Tuesday, 9 September 2025
Business of the house
Program
Please do not quote
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Business of the house
Program
That, under standing order 94(2), the orders of the day, government business, relating to the following bills be considered and completed by 5 pm on 11 September 2025:
Domestic Animals Amendment (Rehoming Cats and Dogs and Other Matters) Bill 2025
Budget papers – motion
Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2025.
It has been quite a day already, and I just want to take a moment to reflect on the historic first and second reading of the Statewide Treaty Bill 2025 and look forward to Parliament resuming after this break, when we will debate that bill. I know that members on this side of the house will be up on their feet ready to talk about the importance of truth, justice and self-determination and our ongoing commitment to delivering justice and fairness for Aboriginal people and practical outcomes for Aboriginal people. As the Minister for Health I know precisely the impact of self-determination in delivering better health outcomes for Aboriginal people.
The bills that we will be debating this week include the domestic animals amendment bill 2025. Speaker, I want to commend you and thank you for the work that you did, quite some time ago now, on the rehoming pets taskforce. I am sure that you remember it well. You did that work with the member for Narre Warren South and the former Animal Justice Party representative in the other place Mr Meddick, and I thank you for the work that you did. It was my pleasure to be able to commission that work from you as Minister for Agriculture, and I certainly remember that very beautiful visit that we had to Lort Smith Animal Hospital on the day that we launched that taskforce.
Our government, since were first elected, has had a proud history of really moving the dial when it comes to animal welfare in this state and in doing so reflecting the changing expectations of the Victorian community. Of course we were proud when we came to government to end puppy farming. I might say it was something that was promised by a former Liberal government and, unsurprisingly, was not delivered on by them. However, we were able to implement that. We made it an offence to sell a pet without a valid microchip and source number from the pet exchange register, and in doing so we broke the market that existed for illegally farmed puppies.
We removed the need for greyhounds to be muzzled in public. We produced Victoria’s first Animal Welfare Action Plan, recognising that animals are sentient. We were really proud to give renters the right to keep a pet. You will all remember that we were able to tell all those renters that they no longer had to hide their cat or pretend that they did not have one – no more secret cats – and that we would make sure that people with cats and dogs were able to have those in their homes. We reformed the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee to ensure that government was receiving expert advice, and we became the first state to introduce mandatory reporting of animal fate data for dogs and cats in shelters and pounds. We launched a targeted cat desexing program, as well as developing a statewide cat management strategy.
With this bill before us the government is furthering the animal welfare agenda by delivering on its commitment, as I said, to implementing the findings of the taskforce for rehoming pets, and the bill delivers on five recommendations from the taskforce.
The framework will introduce a voluntary authorisation scheme for pet rehoming organisations through amendments to the Domestic Animals Act 1994 and repeal current provisions that establish the voluntary foster care registration scheme. It is important that the house debates the bill this week to allow the government to deliver on its commitments in terms of implementing the recommendations of the taskforce.
We will also be debating the Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, which amends the Casino Control Act 1991 to support the implementation of the royal commission’s recommendations and ensure the regulator has the powers it needs to hold the casino operator to account. As I said, with this bill we are holding Crown to account by ensuring the regulator has the tough new powers that it needs to enforce compliance with the act. Our government maintains a zero-tolerance policy for unlawful practices while delivering gambling harm minimisation across the system.
Finally, the budget take-note motion will be the last chance to contribute. I commend the business program to the house.
Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (15:51): First I want to take the opportunity to note how this Parliament came together earlier today to express our deep and sincere condolences to the two police officers killed in the line of duty protecting our community at that awful event in Porepunkah. We mourn the tragic loss of these two courageous Victorians, these two courageous Victorian police officers, Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart. My deepest sympathies to their families, friends and the entire police community. This is a time for Victorians to put our arms around the Victoria Police community the way that Victoria Police always have their arms around us. The work that they do day in and day out, 365 days of the year, protects us. In many ways our police officers are the best of us. When we are in trouble, our police come to protect us, and when we are at risk, they look after us. They run towards the challenges when many run away. These two brave Victorian police officers lost their lives doing their jobs to protect us, to keep us safe. They will be remembered. I thank the members of the Yarra Ranges police who are assisting still today in the ongoing efforts up in Porepunkah and Victoria’s High Country to find the perpetrator and to bring justice and peace to the families.
Moving forward, for this parliamentary sitting week the government has a pretty flimsy legislative agenda again: just two bills – one about cats and dogs, quite literally, and one about the casino and gambling. Any quiet Victorian out there would be scratching their head. After the horrific, brutal murders of two children on the weekend, in a crime crisis with escalating violent youth offending, machete attacks rife and aggravated burglaries in people’s homes and in local small businesses, why isn’t the government using this week’s government business program to introduce bills to take tougher action on crime? That is what we need. We need tougher action on crime. We need community safety put first; Victorians deserve no less. Yet with the perfect opportunity this government had this week to bring in laws to take tougher action on crime, because they are failing dismally to do so – they are failing Victorian people, they are failing our Victorian youth – instead we have a bill about cats and dogs. They could have had the opportunity. After the brutal murders of two children, one just 12 years old, all they can do is bring in this very flimsy agenda. I think Victorians know really what the priorities are, and the priorities that this Labor government have are all wrong.
The Domestic Animals Amendment (Rehoming Cats and Dogs and Other Matters) Bill –
Mary-Anne Thomas: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, the Manager of Opposition Business is straying from the government business program in her contribution. It is on relevance. It is a narrow procedural debate about the government business program. I ask that you ask the member to come back to –
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point of order, I believe, is on relevance. The Manager of Opposition Business, I believe, was giving context to her opposition of the government business program.
Bridget VALLENCE: That is precisely what I was doing. I was giving context that we will oppose this government business program because, frankly, this government’s priorities are wrong and it should have had different bills in the program this week. All we have here is the Domestic Animals Amendment (Rehoming Cats and Dogs and Other Matters) Bill 2025, which itself has issues. And we understand that before we have even debated it here in the Assembly, the Labor government has already indicated that they will be making house amendments in the Council because they know that they rushed this program – they get things wrong; we knew that there were issues with this – and we sought to go into consideration in detail. The Labor government has denied that very reasonable request, and we will be opposing the government business program on that very basis.
John LISTER (Werribee) (15:56): It is my pleasure to rise to speak for the first time on one of our government business programs, and it is indeed an important program this week. And I too would just like to pause and reflect briefly on this morning and what we have seen in the house around that sharing of grief for the two officers in our state’s north-east and echo those same condolences myself on behalf of the Werribee community. I would also just like to make a nod on behalf of the member for Melton and myself. Over these last few days, we have seen some horrific things happening between our communities. I just want to say that the things which are most important, to paraphrase Bob Hawke, are not always the loudest. We have been having those meetings with those community leaders – speaking directly to our superintendent in charge of north-west metro too – and making those moves around what we can do locally to address these issues.
We are here this week, with this government business program, to speak about some important things, but I did just want to make a little note: we are seeing some opposition towards important legislation around the Domestic Animals Amendment (Rehoming Cats and Dogs and Other Matters) Bill 2025. It is a particularly important piece of legislation, because it goes to trying to make sure that our animals are looked after and that there is a process around rehoming them in the community. There is a lot of dog whistling from those opposite, but I appreciate that we have a bill here that is all about cats and dogs and making sure that they have a good home.
This bill establishes a regulatory framework for pet rehoming organisations in Victoria, introduces a voluntary benefits-based authorisation scheme for pet rehoming organisations and clarifies powers of entry for authorised officers to enter premises. Just on that, I would like to pause and note that we have also seen some horrific incidents with our RSPCA authorised officers throughout the years when it comes to this, because quite often violence is seen first directed towards some of our most vulnerable creatures in society – which are animals – and our RSPCA authorised officers do amazing work in the community, especially around my community. We have had a few incidents lately in regard to guard dogs and the condition that guard dogs are kept in, so the work of our authorised officers with local government is so important. It also amends the Domestic Animals Act 1994 to clarify that the specific class of dog entitled to reduced registration fees can be prescribed in regulations. This is all about making sure that we have a set process to make sure that we are rehoming animals properly and making sure that it is done with regard to their wellbeing and also in regard to supporting those organisations that do this – making sure that we are taking away some of those barriers that may make it difficult to find homes for these animals.
This week we are also considering the Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, looking at some of those reforms that we need to do out of some of the behaviour that we have seen at the casino around people using funds that may not have been gained in the most appropriate of ways.
Looking at the cashless trial, this is a particularly important piece of legislation as part of the package of works that we have been doing around gambling regulation. Particularly in communities like mine, where gambling is a prominent feature, it is really important to consider this here in this house, and I welcome that the government is bringing this in.
Finally, this week on our program we are going to look at the budget again. This budget was fantastic for our growing suburbs out in the west. I note that hundreds of millions of dollars went towards critical road infrastructure. A lot of that infrastructure is getting to the point now where we are seeing works and roadworks happening to get these projects connected into our network to help make it easier for people to get home sooner. There will be an opportunity for those in the house to also take note of the budget and some of the measures that we are putting in place to ensure that we have financial sustainability and we keep working towards having a good debt-to-state product ratio, which is important when it comes to things like our credit rating but also to show that debt for infrastructure is helping to build the future. It is something that we need to have. I commend the government business program to the house and thank you for listening.
Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (16:01): I rise to talk on the government business program today. From the outset, as every other member has stated today, our hearts and thoughts do go out to all our current police officers on the beat doing the right thing for us at the moment and keeping us safe and also to the families and friends and work colleagues of the police officers that tragically lost their lives a couple of weeks ago. I note also that there are police officers from the Latrobe Valley that are up looking as part of the search.
On the government business program this week, as the member for Frankston alluded to, we do have the Domestic Animals Amendment (Rehoming Cats and Dogs and Other Matters) Bill 2025. I do concur with our Manager of Opposition Business that we will be opposing the government business program, because we did ask to go into consideration in detail on this exact bill, the domestic animals amendment. We all know – and it does not matter where we are – the importance of animals in our communities and in our lives in general. I know only too well with my own canine friend Stormy, who I have had for a couple of years now, the importance of how our family does run and how these pets actually do take over and control our lives – more than us controlling them, they do control us. I do hope that we can have some constructive talk around the act. As we see in everybody’s communities, there are unfortunately those that do the wrong thing when they are sometimes illegally breeding cats and dogs. We need to make sure when these animals are taken away or thrown out onto the streets, that we do have things in place so we can actually rehome these animals.
I note too that we have a problem with our homeless fraternity that are living on the streets, and a lot of the time the reason they do not wish to go into a house is because they have pets. Some of these facilities that they do go into do not allow pets to come in. We need to make sure that we have the opportunity to rehome these very much loved animals. It will be interesting to see everyone’s take on this.
The other thing we have up is the Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. Often we have bills come through to do with gambling and the casino. We need to make sure that we are putting all the checks and balances in place to make sure that for people who do have issues with gambling – unfortunately spending too much and gambling too long – we have procedures in place that actually help them out.
While this is spent greatly around the casinos, I note that some of our local establishments and clubs do have poker machines and so forth. I just want to give them a bit of a shout-out, because I know of the lengths that they go to to protect the players that do come in and have a gamble. They know and can identify which participants are in dire straits, when they cannot get up, move away and stop spending their money. We need to make sure that we check these amendments and also have everything in place there.
Then we move to the budget take-note motion, because we do only have two bills on the agenda. I note that last year we did go on for quite a while before we all got the opportunity to stand up and talk about the budget, so I am looking forward to being able to – hopefully – get a spot where I can stand up on the budget response and talk about the issues in my community. As I said, we are opposing the government business program this week.
Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (16:06): Well, it feels like it has been a very long day already. We have had some really big, big things happen this morning and this afternoon. I will start my contribution on the government business program by joining my colleagues, in fact everyone in this chamber, in expressing my deepest sympathy and condolences to the family members of the two slain police officers – incredibly tragic and traumatic circumstances. My heart and thoughts go out to their families that are left behind. The intense grieving that is happening for those immediate family members at the moment is absolutely shocking. My thoughts also go out to the police officer who is seriously injured and in hospital, and I do wish him a speedy recovery – although, as I am hearing in some of the contributions, I think it is going to be a very long road ahead.
I also think we have just had something pretty significant happen here in this chamber, and that is the introduction of the Statewide Treaty Bill 2025. What a momentous occasion here for the Victorian Parliament and indeed Victoria. We have just made history. The bill has not yet passed, but having it introduced here with a gallery of incredible First Nations people who have been so passionate on this journey of us getting to the point of being able to introduce this bill to the Parliament is absolutely extraordinary. I think we should all just take a moment here in this place to really think about the history that has just been made. It was wonderful to be able to stand with colleagues and clap not just the Premier but also the First Nations people in the gallery, who were deeply, deeply moved. It has been a long journey indeed. I am talking about not just the years that it is taken to get to treaty but the decades and centuries that it has taken this country to get to a point where we can be here and introduce such an important bill. It is absolutely extraordinary, and I feel extremely proud to be on this side of the house to stand in celebration and also acknowledgement of the struggles and the journey that First Nations people have been on here in this country. As I said, it is not just the past couple of years but indeed many hundreds and thousands of years that they have been here as one of the oldest living communities in the world, really. It is quite extraordinary.
There are two other bills that will be debated here in this place, as other members have talked about. The Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I always look forward to speaking on these bills. Gambling and gambling harm is such a relevant topic and experience that currently exists in my community, and far too many people lose too much money when it comes to problem gambling just in my local community, in the LGAs of Brimbank and Wyndham, to point out a couple. With this one we are going to be talking about the critical amendments and updates to our legislation governing the Crown Casino as they go about implementing the reforms as required by that very important royal commission.
I also am looking forward, as I think everyone who is a cat or dog lover is – it may cause some divides here in the chamber as people talk about either their cats or their dogs – to the Domestic Animals Amendment (Rehoming Cats and Dogs and Other Matters) Bill 2025. I might even be speaking about my own little Ringo Starr, who is at doggy day care as we speak. I know I will be getting home tonight and he will be waiting for mummy so he can get in bed with me. So the sooner we get out of this place, the better it will be for Ringo Starr. But in all seriousness, this bill will –
Belinda Wilson: That is the name of her dog.
Sarah CONNOLLY: It says so on his lead, and the comments I get every day are just extraordinary, including ‘Do you have another three beagles at home?’
Paul Edbrooke interjected.
Sarah CONNOLLY: The beagles, yes. I know we have a lot of pet lovers in this place so I think there will be a great deal of debate and some good humour here later in the week. Our government has made incredible progress through its legislative program. Time and time again we get up and start the government business program, talk about it, and lay out our legislative reforms for the week. This week will be no different, and I commend it to the house.
Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (16:11): I rise to speak to the government business program, which we will be opposing. I rise to support the Manager of Opposition Business as we speak to the bills that are proposed before the house today: the Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 and the Domestic Animals Amendment (Rehoming Cats and Dogs and Other Matters) Bill 2025, as well as – as you said, Manager of Opposition Business – the light government business program this week. I cannot remember the exact wording you used, but it is very flimsy. It is light on the budget papers, which I will note that I did not even get to speak to last year. So we will see how that one goes.
Firstly, can I too offer my condolences on behalf of my family as well as the coalition for the two slain policemen. As I have said before in this chamber, Neal Thompson was actually a family friend. I was with my father-in-law this weekend as he was mourning the loss of Thommo. He got on the bus from Wangaratta police station just yesterday with the rest of his police veterans, as well as others that were friends with Thommo, to attend the funeral yesterday, which was a very hard day for him. He fondly told me yesterday that the tractor on the family farm is actually one we bought off Thommo. It is with great sadness that we offer this condolence on behalf of our family and on behalf of the blue family.
It is said that the moment for both of the officers was like a sliding door moment – one was only three days away from retirement and other was just there for a two-week secondment. It is the case that if it was three years earlier, my father-in-law was actually the senior sergeant and officer in charge at Wangaratta Police Station and it would have been him possibly going through those doors of Dezi Freeman’s house. He was a known offender to my father-in-law, who served in the police force and retired after 38 years. Thirty-eight years is how long Thommo – Neal Thompson – served for, and so I rise to offer that condolence. Unfortunately, when I last rose to offer that condolence here in this chamber, it was sadly and rudely interrupted by a member opposite who mocked and made rude gestures at me during the condolence motion that I offered on behalf of my family. That was very shameful. It was a deplorable action, and I understand that the footage is being reviewed by the Speaker presently.
To the bills before the house, again we are opposing them because we did ask to go into consideration in detail, which of course the government denied because – no surprises here – they are just not interested in scrutiny. They are just not interested in wanting to allow us to look at these matters that they purport to be very, very important and very, very serious, more so than the things that we are seeing taking place across our state. I would put it to the house that it is more urgent and it is more important to actually introduce bills that would protect Victorians in this house.
Just this weekend we saw the murder – and not just the murder but the brutal slaying – of two young men, 15 and 12 years old. When you read these stories, when you see the footage, which I have not even been able to bring myself to see, having volunteered to work with the South Sudanese community in my early 20s – I cannot even watch it because it is so frightening and it is so devastating. I do not understand why we are not speaking to those things, why we are not introducing bills to protect Victorians in this place, when a 12-year-old waiting for his mum to pick him up from basketball training gets chased down by a youth criminal gang – by thugs – and gets macheted to death. Yet this week the government proposes that we speak to different bills that are not about protecting Victorians, that are not about protecting young people on our streets, that are not about protecting victims but instead want to speak to these things. Not only that, but then when the Leader of the Opposition seeks to raise these issues in this house, the government then decides to not answer those questions. They silence us. They silence the opposition from standing up for Victorians. They silence us.
Assembly divided on motion:
Ayes (51): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Will Fowles, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Lauren Kathage, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, John Lister, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Emma Vulin, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Belinda Wilson
Noes (25): Jade Benham, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Annabelle Cleeland, Chris Crewther, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Emma Kealy, Tim McCurdy, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Nicole Werner, Rachel Westaway, Jess Wilson
Motion agreed to.