Wednesday, 29 October 2025

 Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (10:08): I am so pleased to rise on the 2025–26 budget estimates report. The chair presented this report yesterday, and it was a pretty special moment in time to reflect on a budget that is delivering so much for many Victorians. But I have some sad news for the chamber, and it is not a grievance debate of course here, so I will not spend too long on it, but we did lose the grandfather of the committee. It was the first budget estimates without the grandfather of the committee, who has been there for I think more than a decade. Of course the Nats gained a leader in the member for Gippsland South. So we did miss you. But we did have a much-loved – not weird but much-loved – uncle come and join us as deputy chair, member for North-Eastern Metropolitan Region Nick McGowan. It was with much appreciation that we enjoyed his time as the deputy chair. Importantly, I want to acknowledge the chair, the member for Laverton, who did an outstanding job once again on guiding us through the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee’s review of the budget in the budget estimates. We also had a new team in terms of our secretariat, and I want to acknowledge Igor Dosen, who was really thrown in the deep end. Budget estimates really is PAEC’s most important activity across the year, and it is a challenging time, particularly for the secretariat. I want to thank Igor for stepping up during this period.

I know I will come back to this report many times over the course of this term of Parliament. However, I just wanted to pull out a few highlights of the budget and what it means for the community that I represent but more so for the broader community.

It starts off saying, and I think this is probably the most important thing that we can say, that wages are forecast to grow at a greater rate than inflation for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. Real wages growth is a really central need for members of our community. Real wages growth means a better life. If we can do things to assist the community to gain real wages growth, then we are doing a good thing, because it means better lives for families and better lives for communities and the opportunity to participate in ways that they cannot otherwise if they do not see that real wages growth. It is a primary reason for the labour movement to exist – to improve the lives of people, and that is delivered through a rate of wages growth that is greater than inflation. So I was very pleased that that is the very starting point of this report.

There is an operating surplus of $600 million in 2025–26, and this is part of achieving step 3 in the five-step fiscal strategy. The Department of Health is a massive and huge department.

Michael O’Brien interjected.

Mathew HILAKARI: I will not take up interjections just yet, but I might come back to them a little bit later. The Department of Health is a huge department, and it delivers so much for the community that we represent. At the point in time when you need the Department of Health, it may well be the very worst of days for you and your family. So we support the Department of Health with over $31.2 billion, and we have got a huge infrastructure program in health, one of the largest at almost $16 billion in 2025–26. What does that mean for communities like mine? Well, it means places like the Point Cook community hospital get built. I am so thankful for the workers on worksites at the moment in Point Cook who are undertaking the piling and working on those foundations right at this very time. It means new emergency departments like that in Werribee. The Premier and I and others from the community that I represent, like the Member for Laverton and the Member for Werribee, recently visited the site and we saw how they are thinking about making sure that patients are moved through the place in a really considered way, separating paediatrics from the general hospital and assisting those people who will need some extra support as they come out of ambulances.

The Victorian Virtual Emergency Department is now the biggest emergency department in the state, and it is supported to the value of almost $450 million for its operations in the 2025–26 budget. Becoming the biggest emergency department in the state is a really big deal, because I think if we went back to the pre-COVID days, certainly something like this did not exist at all. It is supporting those people to get the care that they need much sooner.

Deputy Speaker, I can see that you are letting me know that there is limited time left, and I have only got to the Department of Health. Just to let you know, I am coming to the departments of education and justice and community safety soon. Wait for my next report.