Thursday, 13 November 2025

 Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:45): Can I tell you what Bintang, gold bars and 5000 kilometres of undersea cable have in common? Jobs, and they are jobs here in Victoria, investments that are injecting billions of dollars into our state’s economy. Let me take you through the list. Last Friday the Minister for Energy and Resources and I were at the biggest goldmine in the state of Victoria, at Fosterville, in the electorate of Bendigo East, where approvals have just been put in place for a new storage system –

Members interjecting.

Jacinta ALLAN: sorry, great local member, yes; thank you – to support more than a thousand local jobs over the next decade and inject $1.3 billion into regional Victoria’s economy. On Monday, with the Minister for Government Services, we were at Docklands to welcome the world’s largest data cable ship, laying 5000 kilometres of cable beneath the sea – a project that is being delivered in partnership by SUBCO with support from the state of Victoria – cable powerful enough to download 50,000 movies every second. But it is literally laying the foundation for the thousands of tech and service jobs that will be here in Victoria in the future. The minister for industry nearly gave it all away earlier, but with the Minister for Industry and Advanced Manufacturing, the Minister for Public and Active Transport, those great Geelong MPs the member for Lara and the member for Geelong, and the member for Bellarine, we are marking the next chapter in Avalon Airport: the return of international flights to Bali and more flights to Brisbane and Adelaide. This is a big, big boost to the Geelong economy. We know that those opposite are trying to find a way to dig their way out of their $11 billion black hole created by the member for Kew. What we are doing is backing billions of dollars of investment here in workers and in the great state of Victoria.