Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 Jess WILSON (Kew) (16:01): I rise to grieve for all Victorians because they are paying the price for the Allan Labor government’s decade-long financial recklessness. The report tabled today confirms the truth every Victorian already feels – that our state’s finances are in deep, deep trouble and the Allan Labor government has lost complete control of the budget. Victoria’s net debt is now growing by more than $2 million every hour. That is $48 million every day and $17.6 billion in a single year. Every hour that families are working to pay their bills, Labor is borrowing more in their name. The financial report reveals that payroll tax revenue fell short because ‘job growth is weak.’ Employee expenses blew out by $2 billion. Interest repayments were $272 million higher than budgeted, because the government is refinancing debt at higher rates. These are not just accounting problems, they are the product of 11 years of waste, mismanagement and arrogance by this Labor government.

Let us be clear about where we stand today. Net debt has soared to $150.9 billion in the general government sector and $175 billion across the broader public sector. Interest costs are now $6.8 billion a year, more than $18 million every single day. Over the next few years debt is forecast to reach $194 billion and interest to exceed $10 billion a year. That is $28 million every single day, or $1.2 million an hour that Victorians will be paying because of this government’s financial mismanagement. That is money that should be going to schools, to hospitals, to community safety and to essential services. Instead it is going straight to the bank. To understand how bad this is, we only need to look back a decade to when the coalition last held office. In 2014–15 Victoria’s net debt was just $21.8 billion, or 5.9 per cent of gross state product. We delivered an operating surplus of $1.1 billion and our interest bill was just $2 billion a year – less than a third of what it is now. The wages bill was $18.5 billion and tax revenue was $17.9 billion. Fast-forward 10 years and the picture could not be more different. By the end of the forwards, net debt will have increased almost ninefold. Interest costs will be up fivefold, the public service bill will more than double and taxes will more than double under this Labor government. Yet despite record taxes the government has continued to run structural deficits, spending more than it earns year after year. In 2014–15 interest consumed around 4.1 per cent of revenue. Today it is almost 7 per cent and climbing to 9 per cent by 2028–29. In 2014 net debt to GSP was on track to fall to 4.5 per cent. It is currently approaching 25 per cent.

In other words, it has gone from one twentieth to one quarter of the size of our economy.

Waste is no longer the exception in Victoria’s budget, it is the business model under the Labor government. Over $50 billion has been lost in major project blowouts under Labor. But government waste is not just bleeding from these government projects; under this Labor government there is systemic waste that runs through every level of government. Consider three examples. Firstly, $13 million for 40 machete bins – that is more than $300,000 per bin. Yesterday the Premier told question time that about 2000 machetes had been handed in under the government’s machete program. Now, on my back-of-the-envelope calculation, that is about $6,500 per machete. Yet at the same time, we have the highest rate of criminal incidents in 20 years – $13 million on a program that is not delivering any reduction in crime in this state. We have people afraid in their homes at night, and the government is choosing to spend $13 million on machete bins. What are they expecting – criminals to drop by the police station while they are out on a crime spree and drop in their machetes? This is a government that has its priorities all wrong.

The second example: $600 million to cancel the Commonwealth Games. Let us go to the next wasteful expenditure on the Commonwealth Games: an additional $200 million to pay Glasgow to host them – $800 million for Victorians not to host the Commonwealth Games in this state.

And my third example, one that I hear day to day, and I know my colleagues hear it too often: how the inflationary impact of the Big Build is impacting the construction sector and the ability to create jobs in this state. Two hundred thousand dollars to hold a stop sign in this state – one worker, one sign, $200,000. At the same time, what do Victorians see? They see roads full of potholes, they see schools desperately waiting for maintenance and they see ambulance ramping at record highs. They see cuts to family violence services and they see police resources stretched thin in a crime crisis. Every dollar wasted on bureaucratic indulgence in this state is a dollar denied to those who need it most.

When Victorians ask why they feel poorer, why their bills are higher and why their businesses are struggling, the answer lies here: under the Labor government, 60 new or increased taxes since Labor came to office. Each one might sound small in isolation, but together they have created the most heavily taxed state in the country – 60 new taxes. Now that cannot be an accident; that must be a strategy under this government. Labor have taxed work, they have taxed property, they have taxed investment, they have taxed health, they have taxed education and they have even taxed the act of doing business itself. There is a mental health levy on payroll tax, hitting employers when they are struggling to keep staff. There is a new short-stay accommodation tax, a tax on tourism and small operators, particularly in regional Victoria. There is a health tax on GPs, which drives bulk-billing. doctors out of Victoria when we should be helping incentivise primary care in this state. There is a payroll tax on independent schools, which has been passed straight through to parents in higher fees. And of course there is the $3 billion emergency services tax, a tax on every household, on every business and on every farm in this state – a $3 billion tax to fill their black hole. There is the land tax hike, the stamp duty expenses and the never-ending list of so-called temporary charges that never seem to go away.

Despite this record level of taxation, Victoria’s debt has exploded, with record debt in this state. This is a government that has a revenue problem. It has a waste problem. It is addicted to reckless spending and addicted to taxing to fund that spending. For small business owners these taxes mean fewer staff and shorter hours. For families they mean higher rents, higher school fees and higher prices at the check-out. For homebuyers they mean more property taxes, which now account for nearly half of state tax revenue. Every tax is a brake on confidence. It is a reason for investors and businesses to look elsewhere and exit Victoria. Labor treats taxation as a reflex, not a responsibility. It treats the private sector like a piggy bank and not a partner, and it has turned Victoria into a state that punishes aspiration instead of rewarding it. That is why our economy is stalling, our unemployment is rising and our standard of living is falling, because when you overtax work you discourage it, when you overtax enterprise you drive it out of the state and when you overtax success you end up with less of it.

But this is not about the spreadsheets. It is not about these numbers in isolation. It is about the impact this has on Victorians every single day. It is the parents who cannot find a kindergarten or a childcare place because early childcare centres are not being built. It is the teacher that stands in a classroom with a leaking roof because maintenance was deferred again and again and again. It is the nurse who watches patients build up in the corridors for hours because there are not enough beds and our health system is under-resourced. And it is every small business owner paying higher taxes and higher fees while services decline. Debt, waste and higher taxes are not abstract concepts. They translate directly into fewer opportunities and lower living standards. Every dollar borrowed today is a dollar that has to be paid back by our children. It is a dollar wasted and denied into the future, and that is the failure of Labor’s economic management. It has broken that promise to the next generation that they will be better off, that they will have better living standards, than the generation that came before them.

The government claim it is returning to surplus, but even on its own optimistic forecasts those surpluses are wafer thin, and we see time and time again, with the cost blowouts under this government, that they very rarely come to fruition in the budget papers. But at the same time the mountain of debt keeps growing. The interest costs keep growing to $1.2 million every single hour in 2029. This is not a recovery. It is an illusion built on borrowed money.

Victorians deserve so much better from their government. They deserve a government that treats every dollar of taxpayer money with respect, and the coalition’s vision is clear. We will restore responsibility, rebuild confidence and return Victoria to a state that values enterprise, effort and discipline. Our economic plan rests on a number of principles. First, we will restore fiscal discipline and pay down Labor’s debt. We will stop the waste, we will ensure that public spending delivers value for Victorians and we will respect taxpayers money once more. Second, we will lower the burden on households and businesses and we will drive a commerce-led recovery because only a strong private sector can rebuild the economy and restore jobs here. I can guarantee that taxes will always be lower under a Liberal and Nationals government. We have already committed to scrapping the health tax on GPs, the payroll tax on schools, the emergency services levy and the short-stay accommodation tax, and we will offer stamp duty relief for first home buyers, lifting the threshold to $1 million.

Third, we will grow the economy, not the bureaucracy. We will cut red tape, drive productivity and foster partnerships between business, education and industry to create jobs and investment.

We will bring back the confidence that makes Victoria an attractive destination to invest, to employ and to build once again. And fourth, we will restore integrity, accountability and transparency to the way Victoria is governed. We will put in place our financial integrity plan, a charter of budget honesty, a real-time expenditure tracker and a Victorian intergenerational report by the Victorian productivity commission, which we will establish. This is clear structural reform to clean up the books and rebuild public trust.

When the coalition left office in 2014 Victoria had net debt at $21.8 billion, and it was falling, not rising. We had a budget surplus, we had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation and we had a AAA credit rating. Today Victoria has debt heading towards $194 billion, we have persistent structural deficits and one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and we have credit rating downgrades time and time again under this government. Victorians deserve so much better. They deserve a fresh start, and we will deliver that under a Liberals–Nationals government that actually drives investment back into the state.