Tuesday, 28 July 2026

 Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (19:06): (1731) I rise to address the Premier, and the action I seek is for him to make any changes necessary to allow him to dissolve the Parliament to enable an early election. Today behind closed doors, without Victorian voters getting to have a say, Labor knifed the member for Bendigo East and installed her Deputy Premier and partner in crime as Premier. That is now two for two, with the former Premier Daniel Andrews saying, ‘Yes, I’ll stay on as Premier. Yes, I’ll go to the election. Yeah, I’ll be there for the Victorian people,’ then saying, ‘Nah, actually, see ya. You can have my deputy.’ Then this Premier, who is so unpopular – so diabolical were the polls, in the admission of the new Premier, so unpopular was she with Victorians – that her own caucus removed her in a desperate act of self-preservation that Victorians have never seen the likes of before. So she got dumped, and now, newsflash: they replaced her with her Deputy Premier.

Victorians are furious – furious that they did not get the democratic vote that Labor powerbrokers did to vote the former Premier out. The new Premier is not a fresh face. He was the former Premier’s second-in-command. He has been the Deputy Premier, sitting right beside her nodding along to every single failure that the government has inflicted on the Victorian people. He is just as much to blame for it all. Fifteen billion dollars lost to rorts and corruption on the Big Build: guilty. Net debt ballooning towards $200 billion: guilty. Criminal offending hitting an all-time high as 40 police stations are closed, as PSOs are ripped from 119 train stations, leaving women unsafe: guilty. An elective surgery waitlist that has crept past 68,000 people: guilty. As new home constructions hit the lowest point in a decade, he is guilty. What about his personal record as the Minister for Education – overseeing two consecutive VCE exam debacles and not even being able to deliver a pay deal for our hardworking teachers, who have had to now march our streets to fight for better pay, because teachers are the worst paid in the nation under this Premier’s watch. So if the Premier cannot run VCE exams, if he cannot do a deal to look after our hardworking teachers, he cannot run this state. The families in Victoria deserve better than being handed a new Labor Premier again without their consent. They deserve the chance to vote him out.