Wednesday, 18 February 2026

 Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:06): What do Victoria’s hardworking nurses, midwives, Victoria Police members, TAFE teachers, paramedics and allied health workers have in common? They have all been supported with better pay and conditions under our Labor government. This is not by chance; it is because our Labor government believes that workers should have the pay and conditions, a decent wage, secure employment and, importantly, safe conditions in their workplace. We know and understand that when workers are treated with respect families feel secure, bills are easier to manage and life feels more stable. That is why we are also enshrining the right to work from home in law, because families too deserve time in their day and the flexibility to balance work, school and drop-offs and all the things that come with family life.

To use the example of the nurses, today nurses and midwives are some of the highest paid in the country because we backed them. My brother is a nurse, and a cheerio to him. It is his 50th birthday today. He works hard, like his colleagues, and they save lives and deliver world-class health care in our public hospital system. Victorian paramedics too are some of the highest paid in the nation, thanks to the support of our government. As I said, these are Victorians that save lives, and they deserve every cent of the wage that they take home. We do this because we back workers and we support families. That is the difference between us and others. There are others whose instinct is not to value workers, it is to cut – it is to cut their jobs, to cut their pay, to cut their conditions – and some, who have an $11 billion black hole, we know would sack nurses, sack teachers and close hospitals to fill that black hole.