Thursday, 19 February 2026

 Melissa HORNE (Williamstown – Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Roads and Road Safety, Minister for Health Infrastructure) (16:02): I move:

That this house condemns the Leader of the Opposition for her plan to make $11.1 billion in cuts and calls on them to rule out cutting, downgrading or closing the pipeline of new hospitals to fill their budget black hole.

On this side of the house, no matter where you live, no matter what you earn, you deserve the very best in health care, and that is why Victorians know that only Labor can build hospitals. Only Labor invests in our healthcare workforce and in the facilities and technologies our hardworking healthcare workers need to save lives.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Member for Evelyn, I ask you to come back and apologise. The minister will resume her seat. The member for Evelyn will go to the microphone and apologise.

Bridget Vallence: I apologise.

Melissa HORNE: We know that Victorians depend on our government to invest in and strengthen our healthcare system, which is why we are making sure that every single family has the healthcare services they need close to home and when they need them most. That is exactly what this government is doing.

Do you know that in the first 50 days of this year the Labor government opened the brand new Footscray Hospital. I spoke about it yesterday and I have spoken about it today, and I will keep speaking about this incredible legacy that will serve generations to come of families in the west. It is an absolute game changer. Yesterday I was joined by my very good friend the member for Footscray and the Premier and the Minister for Health to open this hospital as they seamlessly moved 180 patients from the old Footscray Hospital in Gordon Street down to the brand new Footscray Hospital. As I mentioned in the house earlier, the very first patient who came in was an elderly gentleman. His name was James, and what James said on coming into the this brand new hospital was, ‘This looks like a 5-star hotel, and I never want to leave.’ The local community has pride in this hospital. I met Olga, a theatre nurse in Footscray who had spent 50 years working in Footscray Hospital. On her last shift in the old Footscray Hospital they formed a guard of honour to show to her just how valued her service was.

But it is not just there that we have been building hospitals. We have completed and opened the brand new Peninsula University Hospital, and on the same day we welcomed the birth of a first baby boy into the brand new maternity and birthing suites. This is incredible. This is such a game changer for the people in Melbourne’s south-east. The member for Frankston and the member for Hastings know just how important this is for their growing communities right across the peninsula. We have also appointed Icon, the builder which will deliver the Casey Hospital ED expansion, so we can slash wait times and enable 52,000 more patients to be treated each and every year.

I am sure the member for Berwick is stoked about this, but perhaps not as much as the surrounding members for Narre Warren South, Narre Warren North, Pakenham, Cranbourne and Monbulk are. They have been such powerful advocates for this project. We have also started major construction on the Austin Hospital ED expansion, one of the biggest and busiest EDs in Victoria. We have really put the hard work in to deliver this deeply needed upgrade right between the Austin and the Mercy Hospital for Women, ensuring that both hospitals will remain open during construction. I know the member for Ivanhoe, you, Acting Speaker Lambert, and the member for Northcote are so excited for this ED to have the capacity to treat 30,000 more patients, not to mention a special dedicated paediatric zone for kids.

We are delivering for the west, as I said, the new Footscray Hospital. I know the member for Footscray is eager to talk on this as well, so I do not want to pre-empt what she is going to say, because she can talk so passionately about what exactly this means for her community. But for my community too in Williamstown this is an absolute game changer. The hospital has got unbelievable technology. In fact it puts us within the top 20 hospitals with this sort of technology in the world. Patients can be there in bed, and they can see their diagnostics right up on the screen in front of them. At the same time the partnership with Victoria Uni is going to be an absolute game changer for local students, who for the very first time can stay in their community, grow up in their community and go to school in their community. They can choose to have a career in allied health, they can choose to become a nurse and they can train right in Victoria University, which has partnered with Footscray Hospital. And they can stay in their own community. They do not have to travel to the east; they can stay in the west and they can stay with their families, and this is absolutely a game changer.

Let us not forget too – I see the member for Point Cook here – that we have also started building the Point Cook community hospital, which is going to be an absolutely wonderful facility. We do not have the member for Werribee here, but he is pretty excited that we have got that expanded ED that is occurring in Werribee. This absolutely is our track record, unlike those on the other side, who closed hospitals. They sold them off. They sacked nurses. This is not what Labor governments do. Labor governments deliver the best healthcare outcomes for people right across Victoria. Indeed there is not a corner of Victoria where we are not delivering great healthcare outcomes for all Victorians. But I do know I have many excited members on the government side who wish to make a contribution about just what delivering great health care means for their community, so I will leave my contribution there.

 James NEWBURY (Brighton) (16:09): I rise to speak on the government’s sledge motion, and I ‍move:

That the following words be inserted to the end of the motion: ‘while noting the impact of $15 billion of corruption on services for Victorians’.

What we have seen is the worst instance of corruption our state has ever seen. And whilst we are having the depth of this corruption unfold, we are also seeing the biggest cover-up of that corruption. The depth of the corruption that we are seeing in Victoria is unprecedented, so much so that for the first time in this Parliament’s history yesterday we saw the Parliament pass a motion in relation to that corruption, seeking the government to call a royal commission. That was not just a motion that was passed by one political party; that was a motion that was supported by every single member of this place, other than the government. Other than the Labor Party, every single member of this Parliament voted; the bedfellows of the government, the Greens, supported it. Every single member of this place supported it.

You could see the reaction to that motion. The Premier’s press conference today was the reaction to that motion getting passed. It was a train wreck of a press conference today, attacking a journalist, which, by the way, was a worse attack than the attack yesterday. The attack yesterday was bad. You know what, on this terrible corruption, which I speak about in my amendment, and the cover-up that follows, it is not just the attacks on journalists that have occurred in press conferences. The Premier’s press office is bullying members of the press by booting them off the press chat group. Publicly, in front of all the other journalists, they are kicking members of the gallery off that the government does not like. That is what this government is doing. The depth of corruption –

Danny Pearson interjected.

James NEWBURY: The government member says that person should be named publicly. There is the bullying behaviour writ large. The minister wants to name that member publicly.

Mathew Hilakari: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, it was hard to hear, but was the member for Brighton admitting that he bullied the member of Nepean out of this Parliament? Was that what he was doing? It was very hard to hear.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): There is no point of order to rule on.

James NEWBURY: I understand why we just moved from a bill to this motion, and for context, in terms of what just happened, the government moved to this motion after 1 hour of procedural debate because they did not understand that they could not just do it. The government moved to this motion ‍–

Katie Hall: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, standing order number 157, ‘Motion to amend’, section (2) says:

An amendment must be relevant to the question it is proposed to amend.

I would put that this is entirely irrelevant nonsense from the member for Brighton.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): We have commenced debate, and I have effectively ruled that this amendment is relevant, so the member for Brighton may continue.

James NEWBURY: How disappointing. The amendment is what we are going to be debating. What I would also say is, by the time we got to this motion, the minister had the chance to get up and do 30 minutes on this motion. So we have spent an hour fighting to get to this sledge motion, and guess how long the minister gave? Eight minutes. So the minister gave up over 20 minutes on a sledge opportunity, and has given me 30 – I have a full 30 minutes on my amended motion.

It is so astonishing how poor this government is at managing this chamber. In fact from failed move to failed move, it surprises me. For the minister to come in on a sledge motion after fighting for it to go for an hour and then speak for 8 minutes – I am going to be honest; I felt bad for the minister because I think the minister did not want to be put up to it. She knew that she had to speak on it because it was there. Last week we had a sledge motion moved and then the minister would not even speak to it. They sent out the member for Bentleigh, and that is like being hit with a wet lettuce. Instead they moved the minister out today, who spoke for 8 minutes on their own sledge motion. Well, I am going to speak for 30. I am going to speak for every single second of that sledge motion, and then I would be happy to support the government moving to extend my time. I ask them to extend my time, because I will happily and gladly accept it. Their speakers do not want to use their time, so give me my time.

I have moved an amendment to this motion because the most important and pressing issue facing this state is the $15 billion of corruption exposed and the government’s refusal to do anything about it, so much so that we have members of the government reportedly telling the executive to call a royal commission. Multiple news outlets are now getting phone calls from Labor MPs, which I will admit is not always normal, but it appears everybody has found the phone numbers for the journalists to call for a royal commission. Well, we absolutely agree with you, like every other member of Parliament last night agreed to the call for a royal commission. The coalition called for a royal commission because it is the only way to get to the bottom of the dirty deals, the $15 billion of corruption and the criminal syndicate that is being run from Big Build sites. That is the allegation: a criminal syndicate is being run from Big Build sites. How could you not want to call a royal commission?

As the member for Laverton said herself, the community is raising it. The member for Laverton said it. I agree with the member. I am sure she got media training afterwards, but she admitted it for all to see. We all saw it headline on the news that her own community was raising corruption with her. Of course they were. The member did the right thing by saying corruption was being raised with her, because it is being raised by the community. The community is outraged.

The point that this government does not understand, and I have made this point repeatedly, is that Victorians work hard and pay part of their earnings in tax. Tax comes from the sweat of hardworking Victorians. They know that governments spend too much of their money, but in this instance they have been caught wasting $15 billion. It is not buying a few too many paperclips or a couple too many HB pencils; it is $15 billion going into the pockets of crooks. Can you believe it? Then the Premier had an opportunity to stand up and do something about it, and what happened – she attacked the people asking the questions. But to be fair to her, she followed her ministry, who had just done the same. The Minister for Police, who has the job of managing law enforcement in this state, attacked the integrity expert who blew the whistle on the quantum of corruption. How could you have a police minister who would attack an integrity expert who has blown the whistle? How could you be so morally bankrupt as a government that you would attack an integrity expert? You must be so morally bankrupt.

Mathew Hilakari: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member continues to reflect on the Chair, and I would ask him to desist.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): I ask the member for Brighton to direct his comments through the Chair.

James NEWBURY: How could the government be so morally bankrupt? I apologise to the member, who did not feel that I was adequately making clear that he is part of the government and part of the moral bankruptcy that would allow a police minister to attack an integrity expert for blowing the whistle. What I can say is that every Victorian saw it. The government thinks it is clever, but every Victorian saw it. Like the member for Laverton said, they are watching, they are aware of it and they know what is happening, and this one will not be covered up.

Then we saw the Attorney-General of this state, the chief law officer, firstly reported as doing exactly the same in caucus, attacking the integrity expert as reckless, and then putting out a statement using exactly the same word. How can government members not see how shocking a state we are in when the police minister, the chief law officer and the Premier are attacking integrity experts who have blown the whistle on the quantum of corruption in this state? How could it possibly be? But this is where we are, and that is why you can see how it has gone so badly. The Premier effectively crashed the car in her press conference today. You can see the pressure. You can see that they are trying to break the glass and fix this problem, and they do not know how to do it. That is why former Premier Bracks is currently in the Premier’s office. Former Premier Bracks has been brought in this afternoon ‍–

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: It turns out the government members were not aware. That is why the Premier was not in the last division. The Premier was not in the last division because former Premier Bracks has been brought into the Premier’s office to try and help the flailing Premier.

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: Well, the first piece of advice I would give is: do not bully journalists. Do not kick them off group chats. The Premier’s office, the media team, was booting them off in front of all of the other journalists.

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: Again the minister says, ‘Name them’. Can you believe that we have a minister who is saying to publicly name and attack a journalist who is being bullied by the Premier’s media team? Are you serious? This is all just part of the problem. This is absolutely part of the problem.

Anthony Cianflone: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, we can see why the member for Brighton did not get the shadow treasury portfolio – absolutely demoted. I will bring him back on relevance here, Acting Speaker. This substantive motion is about the pipeline of hospitals and the $11 billion in cuts. The member has gone nowhere near the substantive motion whatsoever, and I urge you to bring the failed Shadow Treasurer back to the substantive motion.

James Newbury interjected.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): Member for Brighton, take your seat. I need to hear the point of order from the member for Pascoe Vale.

James Newbury interjected.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): Member for Brighton, I have asked you to take your seat so I can hear the initial point of order from the member for Pascoe Vale. When he has finished, you can rise on the point of order. Has the member for Pascoe Vale made his point of order?

Anthony Cianflone: Would you like me to repeat the point of order?

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): If you can, thank you, member for Pascoe Vale.

James Newbury interjected.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): Member for Brighton, you spoke over the top of him.

Anthony Cianflone: The point of order went to relevance. The substantive motion, I put to you, Chair, is about the hospital pipeline of investment of this Labor government and the $11 billion in cuts and closures of hospitals that the Liberal government would do. He is not going anywhere near the substantive motion, because he is the failed Shadow Treasurer.

James NEWBURY: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, for those who have not been following the procedure of the house, I have moved an amendment and I am speaking on my amendment. I have moved an amendment, as everybody else in the chamber seems to know. Acting Speaker, it seems that the member is unaware that when you move an amendment it is moved in the chamber and you can get it from the Clerk’s table.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): Member for Brighton, I have taken your comments on the point of order. I now need to rule on the point of order. I ask the member for Brighton to have a mind to the relevance of his own amendment, but I rule that there is no point of order.

James NEWBURY: Of course. At no point have I spoken about anything other than $15 billion of corruption, which is my amendment. That is what I have spoken about. At no point have I done otherwise, Acting Speaker, so I thank you for your ruling, which confirms that is exactly what I have done.

This week we have seen the biggest betrayal, perhaps, of Victorian taxpayer money that we have ever seen. It is not only the exposure of the worst corruption scandal and not only the exposure of the worst instance of cover-up by a government; what we have witnessed over the last week is shameful. I am sure every Victorian feels ashamed by how their money has been funnelled into the pockets of criminals. When you see a level of corruption of that nature, you would expect any good government to immediately call for an investigation into where that money has gone, that $15 billion that I speak about in my amendment. But we have seen the government refuse to look into where that $15 billion of money has gone, and part of the debate over uncovering where that $15 billion of corrupted money has gone to has been a conversation about providing the chief anti-corruption agency with the powers they need to uncover where that money has gone. That is entirely relevant to the $15 billion, because you need to understand when it comes to that level of corruption where the money has gone.

Not only has the government refused to back a royal commission into where that $15 billion has gone and catch the crooks that need to be caught, but the government has refused to provide the anti-corruption agency with the powers they need to look into third-party activity and investigate where that money has gone. We have seen the government refuse to provide IBAC with follow-the-money powers they have been calling for, and I suspect that the Parliament later this day will be dealing with amendments to do with follow-the-money powers for IBAC. The coalition, of course, has committed to providing IBAC with follow-the-money powers, but I feel very, very certain that the government will not support it. In fact the government have said publicly they will not support it. They will not support providing an anti-corruption agency with the powers they have called for to chase down money that has been corrupted. It makes you ask yourself, as this amendment is directly about $15 billion of corrupted money: why wouldn’t a government want to understand where the money has gone, chase it down, claw it back and make sure Victorians have access to that money? Why would you not want to claw it back?

At the end of the day it is their money. It is Victorians’ money. It is not Mick Gatto’s money – well, actually, part of it is right now. Part of it is in his pocket. Mick Gatto, who said yesterday the Premier was a good person – can you imagine getting a character reference from Mick Gatto positively? I tell you what, when I saw that, I thought, ‘Mick Gatto has just said the Premier is a good person.’ If Mick Gatto says anything other than ‘I hate the member for Brighton’s guts’, I am failing in my job. I am absolutely failing in my job, because to have a person like that providing you a character reference tells you everything about what you are doing, or not doing, as a government. Mick Gatto has spent two days –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): The member for Tarneit, on a point of order?

Dylan Wight: Acting Speaker, I do not have a particular point of order. I just thought we could all use a rest.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): There is no point of order.

James NEWBURY: Acting Speaker, I am sure you will appreciate that vexatious points of order should be called out by the Chair.

This is a very, very important amendment, and that is why I felt it was so important to move it and speak for the entire allocated time. Again I note that the government spent 1 hour of procedural time, and they certainly did not have to. We spent an hour of this chamber’s time debating procedurally whether we would move to a sledge motion. We, of course, did not support the government spending time on a sledge motion. When we did move to this original motion, the substantive motion that the Minister for Roads and Road Safety moved, I thought to myself as the first responder that I would be waiting half an hour, because of course if we have spent an hour of time to get to here, you would think the first speaker would want to actually put the case. You would think a mover, the person who wrote a motion, would want to put the case. Do you know how long they spoke, member for Berwick? Have a guess.

Brad Battin: I wasn’t here – 5 minutes.

James NEWBURY: No – 8 minutes. I was concerned.

Anthony Cianflone: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, standing order 110, ‘Irrelevant material or tedious repetition’, states:

The Chair may warn a member speaking in the House for continued irrelevance or tedious repetition.

I put to you that he has been repeating himself the same way for, what, 23 minutes straight now about the same topic, the same theme. He is not talking to the substantive motion.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): I remind the member for Brighton he is now speaking on the motion and his amendment, not any previous procedural motion. There is no point of order.

James NEWBURY: Of course we all would understand that providing context on the substantive motion is entirely relevant to the substantive motion too – of course it is. And I was providing context to that substantive motion, because we do not just speak on the amendment, we also have the right to speak on the substantive motion, which I was doing. It is entirely within my remit to respond to the mover of the motion and what they have drafted, which is exactly what I was just doing. I can understand why the government would not want me to, but I think we should all be reminded that it is important when we take points of order to try and have some level of intellect to them, though I am not sure that is always the case.

There was a substantive motion moved. I will repeat again because the house interrupted me. I want to make the point again, and I am entitled to make the point again. The mover of this motion spoke for 8 minutes after we spent 1 hour getting there. And of course I will respond for my entire time. We will have spent, I would say, nearly 1 hour and 40 minutes of this chamber’s time, which I would argue was mostly wasted, other than the contributions that related to the need for a royal commission and the $15 billion of corruption. That, to me, was an essential part of the debate in this chamber this week, and it is actually the only time this week that this Parliament has spoken about the need for a royal commission in substance in government business time. Can you believe we are seeing the worst instance of corruption our state has ever seen, and in the parliamentary week the government has afforded no time in government business to consider it? Every Victorian I think is now saying, ‘$15 billion of our money going to crooks’ – at a cost of $5000 to every household.

The member for Laverton said – this was not just us saying it – that it was being raised with her. It was absolutely being raised with her, and I believe her, because it is being raised with every member of Parliament, which is why every member of Parliament, other than the Labor Party, last night called on the government through a motion in the Legislative Council to call a royal commission. The fact that we are not seeing this government considering a royal commission, frankly, should scare every Victorian. I can understand why members of Parliament from the government benches then are reported to have been talking to the media about the need to call a royal commission. Government ministers and government backbenchers are saying to the media, ‘Call a royal commission.’ I can understand that; I agree with them. We agree with them.

There is a big difference of course between a government member secretly calling a journalist and then voting against it in the chamber when they were called to vote on it in the Council last night, and any member who voted against the royal commission motion –

Anthony Cianflone: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the failed Shadow Treasurer probably deserves a breather, but on standing order 110 again – irrelevant material, tedious repetition – I draw to you that he is repeating himself time and time again with the same talking points. It is totally repetitious. I ask you to sit him down, please.

Peter Walsh: I move:

That the member no longer be heard.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): Member for Murray Plains, you cannot move that at this point. I need to rule on the member for Pascoe Vale’s point of order. There is no point of order.

James NEWBURY: I can understand why the member for Murray Plains was feeling so terribly aggrieved, because in this place, as a member as learned as he would know, it is actually quite painful when people who do not know what they are doing try to do something. It is actually quite painful. You are actually measured by what you contribute in this chamber. The Premier and I have spoken about that very thing, and it is one thing that I agree on. The chamber respects people naturally for what they are able to contribute to this chamber, and I would respectfully remind new members of that.

This amendment is so very critical. It is the first time to reinforce, because we are getting to the end of my short contribution, and the first time this chamber in government business has had the capacity to talk about the issue that is not just on the minds of every Victorian but on the minds I think of most Australians. I said recently this is certainly the worst instance of corruption this state has ever seen. This may well be the worst instance of corruption that Australia has ever seen. So it is no wonder that Australians more broadly would be looking on and saying frankly, ‘What the hell is going on in Victoria?’ I think most of us feel like that: what the hell is going on in Victoria? Because we are seeing allegations of $15 billion of corruption that is going into the pockets of crooks and a government that is saying, ‘I don’t want to do anything about it. Let’s tough it out. Let’s try and paint any call for a royal commission as some kind of weird attack on workers.’ What an indefensible argument, and that is why, by the end of the week, you have seen the Premier yesterday, but worse today, fall over effectively in a press conference. The footage today of attacking a journalist I think says, when it comes to what has occurred, what is being uncovered, that the Premier knows she has made the wrong call.

I would say to the Premier: the Prime Minister was able to admit that he got it wrong and called a royal commission after saying that he would not. He stood up, and I will give him credit. He was wrong, and then he admitted he was wrong and he called the royal commission. So I would say to the Premier: stand up. Admit you have got it wrong. We need to clean up Victoria, because if you do not, we will say to Victorians that if they vote for us, we will clean up Victoria, and Jess Wilson and our coalition team are going to do just that. We are going to fix Victoria.

 Katie HALL (Footscray) (16:39): Every time the member for Brighton opens his mouth, there are a group of motivated teals out there in Brighton who are thinking about how they can organise against him, because he is disgraceful. The way he speaks to women in this place is appalling. The way he speaks to me is appalling.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Acting Speaker: standing order 118.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): There is no point of order.

James Newbury: Acting Speaker –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): I have ruled on the point of order, member for Brighton.

James Newbury: And I am taking another point of order.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): The member for Brighton on another point of order under a different standing order.

James Newbury: Acting Speaker, the member just named me and attacked me. I take personal offence – standing order 120 – and I ask you to ask the member to withdraw.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): I ask the member to withdraw.

Katie HALL: I withdraw, and I reiterate that in Brighton every time the member for Brighton opens his mouth there are a group of teals who are getting more and more motivated every day –

James Newbury: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, under standing order 120 it is a requirement of this house that when a member is asked to withdraw they do so unconditionally, not repeat exactly the same thing they just said, and that is what the member just did. Further, on relevance, clearly this is not relevant to the motion.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): I will rule on your first point of order: there is no point of order. I will rule on your second point of order: I do ask the member to return to the motion and amendment before the house.

Katie HALL: I am absolutely delighted to be speaking to the motion, because this week we opened the $1.5 billion new Footscray Hospital, and it is something that the Liberal Party never would have built, because they could not find Footscray on a map. I remember actually asking the long-suffering Liberal candidate for Footscray at the last election whether he would commit to supporting the new Footscray Hospital, and he could not answer me. The last time the Liberal Party built a hospital was when Henry Bolte was running the show. That was the last time. We are building new hospitals across Victoria, and I am so enormously proud of the new health service we have built in Footscray.

Peter Walsh: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I know there is an assumption in this house that all contributions are factual, but I draw the member for Footscray’s attention to the fact that the Bendigo Hospital was built by a coalition government, the Swan Hill upgrade was built by a coalition government –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): A point of order is not an opportunity to make a statement to the house.

Katie HALL: I was, in my first term, absolutely amazed to learn that the Liberal Party had privatised the Mildura public hospital and that we had to bring it back into public hands, but that is how they roll. I will get back to the new Footscray Hospital. The new Footscray Hospital was built on time and on budget. It was shaped by my community, and it will continue to be the people’s hospital for Footscray and Melbourne’s western suburbs. The people of the west are so excited. It will treat an extra 20,000 patients per year in world-class facilities with 16 brand new operating theatres and a magnificent intensive care unit, the kind of facilities that are the best in the world and everything that the people of my community and the western suburbs deserve.

What is absolutely appalling is that those opposite cannot bring themselves to speak about public health care in this place, because they do not support it. They do not support our nurses, they do not support our doctors and they do not support public health care. One of the things that has been so extraordinary about this week is seeing that after two consecutive Labor governments we have got this job done. I remember when I received a phone call from the then Minister for Health Jill Hennessy, a magnificent person who cared so deeply about health care in Melbourne’s west. She rang me when I was the candidate for Footscray and said, ‘I’ve got some good news. We’re going to build the hospital this community needs.’ And now eight years later, after working through a pandemic, when the people designing and planning the buildings had to do it online, we have this magnificent facility which is an absolute game changer for our community. From the 55,000 plants and trees that have been planted at the hospital, from the cardboard hospitals that the children of the primary schools in Footscray were building in anticipation of this incredible feat of engineering coming to life and from the work that the Western Health staff put in over years to plan, what happened on Wednesday was the biggest thing in health care in our state. They transferred 180 patients from the old Footscray Hospital to the new, and they did it with the utmost patient care. It was a magnificent thing to witness.

The first patient who was moved into the ward was an elderly man named James. James said when he went into the ward, ‘I’m never going to want to leave. This is beautiful.’ And it is beautiful to see the views, to see the light and airy spaces that have been designed into this best practice facility, purpose built and designed for my community and those in the western suburbs. I know that the member for Laverton in here is absolutely excited for her electorate as well, as her constituents will of course use the new Footscray Hospital as their local hospital. But it is so much more than a hospital. The community group I chaired to help shape this hospital talked about their aspirations for it to be so much more than a healthcare facility, so we have childcare, we have a gymnasium and we have a magnificent new public park that sits in the centre of the new Footscray Hospital.

I hate to think what would have happened if the Liberal Party had been elected in 2022. I reckon they would have stopped it. They would have left a hole in the ground. It would have been like an episode of Parks and Recreation. They would have just walked away from it, because they have no commitment to the western suburbs and they have no commitment to public health care. The community hospital that we are building in Point Cook; the upgrade at Werribee; the Joan Kirner hospital, where there are 6000 babies being born every year; the brand new Melton hospital, which is coming out of the ground – with that policy-free zone over there, their lack of imagination and their lack of interest in people in the western suburbs, none of this would have happened under their watch, because they simply do not care. But public health in Footscray has now gone to the next level.

We also have public pathology in that beautiful new facility. We are bringing back public pathology, which the Napthine government – I mean, they did nothing, but one of the things they did manage to do was scrap public pathology. We are bringing it back. Our commitment to universal public health care – world-class health care – is now on show in my electorate in Footscray, and I could not be prouder of it. For the member for Brighton to diminish the impact that this has had on the western suburbs by failing to mention the new Footscray Hospital once says everything, because this is the biggest health infrastructure project in the state’s history and it happened this week. But have they mentioned Footscray Hospital once? No, they have not, and that says everything. Their mates in the Greens political party often say that –

Members interjecting.

Katie HALL: They preference them, of course. They got the member for Richmond elected with their preferences. Their mates in One Nation are another troubling thing. But the Greens political party like to say, ‘Oh, we had aspirations for a Footscray hospital.’ Well, they never would have delivered it either, because they could not. The only political party in this state that could deliver the new Footscray Hospital – and it has been delivered on time, on budget – is the Allan Labor government. From day one our aspiration has been to deliver world-class health care for the people of the western suburbs, the people we proudly represent. And I am proud of the workers. I am proud of the people who built that facility. I am proud of the workers who are in there now providing world-class care to my community. I am proud of the community members who helped shape it, and I am enormously proud to be a member of the Allan Labor government, who funded it and built it and got it done.

 Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (16:49): I rise to speak on the motion. I will probably focus more on the amendment put forward by the member for Brighton while noting the impact of the $15 billion of corruption on services for Victorians. And how does it impact those services? Well, tomorrow I am going to be going into Berwick – back to my electorate – and I am going to go and visit Johny. If you do not know the name Johny, then you were not watching the news in the last day or two. Johny owns a jewellers in Berwick. He has come over here from Syria and he is a refugee. He thought he was going to come to a nice, safe place and use his skills as a jeweller and open his business with his daughter and develop it and grow that business. What a wonderful place to do it. I am very proud of Berwick.

But yesterday we saw the worst of what happens when you waste $15 billion on corruption and you end up with over 2000 vacancies on Victorian police rosters. Youth think they can get away with anything. They went into that jewellery store with machetes and other weapons, smashed it up, hit Johny in the head and stole whatever they wanted. Do you want to know why? Because they knew they could get away with it under an Allan Labor government. They knew that they were not going to have the police turn up quickly, because the resources are not there. As of today there are over 1500 ‍vacancies directly on rosters, as we speak right now – over 1500. This government promised 1720 police would be available on the beat under their watch. In the last six years it has continued to drop. More than 800 are on leave, whether it is long service leave or mental health leave. That is because of the pressure the Victoria Police are under at the moment with the lack of resources, because this government continues to cut the funds and make less police available to respond to crimes here in our state.

We saw the report just this week. If you want to see where $15 billion could go, here is a simple answer: the mental health crisis we have here in our state. Over 40,000 shifts of Victoria Police officers are sitting in Victorian hospitals waiting to hand over patients who are there for mental health issues. I have to put it to you: how is it helping a person who has a mental health breakdown to be put in the back of a divisional van and taken to hospital to sit with police for 8 hours? How is it helping the community having a van off the street for an 8-hour shift to sit there and wait for that handover? We all remember when it was the Premier at the time Daniel Andrews, backed by his entire cabinet, who went out and said, ‘We’re going to fix this crisis. We’re going to change the whole system so Victoria Police can drop them off and go, like they do in other states in Australia.’ But we have not seen that, because the government has not funded not just Victoria Police – we are seeing the crisis in the health system, the one that the member for Footscray just got up and spoke about, where we now have more than 60,000 people waiting for essential surgeries here in this state – over 60,000. I know that the government will say the lovely words ‘It’s 60,000 for elective surgeries.’ Explain that to someone who is waiting for a back operation at the moment who cannot work, who cannot go out with their friends, who is suffering social isolation and who is probably going into depression because they cannot get elective surgery under this government.

But what the government can do is they can spend $15 billion that goes directly into the hands and pockets of criminals here in this state, and they take no responsibility for it. This Premier could at any time, without any interest at all, call a royal commission – sign a piece of paper and call a royal commission. The member for Brighton said it. I am not a fan of Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister, I am not a fan of a lot of the things he does, but at least he had the courage to admit he was wrong. He came out and actually put that royal commission in place. Do you want to know why he did that? He did it because of political pressure but, in the end, because it was the right thing to do. We say the same to the Premier here in this state: we all know – everyone is hearing it – the royal commission’s time is now. We need to get this in place as soon as possible. We need to get the rot out of the building industry, because the problem is the more you let it go, the more you let this corruption happen, the more it festers and the more it costs, the more it impacts services.

But one thing worse is it starts to influence the opinions of people who work on these Big Build sites. The reality is that – we know on this side – it is a small cohort of absolute scumbags who think that they can run this system, steal the money from Victorian taxpayers and use thuggish behaviour to control other workers, but most tradies across this state are genuinely hardworking, good people, which this government is ignoring. I will assure you, Acting Speaker, you have had some of the emails the same as I have, in fact that everyone in the house here would have, from the good, honest tradies who say, ‘Enough’s enough. We need to have an investigation into what’s happening. Why do I have to feel unsafe going to work?’ Well, you have to feel unsafe because the party for workers has failed you yet again. And it is not just them. This government has failed workers across the whole state. Ask the retail workers. Ask how many retail workers feel safe going to work at the moment, because the amount of crime happening in retail theft and assaults is not just the highest, it is that high that every other state has gone backwards in its figures yet the average across the country has gone up because of Victoria. Bunnings, IKEA, Coles, Woolworths, Aldi – all of them are speaking up and saying their staff are unsafe because of this government, because this government will not put in.

Members interjecting.

Brad BATTIN: You should check what it is before you ask about it. The government should put in and make sure that there are the police resources there to protect those people in those workplaces, but they are not there. And why aren’t they there? Because the government is broke. They have literally spent every last dollar, but they are putting those dollars –

Danny Pearson interjected.

Brad BATTIN: We have read the budget papers, but I will actually say to the minister at the table that I went through those budget papers. Do you know what I could not find? I could not find where you were hiding the corruption money. You have managed to hide that really well. It is up to this government –

Dylan Wight: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I would just ask the member on his feet to direct his comments through the Chair, not to the minister at the table.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): I uphold the point of order. The member to address his comments through the Chair.

Brad BATTIN: I am still having trouble finding the line item for corruption for $15 billion. Maybe if that was in there we could start to work out exactly what is happening here in this state. But when I go and speak to frontline workers in almost every emergency service here in our state they all say the same thing: ‘This government continues to cut our funding. We can’t get the resources we need to ensure we can protect Victorians.’ During the fires recently we saw trucks that were over 30 years old out on the firegrounds. We had stories of trucks that were breaking down and brake systems not working. We had firefighters that were put in unsafe positions because this government has lost the plot and spent money on corruption rather than fixing the issues we have here in our state. We have seen it over and over again. And it is not new, because with these fire trucks, I have been to stations where firefighters have to turn the engines on and sit there for 4 to 6 minutes to get enough air into the brakes before they can leave the station. Worse than that, they then get told they are not responding on time. They ring up the mechanics, who come out and fix it, and it fixes it for a week or so and it is back to square one. That is not a truck in Melbourne, that is a truck in the Dandenong Ranges, where one day we will want that truck to respond in 30 seconds, not in 6 minutes, because that can be the difference that leads to a fire spreading to such a state that we end up seeing fires like Ash Wednesday or Black Saturday or the fires we have had recently.

Corruption in this state is out of control, and that has an impact on our services. No person on the government side could realistically defend the fact that $15 billion was better off in the pockets of someone like Mick Gatto than putting it into the resources that we need so that Mike Bush, who has come across here from New Zealand, can actually have the resources to put not just the response out there but the crime prevention and we can finally start to turn the corner on the crime crisis here in this state, rather than us having to stand up in here and call on the government over and over again to cut the corruption here in Victoria.

 Paul EDBROOKE (Frankston) (16:59): Usually I would say those opposite have got the economic credentials of a toaster, but the member opposite has just said that he cannot find what he is looking for. They have been talking about this figure for so long, but he cannot find it. That is remarkable. I would just remind those opposite that I was a firefighter. I was a firefighter during a Liberal tenure of government, and we used an icy pole stick in that truck to keep it working. We actually had VicRoads come out and say that it was not roadworthy. So to hear this absolutely fundamentally flawed argument from their side when we are on a health motion is very confusing for everybody, I think. But it has been entertaining, and I think that if they read the budget papers –

The SPEAKER: The time set down for consideration of items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business.