Wednesday, 27 August 2025

 Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (18:02): The Allan Labor government has utterly failed Victorians. Crime is spiralling out of control across our state. In Warrnambool alone we have seen a staggering 126 per cent increase in retail theft and a 19.9 per cent rise in overall crime. Our police are exhausted, under-resourced and demoralised. There are 1100 vacancies on police rosters and 700 ‍police on WorkCover. Some have even told me they feel abandoned. That is what they have told me: they feel abandoned by the Labor government, which continues to weaken laws, cut their budgets and ignore the growing crisis.

I just want to stop here and mention the deeply shocking news of the tragic shooting near Porepunkah, which has claimed the lives of two Victoria Police officers and left another injured. My heartfelt condolences for this terrible loss. It is a horrific incident and a stark reminder of the dangers police officers face in serving and protecting our community.

The escalating crime rate is not just a policy failure; it is a betrayal of those hardworking officers who keep our communities safe and the families who now live in fear in their own homes. People are afraid in their towns, in their workplaces and even in their own homes. They are locking their doors – we have never seen that in South-West Coast. We have now got terrifying incidents, like a machete attack in Warrnambool, and a growing disregard for police authority. One man, out on bail after making threats to kill, openly mocked the system. As a senior constable told the court last week in my electorate, the man said:

What are the coppers going to do, honest. They’re going to take me up to their cop shop, they’re going to interview me, they’re going to bail me out … I’ll walk out of there and do a burnout in front of the courthouse.

This arrogance is a direct result of a government that has lost control. Statewide, the picture is just as grim. In the 12-month period to March 2025, we saw staggering serious crime increases: one serious assault every hour and residential aggravated burglary up 30 per cent. That is why the Liberals and Nationals have introduced ‘break bail, face jail’. That is the policy that we have introduced – ‘break bail, face jail’. It is a direct response to Labor’s weakening of Victoria’s bail laws, which has led to a surge in repeat offending and community fear. Under our plan, offenders who breach bail or commit indictable offences whilst on bail will face tougher consequences, including mandatory jail. Bail is a privilege, not a right. Labor’s soft-on-crime approach has emboldened offenders and endangered communities.

We have a government who have abandoned rural Victoria and who have a health system in crisis, a housing crisis and an education crisis where, like our police, our teachers feel abandoned. We have got students who have been left by this government in a crisis situation without the mental health support they have been promised and who are feeling like they do not see a future. This is a Victoria that we are no longer proud of, a Victoria that is so burdened with debt that the government has no ability to actually find a way forward other than to tax Victorians and to tax our emergency service operators, our firefighters and our SES. And only recently surf lifesaving clubs also learned that not only will they not be part of the emergency services benefits that are supposedly coming the way of emergency services, which is debatable in itself, but they are actually going to have to get out with the begging cap and councils are going to have to get more money out of ratepayers to be able to support our surf lifesavers, who protect our beaches like at Warrnambool and Portland and Port Fairy and Bridgewater Bay – beautiful beaches that we have that they protect, and when we have our visitors come they feel protected. It is a service that we should be supporting, not destroying.

We have such challenges now in Victoria with the debt we have got burdened upon us, the $29 million per day that has to be found to meet the repayments that this government has burdened our Victorian community with. People in South-West Coast deserve better. They work hard, they do not expect handouts, they give back through the work they do and through the taxes they pay, and they expect roads that are driveable, ambulances to turn up on time, to be able to go to the hospital and be seen and to have an operation and not wait for years on a waiting list in pain. They expect what they pay taxes for and have been able to get in Victoria probably up until the last 10 years, when this state started to just spiral out of control under the Allan Labor government.

This budget was an opportunity to correct the course that Victoria has been on, to fix the mistakes of the last 10 years, to deliver the promises made to our community, the promises that our community have been waiting for – promises like safety in your own home, that an ambulance will turn up, that the roads will be safe, that what was promised pre-election was going to be delivered, such as the gymnastics centre and a helipad that should be functional. So many broken promises – a PET scanner that was promised three years ago that has not been delivered. Instead, what we got from this budget was more blowouts, more excuses, more debt and more disregard for regional Victoria. This government cannot manage projects, it cannot manage money and it certainly cannot manage our state in a way that gives all Victorians a go.

 Belinda WILSON (Narre Warren North) (18:09): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.