Wednesday, 19 November 2025

 John PESUTTO (Hawthorn) (17:01): I grieve this afternoon for the people of Victoria. I grieve because under this Allan Labor government life is getting harder. As we near the conclusion of this government’s 11th year, on every measure Victorians are feeling the pain. They are paying the price of Labor’s financial incompetence, its at times corrupt behaviour by and through its agents and its failure to build for the future of this state. In any aspect of life, whichever part of life you look at, we are a shambles, and Victorians are having to deal with services that no-one in this country should have to contend with.

Let us start with health. Why is it that after 11 years of this government the waiting list for planned procedures is at least 59,000 but probably more? As Georgie Crozier in the other place has repeatedly pointed out, because of changes to reporting and transparency, the wait list is far more than 59,000. Last week the government’s own infrastructure adviser, Infrastructure Victoria, sounded the alarm on the state of our hospitals, and in particular the Austin, the Alfred and the Royal Melbourne. They are just a few; this could apply right across the public health network. And what did Infrastructure Victoria say? In essence it contends that despite the hard and dedicated workforces who do great work under and in those facilities, the quality of health care is being jeopardised by the deteriorating infrastructure we see in our health space. Even the government’s own infrastructure advisor has pointed that out.

We also saw the government fall short of its own COVID catch-up plan. Remember that? It spruiked $1.5 billion to perform 240,000 procedures to catch up after COVID – a government that regularly and still to this day uses COVID to paper over its never-ending list of failures. And yet it fell short – 209,000 procedures. We see ambulance response times. We have the best paramedics in the country working under the worst performing government in the country. If you take code 1s – code 1s should be responded to within 15 minutes in 85 per cent of cases – they are only being responded to in 65 per cent of cases. It is not good enough. In health Victorians are paying the price for incompetence.

In education, this government, it can be said, is at least a non-discriminatory cost escalator. What do I mean by that? I mean that whether you send your kids to a government school or an independent or a Catholic school, this government is making you pay more. Do you know that it costs more in Victoria than any other part of our country to send your kids to a government school? We know that because of the government’s payroll tax grab that applies to the independent and Catholic school sector, Victorian parents, many of them working really hard and making huge sacrifices so they can send their kids to independent and Catholic schools, are having to pay more. Many are falling out of the independent and Catholic sector because they cannot afford it, and many schools have had to respond.

This government, in addition, while spruiking its commitment to education, appallingly has welshed on its deal with the Commonwealth over Gonski funding. It has pushed out to as early as 2031, from 2028, and possibly out to 2034, $2.4 billion of funding that should be there for government schools. Those opposite should be ashamed, because not only is it becoming more expensive to send your kids to a government school, it is going to get even worse as pressure grows on enrolments right across the government school sector, again, with the best teachers in the country having to deal with a government that is short-changing education. Look at the infrastructure program this government spruiks on government schools. They talked about $850 million for government school upgrades before the last election. You will know, Deputy Speaker, that even in the area of Boroondara, in the areas we jointly represent, many schools are crying out for funding, and those that have been promised funding are yet to see a cent. This government, even in education, is making life harder for Victorians.

Roads – take another example. I said every part of our lives; well, roads – let us take that. We spend $1500 per kilometre less than the national average on roads, and this government, and in particular the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, like to talk about the $964 million that was promised for road maintenance and resurfacing last financial year. We know around only two-thirds of that money actually made it to the roads. This government promises big, but nickels and dimes things never-endingly, so Victorians are driving on the nation’s worst roads, many incurring significant damage to their own vehicles and risking harm by driving on Victorian roads.

If you look at the business sector, stakeholder group after industry group are all pointing out how difficult it is to invest in this state and employ Victorians. The Business Council of Australia’s latest Regulation Rumble 2025 report puts Victoria at the bottom or near the bottom on just about every measure. Whether it is payroll tax, land tax, regulation, compliance, you name it, Victoria is down the bottom. The NAB survey of business confidence puts Victoria at the bottom. CommSec, on many of its measures, puts Victoria at the bottom. Any number of stakeholder group surveys, including the Property Council of Australia in recent weeks, have produced reports showing that Victorian businesses are struggling more than they have ever struggled under this government or looking, if they can, to relocate their operations elsewhere, and Victorians pay the price for this.

If you look at renters, renters are paying, in median terms, rents now of over $600 in many cases. Why? The tax base in Victoria, in particular the government’s land tax grab, is forcing landlords to pass that on or vacate the market altogether. We have had a massive drop in active rental bonds, as you would know and as I have spoken about previously. So even in terms of business investment and the cost of doing business in Victoria, Victorians will pay the price. Is it any wonder that the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on unemployment again put Victoria at the top of the list in seasonal and trend terms alike: 4.7 per cent above the national average and the highest in the country. How proud should Victorians be of that? Well, we are not, and it is this government that is to blame.

I do want to address things the Premier said in question time yesterday when the Premier spoke about the government’s fiscal strategy. I know the member for Evelyn talked about this too, and I certainly want to address this, because it needs to be highlighted time and again. The government’s five-point plan to get the Victorian budget back on track – what a hoax it is. Step one, creating jobs, reducing unemployment and restoring economic growth: well, let us just look at the record and the forecasts on this. Creating jobs – we have the highest unemployment in the country. But more than that, the government’s own budget forecasts have unemployment over the forward estimates rising. The government’s own forecasts have employment over the forward estimates declining, and economic growth, growth state product (GSP), is actually anaemic over the forward estimates. So on step one – fail.

Step two, an operating cash surplus – let me tell you why the government put ‘operating cash surplus’ in there. It is because the operating cash surplus excludes money paid in terms of capital outlays. Sure, the government says, ‘But look, this financial year and in the years ahead we’ve got an operating cash surplus. This year it’s $6 billion.’ But when you add in, as the government should, outlays on capital projects, what do you see? You see a fiscal cash deficit of $10 billion and deficits into the future. Why is that important? It is important because this government has delivered fiscal cash deficits for the last eight years and it appears these will go on and on, and as the Victorian Auditor-General has pointed out, ongoing, continuing and prolonged fiscal cash deficits jeopardise the state’s economic security and financial prosperity. They have a real impact. So in terms of the operating cash surplus, do not be fooled when the government says it has met step two; it has failed on step two.

The operating result: the government points to a small surplus. But again, how was that surplus produced? There is nothing structural, nothing that is due to the government’s good work. What the government has done is profit from the GST reallocation. Okay, we will take that. But it has also ripped dividends out of agencies to prop up its own operating result, and that is not a good way to run the state’s finances.

Then we come to the two last measures, stabilising net debt as a proportion of GSP and then reducing net debt as a proportion of GSP. Well, let us just break this down a bit. The truth is Victoria’s debt continues to rise. What we are seeing in the budget papers, again, as the Auditor-General’s reporting on this shows, is whilst the general government sector, which is what most commentators look at, might have come in a bit shorter than forecast originally at $150 billion last financial year as opposed to $155 billion, make no mistake: what this government is doing is shifting debt off the general government sector’s books and into what we call the non-financial public sector. To give you an example of what I mean, the government points to the 2024–25 result and says, ‘Well, that came in at less than 24.5 per cent; it came in at 23.7 per cent of GSP. So we are reducing debt as a proportion of GSP.’ But no, when you look at debt overall, as the government’s own financial report which it tabled in this place last month shows, it actually went up as a proportion of GSP from 25.6 to 27.6 per cent of GSP. So you have got to look beyond the government’s rhetoric when you look at the way this government runs the books.

I point out that the Auditor-General has, in a different report this year, sounded the alarm on just how reliable and, frankly, how accurate the government’s budget papers are. You get a picture that debt is actually continuing to increase; it is just where you will find it. The government, through all of its delivery agencies, particularly in infrastructure, is basically shifting that debt burden. What does that mean? Well, as anyone will point out, if you are continuing to increase debt, as this government is, and in particular if you look at its borrowing program to support debt, the government this year and in the next three to four years is borrowing either for new financing or to refinance existing debt over $123 billion. Not only is that just gargantuan in itself, it is having to be borrowed at higher bond rates. In recent years the Treasury Corporation of Victoria was paying about 3.6 per cent on that debt, but as of September last year that went up to about 4.8 per cent. So with all of that new debt and the debt that has to be refinanced, they are massive numbers, right? It is more than the operating revenue of the government in its own budget this year, which will be around $108 billion – far more than that. It is having to borrow at much higher bond rates.

What does that mean for Victorians? Well, as I started out, this manifests itself. As complicated as all of these things might be – budget papers 5, 3, 2, whichever one you want to refer to, and the workings and operations of the Treasury Corporation of Victoria are all very complicated – at the end of the day, the consequences are very simple. It is why those roads are in such a state of disrepair.

It is why you have to wait so long, whether it is at an emergency department or whether it is for an ambulance. And if you get the ambulance on time, it is how long you have to wait to be offloaded to our great staff at our hospitals. It is why you are paying more to send your kids even to a government school. It is why you are paying more, for all the sacrifices that you might make, to send your kids to a non-government school. It is why, if you are a young person looking to rent a home, you are having to pay some of the highest rents in the country – if you can find a place to rent, one that you can afford. That is why. All of these things come home to roost.

I grieve for Victoria, because it is time for a change. How long can this charade of mismanagement go on? Well, it does not need to go on much longer if in November 2026 Victorians take that opportunity to vote for something new, something different – a change that will restore our finances so that we can give Victorians the services and the facilities that they all need, because unless we do, Victorians are going to continue to pay more in taxes, more for their education expenses and more for health care than anybody else in the country is paying or should pay in this country and certainly in this state. I grieve for Victorians. We can do better and we must do better.