Tuesday, 2 June 2026

 Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (19:00): (1669) My adjournment matter is for the Attorney-General, and the action I seek is for her to immediately call a royal commission into corruption on government worksites. After years of resisting calls from experts and the Liberals to give Victoria’s corruption watchdog the powers it needs, the Premier has performed the most extraordinary backflip. Now she says they do need more powers. It was just March of this year that Labor voted down a cross-party bill to give IBAC the powers to track down the $15 billion stolen in the worst corruption scandal in Victoria’s history. I wonder what has changed. Perhaps she realised Victorians do not want their taxes funding strippers on worksites. Perhaps the polling made her realise that Victorians know she was the minister responsible for the Big Build when the corruption started and that her claims that she did not know about it just do not stack up. Or perhaps it was her doorknocking that made her realise regional Victorians are furious that their taxes funded Ferraris for gang members instead of fixing the potholes on their roads. The reality is that the Premier changed her position because there is an election coming. But even now she wants to bury the truth. She only plans to give IBAC powers in 2028, long after this year’s election.

Enough is enough. The Liberals will give IBAC the powers it needs immediately. We will call a royal commission immediately and will crack down on criminals profiting off taxpayers money immediately. Victorians deserve a fresh start, and the Liberals will deliver one. Victorians want a government that shows respect for taxpayers money and that invests in the services they need instead of waste and corruption. Under Labor there is a pattern that has emerged: $70,000 to install and then replace plaques because they did not say ‘Honourable’ correctly before the Premier’s name; $100,000 to make a new logo for Triple Zero Victoria; $200,000 to rent pot plants for government offices; $400,000 on jelly beans and yo-yos to promote the SEC; $13 million on machete bins; $137 million on wasteful delays on the Myki system upgrade, which, newsflash, still does not work; $600 million on a Commonwealth Games that never happened; $15 billion lost to corruption and criminal behaviour on the Big Build; and the list goes on and on and on. Labor has lost all respect for the people really paying the bills – everyday Victorians.

But there is hope. A future Liberal government will put an end to the waste, because we understand that every dollar the government spends is a dollar first earned by a worker, a family or a small business. We will have honest and open budgets, not budgets full of mystery and secret billion-dollar slush funds. We will invest in frontline services, not strippers on worksites. We will restore integrity to government and hold a royal commission into corruption. It is time for a fresh start.