is the only regional public health service in Victoria that does not have an integrated cancer centre offering comprehensive cancer treatment facilities. Our road network is no longer fit for purpose, and we have been calling on funding to upgrade our network, including a desperately needed second river crossing. We have also been calling for a bus review. I notice that the minister has left the chamber, unfortunately. It has been more than 15 years since we have had a review. We have had a petition, and I have called on the transport minister to acknowledge this, because people need to be able to get to where they need to go. It is just wrong that people across my electorate do not have the bus services that they need. We have areas with no services and small towns with no or limited bus services. Not everyone has access to a vehicle, and during a cost-of-living crisis bus transport is an affordable option. It is a disgrace that my community did not get a bus review in the budget.

[QUOTES AND NAMES AWAITING VERIFICATION]

In my final minutes, I just have these messages, which have come straight off my desk. These are actually people that have called into my office. For example, Ian is talking about the short-stay levy. He has apartments in Numurkah.

This is a tax I can’t afford. I will have to pass the cost on.

Ron:

Food and utilities are getting so expensive. It leaves me with little to live on.

Michael:

I’m left with very little after paying rent, and I have an 11-year-old child. I am struggling to keep up with my costs.

Kelly:

My car broke down.

I have mentioned Kelly. Jenny, a victim of domestic violence, is currently in transitional housing:

I don’t know what to do. I can’t afford private rental.

And from Justin Stafford:

I am writing to advise you that, as a landlord, I have decided to sell up my two investment properties.

As we have talked about, this was a person for whom this was his retirement income.

It is no longer viable, and I am not sure how we are going to survive in our retirement.

This government has a lot to answer for. I know we all have stories, and I am sure those on the other side are seeing the people that we are seeing that cannot survive the cost-of-living crisis that we are all experiencing. I just want to put a shout-out to my front office staff, Mel. She is an incredible support to my community. Yesterday she was delivered flowers because she helped people within my community. She connected them to the service providers that they needed. Do you know every single day, on average, through my office door we get 10 people. For eight of those people it is related to a cost-of-living crisis about them not being able to pay their bills, not being able to survive. We need to do more; this government need to do more. We need to have a change of government next year so that the people of Victoria are supported.

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (17:42): Following the member for Shepparton, I feel like ending the matter of public importance with that calm gravitas that the member for Shepparton has – just bringing the tone up. But we go to me in Mordialloc, and I might just bring it down a little as we give a bit of an assessment of the member for Brighton. I want to just put a search party out for the member for Brighton. This was the member for Brighton’s moment to come into this place and to show himself as the leadership contender we all know he thinks he is. And where is the member for Brighton? We have not been able to sight him for the last hour. He has walked off on his own MPI after a bit of a waffle fest. It was not as good as some performances. The narration around talking down the state – he does a really big job. I think he does try his best to reframe the narrative around how Victoria is going, because it is in their political interests. Some of the convenient truths around how Victoria is performing undermine that message around debt and deficit they put forward, and I want to take people through that. But to see just the lack of attendance – the member for Bulleen has gone home; at least the Leader of the Opposition has come in to see a bit of a history lesson and a bit of an assessment here. I appreciate that because it gives me a chance to go through some of this as well.

Now, who was it that said cost escalations on major infrastructure projects are just a thing of doing business on the eastern seaboard? Who was that hero of governance? Who was that? If we are doing trivia, the member for Polwarth is thinking, ‘Who could this be? It has got to be Labor.’ No, it was not. It was Dom Perrottet, the hero of the member for Sandringham, who has done a couple of fundraisers down the road in Sandringham. He has been out there, and he said you have just got to keep going; you have just got to barrel through. Remember that great treasurer turned premier – a great effort there.

And who was it that said increasing debt was a product of saving lives and saving the economy? The member for Morwell is deep in notes at the moment, but the member for Prahran might have that answer. It is a bit closer to home for the member for Prahran.

Are there any takers? It was Josh Frydenberg. And where was Josh Frydenberg taking debt once upon a time? The member for Mornington always comes in prepared, and he had an eloquent speech. Coming from federal lands, he had a crack, he had a fair dip, and I thought, ‘He was in federal lands around that time. He was around at that moment. Would he have known that Josh Frydenberg, the former member for Kooyong and Treasurer at the time, was taking the nation’s economy towards a trillion dollars of debt?’ Because he said $194 billion is cataclysmic – it is all over – and the debt to GDP in Victoria is at 25 per cent on the budget estimates and numbers. Well, the federal number is in the mid to high 30s.

When the member for Gippsland South’s hero, Barnaby Joyce, was on his back wailing into the stars, the debt-to-GDP number was in the mid to high 30s. You look at that and you go, ‘What is this hysteria about?’ We know, because it is in their political interests and their interests in survival in branch member land, which seems to be the only thing they try to cultivate these days – to talk down Victoria. The member for Pascoe Vale opened it up beautifully, because it is not just us that think they are all obsessed with Sky News after dark; it is literally the reviewers of their performances. Their federal reviewers are saying, ‘Well, we’re just too much on the Paul Murray front. We’ve got Paul Murray on speed dial.’ He is out of New South Wales. Goodness me, I do not know why they obsess about him. They are so fixated on internal squabbles that they miss the fact that talking down Victorians, talking down their aspirations, does nothing.

The former Premier Daniel Andrews summed it up perfectly: ‘They are Liberals first, Victorians second.’ You cannot deny truth and you cannot deny fact – 3.7 per cent business growth in Victoria while the rest of the nation is down 1.1 per cent. There is just a bit of silence there – they are just fun facts for those opposite, a bit of a mic drop. Well, it is not too far for you to read, member for Polwarth. It is in budget paper 2, chapter 1, page 1. Just go through that.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: ‘Will we believe it?’ the member for Polwarth said. The member for Polwarth was a plant specialist.

Richard Riordan interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Without assistance, member for Polwarth.

Tim RICHARDSON: If ever there was someone who was fed questions – he could not go off alone. Even if the question was no longer relevant, the member for Polwarth would still ask it. That is a budget reference right there that shows it.

We go into the growth of the state economy since the pandemic. That is a fair threshold. Those opposite say, ‘Well, we were disproportionately harmed and impacted.’ We were; we copped a fair hit during the pandemic. But let us then see the inverse of Victoria’s performance. What was Australia’s average of growth by GSP from 2020–21 to 2023–24? I have got to give a shout-out to the member for Monbulk, who has done the hard yards in getting me these numbers. The average was 9.4 per cent. Where was Victoria? The heroes over there want to be New South Wales every other moment of every other day. They talk and they fangirl and fanboy over New South Wales something fierce, and then when you remind them that Dom Perrottet was a fan of debt and was a fan of cost escalations in completing the tunnelling projects they have delivered, it is an inconvenient truth for them over that side. But it was 12 per cent. Where was New South Wales? 8.1 per cent. It is an astonishing number.

You walk through some of their language around bankruptcy. Now, these business gurus over there are economic managers, just ask them. I am not going to say the reference to how good they think they are, but they think they are economic managers, even though they did not manage an infrastructure project. They took the nation’s economy up to a trillion dollars of debt, with what to show for it? No-one knows. It has taken Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese to then slide in and bring back so much support for our nation’s economy. Finally we are getting our fair share out of infrastructure. You did not hear any of that in the Shadow Treasurer’s speech. It was all about taxes that they were taking away, revenue sources they were taking away that were going to smash services. On the notion that Victoria is broke, as some of those opposite say, what is the asset pool of Victoria? $412.9 billion. Now, you have run businesses, Deputy Speaker; you are quite eminent in that frame. That is much higher than total liabilities of $177.5 billion at the time, giving Victorian a net worth of $235.4 billion.

I was just standing there, and the economic managers over that side, the absolutely illustrious economic professors – there are a couple of fake professors over that side – had a crack. But you look at that and go, ‘How can you be taken seriously?’ When they dished up the PAEC performance that they delivered over two weeks, they barely got a grab on media. They were trying their best. Even one of their members wore his own jumper in to try to get name recognition.

It was a bizarre performance by those opposite. They say that we are in debt and deficit and they say time and time again Victoria is broke, and then the basic measure of any assets and liabilities shows that that is absolutely laughable. It is actually embarrassing, putting that forward. When you see the nation’s only economy with a COVID debt repayment policy coming forward with net debt to GSP coming down over the forward estimates to 24.9 per cent, when they get so sooky la la about the surplus – ‘We’ll never have a surplus’ – how many surpluses did those opposite on a federal scene deliver? Remember the ‘Back in Black cup? Remember those? They were running off the shelves. Remember the cigars? But the member for Gippsland South never bought one of those cups. Remember, at the end of 2022 he was questioning the coalition agreement. He rolled Walshy, and when Walshy had no bar of that he came to the front table.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Titles.

Tim RICHARDSON: The member for Murray Plains. Now he sits at the front, but remember, he was ready to walk away from the coalition agreement, such were their shambles and such was the ridiculousness of that. And the member for Gippsland South as the Leader of the Nationals does the work. I have seen him in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee for four years. He does the numbers. The member for Gippsland South would not come in with a notion of broke, would not come in with a notion around debt, because it does not stack up. It is not in the evidence. I mean, at least have a narrative that is formulated with some sort of sense and resemblance.

Then we saw the Shadow Treasurer’s performance the other day. It was any estimate between $4 billion and $5 billion in cuts in revenue source and not one justification for what will change or what will be done. And we know why – because past performance in financial terms when you are doing your superannuation is not a future indication. But I tell you what, in Liberals and Nationals policy, if it is past performance, you know what they will do into the future. You know that there will be cuts to services. I just wonder how many nurses will be taken away. Will they go back to trying to privatise our nurses? Will they go back to trying to privatise ambulances? Will they gut the education regions back to four regions like they did from 2010 to 2014, when they absolutely destroyed the morale of teachers and education support staff in our region? Will they cut infrastructure projects into the future? We know that the member for Bulleen has a very different policy around the Suburban Rail Loop to the member for Berwick, the Leader of the Opposition. Is it a shelve? Is it a ‘We’ll put it off a bit while we assess the contracts’? They have had seven or eight different variances of thought. It just depends. They basically look for Shannon Deery to do an opinion piece, and this week it is ‘Matthew Guy times three’ and they all get a little bit excited. Then they run around and background against each other and have a crack. I will tell you what, they get excited. The one that is getting the most excited with his talent and output is the member for Brighton. But this is about cuts and closures; that is what they are all about on that side.

Rachel WESTAWAY (Prahran) (17:53): I rise today to address this chamber about the Victorian budget deception and the cost of living and what it represents for the people of Prahran: another chapter in Victoria’s tragic decline from the place to be to a run-down state that has lost its way. Prahran was once at the heart of what made Melbourne the world’s most livable city, and we have heard my colleagues across the floor talking about it being the most livable city. Well, my friends, that is not where we are at at this point in time. Chapel Street was a vibrant destination. Our cafes and boutiques drew visitors from across the globe, and young people and families made the seat of Prahran the place they put down roots and planned in with confidence for the future.

But that Victoria – confident, prosperous and growing – has been replaced by a shadow of its former self. We have lost our most livable city status. We have become economically uncompetitive. The Business Council of Australia review of taxes and regulations released in December found the Victorian Labor government had the nation’s worst business settings and the most to do in improving its business fundamentals. That is right – Victoria is dead last in Australia. This pathetic result relates to the government’s policies on payroll taxes, retail hours, planning systems and business red tape and licences. And yet again it is a case of tax, regulation and wasteful spending.

My constituents in Prahran are feeling the burden of mismanagement every day as young families struggle to pay their rent or to buy their first home, and small business owners on Chapel Street watch foot traffic decline as customers struggle with cost of living, increased taxes and crime in the area.

The fundamental problem facing Prahran and all of Victoria is this government’s addiction to taxation. Since Labor took office, they have introduced or increased 61 new taxes, fees or charges. Tax revenue has increased by 183 per cent since Labor was elected, while workers incomes have only risen by 38.5 per cent. Victoria now leads the nation in tax collection, particularly the property taxes that are strangling investment in areas like ours. When a young couple looks at buying their first apartment in our electorate, they face a bewildering array of taxes and charges imposed by this government. There is stamp duty, land tax and development levies. This government has turned home ownership into a luxury that fewer and fewer can actually afford.

The statistics tell the story of this government’s failure. In inner Melbourne home ownership is at its lowest levels, with areas like ours experiencing the rental crisis more acutely. As the Reserve Bank has noted, home ownership is the lowest in city centres, the CBD and surrounding areas. That is exactly where my seat sits. Young Victorians aged 25 to 29 have seen ownership rates crash dramatically. Today young adults in this group have a home ownership rate of just 36 per cent compared to previous generations, who achieved much higher rates at the same age. These are not statistics to me. These are my constituents priced out of their communities by a government that sees every transaction as a revenue opportunity.

This budget continues Victoria’s march towards fiscal catastrophe, and we are approaching $200 billion in debt, a ticking time bomb, a ticking debt bomb, that will explode in the faces of future generations. Interest payments alone will reach $1.2 million per hour. Think about that: every hour Victoria pays $1.2 million just to service debt that delivers no new schools, no new hospitals and no infrastructure for Prahran. This government has presided over $129 billion in budget blowouts over the last 10 years, and when international financial institutions lose confidence in our state’s financial management, it means higher borrowing costs and less money for essential services that Prahran and all of our electorates actually need.

Let me bring this home to the everyday reality of Prahran residents. Our iconic Chapel Street continues to struggle, not because of lack of potential but because this government’s policies are driving its costs up and because lack of essential service delivery such as policing and mental health outreach services are impacting the desirability of the area and people actually wanting to visit. From January 2026 parking levies will increase by 73 per cent, with category 1 spaces jumping from 1750 to 3030, and category 2 from 1240 to 2150. Disappointingly the majority of the seat of Prahran will be now captured in the expanded category 2 levy. How can we revitalise Chapel Street when this government is actively discouraging people from visiting?

Meanwhile, St Kilda Primary School, which I often speak about in the house, still awaits its desperately needed multipurpose hall. It is shocking. While billions are wasted on cost blowouts and pet projects, basic educational infrastructure for our children is ignored. This hall is not a ‘nice to have’; it is essential for physical education classes, community events and emergency services coordination.

The vacant residential land tax exemplifies this government’s punitive approach. A $15,000 impost on a $750,000 home vacant for six months is not targeting wealthy speculators; it is hitting ordinary families dealing with renovations, relocations or family emergencies. This policy is a punishment not a solution. Our local businesses face an incomprehensible web of taxes and charges. The emergency services tax hits their bottom line. If they employ GPs or allied health professionals, they are slugged with the health tax. And if they cater to tourists, essential for Chapel Street’s recovery, they are hit with a holiday and tourism tax.

The coalition offers Prahran and Victoria a pathway back to prosperity through eliminating the taxes that are strangling growth and opportunity. We will scrap the emergency tax that burdens every business in Prahran. We will eliminate the schools tax on non-government and religious schools to reduce education costs for families, we will remove the health tax on GPs and allied health professionals to support our local medical precinct and we will abolish the holiday and tourism tax to make Chapel Street competitive again. Most importantly for young Prahran residents, we are going to scrap the stamp duty for first home buyers on properties up to $1 million, opening home ownership to a new generation. We will also legislate a charter of budget honesty, establish real-time online expenditure tracking and introduce debt-capped legislation, because Prahran residents deserve to know where their money goes and have confidence in where it is being spent.

Our single point of contact for business and investors will help Chapel Street traders navigate red tape instead of drowning in it, while the Victorian productivity commission will identify and eliminate the barriers to growth that have made Victoria completely uncompetitive. We will reverse Labor’s gas ban, ensuring businesses have access to affordable energy, and cut planning red tape that delays development and drives up costs for housing and commercial projects.

When we establish construction enforcement Victoria and reinstate the building industry code of practice, Prahran residents will see infrastructure delivered on time and on budget. We will hold a royal commission into the CFMEU misconduct. They will know their taxes are not being wasted on union corruption and intimidation anymore.

Prahran residents want to feel safe walking to Chapel Street at night, taking their children to local parks and building community connections. We will ensure adequate police resources and work with local communities to design CCTV networks that actually deter crime, rather than simply recording it after the fact. We will invest in drug treatment and mental health services to address root causes, breaking the cycle that sees the same individuals repeatedly cycling through our justice system.

I want my constituents to once again live in the most livable city in the world. I want Chapel Street bustling with cafes, boutiques and cultural venues. I want young families able to buy their first home in our vibrant community, the envy of the world. I want local businesses thriving, not struggling under the weight of 61 different taxes and charges. This is not nostalgia, it is achievable for the future if we have the courage to change the course.

The difference between our approach and Labor’s is fundamental. They see every problem as an opportunity for a new tax, every challenge as justification for more spending and every failure as a reason for bigger government. We see opportunity in unleashing the private sector, prosperity in lower taxes and progress in getting government out of the way of hardworking families and businesses.

The choice facing Prahran residents could not be clearer: continue down Labor’s path of ever higher taxes, spiralling debt and economic decline, or choose a coalition government that will restore Victoria’s competitiveness and Prahran’s prosperity.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I acknowledge in the gallery Wendy Machin, who is a former Deputy Speaker of the New South Wales Parliament. Welcome.