Tuesday, 31 March 2026

 Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (19:14): (1615) My adjournment matter is for the Premier, and the action I seek is for her to visit my electorate of Warrandyte so that my community can look her in the eye and tell her exactly how things are right now. Across Victoria and indeed across our country people feel let down by the government. Here in Victoria after 12 years of Labor the government has left Victoria carrying nearly $200 billion in debt. I hear from working families in my community and small business owners all the time who tell me that they are stretched to breaking point – groceries, power bills, rent, all of these things going up. While there are Victorians making difficult choices, like choosing between paying a bill and putting food on the table, the Allan Labor government continue to fob off the $15 billion that has been wasted into the hands of criminals and crooks on their government worksites. It is no wonder that trust in politics is at an all-time low, with 55 per cent of Australians believing that politicians do not serve their interests.

Victorians are sick of a justice system that seems like it is protecting the wrong people: men who secretly film women in bathrooms walking free and machete attacks met with weak sentences that insult every family that has been a victim of crime. Victorians are sick of being gaslit about energy, being told that the electricity system the government is building will save them money when their bills have never cost them more in Labor’s big energy con. Victorians are also sick of having their concerns about housing and infrastructure not keeping up with rapid population growth be dismissed or ignored. That this Labor government has decided Melbourne will grow to the size of London within 25 years, it is entirely fair for Victorians to ask where the hospitals, schools and houses will be for these people and to ask whether their future and housing will be secure. It is absolutely insulting that whenever something does not suit the narrative of the government, they label it as racist or misinformation or someone else’s fault. When people in my community tell me that they feel like the system is rigged or that no-one is fighting for them, I get it. I am the daughter of working-class migrants. I am the granddaughter of a World War II survivor who to this day is still illiterate because her family was so poor they could not afford to send her to school. My parents are battlers who came to the lucky country where they got given a fair go, and their story inspires me to fight for Victorians every single day. People have had a gutful of the political elites who just do not get it. I am here to fight for the battlers, for people in our state to get a fair go and for working-class Victorians who have aspirations to better themselves and their families. I am here to fight for these Victorian values, no matter what the government says.