Thursday, 2 April 2026

 The SPEAKER (16:12): I have received a message from the Legislative Council agreeing to the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2026 with amendments.

Ordered that amendments be taken into consideration immediately.

Message from Council relating to following amendments considered:

1.   Clause 1, page 3, line 13, omit “amendments.” and insert “amendments;”.

2.   Clause 1, page 3, after line 13, insert –

“(l) the Fuel Emergency Act 1977 –

(i)   to confer a power on the Minister to direct persons to give the Minister information relating to the production, supply, distribution, sale, use or consumption of a fuel and create related offences; and

(ii)   to increase the penalty for certain existing offences against the Act.”.

3.   Clause 34, omit this clause.

4.   Insert the following New Part after Part 12 –

‘Part 12A – Amendment of Fuel Emergency Act 1977

58A Definitions

In section 2 of the Fuel Emergency Act 1977 insert the following definitions –

“Commonwealth Minister means the Minister administering the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984 of the Commonwealth;

information direction means a direction under section 2A;”.

58B New sections 2A to 2D inserted

After section 2 of the Fuel Emergency Act 1977 insert –

“2A   Directions for the giving of information relating to the production, supply, distribution, sale, use or consumption of a fuel

(1)   The Minister, by written notice, may direct a person to give the Minister information, in the person’s possession or control, relating to the production, supply, distribution, sale, use or consumption of a fuel.

(2)   A notice under subsection (1) must specify –

(a)   the kind of fuel (the specified fuel); and

(b)   the kind of information that the person must give the Minister; and

(c)   the manner and form in which the person must give the Minister the information; and

(d)   the date by which the person must give the information to the Minister.

(3)   A notice under subsection (1) may be given during a period of emergency.

(4)   In addition, a notice under subsection (1) may be given when there is no period of emergency if and only if the Minister is of the view that –

(a)   there is or is likely to be a threat to the production, supply or distribution of the specified fuel; and

(b)   the kind of information specified in the notice is relevant for the planning of, and preparation for, the production, supply, distribution or sale of the specified fuel to ensure a sufficient amount of the specified fuel will remain available to meet the reasonable requirements of the community.

(5)   To avoid doubt, section 41A of the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 applies to this section.

2B   Compliance with information direction

A person who is given an information direction must comply with the direction unless the person has a lawful excuse.

Penalty:   In the case of a natural person, 60 penalty units.

In the case of a body corporate, 2500 penalty units.

2C   False and misleading information

A person must not, in purported compliance with an information direction, give information to the Minister that the person knows is false or misleading in a material particular.

Penalty:   In the case of a natural person, 60 penalty units.

In the case of a body corporate, 2500 penalty units.

2D   Confidentiality

(1)   A person given confidential or commercially sensitive information under an information notice must not disclose that information.

Penalty:   120 penalty units.

(2)   Subsection (1) does not apply to a disclosure of confidential or commercially sensitive information of the following kind –

(a)   a disclosure made with the consent of the person who gave the confidential or commercially sensitive information; or

(b)   a disclosure made for the purposes of the exercise of a power or the performance of a function under, or in connection with, this Act or the regulations; or

(c)   a disclosure made to the Commonwealth Minister for the purpose of administering the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984 of the Commonwealth; or

(d)   a disclosure made by the Minister for the purposes of any arrangement entered into by the Minister and the Commonwealth Minister under section 15(1) of the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984 of the Commonwealth; or

(e)   a disclosure made in the performance of a function or exercise of a power under the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984 of the Commonwealth that is delegated, under section 49 of that Act, to –

(i)   the Minister; or

(ii)   an officer or employee of the State; or

(iii)   a person who constitutes, is a member of, or is employed by, an authority established by or under a law of Victoria; or

(f)   a disclosure made to a court or tribunal in the course of legal proceedings; or

(g)   a disclosure made pursuant to an order of a court or tribunal; or

(h)   a disclosure of confidential or commercially sensitive information that is in the public domain at the time of the disclosure.”.

58C Compliance with directions etc. of Minister

In section 5(1) of the Fuel Emergency Act 1977, after “direction” (where first occurring) insert “(other than an information direction)”.

58D Application and operation of directions etc.

In section 7(1) and (2) of the Fuel Emergency Act 1977, after “direction” insert “(other than an information direction)”.

58E Provision for compensation to persons complying with directions

In section 8(1) of the Fuel Emergency Act 1977, after “direction” (where first occurring) insert “(other than an information direction)”.

58F Section 9 amended

(1)   Insert the following heading to section 9 of the Fuel Emergency Act 1977 –

“General offence”.

(2)   In section 9(1) of the Fuel Emergency Act 1977, after “direction” insert “(other than an information direction)”.

(3)   In section 9(2) of the Fuel Emergency Act 1977, for “50 penalty units” substitute “in the case of a natural person, 120 penalty units and in the case of a body corporate, 2500 penalty units.”.’.

5.   Long title, after “Restricting Non-disclosure Agreements (Sexual Harassment at Work) Act 2025” insert “, the Fuel Emergency Act 1977 to confer a power on the Minister to direct persons to give the Minister information relating to the production, supply, distribution, sale, use or consumption of a fuel and create related offences and to increase the penalty for certain existing offences against that Act”.

 Lily D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park – Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for the State Electricity Commission) (16:13): I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

There are a couple of groups of amendments that I wish to make some brief comments on. The amendments are, firstly, to the Fuel Emergency Act 1977 to enable the minister – as the Minister for Energy and Resources, that is me – to compel fuel suppliers to provide information that would help with contingency planning. Victoria already receives fuel supply data from the Commonwealth and directly from the industry in terms of the current global fuel crisis, but this amendment will enable the provision of end-to-end supply data outside of an emergency declaration and create a consistent reporting standard for all fuel businesses across the state. With accurate information, Victoria will be well placed to act quickly and, if required, to intervene to keep essential services, regional communities, freight and agriculture moving.

It is also important to note that there is a very strong collective effort at a national level. With the Commonwealth and other jurisdictions, we have developed the National Fuel Security Plan, which was agreed to at national cabinet last week. The plan includes four alert levels to provide clear guidance to Australians about the situation that is occurring as a result of the war in Iran. At present we are at level 2, which is ‘Keeping Australia moving’. At this level we know that the global outlook remains unpredictable, and it is the responsibility of all governments to plan ahead in case the situation worsens.

In accordance with that plan, Victoria is strengthening our fuel security and preparedness. In addition to the regular industry meetings, we have appointed a class 2 energy controller under the emergency management framework to coordinate across government.

I also wish to comment on the second house amendment, which relates to the Local Government Act 2020. The government considers further amendment to the bill is needed in relation to clause 34. Under previous iterations of section 146 of the Local Government Act, arbiters had the flexibility to first consider if conduct that was the subject of an application would more appropriately be dealt with as an application for serious misconduct before referring it on. Clause 34 sought to reinstate this flexibility. However, the government is mindful that as it has only been a short time since the last reforms to this provision in 2024, it is more appropriate to allow the provisions to continue to operate as they are and for it to remain mandatory for arbiters to refer serious misconduct applications to the chief municipal inspector. This will allow more time for the Department of Government Services and the Department of Justice and Community Safety to monitor the operation of the provision and provide for a use case for further reform at a further point in time. After discussions and consultations across the chamber and in the interests of passing the important changes to the Fuel Emergency Act, the government is not proceeding with this part of the bill.

 Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (16:17): This is another example of where the government does not get its legislation right. What they brought to this chamber was a regulatory reform bill, and as we know, there was very little in the way of regulatory reform contained within the original piece of proposed legislation that came to this Assembly. It got through this Assembly – we debated all of the proposed clauses across some nine portfolios and several acts – and it went to the Legislative Council only to find two things: that they were going to make amendments to one of the existing clauses and that they were going to be opportunistic and use this regulatory reform bill to insert a new series of amendments relating to fuel, given the fuel crisis that the world, Australia and Victoria are experiencing in relation to the conflict over in Iran. But we do have a number of concerns in relation to that particular amendment. We will not be opposing these amendments, but we do have a number of concerns with that particular amendment relating to amending the Fuel Emergency Act 1977, which I will get to later.

First I will deal with the government’s amendment changes in relation to the Local Government Act 2020. When this government first brought the legislation to the Assembly last sitting week, one of the proposed amendments in that original piece of legislation from the government was to amend the Local Government Act 2020 to amend the definition of ‘serious misconduct’ and VCAT’s jurisdiction with respect to applications disputing the validity of an election. That was essentially the thrust of the changes that this government was seeking to make in relation to the Local Government Act. It is part 8 of the legislation that I am referring to, in the original piece of legislation. Clause 34 was particularly problematic. Clause 34 was where the government – again, before I get into this, this was a regulatory reform bill, and in the main, most of the proposed amendments that the government was seeking to make in this Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2026 did not pertain to any inquiries or reviews, with no reform arising from a parliamentary inquiry, external body or otherwise. They were just ideas from departments that they had, through a sweep of looking at pieces of legislation, to introduce.

We were very curious about this particular clause 34 of the government’s bill in which arbiters would now have a discretion as to whether they refer serious misconduct matters to the chief municipal inspector rather than being compelled to do so. The status quo was that arbiters, in the councillor conduct panel powers, were mandatorily required to refer matters of serious misconduct to the chief municipal inspector. The proposed change that this government was seeking to make, as I said, was curious. It was not informed by any review. We asked this in the bill briefing in fact; it was not informed by any information. There was nothing from the minister in his second-reading speech or that the minister’s office or the department could provide to us as to the reasoning for this change and why they were making this change where all of a sudden arbiters would now have a discretion in relation to referring matters of serious misconduct to the chief municipal inspector as opposed to mandatorily being required to do so. So the basis for that amendment was absolutely unclear. It potentially was a resourcing issue, if nothing else, which I find astonishing and staggering, that actually this government was seeking to find ways for arbiters to weasel out of referring matters of serious misconduct.

When it comes to matters of serious misconduct, we should absolutely be reporting those and making those reports. There should not be any opportunity for those to not be reported, any grey areas in this case. So we were very curious about this particular change. As I said, the minister did not refer to the amendment in the second-reading speech at all. On this particular clause 34 in their original bill, the minister did not refer to that in his second-reading speech, yet it was a feature of the legislation.

What we found on this side when we were reading this legislation – we do not rely just on the minister’s second-reading speech. I actually read the clauses and proposals within the legislation, and in doing so, it struck me that this may actually result in serious misconduct matters not being referred. And that is quite a problematic thing. That is actually wrong. For this Labor government to have proposed that amendment in their original legislation when it came to the Assembly last sitting week, was just wrong – absolutely wrong. So the amendments that they had proposed would also have enabled the councillor conduct panel to impose the same sanctions for a finding of misconduct that an arbiter came also to impose, making those provisions consistent. The previous amendment, which expanded the sanctions of an arbiter, could fail to update the same sanctions of the councillor conduct panel. So it was seemingly confused and ill thought out.

As I said, this was not the result of any inquiry, any parliamentary inquiry or other external recommendation to the government. Had it been, they would have freely given that information in the bill briefing, but they did not. There was nothing informing this change. So we thought when it comes to matters of serious misconduct there should absolutely be a requirement for these bodies to report on this information, not give arbiters any way out of not reporting on it. In terms of this, what we found – what we contemplated – was that the removal of the requirement that arbiters must refer apparent serious misconduct matters to the chief municipal inspector and now make it discretionary did really raise serious questions for us as to why they had required this change.

While the change, from the government’s perspective, might improve efficiency and reduce delays where matters are likely to be referred back to the arbiter, a finding of serious misconduct carries significant penalties under the act, including substantial fines, suspensions and potential disqualification from council elections. A query really did remain as to whether these matters should still be considered by the chief municipal inspector to determine whether the chief municipal inspector or the councillor conduct panel is best placed to deal with them. That really was our thinking. That was what we were thinking when we read this clause – scratching our heads, thinking, ‘Why did the government insert this clause at all? Why would they be making it easier for serious misconduct issues to not be referred? It makes no sense whatsoever.’ So we proposed an amendment in the Legislative Council that we actually omit this clause, that we omit clause 34 so that all of the words in clause 34 be removed. That was our proposed textual amendment in the Legislative Council, and it was so that we retain the status quo, so that we retain the mandatory obligation on arbiters to refer instances of serious misconduct to the chief municipal inspector. Labor wanted to make it easier for serious misconduct to not be reported on, and the mind boggles as to why that is the case, because there are penalties, there is a process – all of those things. We said no, matters of serious misconduct should absolutely be required to be referred. We proposed an amendment in the Legislative Council to omit this clause, to retain the status quo, and we succeeded. The government has fallen on its sword in relation to this matter and has withdrawn this clause.

Belinda Wilson interjected.

Bridget VALLENCE: Read the amendments. The government has had to fall on its sword on this matter and realise the errors of its ways and the fact that this original proposal was not informed by any inquiry. It was not reforming whatsoever. They inserted this clause, and if you actually read the amendments that have been circulated, which we are debating and discussing right now here in the chamber, the government have withdrawn clause 34 from their original bill. As the minister’s office has conceded to me, that is an exact mirror of our amendment in the Legislative Council, so they have actually accepted our proposal. We have had success in this area where we saw the government was trying to be secretive and limit transparency and limit the referral of serious misconduct matters. We have said no, that should not be the case; serious misconduct matters should still be referred. The government have realised that they stuffed up on this one and have actually agreed to our amendment by removing clause 34 of the original bill, withdrawing that clause, and now the status quo will be the case. For issues and matters of serious misconduct, arbiters will still be required to report those to the chief municipal inspector. So that is a positive, and I think that demonstrates a good thing about this Parliament, actually. They have a very, very weak legislative agenda, and when they rush to bring in legislation, when they do a bit of a sweep and call it a sweep of multiple portfolios and multiple acts and seek to label it as regulatory reform, really all that does is signal there are going to be issues and errors. We identified a glaring error in relation to that clause 34, which the government has now withdrawn, because we thought, ‘Why would arbiters no longer be compelled, under these changes, to refer conduct that involves serious misconduct to the chief municipal inspector?’

Was it because this Allan Labor government have such poor financial management, such financial mismanagement, that they lack the resources perhaps to investigate serious misconduct in our councils? Or is it because this government is no longer interested in integrity measures and eradicating corruption from councils? That is really where we got to. The fact that they had this clause at all in the first place is, as I say, because – we believe that with this Labor government it is either one of two things. It was either completely due to financial mismanagement, skyrocketing debt and a complete basket case of a budget that this government got to the point where they lacked the resources to investigate matters of serious misconduct and so then tried to make it easier. ‘Let’s say to the arbiters to just not worry about referring those cases of misconduct, because we actually don’t have the resources to investigate them.’ I mean, that is disgraceful, but that is one of the reasons why the government may have sought to do this in the first place. The other reason is that they are just not interested in integrity measures, that they are just not interested in integrity and weeding out corruption from councils. Again, that is why they sought to remove the mandatory requirement to refer matters of serious misconduct. We, in reading the legislation, caught them out on this. We proposed that amendment in the Legislative Council, and I thank my colleagues in the Legislative Council for putting that amendment that was drafted to the Council. We have had that success. We have embarrassed the government in this situation and forced their hand. They have withdrawn clause 34, so that is a success.

The other key reason and what I assume the government suggests is the main reason for the amendments coming back to the Legislative Assembly today in relation to this Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2026 relates essentially to fuel. We have a fuel crisis – everyone knows that. Everyone in Victoria and right around Australia is faced with significant pressures at the moment relating to fuel – the access to fuel, the price and affordability of fuel – and how that is impacting families; how that is impacting small, and medium and large businesses; how it is impacting our manufacturers; and how it is impacting our farmers, particularly in my community where public transport is not so accessible, where we have no train beyond Lilydale and where we have limited buses and bus routes. Public transport is difficult to access. People rely on their cars, and families who are already doing it tough in a cost-of-living crisis are now having to do it tougher with the fuel crisis and the fuel prices.

Supply is obviously an issue, particularly for farmers. In my electorate, the Evelyn electorate, we have wonderful agricultural producers and farmers. Whether it is our wineries – obviously everyone loves their wine – our fruit producers, our strawberry growers, our cherry growers or our cattle farmers, they are all concerned about the price of fuel but also the availability and accessibility of fuel. So I can understand conceptually why the government sought to introduce this amendment and why they have sought to make a move here, but I think it is an example of this government being slow to act. We have known about this fuel crisis for some time now. Certainly the families, small businesses and farmers in my community have known about this fuel crisis for some time now. Other governments have made changes and acted. This government had done nothing until this week when they realised that it would be prudent, perhaps, to introduce some form of legislation that might assist with the supply of fuel around the state, given we have experienced fuel supply issues, particularly in regional Victoria. We have frustratingly and sadly seen a number of instances of fuel theft, including, disgracefully, from farms in fire-affected Victoria where fuel has been stolen. Really the question is: how are we getting fuel to the right parts of Victoria that really need it?

The government have realised that they have been doing absolutely nothing, despite other state and territory governments doing something, and I would imagine that after the national cabinet that occurred on Monday there was some discussion about what the state governments are doing in relation to the fuel issues. Unsurprisingly, on Monday afternoon we heard first from this government about them going to try and do something about it and trying to find a way to get some sort of legislative change through this sitting week before Easter. So it was not until Monday afternoon of this week that we heard from the government that they sought to insert amendments in the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2026 relating to it. It is a vehicle. They had not done the work.

Despite this fuel crisis having been going on for weeks now, they had done no work to put forward an actual amendment to the fuel act directly. I do not know what they were doing, probably the Premier and the Deputy Premier were doing numbers and worrying about their low approval ratings or something. They are so busy with that that they actually forgot that families, small businesses, manufacturers and farmers are really worried about the cost-of-living crisis and about the fuel crisis and that people in our community – Victorians – are absolutely worried about the fuel crisis. They are worried about affordability and accessibility of fuel, and finally when this Labor government were woken up by the national cabinet on Monday morning of this week, on Monday afternoon of this week they finally came with a haphazard sort of drafting of amendments.

As I said, this is a regulatory legislation amendment reform bill. This is not about regulatory reform, this fuel amendment. I appreciate that the government has needed to have some legislative change in relation to fuel here, but this is not the way to do it. This is just another rush job where the government goes, ‘Oh gosh, we’ve run out of time. We’ve got an issue. We actually have to try to be seen to be doing something on fuel.’

Members interjecting.

James Newbury interjected.

Bridget VALLENCE: Member for Brighton, the men on the Labor side always seek to talk over me, so I am quite used to it now.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): Order! Members on my right will come to order.

Bridget VALLENCE: I am quite used to the Labor men trying to speak over me and other female members of the Liberal team. We are very used to that, but we press on. Basically this government realised that they had done nothing about the fuel crisis, and they are trying to find a way to say that they have done something. So they have gone, ‘Goodness! We haven’t actually done any of the drafting legislative work on this yet. What vehicle is available to us to use? Oh, there is a regulatory reform bill, let’s insert a clause there. Despite the fact it’s got nothing to do with regulatory reform, let’s use that as a device, as a vehicle, to get this in.’ We appreciate the concept and the reasoning behind it, and we will not be opposing it, but we do think that this is just indicative of the chaotic nature of this government. They are not thinking forward, and they are well behind the eight ball when it comes to how other states are dealing with this. I mean, the Western Australian Parliament has called a state of emergency. This government – we asked in question time – have not yet.

We are concerned in relation to some of this. Whilst we will not be opposing it, we are actually somewhat concerned about the nature of the fuel amendments. As I said, we were briefed on Monday afternoon of this week at 5:15 pm, and even in that briefing when Minister D’Ambrosio’s office were giving us a briefing on these proposed changes, the proposed house amendments that they were bringing to this bill, admitted that they had not even given us the latest amendments. So the amendments that they had emailed through to me and my colleague Mr Davis in the other house were not even the latest amendments. The amendments that were before us, which they had forwarded to us and that they said that they were going to brief us on were not even the actual amendments that they were going to be submitting into the chamber. I think that just shows the rush job of this. It was absolutely rushed through.

Clearly it is a significant issue in the Middle East when it comes to fuel and fuel supplies coming all the way to Australia. We are on the other side of the world. When fuel is being transported, it is a challenge for us to make sure it gets all the way down to Australia. But because of fuel shortages, there are other countries who are willing to compete harder than Australia for this fuel and to pay more for those shipments of fuel, so that does cause massive issues for us in terms of supply and price. But for the fuel that does get here, we do need to make sure that it does get into the right places.

What these amendments do is really wide reaching. They are not narrowcast to the immediacy of the current fuel crisis in relation to the war in Iran right now. They are not narrowcast to that. They are really wide reaching. In fact they are giving the minister broad and wideranging powers that are even well beyond the challenges we are facing right now with the current fuel crisis here in Victoria. The government will say it is about getting fuel to the retailers in the parts of Victoria that are currently suffering fuel shortages – that is what they will say it is about – but it actually gives much further and broad-reaching powers to the minister. Essentially, it is conferring a power on the minister to direct persons to give the minister information relating to the production, supply, distribution, sale, use or consumption of a fuel and create related offences. But when it refers to fuel, it means all fuels. It does not just mean the diesel and petrol that we are putting in the cars that is coming through from Iran; it is all fuels. So that is of particular concern to us.

Equally, there is a new power to direct for information and there are new offences that go with that. But we asked about in the briefing, and the minister’s office confirmed that every truck driver, every farmer, every petrol station owner and every person involved in the production of fuel, supply of fuel and distribution, sale and consumption of fuel can be required to give information to the minister. We would ask: why does the minister need that? It is also on a broad range of fuels. For example, it applies to oil, gas, condensate, LPG and refined products. This is a very broad range of data that the government is seeking. What is curious is that much of this information is already provided, particularly by the large wholesalers and retailers and distributors, to the Commonwealth. So we say: have this Labor government actually engaged with their brothers and sisters in the federal Labor government to say, ‘Can we access that information?’ They may say, ‘It’s aggregated; it’s not disaggregated for Victoria.’ That is absolute rubbish. These providers are already giving this information freely to the Commonwealth government and to the ACCC, so this is just another example of duplication of effort – asking providers to give the Victorian government the same information that or in fact more information than they are already providing to the ACCC and the Commonwealth government. You have got to ask: why is that? Why do they want such broad, wide-reaching powers? Only to appear that they are doing something.

But I think there is something sneaky in this. They could not really say in the ministerial briefing that we received only a few days ago why they needed these extensive powers, particularly on fuels that are not currently an issue in relation to the war in Iran. Also, this is not about a fuel emergency. They were very confused. They said, ‘There’s no fuel emergency now. We don’t think we’ll have to use the powers. There might be a fuel emergency, and we might use the fuel powers.’ These are pre-emergency powers – that is what they called them. So the minister can issue a direction outside an emergency if they believe there is likely to be a threat to production, supply or distribution, but there are actually no definitions. There is nothing strict around that rule. It is very opaque, very broad.

It is really curious as to why they are asking for such broad powers and are not confining them to the situation that we are faced with at the moment. They could not be clear with us whether they are seeking this information from all suppliers. There is a direction under subsection (1) that they may not require a person to provide information that the person has already provided or is required to provide to the ACCC or the Australian Energy Market Operator within 12 months preceding the date of the direction to the extent that the information is accessible to the minister under clauses 2C and 2D. This is probably a reasonable area here. There is no information gap, particularly the AEMO gas statement of opportunities and the ACCC’s gas inquiry reporting regime. The minister can access this data through the existing Commonwealth interface. So we say: why is not this Allan Labor government already doing that? Why isn’t this Allan Labor government already accessing this data to help? If the purpose is to get fuel to those parts of regional Victoria that need it, why aren’t they accessing the data that is already being provided by suppliers and distributors to the Commonwealth government?

We know there is a fuel crisis and we understand that, but we have not received the assurances that even individual truck drivers will not be required to provide this information, this bureaucracy. So we will not be opposing these amendments, but they are curious and we will be watching very, very closely.

Motion agreed to.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): A message will now be sent to the Legislative Council informing them of the house’s decision.