Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 Ella GEORGE (Lara) (17:16): That was spectacular. A spectacular leadership audition. The cameras were rolling, we had an audience and some other leadership potentials were in the back row watching on.

A member interjected.

Ella GEORGE: If I had a vote in the Liberal Party caucus, I think the member for Sandringham would have it.

Brad Rowswell: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I find this a highly unusual grievance that the government member has.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Ella GEORGE: I apologise for starting my grievance debate with a compliment to the member for Sandringham. But what can I say – I was blown away by his spectacular performance. Today I rise to grieve. I grieve for regional Victorians and how they are treated by the Liberals and those opposite. I grieve for regional Victorians who are at best ignored and at worst treated like the toenails of the state by those opposite – yes, the toenails of the state. Members opposite may wish that former Premier Jeff Kennett had never uttered those words – how they have come back to haunt them. They may wish to forget them, but do not worry, we will keep reminding the Liberals about what he said.

I as a regional Victorian, along with my colleagues the member for Wendouree, the member for Ripon, the member for Geelong, the member for Bass and the member for Eureka, as proud regional Victorians we will continue to remind those opposite – the member for Bellarine – that we are not the toenails of the state, despite what they might think about us. That is what they think about us in regional Victoria. It is disgusting to describe regional Victorians like that, and that is why I grieve for regional Victorians. We know that while members come and go, while members are promoted and while members are demoted, the Liberals do not change, no matter who their leader is, and they have had quite a few lately, haven’t they? This is what they think of regional Victorians. When the member for Kew becomes leader, or perhaps it will be the member for Brighton who has just departed, I know nothing will change.

A member interjected.

Ella GEORGE: The member for Polwarth would make a great leader. How do I know that nothing will change? Let me take members back to December of last year when the Liberal member for Brighton made a series of quite bizarre social media posts claiming that the Premier of this state and the Treasurer of this state are unqualified to be leaders because they are from the country. He said that Victoria was being run by out-of-towners, that they do not even live here. Last time I checked, regional Victoria was still Victoria. You would think that such a senior leader in the Liberal Party would have glanced at a map once or twice and worked out that Victoria extends beyond the suburbs of Melbourne.

These comments are disgusting. They show a complete lack of respect for the 1.6 million Victorians who live in our beautiful regions, who live on the Bellarine Peninsula, who live in Geelong, who live in Lara, who live in Bendigo, in Ballarat, in Ararat, in Maryborough, down in Torquay, in Colac and in Winchelsea. These are beautiful, beautiful places and these people are disrespected by those opposite because the Liberals think regional Victorians cannot be leaders in this state.

That is what the Liberals think of us. They think that we are the toenails of the state. Regional Victorians are not less capable because we do not live in Melbourne or because we cannot jump on a tram to get to work. We do not deserve to be treated with disrespect, which is how the member for Brighton has treated us.

Those opposite do not value the working families of regional Victoria and the contributions they make to our state. I grieve for working families, particularly regional Victorians who work from home, because if the member for Brighton has his way, they will all be back in the office five days a week. While it might be easy to get into Melbourne if you live in Kew or Malvern or Brighton, it is not easy as a regional Victorian, and I say this as a regional Victorian who once commuted to Melbourne every day of the week. You are on the train before 7; you are home after 7. That is 4 hours of commuting time each day – 20 hours a week wasted commuting to work. What could you do with that time? I can think of a few things you could do with that time. Perhaps you could practise raising points of order in your new job as Manager of Opposition Business. You might want to read the new bail laws in Victoria given your new job as the Shadow Attorney-General, or you could practise looking outraged in the mirror so you have got that look perfected for the camera in question time.

What does this extra time mean for families? Four hours a day is 4 hours you get to spend with your family. You get to spend that with your kids, with your pets, with your friends. Go for a walk, enjoy the beautiful, beautiful regions in our state; go to the beach; go out to the country for a walk – there are so many things that you could do with that extra 4 hours of time. When I have had the opportunity previously to work from home, it was phenomenal to have that additional time back in my day. It made a real difference in my life, and I know it makes such a huge difference for every family where you have one parent or potentially two parents working from home.

I grieve for families in regional Victoria. I grieve for people who are working from home if the member for Brighton gets his way, because those opposite have shown that they are completely out of touch with the realities of modern working life and the needs of working families. If they understood the needs of working families, I think they would support this policy. I think they would support the state Labor government’s policy to protect your right to work at home. Take the member for Brighton. He seems to really despise the work-from-home arrangements despite the proven benefits of them. Earlier this year, in February, he was demanding that the government force public servants back into the office full time. He even claimed that the government was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to back office bureaucrats in some kind of sweetheart deal because they were allowed to work from home, and he accused those staff, those hardworking Victorians, of not doing their jobs.

That is shameful. How dare members in this place attack hardworking Victorians who are doing their jobs – jobs that they can do from the office and jobs that they can do from home. He launched this tirade without even consulting his colleagues in the shadow cabinet, even as businesses, particularly those in regional Victoria, embraced these ideas. Working from home is absolutely game changing for regional Victorians, and it is something that every member on this side of the house will be fighting to protect. I am so proud to see this government doing something about it. But those opposite would rip those rights away with the stroke of a pen. I wonder if it is these outdated views on working from home that got the member for Brighton demoted in the recent cabinet reshuffle, but that is a matter for the Liberal party room.

We know that working from home is something that workers love. Their working-from-home arrangements are incredibly popular. Workers report back that they are more productive and they have got more space in their day to do the things they love and make sure that they are getting their job done at the same time. It is something that works for workers and it works for businesses, and I grieve that those opposite will not get on board and will not support working from home; it is truly a travesty.

The Liberals cannot be trusted to back regional Victorians, and I say this with experience, because we know exactly what happened the last time they had that precious gift of government and the opportunity to create a better Victoria. What did they do with that opportunity, with that precious gift? They cut and they closed. They cut schools, they cut hospitals and they cut railway lines and train stations, something I know the member for Ripon knows too well. I think I saw her on social media recently celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Labor government reopening a train line – or was it a train station? I will have to check that one back, but I commend the member for Ripon for her advocacy for her constituents. She is an excellent member; they are very lucky to have her. These are railway lines and train stations that the Liberals closed and that Labor reopened, and I grieve for regional Victoria and regional Victorians if those opposite have the chance to do that again, because they talk about tax reform and the need to cut down on spending, but what that means is cutting essential services. So my question is: what is the first thing that the Liberals will cut? Will it be local schools? Will it be local hospitals? Will they slash train services to regional Victoria? Will they close down train stations like they have done before? They have done it before and they will do it again. On this side of the house we build; we build schools, we build hospitals, we invest in our regional communities. We are currently building a $500 million women’s and children’s hospital in Geelong. It is the biggest piece of health infrastructure we have ever seen in Geelong and something that you would only see delivered by a Labor government, because Labor governments care about regional Victoria. We build, they close, and we know that this hurts regional Victorians so deeply. When the essential services that regional Victorians rely on – health services, education services, employment services – are cut, when they are closed, when they are slashed, that impacts our lives. We are real people; we are not just the toenails of the state, despite what your former Premier may think of us.

Let us talk about education. This is something very close to my heart, as my mum was a primary school teacher in a state school when I was growing up, and I can tell you, as a local MP, I know just how much hardworking Victorian families rely on good public schools and getting a great public education for their kids, and I grieve for them. If those opposite have the gift of government one day – hopefully never – they will cut funding to schools. This Labor government is about to open the 100th school that we have built and delivered in this state. Those opposite, when they have the gift of government, what do they do with it? They cut, they close schools and they sack teachers. I grew up with my mum as a primary school teacher sitting around the dinner table at night worried about whether she was going to be impacted by the Kennett government job losses. It was horrific, the concern that everyone had about the future of education in our state. And what happened afterwards? A Labor government had to rebuild education in our state. We had to re-employ teachers, we had to rebuild schools, and we had to reopen schools that those opposite had closed. We had to reopen TAFEs, because it is not just schools that are cut and closed by those opposite, it is also TAFE and vocational education and training. Nothing is immune from a Liberal cut and closure. We have reopened TAFEs right across Victoria; in fact we have saved the TAFE network.

I also grieve for young people in regional Victoria, because we know how much young people rely on all of these government services and how much of an impact they have on their lives, from access to education – whether it is at school, whether it is at TAFE – to access to job opportunities and access to housing. Housing is so incredibly important for young people and their futures, and if those opposite had their way we probably would not be building anything and certainly not in their backyards.

What this Labor government is doing is making sure that young people have a future and making sure that young people have hope for their future by investing in education, by investing in housing and by delivering housing, including in regional Victoria. I truly grieve for young people if they are ever in a situation where the Liberals are cutting and closing the services, the TAFEs and the schools that they rely on, making it harder to attain their education, making it harder to get started in a career and land a great job and making it harder to find a home in the places that young people want to live.

When you cut education, when you are blocking housing, when you are cutting TAFE, when you are chaining the gates of TAFE, you are not just cutting services – you are cutting hope. You are cutting people’s hope for their future. I grieve for young people in particular, because these government services are so important for their futures. I am really proud that we on this side of Parliament understand the importance of those services. We do not cut and close – those opposite do. The Liberal Party are known for one thing when they have the gift of government, and that is cuts and closures – slashing everything they can – and I grieve for Victorians.