Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Motions

Budget papers 2025–26

Debate resumed on motion of Steve Dimopoulos:

That this house takes note of the 2025–26 budget papers.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (14:51): It is some time since the budget was handed down – more than three months ago now – and it is fairly easy, actually, to remember what is in it for my electorate, because it is pretty well zippo, not much at all. In all of that time not much more has happened, but we have now got the take-note motion, which allows me the opportunity to reflect on the budget.

The budget title this year was ‘Focused on what matters most’, and it begins with spin. I did note at the time when the Treasurer came in from the other place to hand down her speech that her speech was considerably shorter than they had been in previous years, which to me indicated that there was no good news and she pretty well wanted to get in and get out, because that lack of depth and lack of substance in the budget was certainly glaring.

We are all aware that the budget provides for appropriations of money out of the Consolidated Fund for services and that expenditure lets us know what is happening, and as well with the parliamentary appropriations – I know we are all very keen for the Parliament to be appropriately resourced and continue to run. I do hope actually that within the parliamentary appropriations there were allowances for the carpet, which is rotting in so many places down in the lower part of the annexe. We have those dryers running sometimes 24 hours a day, and I am sure that the energy bill must be enormous to keep those blowers going. There are several spots. We have had carpet cut out in one area, and it needs to be cut out in further areas. The cost to the Parliament really must be growing, and I hope that there is enough money in the parliamentary budget appropriations for that to be dealt with.

Usually when the budget comes out people are kind of keen to look at it: ‘Where is the spending? What’s there for me, and what’s there for my constituents, more to the point? And where’s the money coming from?’ And of course we are always looking to see what else the government is doing to slug the taxpayer and what the debt is. Is that debt looking as though it is on a downward trajectory, or is it escalating? Sadly, in recent years it has continued to escalate. I think after a decade or more in office, we know that the under Labor taxes are up, debt is out of control and confidence in Victoria’s finances has collapsed. I think for so long Labor has hidden its economic incompetence behind misleading forecasts, manipulated figures and indeed broken promises. The budget put down by Labor is showing that life is not going to get easier; it is actually getting harder as more Victorians are slugged. We know they cannot manage money and the budget, and it is Victorians who are paying the price.

I want to start just with a little bit on the debt and the economic overview from that time. First of all, the simple overview: Victoria is pretty well broke. The net debt is expected to reach $194 billion by 2028–29, and that is another $6.7 billion over last year’s forecast. I remember last year, when this became apparent – I think it was about $188 billion. I thought, ‘Surely it can’t get more. The government can’t continue to borrow. They have to manage their finances better and stop the overruns and the blowouts.’ And lo and behold, that did not happen at all, and it has gone up by another $6.7 billion.

I contrast that to when the coalition were in government under former Treasurer O’Brien, the member for Malvern, where it was about $22 billion, with a downward trajectory over the forwards. I cannot believe that we have blown out by such an extraordinary amount in 10 years.

Taxation revenue is forecast to be almost $42 billion before growing by an average of 5 per cent each year over the forward estimates – that is an over $2 billion increase per year. This just shows how much the Victorian government is slugging the ratepayers, the people of Victoria, so badly with taxes. I cannot believe it.

The government is running a cash deficit of almost $10 billion. They are not delivering the $611 million surplus that was forecast. They have proven that year after year, with the average operational expenditure $14 billion worse than forecast. And people out there know that. People out there tell me that they see now why we are not getting services, particularly in country areas, because they know that there is no money. Any surplus is on paper only because that net debt is just climbing and climbing.

Interest payments – many people have mortgages, and people are often looking at how much they are paying in interest. It is I think a particularly good measure. Well, boy, interest payments are going to hit $10.6 billion in 2028–29, and look at what could we do with $10.6 billion. That is $28.9 million a day, $1.2 million per hour. Can you imagine: with $28.9 million a day we could have the hospital in Mansfield rebuilt within a week, with all of the latest mod cons to replace what is becoming an older building. They keep it in reasonably good shape so that it always looks good, and they present a terrific front. One day’s worth of interest is equal to the total build of an early parenting centre.

Total expenses in last year’s budget were expected to grow by just 0.2 per cent in 2025–26, but they have blown out by $8.2 billion. What is the common theme here – rising dollar figures, rising percentages. This was 41 times the amount forecast.

Since Labor came to office government employee expenses have increased by $20.3 billion – a 110 per cent increase. Unemployment in Victoria is forecast to be 4.75 per cent, which has worsened from the 2024–25 forecast. At the same time, the federal government is forecasting a 4.25 per cent figure for the nation. There have been 14 consecutive months of Victoria having the worst unemployment rate of any state. Things are not great at all.

I want to look at a couple of the cuts. In the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) we heard that the budgets for Fire Rescue Victoria, CFA and SES have been slashed by a collective $165 million as compared to the 2023–24 budgets. The TAC is that cash cow that they are pulling money out of, which is going into consolidated revenue. Rather than dealing with the black spots and the road toll, which is not getting better at all, they are using the TAC to pump up the budget elsewhere. The police budget – goodness me – has gone from $4.55 billion to $4.5 billion. However, they have been asked to find significant cuts – significant savings, I think they call it, rather than cuts. It is a nice way of decorating cuts – look for some savings. We know that the police cannot afford that. We know how under-resourced they are at the minute, with the number of shifts every week and I think about 1100 positions remaining open at the moment.

Agriculture, which is close to my heart, has been cut by $77.6 million – almost 13 per cent. We have had a crippling drought. People might look now and say it is getting green, but the grass is not growing. We need grass to grow. Farmers are having enormous expenses to get hay or grain from around the state and from interstate, and the transport costs are quite large. Hay in particular has been very hard to get. If you have got to get a truckload of hay from Queensland, you are paying a lot of money, not just for the hay itself but also for the transport costs.

The regional development funding takes a hit year on year on year – a 17 per cent hit this year, Labor slashing it from $296 million to $245 million.

At the same time, the government have put in the emergency services tax to replace the fire services property levy, expanding it significantly beyond just emergency services, as we would know the CFA and the SES. It is covering the costs of the FRV, Triple Zero Victoria, emergency alert. There are so many areas that the government is using this new tax to pay for that should be coming out of consolidated revenue.

I want to have a look now at one of my portfolios, the family violence area. The government talk a big game here, and the government fail time after time. The numbers, the stats are going in the wrong direction in family violence and in crimes against women full stop. Reducing the funding by $32.5 million for primary prevention, as outlined in the budget, is extraordinary. Last year they tried to talk themselves out of it in PAEC, to say that had been a carryover figure from the year before. Well, it is happening again. I do not think it is. It is just the way that the government operate. We have too many women and too many women with children not getting the services they need in a timely manner because the budget has been cut. I hear constantly of the need to do more in the primary prevention space. Of course we have to deal with the issues as they are at hand. If people are subject to family violence here and now, we do have to have those services, but we also have to try and curb that by preventing, and that is just not happening.

They have cut housing assistance by $170 million, and that is going to impact safe housing options for victims fleeing family violence. They have delayed key housing initiatives supposedly to support victim-survivors. Refuge development projects are delayed, crisis accommodation is delayed and an Aboriginal family violence refuge in Wimmera south-east was delayed as well.

We have had $8 million slashed from primary prevention, with $24 million from service delivery. One of the things that bothers me greatly is the Allan Labor government having failed. They have failed organisations that do a good job. Now they have failed Safe Steps. Safe Steps needed $3.9 million to operate 28 new high-security crisis centre shelter units funded by the federal government. The federal government thought it was a great initiative to fund these new units for people at that really pointy end of being in need for crisis. This shelter could accommodate nearly 1000 women and children each year, but the government could not find it within themselves to find $3.9 million to help Safe Steps. It is not a huge sum. They have a great record. They have got the runs on the board to show how well they do. A $30 million cut to the court system means that those that are going to court are waiting longer and being sometimes subjected to very harsh and trying conditions for that longer period of time.

Locally, not much happened in my electorate. We have had emergency services screaming for upgrades. The Mansfield SES has been on the radar for at least a decade, and the ambulance station. They are both outdated and outmoded and need to be rebuilt in the emergency services precinct that Mansfield have identified. Hoddles Creek CFA: I think maybe – this is really a maybe only of this week – things are starting to move again after such a long period of time. I know the late former captain Leonie Turner did so much to push that, and the brigade, in honouring her, are continuing to do so. We might finally get a station there.

There are sporting clubs that need upgrades that were left out. Wesburn Junior Football Club at Queens Park, Healesville, are getting a little bit of money now, but not a lot. We have got school projects that we need. Wesburn Primary School have been desperate to have electronic flashing speed signs at the front of the school.

And the roads – goodness me, the roads budget. The budget revealed road patching targets have been cut by 93 per cent. Road patching – that is only filling in a little bit here and there. Whilst we have had some work done in my area on one part of the Melba Highway, not all of it, it is starting to fall apart again quite quickly. The Goulburn Valley Highway between Yarck and Mansfield – there are some terrible spots at Maindample near Bonnie Doon, near Yarck, that are in great need of work.

Don Valley had a real patch-up job on Don Road there. The Whittlesea-Yea Road – this had little bits of patching but not enough. Pedestrian safety in Hurstbridge needs to be improved, and there are some simple, cheap alternatives there for the government to do things, to slow traffic, to make things slower. Because Hurstbridge is a little village, and it has got a fairly main road. It is a busy road as people go through it sometimes going way too fast heading up the Heidelberg-Kinglake Road there. We have got roads in the Yarra Valley, including the Warburton Highway, that need work. The government just do a little bit and try and say they have done a great job, but it is not cutting the mustard. We know that we have been neglected, people in the country. Even as recently as this week there were newspaper articles saying that they feel left behind. I will tell you we are left behind, because all the money is going into big projects in the city, the Premier’s pet projects, and not helping those in the country, where the people from the city like to go and visit and recreate.

Chris COUZENS (Geelong) (15:06): I am delighted to speak on the state budget from 2025, and I have great news compared to the member for Eildon and her contribution and the fact that she feels she did not get anything in her electorate. I am happy to say we got a lot, member for Eildon, so let me tell you what we have got.

But I do want to start on a serious note. To the children involved in the bus accident this morning in Geelong, to their families and to the school community, I pass on my sincere thoughts to all of them and for the trauma that has come from that accident this morning. I know the Geelong community will rally around those families. I did want to make a note of that.

Getting back to the motion, I think this is a really sensible budget, because what it has done is look at not cutting and slashing, as those opposite would say that we have done. It is a sensible budget to make sure that we continue to provide the things that people need in our communities. In particular addressing the cost of living has been one issue that we have focused on very strongly and for good reason, and we all know that. I think the $100 power saving bonus, which is being promoted now, is a really important one. It does impact on families when they get those energy bills and have to find the money to pay them. I think the $100 power saving bonus is a great thing for people in my community.

There is $30 million which is helping households install electric heat pumps and solar hot water systems, and $12 million for insulation upgrades under the Victorian energy upgrades. These are really important commitments, because I know in my community people are relying on those subsidies to get solar panels, to get hot-water services, to get the things that they need to help reduce those energy costs moving forward. They have been very welcomed in my community.

The $18 million commitment to food relief organisations – Geelong Food Relief is an extraordinary organisation, and I do want to do a shout-out to Andrew and the team of volunteers there for the work they do every single day in that community. In the set-up that they have got there it is highly respectful. They value people coming in and using them and getting the food that they need but through a supermarket system. It is not about getting a bag of food and being sent on your way. It is about you being able to move through with a trolley like you would in a normal supermarket and get the food items and essentials that you need. So as I said, a huge shout-out to Andrew and his team there.

Also, I think one thing that I have always really supported is Mortgage Stress Victoria – that program – and making sure that we continue to fund them, which we have with $4 million. This is a really important program, because what it is doing is keeping people who under mortgage stress in their homes. It is avoiding homelessness in our communities. I fully support the work that they do, and the fact that they will continue to do that work over the next year is really important.

We have also committed $5.1 million to expanding access to Good Money’s no-interest loans – again, another really important one in my community. I know a lot of people rely on it. When the fridge is broken down and they have got no money, they can go and get a no-interest loan to get that fridge replaced. It is similar for car repairs or any of those sorts of things that occasionally and unfortunately do come up – the washing machine, for example. Families rely on those whitegoods in particular. So to have that no-interest loan scheme continue the way it has is really fantastic for my community, that is for sure.

We also saw quite a number of specific programs funded in my community. The member for Bellarine, the member for Lara, upper house member Gayle Tierney and I advocate very strongly for our communities. Although I am the member for Geelong – everybody thinks I live in Geelong – we work very closely together to make sure that we are accommodating those organisations in our communities.

To have the Strong Brother Strong Sister suicide prevention program re-funded is enormous for the Aboriginal community in Greater Geelong. They received that funding initially about four years ago to provide support after a suicide cluster of Aboriginal students in Geelong happened, and we advocated very strongly to get that funding so they could put that support program in place, and it has proven to be highly successful. I take my hat off to the work that Strong Brother Strong Sister do in our community. They provide a culturally appropriate space to access mentoring, empowerment, guidance and health and wellbeing support in a very safe environment, which is making a difference to the lives particularly of young Aboriginal people in the Geelong community.

Again, QHub, which I have always strongly supported and which was established a couple of years ago by the Allan government, has been an incredible program that supports young LGBTQI+ community members and their families. I have been there numerous times and met not only the young people but their parents as well. I have listened to the challenges that they have gone through, but I have also heard of the importance of the QHub and the work that they do. Jack and his team there are just extraordinary in what they do, and they have been a great support for me and other members around the Geelong community. We need to continue to support them, and that is exactly what we have done in this budget.

The Geelong and District Anglers Club – it is a bit odd that they have a hall based within old Geelong West, but the reason they do is because the club is over 100 years old. I have been working with them for the last couple of years, and they need that building upgraded. We supported them to get a new roof a couple of years ago, but there are no accessible toilets and the kitchen is probably something you would see back in the 1930s, so we have made a commitment to providing funding to upgrade that hall. Let me tell you, they were so excited at the fact that we had given funding to get that hall up to speed. What they were wanting to do, also, was to open up to the rest of the community. I do not know about other members in this place, but I know in my community, finding community space that is affordable to have meetings or gatherings at is almost impossible in my electorate.

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Chris COUZENS: I will not go to Frankston, member for Frankston. I think Geelong is better. We will enable that to happen now, because once it is upgraded and the disability access is there, people will be able to use that facility, which is really exciting for that area of Geelong West.

We also of course needed to provide the funding for the operations of the Nyaal Banyul Geelong Convention and Event Centre, which will open early next year. If you have not driven past it yet, member for Frankston, you are welcome to. It is an extraordinary building. In fact it has been highlighted in international journals as equivalent to the Guggenheim that is being built in the US somewhere. It is an extraordinary building, and probably what makes it unique for Geelong, or for Victoria, is that it is the very first time that traditional owners have been involved right from the very beginning, right from the time that the discussions were being had about the architectural design of the building, which is quite extraordinary. They have been involved right from the beginning, as I said, and this has included the fabric of the building and how it is built and what it represents. Nyaal Banyul means, in Wadawurrung language, ‘eyes to the hill’. It looks towards the You Yangs over the bay. It is an extraordinary building, but obviously it is going to require money to operate. I know, as we speak now, they are taking bookings. There are numerous – I think over 100 – bookings or inquiries that have been made, and they are now looking at staffing that, so there are many, many opportunities in my community for Aboriginal community, for disadvantaged young people and for people with disabilities to actually be employed in that environment. We are really looking forward to that. Alongside that of course is the Crown Towers hotel, which will accommodate people when they go to the convention centre. This is a great asset for Geelong. We are really excited about that.

Of course there have been so many projects and investments that we have made for Geelong. We also have the 10-bed youth residential mental health service.

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Chris COUZENS: Yes, you have got one too, member for Frankston. That is well underway, and of course there will need to be funding to service that as well, so I am very excited to see that come through the budget recently. We are also making sure that we continue to operate all the services and fund the organisations that we have in the past, and we want to make sure that Geelong continues to be well serviced. There is always more to do, there is no doubt of that, and I will be knocking on doors for the next budget round, I can assure you.

There are so many opportunities in Geelong, and many of these projects are very much about delivering employment in my community. Over the last 10 years, with the major infrastructure projects that we have had, we have had people that started in 2015 who are still working either on the convention centre or on the women and children’s hospital, which is under construction as we speak. So the construction workers have not been unemployed. All those surrounding workers that support them have not been unemployed – they are all working – and there are the local businesses surrounding them, obviously, because local procurement has been a big thing for us in Geelong. Our local businesses obviously are benefiting from all of that too. So there is a huge amount that has gone on in the Geelong community, but of course it is well deserved as well.

I do want to talk a little bit about Yoorrook and self-determination for First Peoples of this state and the commitment that we have made. Obviously the Yoorrook Justice Commission handed down its report recently, and there has been $167 million more of funding to support self-determination and culturally responsive services across health, education, housing and more, including $25 million to empower Aboriginal community controlled organisations supporting First Nations children and young people in the child protection and family services system.

These are really important services that we need to continue to fund but also to improve as we move forward through the treaty process. We know very well that they are part of closing the gap, they are part of that commitment that we have made to treaty and to First Peoples of this state. There is an $18 million pilot Aboriginal community controlled vocational education and training model to grow the First Nations VET workforce, and $18 million for a First Nations led diversion program and legal service to reduce the over-representation of First Peoples in the criminal justice system. We know that we need to do more in that space. We need to do more in ensuring that young Aboriginal people in particular are not being incarcerated. We know the damage that is done from that. We are not meeting our targets on closing the gap, and we admit that as a state government. But we truly believe that treaty will help close the gap, and that is the direction we need to be going.

Obviously treaty will be coming into the legislation, or the bill will come into Parliament soon, before the end of this year, and that is something that I know the First Peoples of Victoria have been looking forward to, particularly the First Peoples’ Assembly with the work that they have done and people like Aunty Jill Gallagher, who helped start the process. There are so many First Nations people and leaders involved. I commend the motion to the house.

Tim READ (Brunswick) (15:21): In 2014 then opposition leader Daniel Andrews announced a bold new strategy to revolutionise Victoria’s education offerings. The plan: change Victoria’s car number plates to read ‘the Education State’. At the time Andrews said:

Under Labor, education will be more than just a word – it will be a rock solid foundation for our economic future.

Fast-forward 11 years, and I have to say that foundation is crumbling under the weight of consistent underinvestment. In what now seems like something of an own goal for Victorian Labor, the number plate strategy did turn out to be an effective bit of marketing – so effective that every number plate now reminds us of Labor’s failure to meet that ambition.

Not content with Victoria’s already dubious distinction of having the lowest funded public schools in the country, this Labor government has decided to make things worse. The Age reported in May that in secret the Victorian Labor government quietly cut $2.4 billion previously promised to public schools by delaying their commitment to fully funding public schools to 75 per cent of the schooling resource standard, or SRS, from 2028 to 2031. Not only did Labor delay this commitment until six years from now, or, put another way, two elections from now, but they also did this knowing their decision would deprive Victoria’s schools of much-needed Commonwealth funding. The Commonwealth was prepared to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in funding if Victoria met its SRS commitments, but Labor’s backflip means our schools will not see this money, so our kids are missing out twice – or is it three times? Victoria rolled over its 12-month bilateral agreements with the Commonwealth in 2024 and 2025 with no growth in its share of SRS funding, despite what was agreed in the 2019 bilateral agreement. This has further short-changed Victorian public schools by over $500 million in each of those years. Labor’s decision to delay state Gonski funding until 2031 means a child who started prep this year will not receive proper ongoing school funding until their final year of primary school, while the kids starting year 7 will miss out entirely.

While every other state and territory is busy investing more into their students’ education and futures, Victorian students, who already receive less per student in state and Commonwealth funding than all other states and territories, are being left behind. And it is not only students who will continue to suffer under this decision. SRS funding is mostly spent on school staff, without whom of course our schools would not be able to function at all. But Victoria’s teachers are the lowest paid in Australia and midcareer and experienced teachers are exiting the profession in record numbers, citing underpay and overwork. When you fund public schools to fail the way Victorian Labor has done, you really cannot be surprised when teachers leave for private school jobs or other career paths altogether.

This budget does have some money in it for teacher recruitment, with a few decent-looking initiatives mostly aimed at teaching students and early career teachers, and that is very welcome. But as some of my colleagues have said, the real shortage is of teachers willing to work in the conditions that Victoria is offering. What is needed is adequate funding to ensure that schools can employ enough teachers and school staff, reduce class sizes and make sure all students have sufficient resources and support for their needs, and teachers need to be able to earn a decent living wage doing what they love.

So we understand the problem, and we understand that Labor is making secret decisions to delay the solution. But to add insult to injury, Labor will not even admit that they have made any changes. Since the Age broke this story in May the Greens have joined a chorus of voices demanding that the Labor government come clean with us about their plans for public education, but at every turn they have denied and deflected, often making poor attempts to distract us by talking about maintenance and capital works funding instead. For years I have stood here in this chamber pleading with the government to fix the crumbling heritage schools in my electorate, so I can personally attest that it does not work for the government to say, ‘Look over there,’ when what they are pointing at is something that is falling down.

In the other place my Greens colleague Katherine Copsey asked the Treasurer how much money in the budget bottom line would be stripped out of education funding over the forward estimates by delaying Gonski funding from 2028 to 2031. The Treasurer deflected by replying:

It is fortunate that the budget is only days away and will be delivered next Tuesday. I will respond to budget questions once it has been delivered.

That was perhaps clever on the government’s part. However, details about this change cannot be seen in this year’s budget. There is no line item when there is no funding.

But you do not have to spend long looking to find yet another Labor disappointment, even if it is not the one you were looking for. Other education cuts are clearly visible that have not even made the news, like school enrolment based funding receiving about $40 million less per year than was projected in last year’s budget and school-wide positive behaviour support funding roughly halved from last year’s projections. Fortunately, for transparency’s sake, the Greens now have established a parliamentary inquiry into the impact of the SRS funding delay on Victoria’s public schools, and I thank all other members who supported the Greens motion. This inquiry will look into the following:

1. the State and Commonwealth funding per student in Victorian government schools relative to funding in other states and territories;

2. the impact of this delay on Commonwealth funding;

3. the impact of this delay and funding cut on the education of students enrolled at Victorian schools today and those starting prior to 2031;

4. the consequences of this funding cut on Victoria’s teaching and school workforce; and

5. the effect the funding cut will have on the ability of Victorian government schools to purchase educational resources, teaching materials and capital equipment, as well as fund much needed building and school grounds maintenance.

While the Greens are glad this inquiry will be going ahead and we hope it will bring some much-needed transparency to the education funding process in the state, it would all be a whole lot easier if this government could just be honest about it. But they seem more inclined to just stick a few words on a number plate and hope that is good enough. Well, it is not. It is not good enough to put out media releases spruiking our Education State while secretly cutting billions in school funding and not even having the decency to admit it. It is not good enough to deny funding to students and school staff, who are already the lowest funded in the country. And it is not good enough to pretend you just cannot do any better because you do not have the money while out of the other side of your mouth you are giving billions to prisons and luxury corporate boxes at the grand prix. Budgets are about choices, and it is clear that the Victorian government have made theirs.

Active transport is another area where I have to question Labor’s choices. It is good to see that the budget includes funds for shared-use paths around Melton, where they are no doubt much needed, but that is about it as far as I can tell from the budget. About half a per cent of the funding for public and active transport discussed in the minister’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee presentation was for bikes. Road maintenance was given 10 times as much funding as active transport, which is funny when you consider how much less we would have to spend on road maintenance if this government were encouraging more people onto bikes, which do not degrade roads nearly as quickly as cars.

Meanwhile, $1 billion was allocated to level crossing removals, a fine but car-centric project that does nothing to encourage people to leave their cars at home. Sadly, that shared path from Melton to the Watergardens station is about the only piece of Victoria’s vast network of planned strategic cycling corridors to be funded in this budget. These corridors are mapped out in blue and magenta on the Victorian government website, where they have sat for years – a giant, unfunded spiderweb of aspiration. This inaction allows ‘bikelash’ to flourish and take us all backwards. We recently saw an example of this when the newly elected Yarra City Council voted to make the Elizabeth Street bike lanes narrower and more dangerous, despite the fact that Elizabeth Street is identified on the state’s strategic cycling corridor map.

If the state government were more proactive in building the active transport infrastructure they have said they want to build, it would be harder for anti-bike councils to endanger everyday commuters in this way. In fact I just heard that the Municipal Association of Victoria have called on the Victorian government to support the development and implementation of an investment program to ensure that strategic cycling corridors are delivered in a transparent, equitable and efficient manner. Well, that did not happen in this budget. The MAV want the state to partner with councils in more detailed planning so that bike routes connect areas of population growth, employment and public transport, and they say we need a long-term funding stream to deliver improved bike infrastructure. This sounds entirely reasonable to me, and funding should have begun in this budget. Instead it seems there is nothing in the state budget to make our roads more suitable for bikes, despite their importance as a cheap, convenient, zero-emissions mode of transport. Fear of cars remains a major barrier to many people who would otherwise use their bikes to get around, particularly women.

It is not only that this government is doing almost nothing to encourage people to take up bike riding, it is worse: it is actively taking steps to make it harder. We see this in the threat of e-bikes and e-scooters being banned from trains, a deeply misguided and ineffective overreaction to exactly one e-bike fire that occurred on a train in Victoria. Lithium ion battery fires are dangerous and should be taken seriously, but banning all e-bikes from trains is an ineffective mistake that will only serve to deter people from leaving their cars at home. A much more rational solution would be for the government to listen to Coroner Audrey Jamieson’s 2018 advice to better regulate noncompliant e-bikes, namely illegal home conversions and low-quality imports, which the government itself says are the source of these fire risks. But instead this government seems poised to cut off a vital mode of transport for many Victorians, whether their bike is compliant or not, while ironically increasing the overall risk of fires – just bushfires – due to emissions-induced climate change.

Recently, when I asked the government to amend the Road Safety Act 1986 to allow riders and pedestrians to be covered by the TAC for road accidents, they told me it was not possible because of – wait for it – the way the Road Safety Act is written. Well, yes, Minister, the whole point of my question was to change the way the act is written. I had to go back and tell my constituent, who had suffered severe injuries to both his body and his bank account when he swerved on his bike to avoid a pedestrian who had suddenly run onto the road, that this government just would not help him, even though he is a registered vehicle driver who has been paying into the TAC for decades.

The reality is that our transport landscape is changing for the better, and a good government would be responding and doing everything it could to make it safer and easier for people who choose active transport in their everyday lives. So where in the budget is the funding for the separated bike lanes, the redesigned intersections, the bollards and the bike-priority lights to protect riders and encourage more of us to leave our cars at home? I will just single out one intersection, which is at the south end of the incredible St Georges Road bike lane running through Northcote. There is a massive and very dangerous intersection forcing bike riders onto the footpath to cross the Merri Creek and rejoin the Capital City Trail. Leaving intersections like that and the lack of funding in the budget for active transport leaves riders feeling demonised, unsafe and unsupported.

With federal tax incentives for supersized utes and with car makers producing ever larger models of SUVs, the roads are becoming a playground for automotive dinosaurs that scare people off their bikes and endanger those who remain. I have had enough close calls with oblivious truckzilla drivers to be able to speak to this from personal experience, and my apologies to the driver of the Dodge Ram with whom I lost my temper when he tried to remove me from the planet.

I wish this government would take active transport seriously and treat it like the healthy, hip-pocket friendly, community-minded, environmentally sustainable and traffic-reducing opportunity that it is. Active transport investment also helps those who cannot ride bikes for whatever reason by reducing congestion and thinning out crowded car parks to make space for people who have no choice but to drive. Despite the growing popularity of EVs and hybrids, I fear that if the government releases the data, we may see transport emissions continuing to rise just because of the sheer size of vehicles people are driving these days.

At the moment, Labor’s failure to harness active transport as a climate-change mitigation strategy is yet another in a long line of missed opportunities. Pathetic though this budget’s funding was, it feels like we put more funding into active transport back when the minister did not have active transport in their title. I hope that that will change very soon, and I will do all that I can to make sure that it does.

Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for Public and Active Transport) (15:36): What an act to follow. It was quite the frolic into a utopian universe in part, sometimes bordering on dystopian. There were aspects of the member for Brunswick’s speech, just aspects, which demonstrated a very low knowledge base, particularly those that went to the dangers of certain technologies in certain environments. I will take the opportunity offline to educate the member about said dangers at another time. His contribution was also somewhat myopic in realising the extent of this government’s investment in active transport, not just through dedicated active transport streams of funding but indeed through the government’s Big Build, which has delivered record investment into active transport avenues, whether that be shared user paths or dedicated cycling paths or a great number of other avenues that actively facilitate the use of different active modes of transport. Indeed in the very near future we will be launching an active transport strategy that itself I think will demonstrate a very clear vision about greater coordination in how we plan these things and invest in these very important connections, which aligns very closely with our housing and precincts work as well.

But I digress, and look, it is probably best to put it this way: despite any other positions that we might hold in this place, we are first and foremost all representatives of our local communities. It is our local communities who put us here, and so in that spirit I want to start by reflecting on what the budget delivered for my local community in Dandenong. As we have done as a Labor government consistently over the last roughly 11 years, we have continued to invest where it matters most, and I am very proud of what we have been able to deliver in Dandenong over that time.

This budget continues on a trajectory of investment in schools, in particular putting the finishing touches on Lyndale Secondary College, which some who have been sharing this chamber with me since 2014 might remember was a commitment that we made back in 2014 – to rebuild the entire school. It had not been touched since it was built in 1961, and we have now comprehensively rebuilt that entire school to give young people in Dandenong North the educational facilities that they truly deserve and that facilitate the very best educational outcomes – because the staff are already brilliant, the kids are already brilliant, and now they have got brilliant facilities to match. I think that is very important, so it was great to see that bit of extra funding go towards the finishing touches on that rebuild. That was $520,000 that builds on about $27.5 million allocated to that school for its rebuild.

We also though, importantly, got funding to support the operations of the new Dandenong tech school, which is currently under construction – another very exciting addition to our educational landscape in the south -eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It is located at Chisholm TAFE, and I cannot wait to get out there and check progress later this week.

We also got some important funding to upgrade Greaves Reserve. This is important because for many local communities, their open spaces are well utilised by many in the community for many different purposes. The funding that has been allocated to Greaves, which is quite a big open space used by many different clubs but is the site of the Dandenong showgrounds as well, will ensure that there is some much-needed uplift and additions for community amenity as well. Of course alongside that sit the benefits of a number of announcements and investments in that budget that were statewide but have particular benefit from our community, in particular the power saving bonus, offering much-needed cost-of-living relief, and also that expansion of the ability to get basic health care through your local pharmacist, which I know is incredibly valuable in my local community as well. And of course there is free public transport for kids under the age of 18, which I will have a little bit more to say about shortly, and free public transport for seniors on weekends, perhaps one of the most significant cost-of-living measures that any government could introduce, particularly when you look at what that saves families – who might have one, two, three or four children – each and every year. That level of empowerment will mean young people are able to get to where they need to go to become fluent from a very young age in our public transport network and to take that passion into adulthood.

I will park that just for now, because I wanted to reflect on the fact that 2025 is an enormous year in the transport scene. It is an enormous year because it is the year that we will switch on the Metro Tunnel project, which has of course been causing some disruption for the best part of a decade and has been a part of a vision that has existed for several decades. This has been a project that experts have been saying needed to be done for a very, very long time. The former federal Liberal government, if you remember, withdrew their investment in it. Victoria was left carrying the can, and we delivered it on our own, without a cent of federal funding. It is a project that I am so excited to be able to share with Victorians later this year.

When you switch on a project like that, you also get the opportunity to finally share with the community the benefits of that program. That is what we have been able to do through this budget in allocating $727 million over five years to switch on those turn-up-and-go services along the Metro Tunnel corridor itself – that is, the Cranbourne, Pakenham to Sunbury corridor. But more than that, we allocated further funding of almost $100 million to uplift services across significant parts of the rest of the corridor, because that is what the Metro Tunnel does. By taking three of our busiest lines out of the city loop, we increase the capacity of the loop and therefore we can add extra services across the network. This is an infrastructure project that is all about delivering more trains more often, not just in that corridor but across our whole network. This is a project that is all about futureproofing. We talk a lot about growth in this chamber, and it is incumbent upon any government – every government – to make sure that they are investing in the things that ultimately cater to that growth and meet expectations of livability. That is exactly what we have been doing in investing in that big vision that sits behind the Metro Tunnel. Funding of those additional services is a key part of that, but it is just the beginning, because it is not just what we can deliver from day one, it is what we can continue to deliver across our network for a very long time to come.

I just outlined that we have invested in funding for uplift to services across a number of other lines outside of that Metro Tunnel corridor itself, and that includes the Werribee, Sandringham, Craigieburn and Upfield lines and also some key regional lines, being Gippsland, Seymour and Bendigo. We are adding over 220 additional weekly services across those metro lines that I just outlined, and we are also adding up to 200 additional weekend services across the regional network progressively from this year, including 50 new or extended services on the Ararat, Ballarat, Bendigo and Warrnambool lines, which commenced on 13 April. The Gippsland line upgrade works were recently just completed, and I was thrilled to be down there announcing the completion of that very significant project and also announcing that later next month we will be able to deliver the benefits of that project in that 40-minute off-peak frequency from Traralgon to Melbourne. We are boosting the capacity of the Bendigo line, enabling more six-car VLocity sets to run on that corridor, which of course means moving more passengers, which is a good thing. I referenced Seymour before, and we will be adding additional am and pm peak services on that corridor as well.

We are not just focused, though, on trains, although it is a very significant part of our network. Last year we made the biggest single investment in buses in our state’s history, about $180 million in total, and this budget continues in that vein, with an investment of $162 million over four years to expand our bus network, particularly in some of Melbourne’s fastest growing areas. The time for bus is now, my team and I like saying. Buses have not always enjoyed the same popularity in Melbourne and Victoria as they have in other jurisdictions. There are reasons for that, partly because of a very developed tram network, but I think that is changing, and the role for buses, particularly as we think more closely about how we plan communities but also as we continue to build an integrated public transport system, becomes even more important, and our investment decisions I think are reflecting that.

The member for Brunswick before me talked quite a lot about active transport projects, and I am pleased that we have continued our investment in this budget on that – in particular cycling infrastructure between Melton and Weir Views but also shared user paths on the Melton Highway and the Sunbury line strategic cycling corridors. We have also been investing in measures that will make our public transport system more accessible, including tactiles. They seem quite small, and those of us who do not rely on them maybe do not even notice that they are there, but for those who do rely on them they are an incredibly important accessibility measure across our network.

Of course that active transport investment, though, cannot be seen on its own, because later this year we will be turning on the West Gate Tunnel project, and one of the subheadings of that project, if you like – it is not always the main heading, but it is certainly for me one of the proudest features of it – is that it creates about 14 kilometres of new and upgraded active transport infrastructure, including of course that beautiful bright green snake of a veloway for those keen cyclists among us, which I look forward to sharing with the Victorian public soon, but also some really important connections like the bridge over Footscray Road. These connections make active transport commuting far safer, particularly in those areas where we have got a lot of movement of heavy vehicles. This also builds on all of the active transport infrastructure that we have been able to deliver through all of our level crossing removals. That has been a key feature of pretty much every level crossing removal project that there is; it is a lens that we put on each of those projects to make sure that we are delivering maximum benefit out of them.

There are many things I could talk about, but just finally, with the couple of minutes I have got left, I want to talk about and return to one of the things I started with, which was free public transport. This is a measure that many in this chamber will appreciate the importance of. For households around our state, in a time that has been particularly stressful on household budgets, free public transport for kids under the age of 18 represents a saving of roughly $755 per child but potentially more. That is the cost of a student pass, but if a child does not have such a student pass it can be anywhere up to about $1,200. If you multiply that by several children, that is a significant impost on the family budget each and every year. But what we also want to do with this is make sure that we are embedding from a very young age public transport use. We want young people to know how to navigate our public transport system. We want them to feel comfortable with it. We want to build a culture of public transport use. So we are proudly opening the gates to young people, giving them the golden ticket and encouraging them to get out there and use our public transport system. We also know this takes a load off parents, not only financially, but life is a juggle – we all know that in here. Many of us have families of our own, and trying to navigate how you are going to get kids to various weekend sports or training after school or indeed to school or other extracurricular activities that they have can be really tough, so knowing that they have in their pocket that golden ticket, that youth Myki, that can help facilitate their movement to and from where they want to go independently is of great value, I know, to many families across our state and something I have been very pleased to be able to play a part in.

Equally, free public transport for seniors anywhere in the state on weekends – why shouldn’t we encourage people to get out there and enjoy our beautiful regions of Victoria? We saw that when we introduced the fare cap people voted with their feet; they got out there and they explored our regions, and people from the regions came in and explored the many great events that take place here in Melbourne, and people invested money in regional economies.

That is a hugely important story to tell, and we have just added to that story with the introduction of free public transport on weekends for seniors. Of course we have also freed up the opportunity for them to take their grandkids with them, if they are under the age of 18, which I am sure will be welcome news for many parents across the state who might take that opportunity to get some time out too.

Also reflected in this budget are some of the joint investments that were made between the state and the Commonwealth, in particular the Werribee Main Road interchange and the Ballan Road intersection upgrade and, perhaps very importantly in the few seconds I have got remaining, the Sunshine Superhub, a project that I could spend 15 minutes on alone – talking about the importance of that as both a stage 1 of airport rail, stage 1 of Melton electrification and of course unlocking more services for the west, both the western suburbs and the western region, given the Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong corridors come through there as well. That unlocks probably one of the biggest choke points in our network, as it is right now, untangling that 6 kilometres of track and paving the way for some very key projects for the time ahead. Labor futureproofs; the Liberals look through the rear-view mirror. That is what we have always done, and that is what they will always do.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (15:51): The budget that the Allan Labor government delivered in May was simply disappointing. It was confirmation of what every person in South-West Victoria already knows, and that is that this government does not understand us, it does not listen to us and, worst of all, it does not value us. Let us start with the elephant in the room. Victoria is now hurtling towards a $200 billion debt, a number so colossal that the interest payments to pay that debt back will soon cost the state $29 million every single day. That is $29 million a day that could be spent on our crumbling roads, our hospitals, our regional infrastructure, our housing or supporting our farmers.

Before the 2022 election we were promised in South-West Coast by the Allan Labor government a PET scanner – a PET scanner that they said they would deliver. We are now three years on, and that very important piece of cancer diagnostic equipment is not to be seen anywhere in South-West Coast. People who need to be diagnosed with cancer urgently are having to travel long distances to places like Melbourne. Why have we not got that delivered? The government said in 2022 we would, but they are now saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to wait till the hospital is finished.’ Well, that is probably 2027. That is totally unacceptable, especially when there is another provider in town ready to deliver that and can do so within 16 weeks. That is not another six years away; that is 16 weeks. It could have been done two years ago when they approached the government, but the government will not engage.

That is just one example of a promise that has not been delivered from 2022. Another promise that was made in 2022 is the Portland gymnastics centre. Portland Gymnastics were engaging with the local community and the basketball community, the volleyball community, the dance community and many other clubs, who were coming together to design a precinct that would benefit the whole community. Out of nowhere, without any conversation with the gymnastics community, $1.2 million was announced to build the gymnastics shed to a better standard. The kids were nearly hitting the roof. They did need an improved gymnastics centre. But now what is transpiring it is three years on and we have not got a gymnastics centre. The government have scuttled the plans for the precinct that they promised, which the community was looking to develop, and the gymnastics centre community are only going to get a lean-to – as they have put it in their words – because all the money has had to go into the bureaucratic process and has been swallowed up, and it has not delivered the centre that they were promised three years ago.

Broken promises are a signature of this government. They say one thing; they do another. We can see no better example of that than what we have seen in the last few weeks from the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, spruiking and boasting about fixing the roads and highlighting South-West Coast. Minister, you are not fooling anyone in South-West Coast, because we know – we drive on these roads every day. They are a dilapidated mess. They are simply dangerous. Now it is not a matter of maintenance; it is a matter of public safety.

This funding that we should be getting in the regions is nowhere to be seen, but the government continue to say they are delivering, which is what the minister had the audacity to claim in the Parliament here the other day. We have got 25 per cent of the population living in regional Victoria, but we get about 11 to 13 per cent of the budget from the state delivered in infrastructure. This is a government that is so metrocentric, and it does not understand the regions.

We are seeing services in our hospitals just disappear in front of our eyes. We were promised increased health services. We actually were promised a hub, instead of losing services and being swallowed up by Barwon South West. The government have come out with more spin in my opinion, saying that we will not be swallowed up by Barwon South West; we will have a hub that is working for us. What does that look like in practice? Well, we have got a helipad that has closed down in Portland. You would think if you are 5 hours from the only hospital that can deliver things like cardiothoracic operations, like in Melbourne, you would need to have quick transport to there. Instead of actually making sure that is a priority, the government has done the exact opposite and shut the helipad down. It will not tell the community why, and it will not tell the community what the plan is. In fact it is just shamefully disrespectful about the information that the community needs, seeing that they worked hard to get that helipad put there in the first place.

We have got services disappearing in front of our eyes. You can no longer have a pacemaker put in in Warrnambool; you have to go to Geelong. In 1990 I remember looking after a man in Hamilton who was having a pacemaker. How far backward have we gone if we cannot have something like this? And it is not a very complicated procedure, believe me. I was talking to a community member the other day whose child has hip dysplasia who has to travel to Geelong every fortnight for their child to be assessed. That is a pretty basic condition that is quite common in infants, but this is how bad it has got.

We have got hospitals in Camperdown and in Portland that cannot have babies delivered because they are on bypass. I know the health system seems like a complicated system, so it is easy for the government to pull the wool over the community’s eyes and say things are improving, but just mark my words: try and get your neuropsychology assessment done in Warrnambool; you cannot anymore in the public system. You often cannot have basic operations in Portland like an appendicectomy, which I would have thought was an expectation, like having a baby. This is a government that wants to tell us it is improving things, but what we are seeing is things deteriorating markedly.

What we see also are promises from the Labor government that they are going to deliver housing. They have been in government for 11 years, and about two years ago we saw an announcement of a plan to fix the housing crisis. That plan was to build 80,000 new homes a year with a $5.3 billion investment. What are we seeing for that in South-West Coast? We have got more families without homes and more women and children sleeping in cars in freezing conditions after fleeing family violence. Despite the government’s promise that they would not abandon women, what we are seeing is a more than 2½-year wait for housing for women who are fleeing family violence. That is an absolute disgrace. Their target of nine months cannot even be met, and they are certainly not meeting the 80,000 homes they have promised to build.

This is a government which is failing south-west Victoria. They are failing in every aspect. The people of south-west Victoria and all of regional Victoria deserve better. They deserve a government that understands them. They deserve a government that listens to them and a government that delivers for them. Sadly, we will not find that in the Labor government. But I can promise you, the people of South-West Coast, that we on this side of the house will continue to hold this government to account every single day until we have a government that puts all of Victoria first, not just metro Melbourne but the state of Victoria, from Warragul to Warrnambool and right through the regional areas as well as metro. The community of Victoria have had enough of a Labor government that continues to spin and does not deliver, that tells mistruths, that makes promises that are not even slightly delivered on, that says we will have a PET scanner, which we have not seen, that says we will have a gymnastics centre, which we have not seen, and that actually says we have got better roads because of the spend it has made. What we are seeing are far worse roads, increased damage to cars, lies from a government that says less cars are being damaged and mistruths that we are going to have more safe roads, which just cannot be further from the truth.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.