Tuesday, 28 July 2026

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have a message from the Speaker before I call the Leader of the Opposition. The Speaker reminds all members of the rules and practices of the house that apply during the conduct of debate and in particular the application of standing order 118. A no-confidence motion does not provide members with an opportunity to make imputations of improper motives or personal reflections on other members. On a personal note, since you have been missing me, I am now a year older. I may be grumpier.

 Jess WILSON (Kew – Leader of the Opposition) (13:32): I move:

That the Premier and the other ministers of state for the state of Victoria no longer possess the confidence of this house.

This motion has never been more needed. This motion will give the people of Victoria an early election, and never have we needed a new government more than we do today. Labor is in chaos. This government is in meltdown. This government is a rabble. They are bitterly divided. They are divided, they are desperate and they are dishonest. These people are not capable of delivering a fresh start for Victoria. They cannot run themselves. They cannot run the government. They have just spent the morning yelling at each other in caucus, shouting so loud that journalists could hear it through the walls. They are a rabble. That is not a functional government. This is not a government that actually cares about the Victorian people. This is a government that cares more about its own future than the future of Victoria.

I notice the same old faces are still there; they have just been slightly rearranged – rearranged like deckchairs on a particular ship, one might say. Do not be fooled. It is still the same old government, the same problems, the same rotten, corrupt core and the same betrayal of trust and debasement of the office of a minister of state. This government is an embarrassment to the Victorian people. The new Premier does not inherit a mandate. He inherits a party that just proved it cannot govern itself, let alone the state.

This is not a change of leadership; it is a government in freefall, in sheer panic. It is a government eating one of its own. Just like Jacinta was Dan’s deputy, now we have Deputy Ben taking over. The right-hand man of the former Premier is now the Premier; her partner in crime is now in charge of the crime syndicate. That is not change; that is just more of the same – a different leader, sure, but the same corruption, same crime, same debt, same waste, same potholes, same failed services and same old Labor.

It does not matter who is at the head of this government. The accumulated conduct of every member of this Labor government demonstrates that it no longer possesses the integrity, the moral authority or the competence necessary to govern. This is not simply a government whose policies we oppose; it is a government that after 12 long years no longer has the moral authority to govern this state. And do not for one second think that this leadership change is about anything other than protecting Labor. It is not contrition, a recognition of failures or a promise to do better, it is about protecting Labor and Labor mates. The caucus did what they needed to do to preserve their own political power. They have discarded one of their own because she became a liability to their authority. Make no mistake, they knifed her to protect themselves, not because they want to do better. They have not changed leaders because they want change, they just want political cover to do more of the same. In his first message to Victorians the new Premier said that he challenged the outgoing Premier because of the polling – not because he believed in something or that he wants to fix this state but because he wants to save the Labor Party and their mates. He is about politics, not the Victorian people. Where was he when decisions were made about reducing crime, about debt, about interest, about the corruption that is engulfing this state? He is a weak new Premier who is only interested in saving Labor and his mates.

Let me make mention of our newest Premier for a moment, Labor’s third Premier and their second unelected one in this term. Those opposite are praying he will save them from the judgement of Victorians in November. Well, I say to those opposite: pray harder. His ministerial record speaks for itself. If the new Premier could not run the VCE exams, he cannot possibly run this state. As Deputy Premier and a long-serving minister, he was at the heart of every decision of this government. He has served as Minister for Public Transport and minister for roads, key infrastructure portfolios from which $15 billion was rorted under his watch. Make no mistake: he is complicit in $15 billion walking out the door. He is not just a participant, he is an architect – an architect of the system that allowed Labor’s political interests and political allies to be prioritised over the Victorian people.

But there is more to his ministerial career than just corruption and misconduct. There is the incompetence too – Ben’s bungles and blunders. He oversaw two consecutive years of VCE exam errors that jeopardised the results of tens of thousands of students. Exam integrity is not just a bureaucratic nicety; it is what guarantees that every student’s result reflects their own work. Ben’s bungling undermined the confidence of students in their results and undermined the integrity of the exam process more broadly. This is a Premier who cannot be trusted with the little things, let alone the big things, like running this state.

And what about the condition of our schools, our crumbling schools? The Premier actually took me to VCAT to block a freedom-of-information request I lodged to make the government’s secret school condition report available to the public. The Premier and his then department paid a silk to represent them at VCAT all day, all to prevent the Victorian people from understanding just how bad things have gotten under Labor at our schools. Finally, after a two-year legal battle, the minister released the report to a newspaper and confirmed that one in five schools are in a poor condition under his watch. If the Premier spent as much time working with teachers to come to an agreement as he has counting numbers over recent weeks in caucus, perhaps our teachers would have a fair pay deal by now, but we have tens of thousands of teachers on our streets striking because the new Premier cannot sit down and negotiate a fair pay deal.

Again, this Premier is just not up to it. He just cannot help it, bungling and blundering his way through his ministries. But that is not the worst part. Incompetence is one thing, but malice and duplicity are another. Just weeks ago this man stood behind the former Premier, looked her in the eye and said that she had his support, that he would be proud to keep serving her and to see her re-elected in November. He invoked his own daughter in doing so. That is contemptible behaviour. This is a man whose integrity and trust are in tatters before he has even sat in that chair as the new Premier. This is not a man who can give Victorians a fresh start. This is a man who can only dish up more of the same, because he is the same. He is not just complicit in the previous Premier’s failings; he is an architect of them. He sat next to her as those decisions were being made.

Those opposite are coming into this place today to no doubt speak against this motion. But just a few hours ago the majority of them were preparing to vote for a motion of no confidence in the former Premier. They were happy to vote for the motion to roll the member for Bendigo East in their caucus room behind closed doors. They were up all night calling journalists, telling them that they did not have confidence in this government. But when it comes to this place – the one place where they should be honest, where they should accept responsibility and accountability – they are in hiding again. They will come in here to tell this house that they still have confidence in this government. I ask those opposite: what has changed in these few hours? What has changed in the past hours that has suddenly restored your confidence in the government? Is it because you replaced the former Premier with her partner in crime? Do they genuinely believe that all the problems of the last 12 years are over because they played musical chairs around the cabinet table?

Public trust in this government has been broken beyond repair. It does not matter who sits in the Premier’s chair. Victorians know that this government no longer governs for them. For 12 years this government has been defined by two things: first, its instinct to protect itself and its mates at all costs; and second, its repeated prioritisation of its own best interests and the best interests of its mates at the expense of the best interests of Victorians. This self-preservation above all else has destroyed integrity, removed any discipline from public spending and diverted resources from the core responsibilities of government. The consequences are now visible everywhere across this state and are felt by every single Victorian.

This is Labor’s legacy: corruption and criminal infiltration across taxpayer-funded projects, blowouts measured in the tens of billions of dollars, record debt and taxes while Victorians struggle to manage their own household budgets due to cost-of-living pressures, fewer police when communities need them, closed police stations, train stations with PSOs stripped from them, bail laws weakened, an unprecedented youth crime crisis, Victorians waiting longer for ambulances than they did a decade ago, patients waiting too long for the surgery they need and new home build completion rates at an 11-year low. And the roads – Victoria’s crumbling roads are the greatest sign of our decline under Labor. It does not matter where you go; the state of our roads points to a far deeper malaise than just a government that cannot get the basics right.

It goes to a government that is content to let this great state deteriorate – a government that no longer has pride in Victoria, that no longer believes in the promise of Victoria, a government indifferent to the challenges and pain of its people, content to let our state slip away into rack and ruin. It does not matter who leads this government. This is a government disinterested in self-reflection or contrition. Even today, even with the new arrangement of the same old faces, the Labor Party do not have the guts to admit the depth and breadth of their failures. This government has forfeited its moral authority to govern.

Nowhere is this forfeiture more apparent than in the crisis engulfing Labor’s Big Build. The previous two premiers did not create the system on their own. There were many architects of the Big Build, and they are all still on the government benches. The new Premier may try to pretend he had nothing to do with Labor’s corruption, but he stood at its centre. He has been at the cabinet table directing its expansion, ignoring the costs exploding time and time again and turning a blind eye to union misconduct, intimidation and criminal infiltration. The Big Build is the creation of this government, and the new Premier now owns its legacy. He sat at the same cabinet table as Premier Allan and Premier Andrews signing off on the system that enabled CFMEU corruption and misconduct on the Big Build. He sat around the cabinet table while $15 billion was siphoned into the pockets of bikies and organised crime.

I want to take a minute here to pause and recognise the critical work of investigative journalist Nick McKenzie in exposing the breadth and depth of corruption under this government. It was his work in the Nine masthead papers that first tore back the curtain on organised crime’s infiltration of Victoria’s Big Build, exposing years of rorts, standover tactics and taxpayer-funded corruption that this government had either ignored or covered up.

The depth and breadth of the misconduct on this government’s Big Build sites can be hard to comprehend in totality, so let me share with you just a few of the revealing case studies. There is the story of Women in Construction, belatedly deregistered by the new Deputy Premier and the Labour Hire Authority only after reporting in the Age revealed their misconduct. Women in Construction secured many substantial taxpayer-funded contracts, despite the fact it was owned by a serial, male, domestic violence abuser and another man accused of family violence and convicted of drug trafficking. The government was warned in writing that the CFMEU was forcing Big Build contractors to use the firm. The firm was more expensive and had morally dubious ownership. Why that firm? Because it has close links to the CFMEU. We are seeing that the CFMEU was able to exert a significant influence, if not outright control, over who got to work on taxpayer-funded sites. What these case studies show is that the Labor government outsourced procurement processes for work on taxpayer-funded sites to the CFMEU.

The Gap Road project in Sunbury is perhaps the most damning case that illustrates that not only were this government complicit in the corruption and misconduct, they enabled it. The Age reports that in 2022 officials in this government told the consortium that Labor wanted them to cut a deal with the CFMEU. The CFMEU deal, struck after the intervention of this government while John Setka was still secretary, enabled the CFMEU to do two things. First, it allowed the CFMEU to install their own union bosses in salaried positions on the project – salaries funded by the taxpayer. Second, it allowed the CFMEU to appoint its favoured labour hire company on the project – a company that was forced this month to cut a deal with police to avoid a criminal conviction, a company that has pleaded guilty to falsifying paperwork connected to cash withdrawals that the Age reports police suspect may have been used as bribes.

If the misconduct and the blowouts are not bad enough, we see this government shelling out millions more in hush money to cover up their blowouts. Just last week we heard Labor authorised an $837 million taxpayer payment to a Big Build consortium. The reason for this payment – because the consortium threatened to make public its claims that this government had forced it to cave in to CFMEU demands, costing taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars.

These are just a few of the stories from the Big Build, but they go to the heart of this government’s betrayal of trust placed in them by Victorians. We trusted them to collect and expend public money in the public interest. They have failed; they have broken faith with the Victorian people. But the betrayal itself is only part of the story. Expending public money for the private gain of its mates and its allies is a moral failing. This government is morally bankrupt – that much is clear – but it is also very close to being actually bankrupt, and that has consequences for Victorians too. Debt is now so high it is almost incomprehensible. It is not an accident that Victoria has the highest debt and the highest taxes in the nation. These are the natural consequences of a government which prioritises its own interests over the interests of Victorians. But it is not just our kids and our grandkids – the taxpayers of tomorrow – that will pay for Labor’s moral failings; it is Victorians today who are already paying the price. Every single dollar lost to corruption, misconduct and blowouts is a dollar that cannot fund police, ambulances, hospital beds, road repairs, schools or kinders. Every single dollar that is spent on corruption is not being spent on the things Victorians need and deserve. The government have funnelled 15 billion of those dollars out the door on corruption they let flourish, on misconduct they endorsed and blowouts they did not care to rein in.

The connection between the Big Build integrity crisis and the decline of core services is direct. It is irrefutable, unmistakeable. Because of Labor corruption we cannot fill our police shifts. Because of Labor corruption more than 40 police stations have had their hours reduced. Because of Labor corruption PSOs have been taken off our train stations. Because of Labor corruption Victorians no longer feel safe in their homes, in their businesses, in their streets and communities. Because of Labor corruption it takes longer to get an ambulance today than it did a decade ago. Because of Labor corruption the Premier cannot sign a pay deal with our teachers. Because of Labor corruption our schools are the lowest funded in the country. Because of Labor corruption new home build completion rates are at an 11-year low. Because of Labor corruption we now spend more on Labor’s interest than on Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria and kindergarten services combined. Because of Labor corruption our roads are quite literally falling apart. Our crumbling roads are the sign of decline under this Labor government. This is a government, as I said, that is content to let this state deteriorate. It is a government that consistently continues to place its political interests and the interests of its political allies ahead of the services that Victorians rely on every single day.

The Big Build corruption crisis might be the most obvious symptom of Labor’s integrity deficit, but it is evident in other areas too, like just how wasteful this government is in how little respect they show for taxpayers money. And when you lose respect for taxpayers money, you lose respect for the taxpayers – for the people. That lack of respect is at the very heart of this government. They do not respect the people who put them here – who sent them to this place. They think nothing of promising to deliver the Commonwealth Games before an election, then spending $589 million to cancel it. They think nothing of spending $13 million on machete bins, almost $200,000 on indoor pot plants for the Suburban Rail Loop Authority, Victorian government agencies being busted putting the bill at bougie restaurants on the departmental credit card or $30,000 to replace Metro Tunnel plaques because the previous Premier was not happy that her honorifics had been left off.

What we have seen is a government that treats every questionable expense as too small to matter, eventually producing waste on a scale too large to comprehend. Ultimately it is Victorians who pay the price when the government treats them as little more than a cash cow, slugging them with tax after tax after tax. Since November 2014 Labor has introduced 70 new or increased taxes and charges. These include the GP tax, the schools tax and the holiday and tourism tax, and let us not forget the pet tax, literally taxing cats and dogs. And let us also not forget the emergency services tax, Labor’s great big new tax on every home, every farm and every business in Victoria.

But Victorians are not paying more because they are receiving more – they are paying more because Labor has allowed escalating debt and interest to consume the budget. Net debt is forecast to reach $199.3 billion by 2030 – $200 billion – and interest repayments are forecast to reach $11.8 billion a year, more than $32 million a day and around $1.3 million every single hour. By 2030 Moody’s expects around one dollar in every 10 of state revenue to be consumed by interest. That is money that delivers no nurses, no police officers, no teachers and no road maintenance.

Our unemployment rate is now 5.1 per cent, higher than the national rate, where it has remained for 29 consecutive months. We are the only state whose unemployment rate is above 5 per cent, and real gross state product per person went backwards last financial year. That means Victorians are poorer under Labor.

But it is not just the higher taxes that Victorians are paying for under this government. They pay for Labor when they lie awake at night, worried that their home could be invaded or their car stolen. They pay because during the previous Premier’s tenure criminal offences rose by 23 per cent. Motor vehicle theft has risen by 65 per cent, leading Victoria to be crowned the car theft capital of the nation.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.