Thursday, 4 June 2026

 Nick STAIKOS (Bentleigh – Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (10:32): Under standing orders I wish to advise the house of amendments to this bill and request that they be circulated.

 David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (10:33): I rise to contribute to the Building Legislation and Treasury Legislation (Tax Relief) Amendment Bill 2026. Although we have a few issues with this bill, one of the key reasons why we will not be opposing this bill is because we have seen a massive backflip when it comes to the MFR, the minimum financial requirement, on building and construction in Victoria. We have been told, certainly by the industry – Master Builders Victoria and the Housing Industry Association – that the additional costs of the minimum financial requirement would add up to 30 per cent to construction costs on building. We know in a housing crisis and from the fact that we cannot get homes built in Victoria that to add that additional cost is something that none of us can afford, because we desperately need more homes in Victoria. This backflip was really important in the changes that are proposed in this legislation, and that is why we are not going to oppose it.

But I have to say at the outset that this government is shambolic. It is chaotic. I have not seen anything in my 16 years quite like what I have seen this morning, because literally minutes before debating this bill I was handed a change an amendment to the legislation. There was no briefing, no discussion, just an amendment dealing with – I just have to read it – dutiable property adjustments for off the plan, so a financial change.

I appreciate that the Minister for Housing and Building is not the minister responsible for Treasury, and this is a building bill and a Treasury bill. But when I asked the minister, the member for Bentleigh, about this change a couple of minutes ago, he responded to me by saying he also had no idea about this and was also told this morning. How on earth can this government be trusted with anything when they are dealing with some complex sets of legislation and their own minister does not even know about the changes they are about to propose? This is an end-of-days government that is scrambling around trying to fix and amend important, crucial legislation that deals with the cost of construction and affordable homes. How are we going to build affordable homes when the actual minister for homes has no idea about what we are about to debate? That is a joke.

I will not be opposing it, but when we get to the upper house we will give this more scrutiny. I put on notice the fact that this amendment that has just been put in front of my nose, literally a few minutes ago, will have more scrutiny from us on ‘Part 10A–Amendment of Duties Act 2000’. It is about financial responsibility. It deals with off the plan, and hopefully it is consistent and not another tax. But who knows, because 34 per cent of building a home is tax related. We have got 67 new taxes under this government – 30 of them are dealing with housing. No wonder you cannot build in Victoria and everybody is going anywhere but Victoria, because the cost of construction is too expensive.

The minimum financial requirements are being changed today because of the government’s backflip, because finally they have been listening to the housing industry, to Master Builders Victoria and certainly to the opposition, who have said this is too expensive and it is too much risk in terms of housing supply. Finally, that backflip is evident.

I will touch on some other elements of the bill, and then I do want to get to the POPE changes – the places of public entertainment – the POPE permit. I foreshadow that I will have some amendments to put forward on the POPE. That particular part of this bill deals with the events industry, and it does not just deal with the events industry in terms of major events but it deals with every single person’s event – a community event, a school fete, an RSL event. We need to ensure that, again, the costs of these smaller events are not impinged upon by more bureaucracy, more red tape, and I will get to POPE shortly.

The framework of this bill today deals with, firstly, looking at some of the insurance changes for residential apartment buildings as an alternative to the developer bond scheme established by the Building Legislation Amendment (Buyer Protections) Act 2025 – a voluntary change and an important change that industry have raised with us. We think moving away from just the developer bond to an alternative insurance product is fair and reasonable. I mentioned amending the minimum financial requirement, which is essential – absolutely essential. I also want to commend the member for Narracan, he himself a builder, who has also been a champion on this in ensuring we push back on cost additions to the building industry. I mentioned POPE, which I will come back to shortly.

There is also in this bill the expanding of emergency order powers for building surveyors to enable intervention – on conditions – and entry to land before structural harm occurs, in response to the McCrae landslip inquiry. And there are some changes conferring on the housing and building minister powers to designate flood-prone areas, mirroring the existing powers to declare bushfire-prone areas. I will raise some hesitation around that, and I flag that we may have more to say on that in the other chamber, again to ensure that there is consistency, not further cost and not the locking up of a whole lot of land from more building, because again, this bill that we talk about today should be about building more homes. We need to protect consumers – I get that. We need to be ensure that we are mindful of flood-prone areas, but also, we do not want to lock up a whole lot of land arbitrarily without having the proper process to ensure we can build those homes. We have seen lots of examples of that where you have got whole areas of land on which there could be development but there is not because of water boards and the like and also other issues like infrastructure that has not been made available to those areas – drainage areas, again, from infill and what have you – and there are issues around that.

The bill extends civil liability immunity for authorised nominating authorities under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002, and that will ensure that it is brought in line with other jurisdictions. There are some changes in terms of cladding, which we have already seen. There is amendment to the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund to provide a levy, exemptions and offsets for Homes Victoria, community housing organisations and eligible volunteers, to allow ministerial declarations about the timing and changes of residential fixed charge for place of residence concession. This is dealing with the emergency services tax, as you have all heard us talk about – another tax – and there are exemptions for this tax when it comes to Homes Victoria and some of the community housing, social housing and public housing organisations that are all linked to it. Again, we do not have issue with that, but what we would say is while the government is at it they should be, with a stroke of a pen, getting rid of the emergency services tax altogether. It is another impost, it is another cost, and we have seen what that has done, again, to many of those hardworking landowners. We are seeing the issues right through regional Victoria and what the cost of that would be to our firefighters especially, who are fighting fires and also have to pay that huge tax on the very places that they are protecting and the public land that they are protecting as well.

The final piece is to amend the Land Tax Act 2005 to extend and clarify principal place of residence land tax relief for owners constructing or renovating homes, including joint owners, affecting the timing anomalies in existing exemptions for deferral rules. So if you are building in one place and you are living in another, this ensures that you are not paying land tax in both instances. Again, we have no issue with that.

I want to also make very clear that under a Liberal–National government you will always pay lower taxes and you will always pay lower property taxes, because we know in order to build more homes you need lower taxes. This deals with land tax in this bill. It does not go far enough. We need to reduce land tax. The Liberal–Nationals have released policy about reducing land tax, stamp duty and also payroll tax – three big imposts. Reducing those taxes will allow us to build more homes. This is a Treasury bill, it deals with taxation, so in line with this bill there was a great opportunity to reduce taxes to build more homes. Forty-three per cent of building a home is tax and regulation related. To build more homes you lower tax – simple. We are the highest taxing state in the nation when it comes to property taxes, and that is why we are not building homes. It is a missed opportunity in this bill – and that is why we are not building – to reduce land tax, to reduce stamp duty, to abolish emergency services tax and also payroll tax that a lot of builders also pay, and that would certainly build more homes. None of that has actually been done, in a missed opportunity in this bill.

Let me come to a few important elements with this bill. We talk about the flooding changes in this bill, or the proposed flooding changes, and I alluded that the upper house will have more to say about this. This government has a one-size-fits-all approach to building homes, and we have seen that in their 60 – is it 60 or 200? I am not sure what the number is at the moment, because according to the Age we have gone from 60 to another 120 – so I think it just continues to rise – activity centres the government is planning for.

We know these activity centres are going from 60 to 210, in terms of what Treasury secretly had worked out for them – 210 activity centres. We know there are 60, there could be 210. That means that every one of the electorates that does not have an activity centre may have a high-rise activity centre coming to them, so just be prepared for that.

When we talk about flooding, part of flooding is infrastructure – it is drainage. We know in the recent report that was released by the Urban Development Institute of Australia, the 70/30 plan – in which the government has got 70 per cent of building and construction in infill, in established suburbs, and 30 per cent in growth corridors, on greenfield sites – is not happening. They are failing when it comes to infill; the only places where homes are being built is in greenfield. But regardless of this, you need infrastructure. One of the reasons the 70/30 report that was done by UDIA found holes in the government’s plans was the fact that they do not look at infrastructure and the cost of infrastructure. The recent report by Infrastructure Victoria said when you are building into new areas, the cost of infrastructure is about four times; when you are building infill, it is a lot cheaper to build infrastructure. That does not take into consideration retrofitting and it does not take into consideration when a lot of infrastructure is already exhausted. If you have not got enough schools, not enough drainage capacity, not enough other services that you need to build more of in these infill sites, it makes it far more expensive.

Drainage is one of those big areas. I know in my area of Glen Eira we have huge flooding issues – huge. It was seen as swampland; that is what it was. The old Caulfield Racecourse was called the swamp. It has a flooding history. I know the member for Bentleigh – they have tried a huge amount of rectification in terms of some of those flooding issues over recent years. But if you want to jam in another five activity centres in the City of Glen Eira alone, then you have to be prepared to provide the infrastructure and the drainage, otherwise you are going to have more issues, more flooding. The bill does not deal with that, but that is certainly mindful, because are we going to declare the infill, are we going to declare the 60 activity centres flood zones and not build any of the high-rises? Does this bill allow for that change to do that? Because that needs to be taken into consideration as well.

Under standing orders I wish to advise the house of amendments to this bill and request that they be circulated. We will do that now, so I will make that happen. A bit of magic is what I did, you know – not 5 minutes ago, like you lot did. I actually had these well and truly prepared –

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Through the Chair.

David SOUTHWICK: member for Mordialloc, well and truly ahead of schedule. We are organised on this side of the house. We know a thing or two about building on this side of the house. We know about planning on this side of the house. I am not so sure about the Allan Labor government.

This change of POPE, place of public entertainment, is a key element, because Victoria is the only jurisdiction in Australia – surprise, surprise – that has a POPE, that has a place-of-public-entertainment permit for events, not just for major events but for any event. You have heard me say this before, and I will say it again. When we have the likes of Taylor Swift doing a Swifty concert and travelling around the world and bringing the installation in, in every other country and every other state she has her experts to construct the staging and get everything ready to go. They travel with her and they provide all the staging. When it comes to Victoria, we need a whole lot of different regulations. We are meant to be the events capital of the world, but I am told by the likes of the event suppliers that we are absolutely the red tape capital of the world.

Tim McCurdy interjected.

David SOUTHWICK: Very good.

We are the red tape capital of the world, the member for Ovens Valley quite rightly points out. Why is that? Because everything is another bit of regulation. It is not good enough for councils to have their permits and planning to have their permits, but we need another entertainment permit as well. That might be okay for these major performances, but we all pay for that, by the way. I am told when you talk about major concerts – the big concerts – it was Melbourne and Sydney. If these big shows were booking concerts, they would say, ‘We’ll go to Melbourne, then we’ll go to Sydney, and then if we want to do other tours, we’ll look at Brisbane and other states.’ Well, guess what. Guess where they start now? They do not start in Melbourne; they start in Sydney, because in Sydney it is easier to do business. They run their concerts there first, and then they come to Melbourne. What is even more alarming is now Brisbane is up and about, and now we have the Olympic Games with infrastructure up and about, they are now saying, ‘Well, maybe we do Sydney and Brisbane and we leave Melbourne to a lousy third.’ That is what the major game events and the major concert performances are looking at under this shambolic, hopeless government. Melbourne is the events capital, and this government have taken their eye off the ball – completely off the ball.

We know that the Minister for Sport and Major Events was the Minister for Major Events and Tourism. He has carved off tourism because he wants to focus on getting his knees under the Australian Open and the grand prix and every other free feed that he can find, but the minister for major events actually has to do a little bit of work – not just turn up to these events but actually do a bit of work so we can secure them, not lose them like the MotoGP, not lose them like we have seen with the golf tournament, not lose them like we have seen with rugby and other things as well, not lose them like we have seen with Land Forces. Do not just turn up for the free feed; do the work.

This is why the POPE permit is really important, because the government have been told by the industry ‘Reform it.’ Well, actually they have said ‘Get rid of it.’ The government has not got rid of it. Maybe they should really listen and get rid of the POPE permit, because it is another burden, another lot of regulation red tape, that is costing Victorians and costing small businesses. Instead, they have had a crack at reforming it. Our amendments deal with some of this. The previous set of laws would say, ‘You need a POPE permit when it comes to having events indoors, but outdoors under 5000 people you don’t need a POPE permit.’ What this government have done in a sneaky little way is they have said, ‘We’re going to amend that. We’re going to take that out of legislation, and that will be up to regulation as to whether you need a POPE permit outdoors or not.’ So our question is: what happens with an Anzac Day service? What happens with a school fete? What happens with a farmers market? Do the local school running their fete, the parents association, need a permit to put a trestle table out? Have we got to that in Victoria where you need a permit for a trestle table and a marquee? Have we got to that level and extent of ridiculous bureaucracy and red tape? That is the red flag that we have here, and that is why we have a change in the amendments proposed in this legislation that is so important.

This government loves red tape, because it creates the kind of jobs that none of us need, the ones that people have a clipboard for and run around and tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Off we go, ‘There’s your bill and there’s your cost’ or ‘You can’t do this and you can’t do that,’ with no explanation why. We are all about safety – do not get me wrong – but you can get to a point where you are being ridiculous. If every other state is not doing that, why is Victoria?

John Lister interjected.

David SOUTHWICK: Well, other states seem to be able to do them okay, member for Werribee.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair, member for Caulfield, without interruptions, member for Werribee.

David SOUTHWICK: Through the Chair, the member for Werribee says, ‘Well, people die.’ Well, absolutely people die, and they die in other states as well, and we have got to do everything to protect them. But why is there a different set of rules in other states that happen to do events really well but in Victoria there is another level of bureaucracy? That is the question that we have, and that is why we have got to get consistency, and if other states are doing it better, then so be it. I would hope that the member for Werribee does not want to turn up to his local parents club and say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but there’s another 120 bucks for a permit for your trestle table,’ or to his local RSL club and say, ‘I know you have an Anzac Day service every year, but there’s another 500 bucks or a thousand bucks for your Anzac Day service.’

I hope the member for Werribee does not have to go and explain this to all of his volunteer and community organisations and schools and fetes and everybody, the lifeblood of volunteering in Werribee. I hope the member for Werribee does not have to go and explain himself to all of those hardworking community organisations that now have to pay more because of a government that is focused on red tape and does not give a continental about people. I hope that the member for Werribee does not have to do that.

John Lister interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Werribee will have his chance, I am sure.

David SOUTHWICK: The member for Werribee says, ‘It’s all about reducing it’. If it is all about reducing it, I would hope the member for Werribee supports our amendments. The amendments also deal with a finding to say that an event cannot go ahead. I am talking about the bigger events and bigger concerts and bigger festivals that are the lifeblood of our economy, so key to our economy. Let us just say we get a big Taylor Swift concert that cannot go ahead – there is an urgent appeal process so we can get a finding really quickly so the show can go on. That is what we would hope.

At the moment we have the same VCAT process and the same appeals process for construction of a house as we do for a concert – the same thing. I know that we want to get on with building homes, but you could have a timeline that the show is meant to happen this Saturday and it is booked into VCAT in three months time. I tell you what, Taylor Swift will not be waiting for three months. The show will move on. Business is moving out of Melbourne because this government does not give a continental about ensuring we have an economic focus and attract the kinds of events and the kinds of industry that we want. People love events. People love going out with their families and being able to enjoy these things. We should not have to add another cost to it, like this government is trying to do.

I would absolutely hope that the government does support our amendments that deal with all of this, with the fact that we are able to get some consistency in the industry and that – let me just make sure that these are well and truly covered – limit the POPE regime to buildings and prescribed temporary structures, and restore community events, with exemptions equivalent to the existing $5000 per person threshold. This is about community events. If the Allan Labor government support the community, they will get on board with our amendments. If they support community organisations, they will get on board. If they support their RSLs, their schools, their not-for-profits, they will get on board.

The second part inserts a definition of a ‘prescribed temporary structure’ to mean tents, marquees or booths with a floor area greater than 100 square metres; a stand with seating for more than 20 persons; stages or platforms, including with sky borders or stage wings, exceeding 150 square metres in floor area; and prefabricated buildings exceeding100 square metres other than those directly on ground surfaces. Again, this is a very specific industry. It is not a one size fits all. Do not treat it like a home. Treat it like the events industry that it is. That is why we need those changes. Also, amend the bill to require the Building and Plumbing Commission to establish regulations for emergency appeal processes under which the POPE permit decisions may be reviewed within one week. Events cannot wait. The show needs to go on. That is why we need an immediate appeals process so the show can go on and we do not see cancellations of major events in Victoria. It is absolutely key.

As I said at the beginning, and I want to conclude with this, it is absolutely crucial that the minimum financial requirements for builders are ripped up and abolished. On 12 May the member for Narracan and I went out and raised this issue. It was earlier than that that we raised the issue. We raised the issue with the HIA and MBV, both were very strong on this.

We had a couple of builders come and join us at the press conference downstairs, and they said that this has to change because it was costed out at about a 30 per cent increase on every single build cost for every single home. Victorians cannot afford that, and that is why housing has come to a standstill.

You have heard me say this many times: you cannot live in a permit. You cannot ensure that just by issuing permits you are going to build more homes. The government said we were going to get 80,000 homes a year, and then they reverted to 800,000 homes. They are now nowhere near that, and we have seen that in two years they are about 50,000 short. The government are not meeting their targets, and they are not meeting their targets because it is just too costly to build homes in Victoria, and to change that you have got to amend this.

There is the National Construction Code, which is also part and parcel, which we should be amending here as well. With the National Construction Code we have got other major states that have said, ‘Let’s kick the can down the road because we can’t afford to do that at this particular point in time’ – everywhere but Victoria. Victoria said, ‘No, let’s introduce the National Construction Code immediately and ensure that builders pay, because builders can afford it.’ Well, builders cannot afford it, and most importantly, home owners cannot afford it, and that is why we are not building homes. And it is not just about the home owner; it is the renter as well. You cannot get into a rental in Victoria because there is just not enough housing stock.

Even worse than that, we are not building social housing. We have seen in a decade only 36 new homes built – in a decade. What a disgrace – 36 homes built in a decade. We saw people being evicted from a caravan park only last week, which was exposed on A Current Affair, and they have got nowhere to go because there is not enough housing. It is all very well for this government to cut tape and to say ‘Look at this’, cut a ribbon and say how wonderful things are. We know things are not wonderful in Victoria. We know things are not wonderful here. The only way to do that will be to change the government in November.

I will finish where I started. What a disgrace today that the government would propose an amendment to this bill within 5 minutes of the bill being read – within 5 minutes – not giving us the opportunity to do that. And the minister responsible for the bill in this chamber had no clue about the amendment himself; the member for Bentleigh had no idea. The government has no idea. How can Victorians have any idea if the government has no idea? That is why this government is an end-of-days government. It is a failed, corrupt government. It has to change. Whether it is the big, rotten, dirty build, the $15 billion of corruption or the rigging of elections that they are trying to do now by taking dirty money from the CFMEU, this is a horrible, hopeless government. The only way to get rid of them is to send a message in November and boot them out and show them the door.

 Josh BULL (Sunbury) (11:03): I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow on from the member for Caulfield – 30 minutes we might not get back – and to make some reflections on what I think goes to the doom and gloom, and again, as we see time and time again, those opposite wanting to come into this place and talk the state down. There was quite a lot in the contribution from the lead speaker from the opposition. What I did want to pick up on was the line from the member for Caulfield that those opposite know a thing or two about building things on that side of the house.

I was making some reflections on the period between 2010 and 2014 in this state, when the place pretty much ground to a halt and there was no investment in schools, there was no investment in major transport projects, there was no investment in the services that matter to Victorians and the business community could not find their ministers. The business community could not meet with those opposite in that time. And what I think is astounding each and every day is to come into this place and to hear those reflections and those opposite lecture this side of the house about investment and building and making for better local communities through all of the work that is done, both through the Treasury portfolio and right across government, in each and every portfolio.

We know and understand that the measures and the initiatives contained within this bill go to providing for a more robust and stronger system for those within our community. They go to supporting local families and making sure they have the opportunities and the provisions that are important to them. What we see time and time again, unfortunately, are those stunts that we saw just a short time ago, which completely disregard the facts and completely disregard those circumstances which we find ourselves in.

Just to put a few things on record, over the last decade the economy in this state has grown faster than in any other state. Business investment is up 44 per cent since September 2020 – again, faster than the rest of the country – 123,000 more businesses in net terms than in June 2020, 4300 new businesses in the startup and scale-up space alone. And we know that that has been through a significant period of uncertainty, through both the pandemic and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Providing for those settings and providing for strong economic management is something that we know matters and something that makes for better and stronger local communities.

That is in stark contrast to what we hear from those opposite. The five-step fiscal strategy around creating jobs, reducing unemployment and restoring economic growth; returning to an operating cash surplus; returning to operating surpluses; stabilising net debt as a proportion of gross state product; and reducing net debt as a proportion of GSP is something that we remain committed to and remain focused on. We will continue to deliver that, making sure we are going forward and making those investments that make for a better, stronger state. What, unfortunately, we have heard just a short time ago and time and time again in this place is a scenario that is not what we see borne out in those numbers, in those statistics, in the more than 123,000 businesses that have been created, and making for that work is something that we remain committed to and that is important.

The provisions contained within the Building Legislation and Treasury Legislation (Tax Relief) Amendment Bill 2026 – the one before us today – go to providing for targeted amendments to modernise building legislation, providing better protections for consumers and providing for tax and levy relief. It modernises legislation to reflect building industry practices by improving the place-of-public-entertainment permit scheme; enabling greater flexibility under the Building Act 1993 to incorporate relevant documents, including international standards, by reference; and improving the operation of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002. Improvements to protections for consumers in Victoria’s housing and building system include introducing a voluntary 10-year insurance scheme for new apartment buildings and supporting the effective operation of that statutory scheme, also known as the first-resort home warranty scheme, including by allowing regulations to be made to provide for limited exemptions; expanding powers to address land-related safety risks; and improving the identification and designation of land in flood-prone areas. And it goes on to make a range of other amendments and other matters.

In short – and we will go back to some of those key guiding principles around that economic management and that support – it will make for a more robust and stronger system, a system that is designed more around certainty and flexibility, supporting opportunities to build and to be able to deliver on the government’s plans around housing and those significant reforms that have been announced by the Premier and other ministers and the significant amount of work – the large volume of work – that has been done by the government to provide for a more certain, more structured and better approach.

We know of course, as we navigate that global uncertainty – as matters overseas and matters within this country change not just on a week-to-week but on a day-by-day basis – that we need to have the levers and the tools available to us to be able to respond, to be able to support local communities and to be able to give certainty and to provide for that work. That management is something that the government takes very, very seriously. I want to take the opportunity to thank and acknowledge all of those partners, all of those within industry, who provide government great advice and good support in providing for pieces of legislation like this one that make a genuine and tangible difference on the ground to local communities. Because what we know and understand is that when we have the opportunity to work with industry and to work with the experts in these areas, we have the opportunity to be able to craft legislation that is responsive to the needs of such communities. What is most important, whether you are looking through all of the different measures within this bill or others, is to be able to provide for that certainty. Uncertainty is born from so many of those events that I have mentioned, and of course just the day-to-day changes within industry go to providing for uncertainty that can arise, but making those provisions gives of course the government and its agencies better flexibility and better certainty.

We have seen of course the contribution that I mentioned earlier and the position that those opposite have taken. It is pleasing to see that they will not be opposing the bill, notwithstanding amendments that have been foreshadowed. But I will finish by making the observation that the continued attack on so many of the agencies that do outstanding work within the Victorian community, the continued running of scare and fear campaigns to talk the state down and the continued disregard for the amazing work that is done through industry and by so many people that work each and every day to make our state stronger and fairer and better is a huge disservice from those opposite and speaks I think very strongly for the values that those opposite bring to the table. What we remain focused on is providing for the best possible set of building regulations and a framework that we can deliver to make this state continue to be stronger and fairer and better. With those comments, I commend the bill to the house.

 Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (11:13): I rise this morning to talk on the Building Legislation and Treasury Legislation (Tax Relief) Amendment Bill 2026. It is a pleasure to be able to rise and talk about the building industry inside the chamber here and actually talk on the reasons why the building industry is so important to not only Victoria but Victorians as they try to manoeuvre and navigate their way into a home or a property that they can rent. As the member for Caulfield, who led us off, explained, we will not be opposing the bill, but we do have some amendments that he has forecast that we will be hoping the government take on board. It is interesting, as the member for Caulfield did mention when he stood just before to talk on the bill, that there was an amendment coming through from the minister and the government themselves.

With this particular bill I think on our side we are trying to make it a little bit stronger with the amendments, but I think the government are also seeing that maybe there are a few flaws in their bills that they do bring through, and there do need to be changes. I hope the government take on board what the coalition and this side of the chamber are trying to achieve, because when it is all said and done what we are trying to do is make sure that building and housing can march forward here in Victoria and not get caught up in red tape and bureaucracy. There are a lot of people in communities, whether they are living in the inner city or whether they are living in regional Victoria, that are waiting and hoping that the reforms and the legislation that we do move here in the chamber actually flow through to them quickly and responsibly.

It seems that there were some issues, as the member for Narracan has spoken about regularly, in the building industry, such that when we put extra burden and cost onto builders through taxes that have to be paid and are mandated by the government, the builder is not going to stand there and say, ‘I will pay this and that’ll be the end of it.’ What happens is it flows down and through, and the people that pay it are the mum and the dad that are engaging to try and build a home or set themselves up moving forward. So we need to make sure when we bring bills in here that they are correct and that we do not have to come back and make amendments and make changes. We should be doing our due diligence, talking to the people that matter most, our building industry, because they are the ones that know how the flow-on of being able to build a property and build a house in Victoria needs to go. They do not get the final say, but we should be listening to them and engaging with them to see what is going to be the easiest and most responsible path forward to building houses here in Victoria.

The purpose of this bill is to establish a legal framework for a voluntary decennial, which is 10-year structural defect insurance. We need to also amend the minimum financial requirement framework for builders entering the Victorian building industry, returning power to the Building and Plumbing Commission to set the industry standards. We have spoken previously here in the chamber about the impost on smaller builders that have a have a financial cap on how many homes and so forth they can build. We need to make sure that they can manoeuvre, so when a house is finished they can move on and it can free their cap, as such, to build the next home and the next home after that. They are sensible changes that we need to have in place, and I am sure the member for Narracan, to my right, will touch on all of this because he has been embedded in the industry for many, many years running his own business and knows what the pitfalls are and what the traps are, but more importantly, what the actual hold-ups are as we move forward.

Another part of the legislation is reform to the places of public entertainment. We heard the member for Caulfield talking about POPE, which is the permit regime. For our bigger events I know we need to have this in place, but it is also going to now impact on our farmers markets, our Scouts, our Girl Guides and our neighbourhood houses. If they are putting up marquees and so forth, they are all going to fall under it. I know that in the Latrobe Valley, in Traralgon and many other places around regional Victoria, when we do have our farmers markets, we may have several marquees set up – up to 50 or 60 marquees set up for the day – so we really need to make sure that we have something in place that suits them as well. Do they really need to fall under this banner of the POPE permit regime? Yes, we can see it needs to be done for our bigger concerts and so forth as we move around, but for the little guy we seem to be making it harder and harder to go about daily activities. They might set their marquee up once every week, so we need to make sure that we are doing some work in that space as well. So I hope some of the amendments that go through on this are taken under advisement and taken seriously by the government to make sure that this bill, when it is passed – and it will be passed; at the end of the day, we know that it will be passed – is making the right changes for the right reasons.

Another part of the building side of things, especially in and around the Latrobe Valley, is the availability of land. One of the big roadblocks for builders who want to build houses for people in regional Victoria is overlays, and the one that that bites the most in the Latrobe Valley is coal overlays. The coal overlays are there for a reason, to protect the power stations. But we have areas of coal overlays that have been there for 40 and 50 years and reside around some of our potential land for expansion in the Latrobe Valley. That is holding up building and that expansion of people coming to the Latrobe Valley, because of the coal overlays that are, as I said, 40 or 50 years old. They need to be removed. The Hazelwood power station is a perfect example. The power station no longer exists, but the coal overlays still sit there. They not only block the housing that can be built down in the Latrobe Valley, they also put a handbrake on the commercial aspect for people that want to open up the new businesses and manufacturing that do need to come to the Latrobe Valley as we transition out of our coal-fired power stations. In other parts of the state, there are flood overlays and fire-prone overlays and heritage overlays. These are extra stresses on landowners and developers that need to be looked at as well.

We are doing bits and pieces here in this building legislation and the treasury legislation. We need to make sure that we are looking after our builders because they are the ones that are going to be providing our housing, whether it be on greenfield sites out in regional Victoria or if they are building on infill sites in and around our activity centres here in Melbourne itself. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. There needs to be consultation right across the board when we are sitting in here talking about building legislation that is affecting houses, that is affecting builders and that is going to put more costs on top of them. As I said at the start, we know where that cost is going to go. It is going to end up with the mum and dad trying to build their first home or build another home. We do not oppose the bill and we do wish a speedy pass through here, but I would urge the government to look at the amendments that we are putting forward.

 John MULLAHY (Glen Waverley) (11:23): I rise to speak in support of the Building Legislation and Treasury Legislation (Tax Relief) Amendment Bill 2026, and I would like to acknowledge the member for Morwell and his considered contribution to this chamber. I am looking forward to the member for Narracan, who always gives a very intellectual version of things with regards to this industry. However, I digress. They always have the member for Caulfield as the lead speaker, who may know how to own houses, but he never knows how to build houses. Literally he has no idea about the building industry.

I would also like to just take him up on the fact that Victoria is the events capital of Australia, and I would argue the world. Not only did we have the Australian Open and the Formula One Grand Prix earlier in the year, but we have the AFL Grand Final, the Melbourne Cup, the Boxing Day test, the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix, the Melbourne Marathon, the NFL this year, the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, Always Live, Rising, the Melbourne International Film Festival, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, all of these great things. There are very few cities in the world that have that kind of line-up. Only in Victoria can you start a year with the grand slam, welcome the world to the Formula One, fill the MCG for the AFL Grand Final, stop the nation for the Melbourne Cup and still host some of the biggest comedy, film, food and music festivals in the Southern Hemisphere. That is why Victoria is not just Australia’s events capital, it is one of the world’s great event capitals.

I will go back to the bill. At its heart this bill is about fairness. It is about fairness for families making the biggest investment of their lives when they build or buy a home. It is about fairness for honest builders and tradies who do the right thing. Importantly, it is about fairness for subcontractors and workers, who deserve to be paid on time, in full, for the work that they have completed. I have gone on in this chamber many, many times about how that has impacted my family directly, and I acknowledge the member for Narracan and the conversations we have had with regard to the experiences that we have been through. Across Victoria, and particularly in growing communities like Glen Waverley, Vermont South, Wheelers Hill, Burwood East and Forest Hill, we know the building industry is not just an industry; it is livelihoods, it is small businesses, it is apprenticeships, it is mortgages and it is families sitting around the kitchen table trying to make ends meet.

In my electorate we have seen enormous growth in investment over recent years, whether it is townhouse developments, apartment constructions around the activity centres or the transformational Suburban Rail Loop – projects reshaping the future of Melbourne’s east. Construction workers and subcontractors are helping build the future of our community every single day, and those workers deserve protection. They deserve a system where if they turn up, do the work, meet the deadlines and fulfil the contract, they get paid – not six months later, not after months of legal disputes, not after being dragged through bureaucratic loopholes and certainly not after having to choose between paying suppliers, paying wages or paying their own mortgage because somebody further up the chain has refused to do the right thing.

I remember working as a carpenter back in 2004 in my dad’s construction business. We were on a project down in Lorne. It was a project run by Mirvac. We were building the Lorne Chalet at the time. It was two buildings, five to six storeys in each building, and we were doing the formwork for each suspended slab. It was a $750,000 contract. It was over 18 months. We employed five or six people over that period of time, and over that period of time it was all good. Mirvac was paying us on a regular basis. All was going well right up until we got to about the last 20 per cent of the contract. As soon as that came in, they got their legal departments, they got their surveyors and they just absolutely hounded us with letters saying that they were going to back-charge us for cleaning the site and for doing all these things that did not have to be done. Essentially all they were looking for was to create an extra profit, an extra 10 or 20 per cent, after we had delivered the contract as it should have been delivered. They wasted our time over three to six months of arguing back and forth about all these variations to the contract, and it put such stress on my dad and I in having to respond to this. We had done such a good job, we had done everything right, but they literally were using the strength of them being an ASX-listed company where they had departments that could waste our time and hope that we would give up – hope that we would just go, ‘Okay. Well, we’ll give you that one.’ But my father, who keeps receipts, keeps everything written down and is a stubborn, stubborn man, would not give an inch, and so after 12 months or so we got our retention. I think out of the 10 per cent that they were trying to take off – it was about $75,000 – we lost maybe $15,000 or something, but that was just so that we could move on to the next job.

That was industry wide. That is what has been going on in this industry for decades. I have known it for 20 years, but I know it is probably longer than that. That is why the security of payment reforms contained within this legislation are so important. Too often in the construction industry subcontractors are the ones carrying the risk. The small plasterer, the family concreting business, the electrician employing two apprentices, the cabinetmaker, the tiler, the painter – these are not multinational corporations with teams of lawyers or endless cash reserves. These are local small businesses. They are people who rely on cash flow week to week to survive, and when payment is withheld, delayed or disputed unfairly, the consequences are devastating. I know this.

I would like to go back to an example that I have given twice before. Frank Nadinic from Maxstra has wrought absolute pain across Victoria and Australia. His MO was basically to get you to come and start a contract; you would get to 20 per cent, and he would then pay you that 20 per cent. You would go, ‘Okay. It must be a good company to work for. We’ll keep working.’ You would keep working. You would get up to 60 or 70 per cent, and you would still be invoicing him, but there would be no payments coming.

Then you would get to 80 per cent of the contract and you would walk offsite, because literally you are not going to work for free. You want to get paid, and you want to be able to pay your workers. When you walked offsite, though, he had a clause in his contract that would allow that contract to be null and void if you walked off site. He did this across hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of small business subcontractors across the building industry across Victoria and across Australia. He was making millions and millions of dollars off the backs of working people here in Victoria. That is the reason why we need these laws. That is the reason why we had the committee look into the payment of subcontractors. Security of payment is not an abstract legal concept. It is about whether the subcontractor can pay wages on a Friday. It is about whether the worker can keep the ute on the road. It is about whether the family can stay afloat during difficult economic times.

This bill continues the Allan Labor government’s reforms to strengthen the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002. This is the one that I am really happy about: importantly, it introduces regular, three-year reviews into the effectiveness of the security of payments framework. I think in my last contribution, when we did the security of payments, the last amendment bill, I said that we would have to be resolute and make sure that we continue to look into the industry, continue to look into how the security of payments is working, because as soon as we make changes to the law or the regulations, we are going to have companies, dodgy operators, literally try and find ways around them, ways to not pay people, ways to make it difficult for people, ways to push the risk down onto the people that cannot handle that risk. And so having a three-year review into the security of payments by the minister I think is absolutely excellent. Business practices evolve, and governments have a responsibility to ensure that the law continues to protect the workers and subcontractors effectively. Victoria will now be leading the country by embedding regular reviews into legislation so we can continually improve protections and learn from reforms occurring across Australia and internationally.

This bill also extends protections for authorised nominating authorities overseeing adjudication processes, ensuring they can carry out their functions in good faith without being exposed unfairly to civil liability. These systems matter enormously because adjudication is often the only avenue smaller subcontractors have to resolve payments disputes quickly and affordably. I go back to the Maxstra example, where the contract was about $80,000. We had to spend $25,000 on getting legal advice. It ended up that we got no money. He pretty much had this whole system set up to screw over the subcontractor. Anyway, that is my time. I commend the bill to the house.

 Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (11:33): I am pleased to rise on the Building Legislation and Treasury Legislation (Tax Relief) Amendment Bill 2026. Just to take up from where the member for Glen Waverley left off: that builder you were talking about should not be in the industry – simple. Get rid of him. Get him out. He is nothing but an absolute you-know-what – I cannot say that in here, but it is a unity ticket on that one, I can tell you that right now. Builders like that should not be in the industry. Subbies work hard, and they are the backbone of the industry. It is that simple. Without subbies, you do not get houses built, and a lot of times the subbie is the credit line for the builder, absolutely, every day of the week. They have to be looked after, and security of payment is extremely important because these subbies are going broke. We are not getting houses built. It is really that simple. So to the member for Glen Waverley, I am with you on that, 100 per cent.

But let me get into this bill. I am probably going to start off with the minimum financial requirements. It is a bit of a backflip bill at the end of the day. The industry, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) and Master Builders Victoria were very, very vocal about this last time this legislation came through. The MFR was actually a big part of the government’s consumer protection bill or one of the bills they passed – I cannot remember when; there have been that many building bills – a few bills ago now. And what astounded me at the time – I remember standing up in this chamber, and I was saying to those opposite, ‘Talk to builders. This isn’t good for the industry. It is bad for the industry.’ Now, I got shouted down by a few of those members opposite with, ‘You’re only looking after big business. You’re only doing this. You’re only doing that.’

That was not the case.

On the MFR changes, it directly affected 70 per cent of the construction work that happens in this state, which is done by the mum-and-dad builders. It is the mum-and-dad builders that supply 70 per cent of the homes. On the MFR that got passed, so many builders rang me and said, ‘That’s it. I’m done. I’m out. This industry is stuffed. The government does not care.’ That was the feedback that I got from a lot of builders within the industry. The HIA were beside themselves. Master Builders Victoria were beside themselves. They were actually saying, ‘We don’t know how this industry will survive.’ But the one thing the government did not realise was that by introducing pretty well a turnover cap on the old MFR system, it would have dropped the supply of housing in this state by about 25 to 30 per cent. We are already sitting at about 55,000 homes now. That would have dropped supply to 40,000 homes – half of what the government wants to build a year.

I do not know what happened between the previous minister for housing and the new Minister for Housing and Building, but I suspect the new minister for housing reached out to stakeholders. I am hoping he went down to see Anna Cronin at the Building and Plumbing Commission. My assumption is he would have. If he was doing his job, he probably went there first. My assumption is he went and saw the HIA and my assumption is he went and saw Master Builders Victoria. I imagine after those three meetings his ears would have been bleeding about the MFR. They would have chewed his ears off about it because it was going to absolutely decimate the industry. We had a builder on the steps at the doors. We had a builder called Steve Bright, who told of his frustration with the government and the construction industry at the moment. We also had Keith Ryan of the HIA, who expressed his frustration as well at the government. I suspect the new minister copped an absolute barrage in his stakeholder meetings about the MFR, and possibly he still does.

But on the changes to the MFR – and I thank the minister’s staff for the bill briefing – I asked a very specific question in the briefing: is this going to go back to how it was? I was assured it is. That is where the MFR is going. It is absolutely going back to how it used to be before someone decided to really stuff it up. That is good for the industry. It is good, and it is a big reason why when the member for Caulfield talked to me about this bill I said, ‘We have to support this bill. We should not oppose it, because of the changes to the MFR. I know what the industry wants.’ But it is frustrating now because I know people on that side are going to get up and regurgitate the same thing, saying, ‘This is so good for the industry,’ which they did last time when the MFR was going to destroy the industry. I urge members opposite: stop taking the minister’s notes for granted and do your own research, because then you will not look like fools.

Dylan Wight interjected.

Wayne FARNHAM: If you do not like the yelling, member for Tarneit, you can go. I do not care. You can go. I am urging the members on the other side to stop taking things for granted, because they are not always what they seem. I am glad they have backflipped on the MFR, for the industry’s sake. Not only that, it is for Victoria’s sake, because the government’s housing targets they cannot achieve now, and under the old MFR the government had no chance at all.

There are a few other things in this bill. Another point I want to come to are the changes around flooding and the mapping of flooding areas. This is a bit ‘cart before the horse’. The minister will have the power to nominate areas of flooding. That is okay on the surface, but the problem we have is that every time we look at land that floods and areas get further and further out, we lose more land, whether that is developable land or whether that is farmland or any type of land. Every time you do modelling of big rain events and floods, you say, ‘That’s a flood area.’

What we need to do first, the very first thing we need to do, is clean the drains out. In my electorate, from Nilma all the way down Trafalgar East, from Longwarry all the way up to Pakenham East, it floods. The reason it floods is because I have three different authorities – four in some cases – that are responsible for cleaning out the drains, but that does not happen. The drains are not clean. So what happens when the drains are not cleaned out? You have more flooding area. There are some arguments, and sometimes people go, ‘Oh, you can’t clean the drain because there’s a frog’ and all that rubbish. Bad luck. It is a drain; it is there for a reason. When you have got areas like Warragul and Drouin, which are undergoing very high development, you have to understand the way stormwater works. When you have a paddock it absorbs the water. When you have a development it sheds the water. So there is more water coming off these areas, and these areas to the east and west of Warragul and Drouin are continuing to flood. You ask any resident down there – 30 mil of rain and Trafalgar floods; only 30 mil because the drains are not clean. The frustrating part as the local member for Parliament is that someone rings me and says, ‘My drain is blocked.’ Okay. I ring Baw Baw shire, ‘That’s not my drain’; West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority, ‘That’s not my drain’; VicRoads, ‘That’s not my drain.’ Who in the hell’s drain is it? Can we get the system sorted out so it works and people can do their job, and give them the funding to do their job?

There is the other part: West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority, for example, does not have a lot of money. Baw Baw shire is an area of 4000 square kilometres, and the council does not have the resources to clean all the drains. So before we go into flood mapping and flood overlays and everything else, get the drainage system right, because it is so important. If you just start rezoning stuff because of flood overlays, you will lose more land, and that is not good for anyone. We are not making any more land; we have to use the land we have.

In closing, there were a couple of amendments received about 5 minutes before this debate. The member for Caulfield has spoken to those. I would have thought the government would have had their act together a little bit sooner than that. We will obviously deal with that in due course. As far as the MFR goes and as far as the construction industry goes, thank goodness someone saw some sense in it, because this government had no idea what this was going to do to the construction industry. When you are trying to get more homes in the market, more people into homes, you have to make it easier. That is my contribution done, but thank goodness the MFR got reversed.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (11:43): I am very happy to speak to – as far as I can within the time permitted, that is – the consumer protections that are being brought forward, very important ones, through this bill, as well as more broadly the modernisation of Victoria’s building, housing and regulatory systems.

I will just briefly speak to the modernising of event and festival approval, cutting to the purpose of the changes. The bill responds to issues identified through the government’s events and festivals approval review, including uncertainty about when permits are required, inconsistent decision-making and overlapping approval processes. I cannot do it justice in the time provided. There are a lot of nuances to this, and I understand the vicissitude of events indoors, outdoors et cetera, and that the events industry more broadly – those who organise events – take these matters very seriously, as they should, because there are safety requirements, and I want to pay respect to that.

I will put two caveats: one, I believe the matter will be thoroughly transacted through both houses. Secondly, I think the member for Caulfield should be a little cautious about saying that we are trying to shut down fetes and other events as a net effect of the changes in this legislation. I just think perhaps that was a step too far, perhaps a few miles too far. It is important to be careful when we are talking about industry and the holding of events et cetera. Furthermore, I think that the member for Glen Waverley beautifully articulated that we are the major events capital. I do not see that changing anytime soon, because we do have a significant investment and impact, a very targeted approach, and the Victorian community turn up; that is the other side of the equation. There are all sides to these matters.

Anyway, coming back to the consumer protections, I want to zone in on what is actually a major focus of this bill, and that is protections for Victorians who purchase apartments. The bill introduces a decennial insurance scheme for new residential apartment buildings of more than three storeys to provide 10 years of insurance cover for relevant defects in major building elements after an occupancy permit is issued. As someone who lives in an apartment myself in a very tall apartment building – and I have a lot of residents who reach out to me regularly about certain defects et cetera and concerns about how they are going to get them rectified – I do understand that nervousness and anticipation when you buy in. And when you buy into any property you are always hoping for the best, that you can be confident that that property will meet reasonable expectations in terms of its ability to endure and also that you will not encounter unreasonable defects, or any defects, I should say, along the way in building; let me make an important caveat there. Apartment owners fundamentally should not be left carrying the financial burden of serious building defects outside their control, and I think that is what we are cutting to here. The scheme has been modelled to the extent possible on reforms in New South Wales and is designed to support higher quality construction and stronger consumer confidence in the apartment market.

More and more people are choosing to live in apartments. I know the member for Caulfield was shocked, and I do not know, he could not believe, perhaps, that people would want to live in activity centres and be near railway stations and good public transport and have accessibility perhaps to the arts and schools et cetera, but actually they do. I know there are many families that live in my area and are making a conscious choice because of the overall amenity and lifestyle that they are electing to be part of.

This insurance may be taken out by developers for the benefit of owners corporations and will operate as a first resort – I think that is an important point – no-fault insurance product, reducing the need for lengthy and costly litigation. And there is a second point that is really, really important: where a claim is accepted, insurance will arrange or pay for rectification work, helping owners to have serious defects fixed more quickly and effectively. I think in anyone’s language proceeding with litigation is always going to be costly and always going to be extremely stressful. You can never predict the outcome, necessarily. You will get the best possible advice, and oftentimes you might have, for example, a defect that might be corrected for 10 grand versus spending $100,000 even before you have hit the doors of the court. I am quoting figures from a recent matter that I heard about. That was before they had even got in the lawyers that they needed, the barristers, to be able to proceed to full-on litigation, and the distress – these matters can go on and on and on. So we can see that the purposive elements of these changes can be really impactful and are most welcome.

The bill also introduces reporting and information-sharing requirements for developers and insurers to strengthen oversight of the decennial insurance scheme by the Building and Plumbing Commission, and together with the existing developer bond these reforms significantly strengthen Victoria’s consumer protection framework for apartment owners. I certainly take some comfort in that. I am not necessarily speaking for myself but for the many residents in the seat of Albert Park and many other seats around the state who very much are making that conscious choice, ‘Yes, I want to live in an apartment; I don’t necessarily want a garden to look after. I want to be in close proximity to certain lifestyle elements that suit me’, or perhaps do not want long commutes or whatever it is, the good reasons that they have to invest in this way. But at the same time they want to have confidence that that purchase is going to be backed in. There is nothing more devastating than discovering defects and not really having a timeframe or appropriate parameters for them to be rectified, so these are really pleasing protections being brought about and really much needed.

Another element of this bill is supporting the first-resort home warranty scheme. The bill strengthens the operation I should say – let me just make that qualification – of the first-resort home warranty scheme. It enables regulations to provide limited exemptions or delayed premium payments in appropriate circumstances – this is a very nuanced caveat – including for social housing developments that remain under government or community housing ownership. Why? It ensures protections remain available for future homeowners without unnecessarily increasing the cost of delivering social and affordable housing. I was a little taken aback by the member for Caulfield, who was having a go at the building and construction of social, affordable housing by the Allan Labor government. I am like, ‘Yes, you have jacked up to everything we have put forward.’ I noticed one of the Liberal members for the Southern Metropolitan Region popped into the site at Barak Beacon trying to stir up trouble there. Also, I might add, the Greens political party did their best to try and stymie it.

But I am pleased to say that that development is going really well and will be completed later this year; certainly there will be a 46 per cent uplift in social housing on that site, in spite of their opposition. You cannot just say one thing in here and do another thing out there, you have got to be consistent. The opposition do not have strong footing when it comes to supporting social and affordable housing, and I am really not going to cop that. I just thought that was a little bit loose and fast on their part and certainly not backed in in any way, shape or form by anything they have done out in the community.

Another element that I want to talk about briefly is flood risk. I live in a flood-prone area, and this is something that people should be very mindful of, but we are also making sure that the appropriate protections are in place ahead of construction. What I mean by that is the bill introduces powers to support implementation of a new state-led approach to managing flood-prone land. Poor or inconsistent flood information can lead to costly redesigns, delays and uncertainty during development, so under the reforms the Minister for Housing and Building will be able to designate flood-prone areas of land based on advice from floodplain management authorities. This will ensure more accurate and up-to-date flood information is applied earlier in planning and building processes; we can see that is infinitely practical and important. The reforms will also improve transparency for potential purchasers of flood-prone land in updated section 32 statement requirements. That means that from the outset the purchaser knows what they are in for, so to speak. Together these changes will support faster and more informed decision-making for development of land while improving resilience to flood risks.

I think that is extremely important. I do not think I need to elaborate on that fact as to why it is important, but it just shows the significance of the reforms being brought about through this bill. I am pleased the opposition have said that they will support the bill, when you can see the importance that these reforms will have for Victorians.

 Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (11:53): It is great to rise on the Building Legislation and Treasury Legislation (Tax Relief) Amendment Bill 2026. I nearly choked on my breakfast when I saw ‘tax relief’ on a Labor bill, I have to be honest, because it is not something that happens too often in this state, where you have tax relief. We have got the biggest and most expensive state in the country when it comes to taxes.

I welcome back the member for Narracan. It was great to listen to his contribution to this, because when we look at these bills and we look at them in detail, it is always good to go back to someone who has been in the industry and who was, I am going to say, a proud builder – I am sure he was a proud builder in his time. He has built many homes and he understands the impact of legislation and the impact of changes to regulations, not just the debate in here, but how they impact the builder at the forefront who has to make the changes within their business and how it impacts the customers that they have to deal with when prices go up and what can happen with those. He also knows that good builders take care of things and take care of defects and everything over time, but you do need protections in place for consumers because there are some builders out there that probably should not be out there.

During this discussion we have also over time met with the Housing Industry Association – I note that Steve Bright’s name made it into Hansard; he will be happy his name is in there twice, to be honest – and we have had discussions with Master Builders Victoria and other associations. As you would imagine, there are plenty of builders out in my electorate, because we are one of the fastest growing communities in the state. My electorate now is, I think, the second fastest growing electorate in Victoria.

There are some things in here that I probably want to focus on. I know we have got some amendments in there. One of them is regarding the place-of-public-entertainment permits. The reason I want to focus on this is because of the impact on growing communities, particularly those who want to try and establish what we have had the pleasure of doing over such a long period of time in areas like Casey, formerly Berwick and Cranbourne before the amalgamation of the councils. Building a community is not easy. It is pretty easy to build houses. It is pretty easy to build roads. It is easy to plan how you are going to put your septic in and your water and your power et cetera. Out in Clyde North they might argue that it is hard to work out how to put phone reception in, but everything else they seem to have got down pat. They can build a school; it is infrastructure. They can build a hospital. But it is very difficult to build a community. Why is that important? Because if you do not build a community, then all you end up with is effectively the infrastructure and a disconnected area, which can obviously lead to an increase in crime. It creates social isolation. There are other things that happen within those communities. That is why I worry about the place-of-public-entertainment permits.

The events that I know bring our community together are large scale in areas like Berwick. Anzac Day is probably one of our main ones. On Anzac Day we have two major events. I know there are members in this room who are from down our area. The member for Narre Warren North is here. We love catching up at 5:30 am on Anzac Day each year, and we have a bit of a chat. I think I am going to speak on behalf of the member for Narre Warren North as well. When we both stand there, it is heartwarming to see so many thousands of people turn up to one event. Whilst we are there for a specific reason, the commemoration of Anzacs, it is also a bringing together of the community. They meet new schools and they meet new groups. They meet new people.

The second one I go to – I actually think the member for Narre Warren North joined me at this one too last year – the main event in Berwick, is the 10:30 march. We all get to come down and commemorate. Each year we make decisions based on what the decision is for the morning. The RSL have got a connection, and if it is looking like it is going to bucket down rain, we make sure we have got some marquees down there, because we do not want our veterans sitting out in the rain on wet seats. Someone gets up and goes and sets that up. They get a company in to do it. Now the question would be: what permit do they need to put this infrastructure up? Do they need to get a permit? Are they protected under their insurance if they do not have a permit? Who is responsible? Who is liable? These are questions that really are important to all of our RSLs, as they have to make these decisions on any given day.

All of these things, as I said, these community events, with the exemption of those under 5000, can get quite big quite quickly. Does it include markets? Berwick market has more than 5000 go through every single week. I am sure the Akoonah Park committee would be looking at this and going, ‘What if?’, because no-one can really explain it to them. That is the problem with the legislation and the way it is put. We are sending out a message that you may need a permit, and then they are not really sure exactly how it is going to impact them. It does not specify how exactly the new system will operate. When governments do not put that out in the first place, that is when you end up with these organisations having a genuine fear of how it is going to impact them in the longer term. What are the costs going to be? Who is going to end up paying those costs? There is concern about over-regulation of them. It is things like – every area has got them, and I will speak specifically to my electorate – those big markets. We have that big market in Akoonah Park that has thousands of people go through every week, which the permit system could now impact quite dramatically. That may run the risk of them thinking, ‘Well, hold on, is it worthwhile?’ Once you lose those markets, you do not get them back. We see that through many areas. For growth areas this is a huge concern. I just want to place it on record. I would love to see exactly how the regulation is going to operate. I think if you are going to bring this in, we need to find out the information in this place as fast as possible so we can go back out to our communities and ensure that they can continue these events. As I said, building community is not easy. Once you lose it, you generally do not get a chance to rebuild it in the future; you can lose it for life.

The other part, which I note that the member for Narracan, the Acting Chair now, also raised is around the flooding changes and the flooding overlays. I have genuine concerns when it comes to flooding overlays. The reason I say that is because this government brought in the fire overlays. Some of the challenges we have seen with that over the past decade have been hugely challenging in growth areas when we want to try and have some infill building. It is a big issue when you look at areas that we have got in Berwick. A prime example is on Manuka Road, on the corner of Allan Street. There is an area in there that has taken seven years because of the fire overlay. The bushfire overlay has actually prevented them building for seven years. It has literally gone through in the last few weeks. Seven years ago they put forward a plan to put in townhouses and some nice houses in that area, some more affordable homes in that part of Berwick as well. That has been held up. Over seven years how much do you reckon a townhouse has gone up in the Berwick community, particularly in that part of Berwick?

You would have been paying probably over $450,000 for a decent townhouse seven years ago. You are paying probably a million or more now in that area. So the government that tells us that they are all about affordable housing has now put another group out of the opportunity to live near Berwick high school, primary schools in the area and some of our private schools, not far from the highway and pretty close to the railway stations. Because of the delays of the government not wanting to make a decision, that means these people now are not given the opportunity to buy affordable homes in an area that they would have liked to have chosen to have lived.

But it is going to get worse – and exactly as you said, member for Narracan. You had a look at what was down in your area through Drouin and Warragul. Imagine this in Clyde and Clyde North, where it was all market gardens, and in the stroke of a pen many years ago the Labor government – those that stand up for the green wedge zones and tell us all about how they protect them – overnight and without telling anyone turned it all into urban development. But where they have done it we now see, as you said before, Acting Speaker Farnham, there is no longer the ability for the ground to absorb as much water. We have got roads, houses and a pretty ordinary drainage system, so these flooding areas are moving out further on the boundaries of this or moving further in, where we are waiting for the inner fill. I do not trust this government, unfortunately, to process these quickly enough and make decisions fast enough on the flood overlays, which, again, will see the delays that we have seen with the bushfire overlays out in parts of my community.

Clyde and Clyde North should be a place of affordable living. It should be a place where people can go and buy a house and land package and have the opportunity to raise their family without having the extreme stress of some of the mortgages here in our state. But what we are going to see, because of the new flood overlay, is that areas in there will be delayed. Eventually the permits will be given, but it will be years later. We know that if the property prices continue to increase at the rate they are now we are going to actually make these areas unaffordable and another generation is going to miss out, or they are going to have to go and actually get that much finance – they are going to have mum and dad working two and three jobs – and then we will not have that opportunity to build the community that we want to have out there.

As I said, we have put forward our position in relation to the building legislation. I have raised my concerns in there, and I hope the government takes them seriously, because they are about ensuring people get the opportunity for affordable living.

 Meng Heang TAK (Clarinda) (12:03): It is a pleasure to rise today to speak in support of the Building Legislation and Treasury Legislation (Tax Relief) Amendment Bill 2026. Acting Speaker Farnham, I am also always a keen listener to your contributions from your own experience in your previous life before coming here and your experience in and dedication to the building industry. It was also good to have listened to the contribution made by my very good friend here the member for Glen Waverley.

This is another important bill and one that has several objectives, the first of those being to enable modernisation and reflect on current industry practices in the building industry by improving the place-of-public-entertainment permit scheme; enabling greater flexibility in the Building Act 1993 to incorporate relevant documents, including international standards, by reference; and improving the operations of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002. Acting Speaker, it is also good to know that you and those on the other side are supporting, not objecting to, this bill.

Events and festivals are a vital part of Victoria’s cultural, social and economic life, in particular in our vibrant community in Clarinda and in the south-east of Melbourne. I am very lucky to represent such a diverse community, and my calendar is always filled with amazing celebrations and events, particularly from the many multicultural organisations that we have in the district.

The multicultural festivals and events grant program is always a very popular program in my electorate. It is a great opportunity for community organisations to hold cultural festivals and events in Victoria and helps many multicultural Victorians to celebrate and preserve culture, share traditions and connect with one another. I have been very proud to attend and support many events locally funded under the program, and it is always great to see the broader community taking part in cultural events and developing understanding and respect of our different cultures. One of the major events that we have locally is the Springvale Lunar New Year Festival. I am proud the Allan Labor government has supported this with a contribution of $400,000 across four years, and I recognise and acknowledge the contributions of the Springvale Asian Business Association, who always do an amazing job there. It has been more than 20 years of delighting and entertaining our community, with thousands of people coming together to enjoy the entertainment and attractions. I am always honoured to join with the local member the member for Mulgrave and neighbouring members of Parliament, councillors and community representatives to participate and to attend and to enjoy the many festivals there. The Allan Labor government is always proud to support festivals and events like this, because we believe that multiculturalism makes our state strong and more vibrant, and our festivals and events are important celebrations of our diversity. Our events and festivals are a vital part of Victorian cultural, social and economic life.

[NAME AWAITING VERIFICATION]

There are important changes in this bill. One is reforming the place-of-public-entertainment permit scheme to reduce unnecessary administrative burden whilst maintaining public safety, which is very important. This reform responds to issues identified through the government’s events and festivals approval review, including uncertainty about when event approvals are required, inconsistent decision-making, duplication across approval processes and late-stage uncertainty for organisers. We heard the member for Berwick say how he enjoys many of the events in his electorate, such as Anzac Day. The reforms enable a more risk-based and proportionate approval framework that offers clearer definitions, more guidance, an optional early certification process for prescribed temporary structures and added flexibility for existing buildings. These changes will support a vibrant events industry while keeping safety at the centre of the approval system, important changes modernising event and festival approvals that my community will be happy to learn about. I would like to also take this opportunity to shout out many of the events, once again, in my district, ones where we see more and more of our multicultural community. Thank you to Anil and many of his executive volunteers for hosting for the second year these events in my electorate.

Further changes will support stronger protections for apartment owners, including here. We know the challenges in housing and building at the moment. This is a concern across Victoria and in my electorate of Clarinda, and there is a lot of work being done to combat these challenges. This bill forms part of a broader package of reforms to Victoria’s regulatory framework for housing and building matters, and we have seen many of those outlined in the building statement released by the Minister for Housing and Building in 2025, which outlines a suite of reforms to strengthen Victoria’s building system and complements the goals of the housing statement released in September 2023.

Not long ago we were honoured to have the Minister for Housing and Building out to the beautiful Development Victoria site in Springvale South in my electorate to celebrate the completion of the 47 new townhouses at the Coomoora residential development there. I have been out doorknocking since, and it has been really great to meet with residents and to see them settle into their new homes and to see what Coomoora offers residents outside, with access to dedicated open space areas which make up 20 per cent of the site, including landscaping, car parks and also existing trees and outdoor recreation, where residents of the 47 homes can come and meet and have the kids play in the middle of the estate.

I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank and commend the minister on the developments. These deliver high-quality, affordable and sustainable homes, ensuring more Victorians have a place to call a home of their own. That is a major focus of this government. We want to continue to support Victorians through challenges in housing and building, and this is something that I hear a lot, particularly from my constituents in Springvale South and Clayton South, which have a really significant number of renters. Many of those are looking for their own home, and many are looking at buying an apartment to get into the housing market, and they want to have access and want to have confidence in this space. These are important changes in this bill, because apartment owners, as we know, should not be left carrying the cost of serious defects in a home that they have bought with the expectation that it was built safely and proudly.

This bill introduces a decennial insurance scheme, which as you said quite correctly in your contribution, Acting Speaker Farnham, is for new residential apartment buildings of more than three storeys. This will provide 10 years of cover for relevant defects in major building elements after an occupancy permit is issued.

There are several other changes that I am sure my colleagues will touch on, including the first-resort home warranty scheme, the change for safer land management and designations on flood-prone land, as well as changes to the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund and simpler land tax settings to owners whose principal place of residence is unoccupied due to construction and renovation, giving owners more flexibility. This bill is a practical, important package of reforms, and I commend the minister.

 Will FOWLES (Ringwood) (12:13): It is a pleasure to follow my friend the member for Clarinda, who is such a great advocate for his community and for many of the multicultural communities across Victoria. He is an ornament to the Parliament, and I hope that he will be running again come November and that he secures his re-election.

I rise to speak on the Building Legislation and Treasury Legislation (Tax Relief) Amendment Bill 2026. The title is clunky, and there are a few things in it, but we are just going to have a little crack in the first instance at building regulation. There are consumer protections, land tax and some provisions regarding the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund in here as well. I should say the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund sounds like some sort of very benevolent thing, but it is funded by a hypothecated tax which has been the source of some controversy in this place.

I will say that, like many omnibus bills, there are parts I strongly support, there are parts I think might require a closer examination and there are a number of parts which are profoundly and deeply boring, which is fine; that is just part of the gig. But I want to focus my remarks on what I believe to be one of the most important aspects of the bill, and that is regarding apartment buyers, because we have seen an outbreak of apartment faults and defects in Melbourne that have caused enormous economic harm and enormous social harm not just right across my community but right across Victoria.

We know that Melbourne is changing. Whether we like it or not, our city is growing and is growing quickly, and we need more homes. In my view, greater housing density in the right locations is not only inevitable but necessary. The alternative is pushing more and more families further away from jobs, from schools, from public transport and from services, whilst asking taxpayers to fund ever-expanding infrastructure on the urban fringe.

Infrastructure Victoria, a very good organisation and a well-led and well-managed organisation, have made a compelling case for this. They estimate that Melbourne needs 1.3 million additional homes by 2051. Before we get too alarmed about that, that is only a generation away – 25 years will go really quickly – and 1.3 million homes is a staggering number. Infrastructure Victoria have consistently argued that accommodating more people in established suburbs makes better use of the existing infrastructure, reduces pressure for endless urban expansion and improves access to jobs, services, public transport and open space. I think intuitively we understand that. I think intuitively people get that it is better to run more frequent services on an existing railway line than to build a new railway line. When I say better, I mean it is more economically efficient. I think we intuitively understand that parkland that currently has, let us say, dozens of visitors a day but that can easily accommodate hundreds of visitors a day is obviously going to be more efficiently used if there are more residents in its immediate proximity. I think Victorians understand that.

Infrastructure Victoria has also found that infrastructure to support growth on the urban fringe can cost up to four times more than accommodating growth in established areas, and that is why activity centres have become so important. I support them. It is not necessarily a universally popular idea in my part of the world, in Ringwood, but in the eastern suburbs alone, Ringwood, Mitcham, Nunawading and Blackburn have all been identified as locations that will accommodate significant housing growth in the years ahead. Those are three suburbs in my electorate and one that is partially in my electorate. Indeed the Ringwood Activity Centre Plan contemplates at least 8200 additional homes by 2051. There were some issues with the way in which that plan was put. Maroondah City Council, one of the more forward-thinking councils, had done a whole bunch of work on this and then got clobbered by arbitrary government rules about walkability and exactly where the circle was going to be drawn – and about if it was in fact a circle. Maroondah City Council had done a bunch of work getting their layouts right. So I continue to encourage government to look more carefully at the work that at least Maroondah has done in pre-empting some of these necessary changes.

We know of course that those additional homes will largely be apartments, townhouses and other medium- and high-density housing options. I think that is an important part of addressing the shortage, but we have got to protect apartment buyers. Apartment owners deserve exactly the same protections as other home owners, and that is where this becomes pretty important. I have spent a lot of time with Samantha Reece from Australian Apartment Advocacy on a range of the issues affecting apartment owners, and the stories are remarkably, disturbingly and distressingly similar, not just across Victoria but indeed across the nation. Someone saves for years to buy their first home, they finally get the keys and a defect emerges. It might be, and typically is, around waterproofing or structural issues or it could be the fire safety systems. Suddenly the owners corp is presented with a repair bill for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. If the builder has gone bust, has disappeared or cannot meet the costs, well, who pays? It is not the builder and it is not the developer, it is the owners. Ordinary folk who thought they were buying a home suddenly find themselves staring down special levies for tens of thousands of dollars, and those moneys are near impossible to finance. My great friend Brett Elliot, a home financier of incomparable skill, will tell you that it is very easy to finance vanilla things but it is very difficult to finance things that are off template, like special levies for apartments that have already been financed to be able to be purchased in the first place. That is not a theoretical problem, that is happening right now. So I welcome the introduction of the decennial liability insurance. It is not a silver bullet – of course it is not – and it will not stop defects from occurring, but it does provide that additional layer of very important protection for people who are undertaking the biggest purchase of their lives.

Australian Apartment Advocacy and Sam Reece have strongly supported the reforms, and in my view, they are right to do so.

A young couple buying their first apartment in Blackburn should not have fewer protections than someone buying a detached house, a pre-existing dwelling, in Heathmont. Home ownership is home ownership, and no matter the type of home, Victorians should have confidence that the biggest purchase of their lives is protected. As our housing mix changes, our consumer protections of course must change with it. So I commend that part of the bill.

There are also a bunch of changes in this bill to the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund. As I have mentioned, that is funded by a hypothecated tax, which is somewhat controversial. Some of these changes are sensible, and I think expanding the volunteer rebates is sensible, but there are a couple of quirks that I would encourage the government to take a look at, perhaps in the other place. I think it is good to make it easier for volunteers and retirement villages to access the rebates. I welcome the introduction of a levy offset for community housing organisations, and I say that community housing organisations are magnificent organisations. Those providers perform an extraordinary role delivering affordable and social housing to Victorians who would otherwise struggle to secure a place to live. The Community Housing Industry Association has said the measure will deliver some $2 million worth of savings across the sector. That is a very, very good thing. That is money that can be redirected into the maintenance of these existing homes, supporting tenants and delivering additional social and affordable housing. But there is a bit of a question on this because the government is proposing to exempt in its entirety all Homes Victoria land from that levy. I support relief to community housing associations, but I think it ought rank pari passu with Homes Victoria housing. The reality is community housing associations exist to address market failure. Homes Victoria exists to address market failure. They are servicing incredibly similar demographics – people who otherwise would not be able to afford a market rent or would not be able to afford a market price for a home. I just say that it raises the question about why there is this differentiation between Homes Victoria, as a provider of social housing, and community housing associations, as providers of social housing. So I raise that matter, and I hope the government might very well address it.

There are some other sensible reforms in this bill. The new framework for flood-prone land and disclosure requirements will help ensure that prospective purchasers have better information about the risks.

I have a minute left, and so I cannot go too deeply into the contracting processes for buyers, but I have dealt with purchasers of apartments who have presented to me the contracts they signed that number 80, 100 or 120 pages full of legalese. They are incredibly complicated documents, and we are talking, frankly, about people who do not necessarily have access to lawyers to help them to decipher all of it and who frequently sign these things unrepresented. I think there is a big job to do to make sure that people understand what they are signing better and to ensure that developers produce contracts that are readily understood by the purchasers. Apartment buyer protection measures are the most significant feature of this legislation. They are by and large good measures, and I congratulate the government, at least on this occasion, for bringing these measures to us and for bringing this bill to the house.

 Michaela SETTLE (Eureka – Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Agriculture) (12:23): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.