Wednesday, 26 August 2026

 The SPEAKER (16:01): I have accepted a statement from the member for Cranbourne proposing the following matter of public importance for discussion:

That this house condemns the Victorian Liberals for their plan to cut $40 billion from our schools, hospitals and essential services, and for cosying up to One Nation to help deliver those cuts.

 Pauline RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (16:01): I have been in a reflective mood. I have been reflecting that this evening we have a series of valedictory speeches and we are farewelling several members of Parliament who are retiring from their roles in the Parliament over the next few weeks. This place, our Parliament, is always evolving, and another evolution or a transformation will happen again in less than 100 days. But to be frank, I am also a little bit concerned. You see, I love Victoria. I am a Victorian to my bootstraps. I love our diversity. I love our strength. I love our weather. I love that so many people have chosen to make Victoria home from other states and from other countries. But maybe ‘concern’ is too gentle a word, because I also have a bit of a sense of dread – a dread of the consequences for our great state as the Liberal–National–One Nation coalition cosy up to each other in an awkward marriage of convenience. I am concerned about the risks to our state, to marvellous Melbourne and to Victoria if they get to fulfil their plan to cut $40 billion from schools and hospitals and cut one in seven public servants. Let me be clear: if the Liberal Party are given the great gift of forming a government, it can only happen with One Nation, and the impact will be felt not just in my community but across the state. Despite the Leader of the Opposition’s faded whispers of ‘We’re different’ in Kew and her murmurs in parts of regional Victoria of ‘Actually, we’re just like One Nation’, we know the truth because they have said the quiet bit out loud. They have a plan to form government with One Nation, whatever it takes.

We know the Liberal Party, with former Prime Minister Tony Abbott as president, is sending out siren calls to Senator Hanson that she was wronged in her battle with the Greens. I actually was shocked – I was genuinely shocked – when I opened the Age on the weekend and saw that the president of the Liberal Party, the shadow shadow opposition leader, has agreed that they were wronged when Senator Hanson told the Greens’ senator to ‘piss off back to Pakistan’. Frankly speaking, it is disgraceful and heartbreaking. The shadow shadow opposition leader has a bit of FOMO, and we know, as always, he is pulling the puppet strings of the Victorian Liberal Party, because he thinks he has what it takes for the Victorian Liberals to get elected. I feel a bit sorry for the Leader of the Opposition, because I imagine how it is fielding phone calls from the other leader of the opposition. ‘Fantastic. Great work. Well done, Angus,’ she says. Then the Institute of Public Affairs will call: ‘Don’t worry, it will trickle down. We can privatise the ambulance service. We’ve done it before; we can do it again.’ And we know that is true. Do you know where it was done before? It was done in Cranbourne, and it was a disaster. They will do it again. They cannot help themselves. It is in the DNA.

Of course the ghosts of Liberals past, experiencing their FOMO, will be on the phone: ‘Jeffrey, yes. You’re right. Let’s get rid of the SEC. We don’t need that. Let’s get rid of the apprentices. We don’t need them.’ But what I am curious about is what happens when the Leader of the Opposition heads down to Red Hill, to the wineries, to see those slightly more urbane Liberals? What happens when the Leader of the Opposition bumps into the Baillieus? ‘It’s okay. We’re urbane.’ The phone rings again: it is Lucy; it is Malcolm. ‘Oh, it’s okay. I’m going to hold the east. I’m going to hold Hawthorn. We’re going to hold Bulleen. We’re all okay. It’s all okay.’ Then the Leader of the Opposition has to pick up the phone to One Nation again.

My concern is that the Leader of the Opposition is not just looking to her federal opposition counterparts – ‘Well done. Good work, Angus’ – she is also looking to Camelot, and not the Camelot of the clever, accomplished Caroline Kennedy, former ambassador to Australia and a very great friend of the member for Wendouree; and not the flawed but brilliant JFK – no. The Leader of the Opposition needs to keep her right flank in order and she needs to keep One Nation happy, so she is looking to that other member of Camelot: Robert F Kennedy, the man who is leading the Make America Healthy Again campaign with his opposition to fluoride in water, his outrageous discredited claims that vaccines are linked to autism and his assertions that no vaccines are safe. How is that going to go down with Lucy and Malcolm, I wonder. What is going to happen when you head down to Red Hill and catch up with the Baillieus down there? What happens when they hear that the Leader of the Opposition is having a coffee with Senator Malcolm Roberts, because that is going to be an awkward conversation. Let us get that on a clip – Malcolm Roberts, not Malcolm Turnbull. The Leader of the Opposition, we know, does not like her colleagues to front the media, because you all saw what happened a couple of weeks ago when Ms Crozier from the other place came up with the slightly harebrained idea to consult only with the member for Berwick – not that I do not have the greatest respect for the member for Berwick, but in terms of a health service I think that that consultation needed to go a little bit further.

And the Liberal Party are going to make these $40 billion in cuts. You cannot cut $40 billion without devastating cuts to hospitals, to schools, to frontline services – the work that people rely on – and to the Orange Door in Cranbourne. Cuts to health mean longer wait times, less nurses and less hospital beds. But the Liberals cannot do it alone, so along with One Nation they are going to have to form a coalition of cuts and closures if they are to form government. One Nation, as part of a coalition government, also has real plans and real policies that hurt working people. They will privatise our hospitals, they will Americanise our health system and just like RFK they will abolish the Department of Health, because they have got to keep tickling those tummies. They will end paid parental leave, and we know penalty rates are so 1987. They plan to cut one in seven public sector jobs, and that includes health workers, it includes disability workers and it includes child protection workers – it has to. We all know that they will not stop there. Nothing and no-one are off the table. You can wear your R.M. Williams, and you can go down to the Mornington Peninsula on the weekends. But they also need to be having those conversations with their colleagues and friends – those family members who have mostly hailed from Far North Queensland – and be able to find a way to speak a common language. We know this is going to affect every family in Cranbourne and indeed every family and person in Victoria – every older person, every young parent, every worker, every pensioner and every person who needs urgent medical treatment – because that issue is what is at stake: our public health system.

My message is simple. It is straightforward. It is clear. Cranbourne – and all Victorians – cannot afford to allow its public health services to be taken for granted. We need to ask some very serious questions. What would happen to our healthcare system if the Liberal–National–One Nation coalition gained power? This is not about party politics for the sake of it. It is not sport. It is about something so much more important. It is about whether when your child is sick you can get treatment, because the virtual emergency department is life changing. It is about whether your elderly parent can get an ambulance. It is about whether you can go to hospital without worrying whether you can afford to pay the bill. It is about whether the public hospitals in our community remain as public services for everyone rather than becoming increasingly dependent on private operators and private finance.

Cranbourne is growing rapidly, just like Victoria is growing rapidly. We have a community that needs more health care, not less. We have the Cranbourne Community Hospital; I think I have mentioned it in here a few times. It opened on 6 October last year. It was opened the day of my brother’s birthday, so happy birthday, Marty. It is a public hospital. It is managed by Monash Health and it provides services: ophthalmology, dental, dialysis, pharmacy, pathology, adult mental health services, and further services are coming. An urgent care clinic is on its way. Do you know what else it has? It has free parking. I fought like a woman possessed to keep that parking free. I will continue to fight for my community. I will continue to do whatever it takes to make sure that we can keep our health services public. This hospital, my local hospital, matters. It means people do not have to travel long distances for care, and it means family can receive services closer to home. It means health care can be part of the community, rather than something we only encounter when we are forced into a major emergency tertiary hospital. It is about whether you can go to hospital without worrying about whether you can pay the bill, and it is about whether the public hospital in our community remains as a public service, because we will not put our public services on the bidding table. We will not sell our souls.

Let us not pretend that this is new territory for the opposition. We have seen this show before. It was a Liberal coalition government that privatised so much of our service, and the privatisation was so badly botched. It has been exposed locally. I was talking to a paramedic just two days ago who was telling me about what happened. He was part of the work to make sure that the Cranbourne ambulance service came back into public hands. The member for Melton has spoken often about what the consequences were. This is in their DNA, and that is precisely why we need to protect it. The state has seen what happens when the Liberals get anywhere near our health system. This Labor government, our Labor government, has built 12 new public hospitals, as many as the Liberals closed, growing our workforce by 50 per cent. We have invested in innovative services – I already mentioned the virtual ED – in women’s health clinics and Chemist Care Now. Of course we have so much more to do.

The Cranbourne Community Hospital is a real hospital. Mrs Hermans in the other place, the Liberal member for the South-East Metropolitan Region, has stood up in front of the community hospital and dismissed it. She says that it is not a real hospital. I can tell you that our nurses say it is a real hospital. Our cleaners, our technicians, the people who make coffee in the Cranbourne Community Hospital say it is real. The people who turn up to work there every day and the people who work in our ophthalmology clinic say it is a real hospital. I met constituents on Monday who have used our ophthalmology clinic, and they tell me it is a real hospital. They are mortified and horrified by claims that it is not. So the member is not only insulting a building, she is insulting every person who works in it and every patient who relies on it.

This is not an abstract accounting exercise. The vast majority of this state’s budget is in health and education, and you simply cannot find $40 billion without cutting into hospitals, without sacking nurses and midwives, without reducing the number of paramedics, cutting into our mental health workforce and of course dental. You cannot cut on this scale without the consequences, and the consequences land on the health system. If One Nation form a coalition with the Liberal Party, these plans will be a reality and working people will suffer. Pauline Hanson is not on the ballot in Victoria, but we know One Nation candidates have been a problem all over the place. Seventy per cent of One Nation MPs have quit before their term ended. This would be a disaster. It would be ruthless. There would be cuts, cuts, cuts to the bone. They have a history. They cannot help themselves. It is in their DNA.

Only Labor is backing Victoria’s hospitals by continuing to deliver on our commitment to all Victorians over the state for a range of care options that are fit for purpose. In this election Victorians face a clear choice for the future of our health service. The Carroll Labor government will continue investing in hospitals and mental health hubs that Victorians rely on and of course in 10 new dental clinics. Our community needs more health care, not less, because we know under Jess they will get way less. Only Labor is fighting for working people. Only Labor will make sure people have the care that they need.

The SPEAKER: I remind members about using correct titles in the chamber. Member for Bulleen, hang on, I need to take my hearing aid out.

 Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (16:16): I do not yell, Speaker; I speak with conviction. Ukrainians like to speak with conviction, and half my family is Ukrainian. I was waiting to be flayed. I thought, ‘Look at this. They’ve got their big line, their key attack point.’ Labor has got its attack point and condemns the Liberals about all this massive $40 billion we are supposedly going to cut. I was waiting to be flayed, but with respect, I was there, like a couple on the backbench of the Labor Party, yawning and thinking, ‘When is it coming?’ Ten minutes in, after hearing about Robert F Kennedy and vaccines – and I was struggling to work out where that came from – and a narrative about R.M. Williams boots, we all looked down and said, ‘What has that one got to do with it?’ We kind of got into it. Apparently this was serious. You can imagine the Labor Party cabinet or the Labor Party themselves trying to work out the spin for ‘What are we going to say about Jess Wilson? What’s our key attack point?’ and they are kind of fishing through maiden speeches.

The SPEAKER: Correct titles, member for Bulleen.

Matthew GUY: The Leader of the Opposition, I should say, Speaker. They are fishing through maiden speeches and trying to work out where they can get them. They said, like a bargaining competition, ‘Let’s just say she’s going to cut $10 billion – no, $20 billion, $30 billion, $40 billion. Let’s just say it. Let’s just make it up.’ They all just make it up.

Members interjecting.

Matthew GUY: Sorry, did you say something about yelling? Oh, goodness me.

The SPEAKER: Member for Ripon, member for Bulleen, member for Narre Warren North, member for Wendouree, no interjections, please.

Matthew GUY: Don’t you love it when they prove your point for you? It was just stunning, and you can imagine them just sitting back doing the workshopping as to ‘What can we say?’ It would be like, as I said, a Utopia episode, working out how they are going to position and whatever – not how are they going to govern or how are they going to approach the last 12 weeks of government, or of the Parliament anyway. No. What can they come up with and walk into the chamber on a matter of public importance that might be witty, funny, good for their Instagram or whatever. I am actually flabbergasted. At the end of the day I am stunned that the Parliament is sitting for another week. I would have thought the Labor Party, having some political smarts and given that it is double digits behind in every poll, might want its backbench knocking on doors. But we have seen what Kosmos Samaras has said about his own side knocking on doors. No, they are bringing them all back in here to come in and put out matters about the Liberal Party cosying up to One Nation to deliver an invented figure of cuts. That is what they have got to.

Bridget Vallence interjected.

Matthew GUY: You would think they would come in here, as the member for Evelyn said, and talk about their record in government. No. Well, you certainly could not unless you wanted to talk about corruption, breaking promises or the Suburban Rail Loop. Instead, no, they come in with this ludicrous and almost comical matter of public importance where they are referencing Robert F Kennedy, R.M. Williams boots and the Baillieus at Red Hill. I am really quite flabbergasted that that is where we have got to.

The matter actually talks about a Liberal plan for cuts. I have been around here long enough – and in fact I did not even have to be here that long – to hear the Labor Party talking about cuts. I thought, ‘Hang on a tick, didn’t I pick up the Herald Sun this morning and see the current, latest Premier talking about cuts?’ I saw, ‘Victorian Premier Ben Carroll announces cuts’ – that is it, the word ‘cuts’ – ‘to fat cats’. Don’t you love that term ‘fat cats’. You can imagine them workshopping that one in the office of the Premier: ‘What are we going to say? We’re going to cut the fat cats. We’re going to cut all these people out of a couple of authorities and give Benny’ – pardon me – ‘the Premier $100 million in savings’ or whatever they want to do. So they have workshopped this line about how they can walk in here. Here it is; I found it: ‘Victoria to axe 140 senior public service jobs in major shake-up’. This article goes on to talk about how the Treasurer Colin Brooks, who was talking about Liberal cuts, was talking about Labor cuts earlier on in the day. Of course one seems to be okay, and one seems to be the subject of a strange matter of public importance.

Jade Benham: Colin from accounts.

Matthew GUY: Yes, Colin from accounts, who was the mayor of Banyule. I remember his term as the mayor of Banyule. I remember the member for Ivanhoe on the Banyule council too. I have got a bit more to say about that in time too, about a few things that occurred around there. Maybe I will hint at them if they are listening – the Greensborough project. But we will come back to that closer to the election, shall we? That was just to give them a bit of a teaser so they can scurry out. The Treasurer will be in the foetal position on the floor like he usually is when there is anything of pressure applied to him. What I find stunning is just this matter about Labor cuts, because we had the previous Premier Jacinta Allan. Remember Jacinta Allan? I remember the member for Bendigo East.

Juliana Addison interjected.

Matthew GUY: I am sorry. The member for Bendigo East.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Wendouree. I am the Speaker.

Matthew GUY: Sorry about that. You are deeply offended. All right. The member for Bendigo East, the one you all tried to roll, actually came out and said – and I am reading it here, so it is not me using incorrect titles, Speaker. I am just going to read it into Hansard: ‘Jacinta Allan admits cutting “thousands” of public service jobs’ – not one, not two, not 140 but thousands. Labor will save the public service. Here we go:

Today, Premier Jacinta Allan admitted her government has cut “thousands” of public sector jobs under the Silver Review.

Again, I have got to refer to this matter because I think it is so comical: ‘the Liberal Party’s plan to cut from our essential services’. Well, here it is, actually from the Premier. Was this in 2024? No. 2025? No. This was from 8 May 2026. That was three months ago. They were boasting about cutting thousands of public servants just three months ago and now walk into the chamber bereft of any ideas, bereft of a fourth-term agenda and bereft of any kind of defence of their union corruption, or might it be the Suburban Rail Loop decisions or the fact they have given us $200 billion in state debt, the highest of any state in Australian political history. No, they are actually talking about cutting things, and Jacinta Allan – pardon me, the member for Bendigo East – admitted she was planning to cut thousands of public sector jobs. Well, that is the Labor Party.

I also note that there is another addendum to this matter, and I think this is actually quite funny. It says: ‘and for cosying up to One Nation to help deliver those cuts’. What a comical and unique way of popping a little sting at the end of an MPI. Do you reckon the office of the Premier came up with that one when the Premier was planning his flight to Canberra today, when he knew the report was coming out from the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office? Anyway, it is fascinating because it says ‘cosying up to help deliver these cuts’. So what we now have is Labor members scurrying through One Nation websites to say, ‘Look what they have said – that is you.’ They are saying, ‘We assume you are going to preference them, so you own One Nation.’ That is what they are saying, which I thought was fascinating, because I decided to go and get –

Juliana Addison interjected.

Matthew GUY: I think you need to refer to me by my proper title, don’t you?

The SPEAKER: The member for Wendouree is warned.

Matthew GUY: I thought I would go and get the last electoral test of this Parliament, look at some preferences and see who was cosying up to who, and I got the now member for Werribee’s how-to-vote card. A very nice picture of him there; he is a handsome-looking dude. Here he is on his how-to-vote card. The Labor Party have actually preferenced quite high up on the list there the Victorian Socialists – what a great mob they are. I thought, looking at this matter – ‘and for cosying up to One Nation’ – maybe I could rewrite this with an amendment, ‘and for cosying up to the Victorian Socialists on how to deliver Labor’s cuts’. If you own all these things – and apparently you own who you preference – let us see what the Victorian Socialists have got to say, apart from the fact they have got a socialist policy for puppy farms, which I thought was unique. I do not know what they are going to do with my cavoodle; does he go in one part of it or the other? A socialist policy for puppy farms I thought was very unique. The first thing the socialists say they want to do is establish a state bank of Victoria. What happened to our State Bank of Victoria? I thought, ‘That’s a unique one,’ because they are cosying up to the Victorian Socialists as per their own matter. Aren’t these the people who under the Kirner government sold the State Bank of Victoria, the last time they bankrupted the state? I think that is the case. I thought that was unique. There is another one in there about a Medicare for pets. Again, my cavoodle – I love him – has just had an operation on his leg. He did an ACL. This is my dog. But I am not sure that Victoria could afford –

A member interjected.

Matthew GUY: He did not play netball. He was going up and down the stairs a lot, though. I am not sure Victoria, at this point in time, given we owe $200 billion and we have had $15 billion potentially stolen with union corruption on Big Build sites, can have a Medicare for pets. But maybe the Labor Party can give us their views on that, given they are, according to their own words, cosying up to the Victorian Socialists. It is fascinating. How is this one: they want to reverse all funding increases to Victoria Police over the last decade and then develop a plan to defund the police. I guess they are cosying up to the Victorian Socialists, because this is why we have got – and the member for Berwick will tell you – record problems with crime in this state. It is why a Wilson government is going to reopen police stations – not cuts; reopen police stations – that this government has been closing. You would not believe that word ‘cuts’ – been closing. We are going to reopen them. I thought this was fascinating. Take all military-style weapons out of police hands, take capsicum spray out of Victoria Police hands and disarm Victoria Police. There are some fascinating ones there. Then I thought, if we’re cosying up to people, that 23 of Labor’s MPs were directly elected to this Parliament at the 2022 election by Greens preferences. Goodness. What have the Greens stood for predominantly over the last couple of years? I know that the previous Premier did not do the toast to the state of Israel when she went to the Israel Independence Day celebration. Maybe they are taking some leaves out of the Greens book and starting to divide society based on that.

I have to relate it back to public transport. I think you know I like to talk a bit about public transport when I get the chance.

A member interjected.

Matthew GUY: We always give it a shot. It talks about Liberal plans for essential services cuts. No doubt we are going to hear that word over and over again – wait for it; it is really scary – Kennett. They come in here and they say it. The kids are put to bed, mother gets an Ovaltine and they are all really worried about what it looks like. Kennett – ‘Jeffrey closed this and Jeffrey closed that.’ What I think is fascinating is that the member for Cranbourne raised the matter. In fact under the Kennett government the member for Cranbourne actually got the first new passenger electrified rail service for 40 years. It was brought into Cranbourne. We electrified the railway line. We brought suburban trains to Cranbourne. Can you believe it? Let us go back further. They talk about Kennett; we will talk about Cain. It was the Cain government that shut the Port Melbourne line. It was the Cain government that shut the St Kilda line. It was the Cain government that tried to shut the Upfield line. Whoa! It was the Cain government that then reduced the two passenger trains to Sydney to one. Goodness me. We want to go to the Bracks government. Let us go and talk about the Bracks government.

A member interjected.

Matthew GUY: I will come to the SEC if I want to. The Bracks government shut the Yaapeet line, the Yanac line and the Navarre line. We can talk about these things all we want, but at the end of the day rather than giving positions for me to come in here and say all of these things – as entertaining as it can be for me and maybe for others around, Speaker, but maybe not for you, because I am not yelling as loud – with just a few weeks to go in this Parliament, I would have thought that the government would use a matter of public importance to stake its claim for a fourth term. With the government bringing all their MPs back in here for another sitting week, taking them off the campaign trail, weird as that might be in the politics of it, I would have thought that government would make very good use of this time to get people up to make sure they are staking their claim for a fourth term in office.

Bridget Vallence interjected.

Matthew GUY: But as the member for Evelyn says, they have nothing good to say. There is no fourth-term agenda. If there was, we would have heard in the first speech what that might be. Instead we had a rambling mix of Robert F Kennedy, vaccinations, the Baillieus and Red Hill, with R.M. ‍Williams boots thrown in. That is not a direction for a fourth term; that is evidence that the government have run out of steam, and it is time they went.

 Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (16:31): It is always entertaining hearing from the member for Bulleen, also known as the former Shadow Minister for Transition to Government. I note no-one has taken up that mantle, and I wonder if it is being kept on the backburner for the moment, waiting for the frightening eventuality of a Liberal–National–One Nation coalition government. Maybe that is being kept warm for a One Nation person, who knows? I do note that the member for Bulleen said that this MPI is amusing. It is not amusing; the matter of public importance is serious.

Matthew Guy: You were talking about RFK, not me.

Daniela DE MARTINO: I will tell you what, one need not go to America to hear about the cracked theories of Robert F Kennedy Jr. One only needs to look at another Robert, or Roberts, and that is Malcolm Roberts here in this very country, when it comes to very interesting positions on COVID and vaccines that one may describe at best as fantastical, but not in a great way. One need not go too far; one need only look at One Nation.

John Mullahy interjected.

Daniela DE MARTINO: I am being informed that the past Liberal member for Forest Hill held similar views, and that also is quite a concern. That is why this matter of public importance is not a joke. It is not a matter for jocularity and it is not a matter to be taken lightly, because there are deep concerns on this side of the chamber about what our state may potentially look like, not just as a result of $40 billion worth of cuts from a Liberal–One Nation coalition.

A member interjected.

Daniela DE MARTINO: I do not know what one could call it – an unholy alliance perhaps. It is quite concerning for me as the member for Monbulk. It is concerning for all of us as Victorians and representatives of our electorates on this side of the chamber. That is why I rise today to support the member for Cranbourne’s matter of public importance given the very real threat that cosying up to One Nation may very well be the only chance those opposite have of forming a government and wreaking havoc on this state.

Let us be real about what those cuts will mean for people. Do you know what it will look like? It is whether a grade 1 student from Ferntree Gully can get her eyes tested and her teeth checked at school and enjoy starting her day at the breakfast club with a full belly or not, because that might be on the chopping block. Free Fruit Friday was. It is whether a three-year-old from Emerald can go to kinder, because her parents otherwise could not afford it. They can now because of our free kinder program, ensuring that children in their most formative years get a chance to start their education journey with some of the best educators going around – not if that gets chopped as well. It is whether a woman from Belgrave has the opportunity to upskill or cross-skill via our free TAFE program so that she can find a new career or not – if the doors of opportunity and access to education get closed in her face due to Liberal–One Nation cuts to TAFE. They did it before. They slashed $1.2 billion out of TAFE last time. They locked up 22 campuses, including the one in Lilydale. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. It is whether an elderly man on the pension in Monbulk can be seen for free at the marvellous Angliss Hospital that we have just invested $112 million into redeveloping. It is whether he can be seen there for free – or not, because the Liberal–One Nation coalition has Americanised our hospital system and sold it off. That actually was a plan back in Kennett’s time. The Angliss Hospital was listed to either be downgraded to a community hospital or just privatised.

Speaking of hospitals, there is a wonderful, wonderful idea that those opposite had but seem to have run away from very quickly, and that is PSOs, with broad consultation obviously beforehand with the member for Berwick – broad, one person, the member for Berwick, an extraordinary level of consultation. That was a great policy there. There is another wonderful policy that my local government has come out and absolutely slammed, and that is to ensure that the general waste bin is collected every week. What a fabulous policy – not. It would actually double landfill as we are experiencing it now. The former mayor of Yarra Ranges shire Cr Jim Child actually came out and slammed that policy. He could not believe it. He said it was terrible. In the bin with that policy, for sure.

Honestly, the last time the coalition were in government in this state they cut a billion from our health system, and they went to war with our nurses and our ambos, so there is a very, very important question here. It is whether or not the nurses, the teachers and the paramedics are going to have a government that backs them or a government that treats them as a line item to be crossed out on a budget paper. When they were last in government they promised there would be no cuts to the public service, full stop. Then they cut $250 million per year from the public service, with 4128 public sector jobs cut or not replaced between 2011 and 2013. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. We do know they have a plan: one in seven public servants is to be cut. They say it is okay because they will not cut them from the front line: ‘Teachers won’t be cut, nurses won’t be cut, police officers won’t be cut. That’s okay. It’ll be fine.’ Those people cannot do their jobs without all the support crew behind them. School buses need to be scheduled. Canteens need to be run. If all you have left in schools are teachers and maybe the admin in there, you lose a large section of people who actually keep that functioning and running well. And what then happens to those who are left behind? They then have to scramble and try and fill the gaps, and they cannot fill all the gaps because already they are working as hard as they possibly can. This is not a good plan at all. When those opposite talk about their plans to strip out this money from the Victorian budget – $40 billion – that is what it looks like.

And it hurts. It will hurt ordinary working people. It will hurt young children who should be going to kinder or who need their vision or their teeth checked or who just need a good meal to start their day and take the pressure off home when the cost of living is biting. It will hurt our elderly people who are not sitting on mountains of cash or multiple investment properties. They are living day to day on the pension, and they need a robust public health system to take care of them. And it will actually hurt businesses, especially small businesses, because you cannot rip out $40 billion from an economy without that having a flow-on effect. If one out of every seven public service jobs evaporates, there are fewer jobs going around. That means fewer people employed. That is fewer people going out for dinner to a restaurant. It is fewer people going to the cafe to buy their coffee. It is fewer people buying the gym membership to work off the dinner in the restaurant and the full-fat lattes as well. But there is nothing that should worry a small business owner more than the prospect of a shrinking economy, because the less people have to spend at your business, the smaller your income, the less your profit and the greater the prospect that your business goes under. For those frontline workers who they say will be so-called protected – the teachers and nurses and police officers and paramedics – when the support staff behind them lose their jobs, the work they perform supporting the frontline workers will not magically disappear. It will still need to be done, and who will be left to do that? Let us be honest about what is actually in this plan, because when they dress it up in the language of discipline and waste they are actually talking about the people on the ground who keep our hospitals rostered and running and the people who make sure, as I said before, that the school has a bus roster, a maintenance schedule and a working canteen. Those jobs will fold, they will disappear, and we will end up in a terrible state indeed.

I did mention Malcolm Roberts before. I just want to point out that his thinking is dangerous not only when it comes to health. There was an article in today’s Guardian. I will finish off with this, because we need to know who they are thinking of cosying up to. An audience member asked him what Christians should think about James Ashby, who is gay. He said:

… I’m in two minds … I haven’t got a firm position on it myself other than I don’t, I’m not homosexual and I can’t, I can’t understand it.

… there have been a number of homosexuals who are very, very prominent in many … fields throughout history. So all I know is that in this environment, James is not morally sound. But from what I’ve seen of him, his honesty, his integrity, his ability, he is sound.

So if you pardon me, I haven’t made up my mind, but there are a number of people in society in very prominent positions in the arts, sports, science, business, politics, who are homosexual.

And I don’t think we can afford to ban them. So it’s difficult.

I cannot believe this. This is the calibre of and kind of person that they are looking at cosying up to. I worry for the state of Victoria. This is a serious, serious matter indeed. I commend the matter to the house.

 Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (16:41): I thought we were standing up to speak on the matter of public importance, but it sounds like a long list of valedictory speeches at the moment, I have got to say. They are coming at our side, but let me tell you, there is not a lot coming from them. What is your vision? What is your plan? What on earth have you been doing for 12 years? We should all come in for the valedictory speeches and start listening. We feel good on this side. We have a plan, and we are excited to present that. I was thinking when I was making some notes about our role here in the Victorian Parliament: what is our purpose? What is our job? When I entered this place my focus was on the Victoria that I want to provide for my children, the Victoria that I grew up in, where you could buy a home. You had so many wonderful opportunities and you were safe when you were doing so. You had governments that cared. I am going to reiterate that care factor a few times.

The member for Monbulk was just talking about billion-dollar cuts from 14 years ago. I decided to pull up a question I asked a few weeks ago to the Treasurer regarding investment in regional Victoria. And I want to note that the new Premier has not set foot in regional Victoria since he was appointed. So while he says, ‘I am different to the previous one,’ I beg to differ.

Members interjecting.

Annabelle CLEELAND: Well, when he was there, I wondered if –

The SPEAKER: Member for Euroa, do not respond to interjections. Member for Ripon, please cease interjecting.

Annabelle CLEELAND: I am triggering your side now, and here I thought we were under attack. But anyway, I raised a question about expenditure projects in regional Victoria. Let us look at some of the current facts. The Treasurer provided $1 billion in cuts in this parliamentary term – $1 billion. A quarter of the investment in regional Victoria was cut in the last financial year. This is just current fact. Let us not spin it. This new direction, this new man at the table – no-one is buying it, because the state has stopped listening. This Labor government has lost trust. On a local level – the member for Bulleen stood up, and we were laughing because he presents things in a humorous way – it is actually no laughing matter. What we are experiencing in regional Victoria is a billion dollars of cuts from infrastructure spending, a quarter of the spending. This is why we need a fair share guarantee. This is what we are calling for. We represent more than 25 per cent of the state’s population, and you have cut 25 per cent of infrastructure spending. That was not even in my notes, by the way. I am just fuming that Labor members keep harping on about cuts from a time gone by, trying to manage state spending, when right now we are experiencing that. In regional Victoria a billion dollars of infrastructure spending has been cut. And what does that look like on the ground? It means that we have schools running off generators. We have a growth corridor, a 300 per cent planning overlay on our community, and we cannot even access a public secondary school in Kilmore. That is where we are at.

There is no care for regional Victoria and no investment, and this is why the Nationals are committed to a fair share guarantee, because we are sick of grovelling for basic infrastructure when this Labor government has stopped caring. There is no plan to deliver a public secondary school in Kilmore. Just down the road, I actually welcomed Broadford Secondary College students to Parliament yesterday, where they raised their local issues and said, ‘Our school can’t cope. Our school is not coping with an inundation of students from outside the region because there is no access to a secondary school in Kilmore.’ They are operating off generators. There is no reliable power to this school, and half of the classrooms are now portables. I think that for a new Premier that has barely visited regional Victoria, he is more focused on polling – which I think was his opening statement – than actually governing for the whole state. Well, I think by today’s valedictory speeches it is not going great.

But if this house does want to talk about condemnation, let us talk about what is happening to our emergency health services in regional Victoria under this government. Ambulance Victoria has become so politicised that we cannot even visit our own ambulance stations. Benalla ambulance station has faulty garage doors, so they have to park their ambulances out the front to meet the turnout times – of which, can I say, one in two phone calls to 000 in regional Victoria, in my region, is either not turning out on time or they are saying, ‘Get in a taxi because there is no ambulance for you.’ I was thinking that might be triggering for the Labor members that are in denial about the state of play when it comes to our health services, so I have a few names just to put to these stories, so that you cannot gaslight us any further.

Last week an elderly person fell in Benalla, and they were bleeding from the head and the mouth. It was members of the public that had to step in and help that individual and carry them. When an ambulance did turn up, there was one paramedic because there were not enough on duty. That one paramedic leaned on the kindness of the community to protect this person and get them to a health service. Kerri-Ann Robbins’s daughter performed CPR for 45 minutes, and Triple Zero Victoria was not going to send an ambulance because there were none in our region. Linda Robinson called for an ambulance in Bright and was told, ‘Get in a cab.’ Five hundred dollars later – ‘Get in a cab’ – she travelled an hour in a taxi. Stella Jones had to drive her son – now, this should make everyone in this place understand the failures of this Labor government – to hospital. He could not speak for himself. For over an hour he was denied an ambulance – there were none in our region – because he was ‘not sick enough’. He had meningitis and was unconscious by the time he turned up to the hospital, and his mum drove him.

These are the stories, and this is what we should be talking about when it comes to an MPI, not this absolute nonsense and gaslighting that we continuously hear from Labor. Alyssa Jane shared a story about an 89-year-old woman with a broken hip who waited on a freezing floor for 4 hours until an ambulance could turn up. Can you imagine? Is this where we are at in Victoria? The member for Berwick speaks frequently about the crime crisis in Victoria. We can talk about the health crisis. We can talk about the cuts to regional infrastructure. There is not a corner of this state that is not being absolutely destroyed by this Labor government, which has stopped caring.

In my final few minutes, Labor members mentioned essential services, and I want to speak about something that I have raised ad nauseam over the last nine months and which fails to cut through the incompetent leadership at Emergency Management Victoria at the moment. We experienced a bushfire just about nine months ago. Right now, in a community that lost 100 primary residences and 300 outbuildings, there are three caravans on the ground and one modular home, and we have gone through winter. There are no mental health services covering the region. At what stage does the Labor government acknowledge it has stopped governing? It has stopped caring.

I want to just talk about soft corruption on a local level that this government is enabling. I think I am running out of time. At the start of my term, when I was newly elected, I sought to attend a concrete plant in my electorate, and I was denied access by the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure at the time. It was a private company, and I was not allowed to go there. That minister, Jacinta Allan, went on to become Premier. Now there is a new Premier. However, I believe he has been at the cabinet table the entire 12 years, and no-one is buying that spin. I was denied access to one of our private businesses, and when there is a contract and it fluctuates, it impacts our community.

Our health services are under pressure. Our rentals are absorbed by new residents into the region. We should have a relationship. We should not be feeling like this Labor government is gagging private businesses with the consequence of losing contracts if they speak with their local members of Parliament. Ambulance Victoria’s legal department rejected our meeting with our paramedics or attendance at our ambulance stations that are broken, faulty and full of asbestos. That is where we are at in Victoria. No wonder Victorians are desperate for a fresh start, and the Liberals and Nationals are going to offer that. We will guarantee a fair share for regional Victoria because we are sick and tired of Labor’s cuts.

 Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (16:51): It is great to rise this afternoon and make a contribution on this matter: that the house condemns the opposition and One Nation for their plan to cut $40 billion from Victorian schools and hospitals and to cut one in seven public servants. I have been listening intently for about 50 minutes since we began debating this matter, not only the time that I have spent in the chamber on my chamber duty but also from my office when I was having a cup of tea. Opposition member after opposition member after opposition member has come in here aggrieved by the notion that we talk about the opposition and One Nation together and as one and perhaps at the next election swapping preferences.

I might just pick up a couple of points from some of those previous contributions. I am following the member for Euroa, who decided to describe some of the contributions from government members as valedictory speeches. It is a bold move from the member for Euroa, who is going to face an incredibly difficult election, to stand up in here and start talking about valedictory speeches from government members. May I impart some wisdom to the member for Euroa, and that is: if you are to get back in this place, it will be through Labor preferences. It will be Labor preferences that elect you for a second term. It will be Labor preferences that elect the member for Euroa if she is lucky enough to get a second term. We will do that with a smile on our faces because it is the right thing to do to keep One Nation members out of this place and out of Victorian politics, because they are a danger to democracy, they are a danger to our multicultural communities and they are a danger to this state. We will re-elect the member for Euroa with our preferences, with a smile on our faces every single day of the week.

The difference between us and them in that respect, and the reason that we keep talking about it, is because both the Liberals and the Nationals will do the exact opposite. They will try to help One Nation in outer suburban electorates that the Labor Party holds to beat Labor Party members of Parliament so that One Nation members can sit in this place and in the other place as well. That is the reason that we keep talking about it. Honestly, for any of them, the member for Bulleen included, to come in here with a straight face and try to question the fact that on 28 November the Liberal Party and the National Party will preference One Nation and put them in a competitive position in many Labor-held seats in outer suburbs, give me a break. That is exactly what will happen. They know it, we know it and anybody that is engaged in Victorian politics knows it. The member for Euroa consistently speaks about gaslighting. To come in here and do that with a straight face is absolutely despicable. If you are going to do a deal with the devil, have the gumption to admit it. Just come in here and say it and admit it and tell the Victorian people what they can expect.

Also, for the member for Bulleen to come in here and to talk about preferences and the Victorian Socialists being above the Liberal Party in the Werribee by-election – the member for Bulleen is the bloke that is responsible for the Greens member for Richmond being in this place. I am not having a shot at the member for Richmond here, but every time she stands up to make a contribution, everybody in front of her from the Nationals or from the Liberals hangs their head. They mutter under their breath and laugh and speak to each other. They should just go up to the member for Bulleen and thank him. That is exactly what happened. That is exactly why she is here, because the political genius of the member for Bulleen went, ‘Oh, you know how we’ll get the Labor Party? We’ll preference the Greens above them in Richmond.’ Well done. We only got 56 members over the line. Well done, a great political strategy it was. Every time the member for Caulfield gets upset by what the member for Richmond is saying, he should just go and thank the member for Bulleen, because it is his political genius that put her here. I mean, honestly.

Voters at this election on 28 November have a binary choice – not a choice between three but a binary choice. They have a choice between a Labor government that is on the side of working people and will deliver the cost-of-living relief that they need, and a Liberal–One Nation coalition that will cut $40 billion from the Victorian economy and sack one in seven Victorian public service workers. We all know that you cannot cut that deep – you cannot cut one in seven jobs – just by cutting some jobs of some highly paid public servants. Nurses will go, teachers will go and public transport workers will go. Essential workers will go, which is what happens every time those opposite have the gift of governing – every single time.

We are calling them a Liberal–One Nation coalition because at the moment the Liberal Party have absolutely no chance of governing in their own right – absolutely no chance. There is a fair bit of hubris creeping in on the other side, let us be honest. There is a fair bit of hubris creeping in. They sit there and they have a laugh at the polls that are coming up and say ‘Oh, Labor are going no good in the polls.’ You are polling 27 per cent of the primary vote, and you cannot govern in your own right unless you have got a primary vote in the 40s. You guys cannot govern in your own right without a primary vote in the 40s.

Danny O’Brien: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, the member knows that he needs to speak through the Chair.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is absolutely correct, member for Gippsland South. The member for Tarneit to continue through the Chair.

Dylan WIGHT: Those opposite know. Well, maybe they do not. Anybody with half a brain that understands anything about politics knows that a Victorian coalition government cannot be formed in its own right unless they have got a primary vote in the 40s. At my count they have got about 13 per cent to make up.

Members interjecting.

Dylan WIGHT: We can govern. We can govern with a three in front of us. They cannot govern. They cannot govern in their own right the way this is looking at the moment. That is why we have got a binary choice. We have got a choice between a Labor government and a Liberal–One Nation coalition that will cut $40 billion from the Victorian economy. They sit there and they talk a big game about their economic credentials. They have got an opposition leader who is also the Shadow Treasurer ‍– ‍the pseudo-economic intellect that worked in the former federal Treasurer’s office when net debt to GDP went from 18.6 per cent to 28.6 per cent. I am sure she learned great lessons in there; I am sure she learned absolutely great lessons. But let us be honest: they are going to, according to them, the opposition, fund more police, open police stations, run a bigger surplus and also cut taxes. That does take economic genius. Or what it takes is $40 billion worth of cuts, sacking teachers, sacking nurses and doing exactly what they do every time they come to government – every single time. It is in their DNA.

Members interjecting.

Dylan WIGHT: Settle down. It is in their DNA. They will come to government and they will cut to the bone, and it is Victorians and working people that will be worse off for it. I repeat: this election is a binary choice between us, on the side of working people, and them, who will cut $40 billion and one in seven public service jobs.

 Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (17:01): I would say it gives me delight to get up and speak on this matter of public importance, but then I actually read the matter of public importance and realised how desperate this government is in its last days. As they approach this election, they have decided to come into this house with a matter of public importance that condemns the Victorian Liberal Party, not some strategy to sit there and talk about all of the things that they have delivered over the last 12 years and to stand proud on their own record, because let us be honest, they have got a new Premier who is trying to distance himself as far as possible from everything that has happened under Labor in the last 12 ‍years. They are not coming in here with a plan to look at what they are going to do for the next four years. They have got no plan; they have got no focus on the future. They have got a Premier that is reacting to the polls each and every time. And the polls – we have heard about the polls.

A member interjected.

Brad BATTIN: You say they are not good. You got rid of the Premier because the polls were that bad for the Victorian Labor Party.

When this matter of public importance came out and before I opened the email – I was just about to click on it – I thought, ‘I know what it’s going to be. It’s going to be how Labor are focusing on a new direction, with their new leadership, and how they’re going to change what they have done here in this state and all of a sudden everything will be fixed.’ But the reality is that this is what the matter of public importance should have been today. If anyone in this room has not sat and read the Herald Sun this afternoon to understand exactly what we should come in here and talk about, then have a look at the ‘adult crime, adult time’ that this government goes on about. They talk about the Herald Sun. The first place they went to put their new ‘adult crime, adult time’ was the Herald Sun, with Herald Sun journalists, but they do not like it now, do they? They do not like it now that the first person to go through under ‘adult crime, adult time’ got farewelled from court with ‘All the best and good luck’ and with zero time in jail. That is ‘adult crime, adult time’. I am talking about the legislation the Labor Party brought in for adult time for adult crime. I know that every Labor member goes, ‘Are you trying to blame the magistrate?’ No, I am blaming the useless government who brought in legislation that does not work at all. We have actually seen these crooks get back out on the street – crooks that held a knife at someone’s throat.

Members interjecting.

Brad BATTIN: Labor members laugh at it. You ask the taxidriver who had a knife put to his throat what he thinks.

Mathew Hilakari: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I take offence at the implication that I was laughing at any point during that disgraceful contribution, and I ask him to withdraw.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There was no inference towards an individual member, and matters of that nature, to a collection of members, are a matter for debate. There is no point of order.

Brad BATTIN: Maybe Labor should not laugh when we talk about people being held with knives to their throats. They should not laugh about the fact that we have got 1500 less police here in Victoria under this government. Maybe they should not laugh when more than 40 stations have been closed across Victoria. Maybe the matter of public importance should have been about the fact that crime has increased faster in the areas where stations have been closed. The member for Cranbourne I note is not here now and did not stay for her own matter of public importance, because the member for Cranbourne knows that when I start talking about crime I am going to be talking about Casey. When the government went out and patted themselves on the back for a 0.2 per cent reduction in crime here in Victoria – not the increase since 2023, well and truly into the double figures – the member for Cranbourne did not want to stand and defend her position, because out in Casey crime went up 10 per cent again. It continues to have double figures – aggravated burglaries, cars stolen – and what are we seeing? Less police.

But they could have put a matter of public importance in place to say, ‘We’ll put police at the Clyde North police station.’ What a wonderful station – bill, $30 million. I will say – I like to give credit where credit is due – well done to Labor. You got one thing right. You built the new Clyde North police station. If only you had put police in it, it would have made a big difference. If you had police in that police station, it would mean that they could respond when people call 000, and they would not have to rely on coppers coming from Narre Warren down Clyde Road.

This government has zero care when it comes to crime here in this state. We already know that the budget is out of control. The only people that have been cutting are the Labor Party. We have got a $200 billion debt coming up. The amount of interest we are going to be paying on that debt would fund the Victoria Police force 2.4 times every year. The amount of interest you are going to pay on the debt created by the Labor Party will be 2.4 times the budget of the Victoria Police.

Jade Benham: They want to defund the police.

Brad BATTIN: Exactly right. I note we were listening to the member for Bulleen before, and the member for Bulleen was very true in his words. We actually have gone through this. He spoke about cosying up to One Nation, therefore helping deliver those cuts, and he did refer specifically to the socialists. The Victorian Socialists we know are trying to run in every single seat. They will be cosying up with the Victorian Labor Party to do a preference deal, and as part of that preference deal they are going to – let us be honest, this is the one thing that was a big concern for me, that was a massive concern when they actually said it – want to defund the police. Let us be honest, we know if we end up with a couple of socialists in here, the Labor Party will go into coalition with them, and the first thing they will do is try and defund Victoria Police. They have already started. They have got 1500 ‍less police. They know it is just a little bit further and they can keep that path going along. They have already got the 40 stations that are shut. They have already got crime up in Victoria. The next thing they will do with the socialists is probably turn around and say any person that goes to court can just walk out. Do not worry about the actual court position at all; they can just walk back out into the street and commit more crimes.

Again, this week a family came into Melbourne for a day out, from the Bass community. They came in here just to have a look around what we like to say is our wonderful city, and what happened? A lady was stabbed here in Melbourne on our streets. A 10-year-old boy was assaulted just walking through Melbourne. That is what we have come to here in this city under this Labor government. I do not care if you want to call it the Andrews Labor government, the Allan Labor government or the Carroll Labor government, because let us be honest, they are all tarred with the same brush. They all sat around the same cabinet table. They all made those decisions. They all saw the cuts that have been happening across Victoria Police. They have all seen the reduction in the number of police we have got here in Victoria. They knew exactly the impact that was going to happen – that that was going to lead to an increase in crime. They know that it has made our streets less safe.

Then they all go on about the things that they are really good at. They talk about things like, ‘We’re the party to help out people with homelessness here in Victoria. We’re going to make sure that we give them the opportunities and keep them safe.’ Next question – I hope the next speaker can answer this one: why is it that the number of people living rough in Melbourne has doubled since December 2025? Since December 2025 the number of people who are living rough here in Melbourne, by Melbourne council’s own figures, has doubled. I thought maybe they had moved in from other areas around Victoria, but no, because then you go and look through other councils, go down through Mornington, go down to Nepean, come into Casey or go out to the west. They have all gone up, because life is harder and tougher under this Labor government.

This Labor government think that they can go out there and pretend to tax the rich and the world will take care of itself, but what they do not realise is every time they have increased their taxes, rent has gone up in Victoria. Every time they have made changes in relation to crime, insurance has gone up here in Victoria. It costs more to insure your car here in Victoria than any other state – for a reason. It is costing more to rent here in Victoria because Labor continues to increase taxes. So when they said in 2014 that they would not increase or introduce any new taxes, now we know it is over 70. The impact of that generally is on those that are the most vulnerable.

The only way to fix that is to ensure you have an economic plan for the future to build jobs, to create opportunities, to give the next generation the chances that many of us had to go out and start your own business and not be at risk that the government is going to tax every single time that you try and make a profit, which actually eventually puts you off doing it. Those small businesses employ more people. They are the ones. And when the government come in and talk about the public sector being employment, I will talk about the private sector, because the private sector and small businesses are some of the biggest employers here in this state, and we have to start treating them better. We have to make sure that they have got the opportunity to grow, because as they grow, our economy grows. If our economy grows, Victoria is better off. That means we have got more money to spend on reducing crime, more money to spend on investing in our roads and more money to spend to ensure education and health are delivered like they should be here in our state.

 Ella GEORGE (Lara) (17:11): I also rise today to speak on the matter of public importance before the house: that this house condemns the opposition and One Nation for their plan to cut $40 billion from Victorian schools and hospitals and to cut one in seven public servants. A Liberal–One Nation coalition government will hurt working people. A One Nation–Liberal coalition government will hurt Victorian families that rely on Victorian schools and hospitals. A One Nation–Liberal coalition government will hurt all of the families that rely on a hardworking teacher, a nurse or emergency services worker to have a safe and secure job that they can rely on. The Liberals say that they will make $40 billion in cuts. You cannot cut $40 billion without devastating cuts to hospitals, to schools and to the frontline services that people rely on. It is not just me saying this. The member for Kew said this herself. On 16 August 2024 on Sky News she said that current spending is ‘simply not sustainable’. She said:

That means that we’re going to have to make cuts when it comes to our health services. Schools aren’t going to be built or even fixed.

Schools are not going to be built or even fixed – let that sink in. That means young Victorians will not be getting a good public education under those opposite. If our state government is not building schools, existing schools will be massively overcrowded. Overcrowded schools, leaking roofs, broken windows, unsafe playgrounds – that is what Victorian families will get under a One Nation–Liberal coalition. Victorian students will not get the world-class education they deserve, and that is what is at risk with a One Nation–Liberal coalition.

I think those opposite should come clean. I have got some questions, and I think Victorians do too. Which new suburbs will not get that new school that families are waiting for? Which schools will be the first to be neglected and, in the words of the member for Kew, not even fixed? Will it be the regional schools like in the electorate I represent? Let us not forget that Jeff Kennett described regional Victoria as the ‘toenails of the state’, and now his protégé has committed to cut funding to Victorian schools. So I think it is fair to ask the member for Kew: which schools will not be built, which schools will not be fixed, which schools will be neglected? Or will the member for Kew take it one step further and take a leaf out of the book of Liberal governments past: which schools will be closed and sold off? Because that is what Liberal governments in Victoria do. They sell our schools. They have no shame when it comes to cutting funding to Victorian schools and selling the land off to their developer mates. That is exactly what Victorians will get under a One Nation–Liberal coalition: billions ripped out of school funding, billions ripped out of vital school maintenance, broken promises to communities and broken promises to families in new suburbs who buy a home thinking that their state government will build a primary school and a secondary school for their kids. Under a One Nation–Liberal coalition that is not happening. That new school is not coming.

It is not just billions that will be ripped out of education under a One Nation–Liberal coalition. Billions will be ripped from Victorian hospitals and health care. That means no new hospitals, no hospital upgrades, fewer nurses, fewer hospital beds and longer wait times when you need urgent care. The member for Kew said:

… we’re going to have to make cuts when it comes to our health services.

The member for Kew might be regretting that Sky News interview right about now. The people in the Lara electorate certainly do not want billions cut from their healthcare system. When the Liberals were last in government they cut more than $1 billion from health and they went to war with our nurses and paramedics. They failed to deliver hundreds of promised hospital beds, despite making it one of their key election promises. These are more broken promises that we can expect from a One Nation–Liberal coalition.

In four years, the last time they were in government, they managed to open just two alcohol and other drug beds across the entire state – two. That is their commitment to health care. That is not all. It gets better, or should I say it gets worse. In four years of government the Liberals defunded 25 community mental health providers. They shut down the only 24-hour mental health advice hotline and they voted against the mental health levy, leaving Victorians on their own when they needed support the most. This time One Nation and the Liberals have a plan to cut $40 billion and sack one in seven public servants. That means billions in cuts to our public health system – from hospitals, from health workers. When the Liberals were last in power they cut funding to health care. They sacked nurses. In the past they privatised regional hospitals like Mildura base hospital. In Geelong the story is not much better, because the Liberals committed to a second public hospital in Geelong. What happened to that second public hospital? Well, funnily enough, it turned into a private hospital. When that happened Barwon Health lost funding for some of their treatments, like kidney dialysis and chemotherapy, meaning there were less public health treatments available for Geelong residents.

On this side of the house we are committed to investing in health care and hospitals, and that record is clear. In Geelong we have invested billions into health care. We are building the new Barwon women’s and children’s hospital, a $500 million investment into regional health care, providing more maternity and paediatric care for our growing community – a growing community that on this side of the house we back with investment in health care. We have delivered a new children’s emergency department at University Hospital Geelong, providing appropriate care for children and their families on their worst days. At Barwon Health North, which includes an urgent care clinic, dental care, dialysis services, X-rays and other medical imaging, hundreds of people are going every single week for their appointments or showing up to the urgent care clinic when they need healthcare support. It is a vital service in my community – something that this Labor government built – but something I know that a One Nation–Liberal coalition would cut.

We have also got the new Geelong mental health and wellbeing local on Moorabool Street, an amazing facility, a one-stop shop where you can turn up and get the services and the support you need with your mental health. It is another important investment into our region, an investment that Labor made but an investment that a One Nation–Liberal coalition would cut.

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I realise this is a matter of public importance, but the member is deliberately misleading the house. I ask her to correct the record.

Jordan Crugnale interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Without the interjections, please, member for Bass. That is not a point of order. The statement you made would be a different matter for privileges, so the member to continue.

Ella GEORGE: I am pleased to continue on the matter of public importance. In North Geelong this Labor government built the early parenting centre, supporting local families and their children in those first few years – another investment by this Labor government that would be cut by a One Nation–Liberal coalition. We have upgraded University Hospital.

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Speaker, the member for Lara is making assertions that the Liberals and Nationals, I assume, rather than a Liberals and One Nation government, will cut something. This is categorically untrue. It is not on the record. She is misleading the house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. It is a matter for debate, member for Lowan.

Ella GEORGE: The reason why we are having this conversation today in the chamber is because of what the member for Kew said on Sky News: that cuts to health services and cuts to schools are going to happen in Victoria under a One Nation and Liberal coalition.

On this side of Parliament, I am so proud of our investment into health care. I am proud of our investment into education. While the Liberal–One Nation coalition are focused on cutting the services that Victorian families rely on, we are focused on making life safer and making life easier and more affordable for Victorians. On this side of the house we have invested in local schools, we have invested in our teachers and we have invested in our healthcare system and our hospitals. We have built 12 ‍hospitals. We are opening more. We are upgrading hospitals all around the state, we are backing our nurses and we have delivered nurse-to-patient ratios – because that is what Labor governments do. This November Victorians have a clear choice before them: back a government that has delivered health care and education to Victorians or back a One Nation–Liberal coalition that will cut $40 billion out of Victoria.

 Will FOWLES (Ringwood) (17:21): The matter of public importance reads:

That this house condemns the Victorian Liberals for their plan to cut $40 billion from our schools, hospitals and essential services, and for cosying up to One Nation to help deliver those cuts.

Well, $40 billion is a very large number, so large that the Liberals apparently decided the safest approach is to not tell anyone exactly where it would come from. To be clear, the $40 billion figure is the government’s assessment of the consequences of the Liberals’ announced policy. The Liberals dispute that assessment, and there is plenty of conjecture about where cuts would be made. Would they cut the Suburban Rail Loop? Would they abandon hospital projects? Would they reduce funding for schools? Would they cut essential services? We do not yet know what is in and what is out, but there is one cut that is not a matter of conjecture. If elected, the Liberals have promised to introduce legislation to repeal Victoria’s treaty within their first 100 days – not review it, not improve it, not sit down with First Nations Victorians to work through any concerns, repeal it. Of all the pressures facing Victoria and Victorians – cost of living, housing, hospitals, schools, community safety – the Liberals have decided that dismantling treaty must be among their most urgent priorities.

It also reflects a much broader problem with the way First Nations self-determination has been treated in Australian politics. For too long it has been kicked around like a political football. Support is offered when it is convenient; it is withdrawn when the political winds change. The legitimate aspirations of First Nations people are reduced to slogans, scare campaigns and electoral calculations. That is no way to deal with an issue of this importance. Treaty did not appear overnight. It is the product of years of consultation, democratic participation and negotiation. First Nations Victorians elected representatives to speak on their behalf. Those representatives negotiated with the state. Legislation was debated in this Parliament and passed by both houses. Treaty is now the law of Victoria. It should not be ripped up within 100 days in service of a cruel political calculus or, worse, to appease One Nation voters.

The principle is simple: government should listen to First Nations people about decisions directly affecting their communities. Instead of repealing treaty, engage with Gellung Warl and work with First Nations people to make treaty work better. The need to listen to First Nations Victorians has not disappeared. The gaps in health, education, housing and justice outcomes have not closed. What has changed is the political environment. One Nation is attempting to establish itself in Victoria, and the Liberals are looking over their right shoulder. Once again First Nations self-determination is being kicked around like a political football. That is precisely the sort of politics that Victorians should reject.

Treaty is not simply a line in a budget. It establishes a democratic and representative body for First Nations Victorians through Gellung Warl. It continues the work of truth telling. It provides an independent accountability mechanism to examine whether governments deliver what they promise. Most importantly, it creates a practical and structured way for First Nations Victorians to be heard on policies that directly affect them. That is not radical. Governments consult businesses before changing industry regulation. We consult unions and employers about workplace laws. We consult doctors and nurses about health policy. We consult teachers, principals and parents about education. We consult people with lived experience about service delivery. It is entirely reasonable that governments consult First Nations Victorians about policies affecting First Nations peoples and communities. Treaty does not give anyone a veto over this Parliament. It does not create a separate government. It does not take away anybody’s home or their rights or their opportunities. It does not diminish the voice of any other Victorian. It does not take anything away from anyone. What it does is provide a formal and democratic way for First Nations people to make representations to government. The Liberals say repealing treaty would save money, but abolishing a representative body does not remove the need for government to develop Aboriginal policy, fund services or address entrenched disadvantage. Those responsibilities are still going to be there. The difference is that government would return to making those decisions without the same structured input from the people affected.

For generations governments of every political persuasion have designed programs for First Nations communities from offices in Melbourne, and too often those programs have changed with ministers, budgets and election cycles. Too often they have duplicated existing work. Too often governments have announced what they intended to do and then marked their own homework. Despite significant expenditure and a lot of effort, much of it sincere, the gaps remain. Treaty offers a better approach: listen first, work together, agree on practical priorities, then establish an independent way of measuring whether governments deliver what they promised. That is not division, that is good government.

Victorians are entitled to ask what repealing treaty would actually achieve. Would it improve First Nations health outcomes? Would it help children remain engaged in education? Would it improve housing? Would it make communities safer? Would it reduce Aboriginal over-representation in the justice system? Would it reduce Aboriginal deaths in custody? Would abolishing an elected representative body make government more accountable? The Liberals have no convincing answers to those questions. Repeal is not a plan for improving political outcomes; it is merely a gesture. It appeals to people who have been told – incorrectly – that treaty threatens their rights or diminishes their place in Victoria. It does neither. Treaty is not about giving one group more and everybody else less. It is about recognising that the relationship between the state and First Nations people has not always been based on consultation, consent or respect.

We should also consider what repeal would say about the value of negotiating with the state of Victoria. First Nations Victorians participated in elections. They elected representatives. Those representatives spent years negotiating in good faith. An agreement was reached and legislation was passed. If a new government tears that agreement up within 100 days, what message does that send? It tells First Nations Victorians that their participation was pointless. It tells them that years of negotiation can be discarded whenever a political party believes that there are votes to be gained. It tells them that an agreement with the state of Victoria lasts only until it becomes politically inconvenient. That is no basis for trust. It is no basis for reconciliation, and it is no way for a state government to conduct itself.

Treaty should be scrutinised. Its spending should be transparent. Its institutions should be accountable. Its success should be judged by whether it produces better outcomes. But scrutiny is different. It is very, very different from sabotage. Reform is different from repeal. If the Liberals have concerns about treaty, they should identify them and propose improvements. They should meet with Gellung Warl. They should listen to traditional owners and Aboriginal organisations. They should listen to First Nations communities. They should participate constructively in making treaty work. Instead they have announced their verdict before the new arrangements have been given a reasonable opportunity to operate. They have, in effect, promised to burn it all down before the work has begun. That is not evidence-based government. That is just ideology. There is also a fundamental contradiction in the Liberals’ position, and it is this: they say Victoria must ensure government programs are effective and accountable, yet they want to abolish a structure designed to make government more accountable for its spending, its policies and the outcomes it achieves for First Nations Victorians. If the old approach had worked, the gap would already have closed, and it has not. Repealing treaty would not solve that failure. It would return Victoria to the same approach that produced it.

We must also be very clear about the role of One Nation in all this. One Nation has built much of its politics around division. It looks for complicated problems and offers trite solutions. It treats difference as a threat and resentment as a governing philosophy. The Liberal Party faces a choice: it can defend responsible mainstream government and it can approach treaty with care, assess it on evidence and work constructively with First Nations Victorians, or it can chase One Nation further to the right, adopting its language and competing with it on who can dismantle treaty quickest. On current evidence, the Liberals have chosen the second path. That should concern all Victorians regardless of how they vote. The government’s assessment of $40 billion in cuts remains contested, but Victorians are entitled to clarity. Nobody needs to speculate about treaty. The Liberals have already put it on the chopping block. They have made repealing it a priority for their first 100 days.

The Leader of the Opposition once demonstrated that it was possible for a Liberal MP to listen to her community, exercise independent judgement and support the principle of a First Nations voice. She should rediscover that independence. She should not allow First Nations self-determination to become a political football yet again, and she should not tear down years of democratic participation and negotiation simply to protect the Liberal Party’s right flank. Treaty will not solve every problem – no single law, no single institution could. But it provides a better foundation – a foundation of representation, truth, accountability and a commitment to work together. We should allow that work to continue. We should judge treaty by what it delivers, not by the fear campaigns run against it. We should reject the politics that treat First Nations aspirations as disposable, and we should condemn any plan to repeal treaty within 100 days. Victoria should keep treaty.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (17:31): Certainly I condemn the opposition and One Nation for their plan to cut $40 billion from Victorian schools and hospitals and to cut one in seven public servants, and I will speak to that in just a moment. There really is a very clear demarcation between a Victorian Labor government, which fights for working people on the issues that matter to them – health, education, community safety and the cost of living – versus $40 billion in cuts. I am going to unpack what that looks like. We can also go back just a little bit in time to see the form established by the opposition and the cuts that they have made in the past that are in their DNA and that they will make once again. You certainly cannot make $40 billion in cuts without having a devastating impact on our hospitals, schools and the frontline services that working people rely on. Worse still, when we think about the fact that the opposition are basically reliant on One Nation – or would be reliant on One Nation were they to seek to form government – we know that One Nation would privatise our hospitals and Americanise our health system.

It is almost easy, I think, to take for granted the fact that a Labor government always backs in our health workers and our health system. We have built 12 new hospitals and hired 17,000 more nurses and midwives, and further still, we have really strengthened those nurse-to-patient ratios. But rest assured, give them half a second, half a nanosecond of nothing, and they would be straight in there privatising and making savage cuts to those nurse-to-patient ratios. I think Victorians would be absolutely devastated if it were to be the case that we were to privatise our health system. It is hard even to imagine what that could look like, but we do not have to look too far. If we look to America and we look to the great difficulty that many Americans have in terms of being able to access the health care they deserve without it costing an exorbitant amount of money, we know that that is really not the future that Victorians deserve.

We have also built 121 new schools, and a number, I should say, have been in my electorate. I am very proud of our government for delivering those much-needed educational services to the good people of Albert Park, whether it is Port Melbourne Secondary College, whether it is Narrarrang Primary School – with the kinder onsite, I might say – whether it is South Melbourne Park Primary School or whether it is South Melbourne Primary School, which actually, owing to its extraordinary popularity and demographic changes, is going to be expanded, much to the pleasure of the local electorate, because we have seemingly more and more people moving into the inner burbs, particularly Southbank as well. What does a good Labor government do? It delivers more educational services to the local community, and that is in the form of expanding the great South Melbourne Primary School. Indeed all the schools in my electorate are fantastic. In fact we have fabulous government schools all across the state, and that is not by accident. Also in terms of NAPLAN we have topped results across the country – again, not by accident. That comes about by backing in our teachers and our support staff in schools. The latest agreement – I know there are certainly more steps to go through – will make our teachers the best paid with the best conditions in the country. I commend them on their advocacy but also on achieving collaboratively together a great outcome, which is really important for our state.

We have also announced that we will open 10 free dental clinics across Victoria. I think it goes without saying that it is actually very hard to turn up for a job interview if you do not have a full set of teeth. Putting that aside, prevention and getting that good dental care early when you need it, not being in searing pain and having capacity to be able to attend to something that is very basic – let alone the aesthetics, but I will put aesthetics aside – are important. Being in searing pain and not having capacity to get the requisite dental care that you need just did not seem to be right and proper. Hence this is a very sensible Labor announcement that will ensure that there are 10 new clinics. There will be seven in the metropolitan area and then three in the regional areas as well. It is pragmatic, but it is a very decent healthcare proposition, and only Labor will deliver that. There is no way that an opposition–One Nation government would deliver that; there is just no way. With $40 billion worth of cuts, that is just not going to be anywhere in the equation.

Another thing I did want to speak to was with regard to health and also backing in our healthcare workforce. Again, the only way that you are going to be able to make $40 billion worth of cuts is to actually slash that. We know that the nurses and medical interns and all the hospital staff deserve to have requisite numbers to be able to deliver the kind of care that they want to deliver for fellow Victorians. If we literally strangle those numbers, which is what an opposition–One Nation government would do, that would severely compromise the quality of care that Victorians would be able to receive.

Another matter that I did want to speak to was one that is extremely important, and that is of energy. The opposition said, ‘The SEC is gone if we win.’ This means higher power prices for families and bigger profits for overseas corporations. They did sell off the SEC under Jeff Kennett in the 1990s. Labor has brought it back. The Liberals will abolish it again. The Liberals have recently announced that they would pause or cut Victoria’s renewable energy transition. Cutting the energy transition means one thing: higher bills for Victorian families. How is that for a proposition? That is certainly extremely unpalatable.

Mary-Anne Thomas interjected.

Nina TAYLOR: Exactly right. This was not a decision based on responsible governance, it was one of fear – fear of losing seats to their ideological allies in One Nation. That is not really a sound premise to be making such an important decision when it comes to energy and securing energy into the future for fellow Victorians.

Another thing that they would certainly slash and burn would be the Victorian energy upgrades scheme. We know that the Victorian energy upgrades scheme is the largest energy efficiency scheme in the country, and it has helped more than 2.4 million households and 180,000 businesses become more energy efficient. Victorians themselves can see the wisdom in this. This is why they have absolutely warmly embraced this and taken it on board, because it is a pragmatic decision. Whether you believe in climate change or not, on this side of the fence we certainly do, and I would vouch for the fact that a fair few Victorians do as well. Certainly when I go to Victorian schools and hear from the children, I know that they are concerned about having a future, having a world that is worth living in. There is the cost-of-living aspect, but also a climate that actually will support their survival.

We know that there is energy efficiency and lowering your energy bills, and that is really important. But also we know that through the Victorian energy upgrades scheme we have saved over 96 million tonnes of carbon emissions. I will say as a further note, we know that pollution causes a lot of human diseases and is extremely toxic to humans. There are many sound reasons, particularly when you are thinking of asthmatics and other people who are vulnerable to pollutants in the atmosphere, to be reducing emissions and saving costs at the same time. I should say that in 2025 alone more than 147,000 households and 13,000 businesses – not 1300 but 13,000 businesses – received discounted energy-efficient products and services through the VEU, so whether it is the individual Victorian consumer or family or whether it is a business they could see that there are real cost savings in doing this as well as having the ability to reduce their impact on the grid and on the planet. But only Labor will continue to deliver this. Victorians have a clear choice. We are the ones fighting for working people, backing in health, education, community safety and hospitals. That is what Labor does. It is in our DNA.

 Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (17:41): I also rise to contribute to the matter of public importance the government has proposed today. I have heard some of the contributions from government members, and they have been quite keen to frame their contributions and their offerings to the Victorian people through the prism of choice. I agree with them. I agree that Victorians do have a choice, but I encourage Victorians to consider things also through this lens.

In some 94 days time Victorians will have a choice, and their choice is simply this: do they believe the words that are coming from the mouths of government members who have had the opportunity – them and their forebears, their confreres, their colleagues – over the last 12 years have matched their actions? Have Victorians been better off over these last 12 years, or are they worse off? Do they feel like they are getting ahead or they are falling further behind? These are the conversations, these are the questions that Victorian families and Victorian businesses ask themselves because at the coalface, no matter what happens in this place, no matter what words are spoken, no matter how many times they are said or said again, it is about the impact of the decisions, of the words that are spoken in this place on the punters, on those hardworking Victorians that place an element of trust in their political leaders to get it right, to fight for them, to be on their side. That is what I believe, and I quite firmly contend during this matter of public importance debate that the Labor government have had a shot over the last 12 ‍years and their contribution to this state is something that Victorians will remember, but it is a contribution that has not made life easier for Victorians.

This particular topic refers to cuts. Let us be frank, let us be honest about this. I wake up in the morning and before I have even opened my eyes and rolled out of bed into my blue suit and blue tie, whatever it might be, I am the cuts guy, before I have even opened my mouth. That is the way in which the Labor Party choose to categorise me and my colleagues. Apart from the fact that I believe that that is untrue and that it is a deeply unfair categorisation of who we are and what we are and what our purpose is for presenting an alternative to the last 12 years of the Labor government, this MPI topic goes on to suggest a cosying up to a party that some may be familiar with, One Nation. The only evidentiary point in the state of Victoria of cosying up to One Nation that immediately springs to mind to me, certainly in recent times, is that of the Labor government – the Allan Labor government at the time, but the Labor government all the same. It was the Allan Labor government in the other place who, with the support of the One Nation party, passed donation laws in this place that effectively lined the pockets of Labor members and Labor candidates ahead of the next state election in 94 days time. We were here in this place, Deputy Speaker, and I am sure you will remember this, until something like 5 ‍am. Let us be frank: the member for Sunbury was not charging on all cylinders at the time, and some of us were. It just goes to show you the lack of fight versus the vigour and enthusiasm of members of the opposition compared to that of the government. But here is the point: it was the Allan Labor government together with the support of the One Nation party in the other place that enabled the donation laws to be passed, including the ability of the Australian Labor Party, its current members and its candidates to rely upon donations from union organisations, including the CFMEU. That is the only recent evidentiary point of any major political party, certainly in this jurisdiction, cosying up to One Nation. So any suggestion –

Nathan Lambert interjected.

Brad ROWSWELL: Well, the member for Preston is piping up. Deputy Speaker, I am sure you will agree he is being very unparliamentary at the moment. I am tempted to take the bait. I will not directly other than to say this: the suggestion has been made that there is some sort of preference deal. My question to the Australian Labor Party is: what preference deal are they prepared to do with One Nation? We know that if there is something that from a political perspective could be seen to be admirable about the Australian Labor Party and the Labor government then it is this: they will win at all costs. They do not care whether it is the truth or an untruth or something that will help someone or screw somebody or something in between – no, no, no. I am certain that the labour movement has it within it to do a preference deal with One Nation, so my question back to the government is this: what preference deal is the Carroll Labor government prepared to do with One Nation in order to hold onto power? That is what they want to do. This is not about service. This is not about helping people. If it was, they would have all given up a long time ago. This is not about serving people, this is about holding onto power, and I do not think that that is the right way to look at the opportunity that the Victorian people gift us as servants of them. I will finally add this to that question of what preference deal they are prepared to do with One Nation: no-one within the labour movement is prepared to answer that question in any great substance, leaving the door well and truly open for such an eventuality taking place at some point in the future. They can do them, and they will.

What we will do is actually get on with it. While they are fiddling, while they are negotiating, while they are backstabbing, while they are figuring out who is doing what, what we are doing over here is actually presenting an alternative, because when it comes to the Victorian people, they are actually sick of politics, and I kind of get it. I kind of get that people in this place are not the flavour of the month when it comes to a Victorian household. I get it. Both sides, both major parties over a long period of time, have not done themselves any credit in terms of our behaviour and the way we have acted. But through that prism at this point in time, some 94 days before the election, it is the Australian Labor Party, the Carroll Labor government, that continues along in that vein whilst Jess Wilson, member for Kew, and Danny O’Brien, member for Gippsland South and the Leader of the Nations, lead the alternative government in this state.

Our focus is singular. Our focus is clear. We are united. We are working hard every single day not for ourselves but for a better Victoria, to deliver Victoria the fresh start that it not only needs but deserves and, for that matter, a government that works for Victorians. That is our purpose. In that vein we have not slowed down and we have not held back. We have proposed any number of things that could contribute to a better Victoria. They include keeping Victorians safe; a stronger police force; more PSOs; real consequences for criminal behaviour, with prevention and intervention measures as part of that; tackling family violence; securing Victoria’s economic future; lowering costs for all Victorians; supporting Victorian businesses; investing in roads; more homes for Victorians; and affordable and reliable energy. The list goes on and on: delivering better government, getting the basics right, listening to regional communities, a fair share guarantee for regional Victorians, investing in our regions – it is so important we do that – and cleaning up corruption. The first election commitment of this now Carroll Labor government is for 10 dental clinics to service close to 7 million Victorians. You do not need an economics degree to work out that that is an ambitious commitment at best. The Victorian people are sick and tired of a Labor government that is focused on themselves, and in 94 days time they have got an opportunity to vote for a fresh start – for a government on their side that actually gives a stuff about them and good government in this state.

 Josh BULL (Sunbury) (17:51): I am pleased to have the opportunity this evening to follow on from the contributions made on this matter of public importance. He is a not a bad bloke, the member for Sandringham, but I do not really agree with his policies. I was a little bit worried he might need a packet of Soothers at one point there – I think the throat is under the pump – but we will put that aside. We on this side of the house remain committed to making sure we are supporting each and every Victorian, whether that be through our serious and significant investment in schools, health, jobs, transport or the environment. We know and understand – and the journey of the matter of public importance, the course of the debate this afternoon, has indeed yet again pointed out – the stark difference between the offering from this Labor government and the offering from the other side.

I will start by making some references where the previous member finished, and that is on the announcements over the weekend around free dental. I was really pleased to join you, Deputy Speaker, and many others in Tullamarine for the announcement from the Premier. The previous speaker made some references to capacity and about what the offering would be if we had the opportunity to be re-elected. Make no mistake, we believe in this announcement. We know this announcement makes a difference to working people. We know that this announcement is something that is valued, respected and important to local communities. In fact I was told that on the day, on the afternoon after that announcement was made. If you go back and look at the investment in the community hospitals program, knowing and understanding that as communities change, as growth happens and as many of the experiences to do with economic pressures and cost of living are experienced by families, you see this is a really important announcement. Of course it came from this side of the house. It did not come from those opposite, who unfortunately spend more time focusing on this side of the chamber and less time actually doing the grunt – the policy work – around what leads you to make announcements such as the Premier made on the weekend.

This matter of public importance goes to what this government is offering, but most importantly, to where the point of contention is – where the point of debate is – around what will be more than $40 billion in cuts from schools and hospitals and a cut to one in seven public servants. We know that whether it is through the budget process, whether it is through the work of ministers and the cabinet or whether of course it is through the initiatives, programs and investments that this government has made, not just over the journey over the course of this term but of course for more than three terms now, the work that has been done to invest in schools, to invest in hospitals and to make for large-scale opportunities, such as investments in Footscray, in Melton, the community hospital program, which I mentioned earlier, and of course all of that work that has been done in our terrific education system right across the state, is something that I know is valued within my local community. I want to take the opportunity, as others have done, to give a really strong shout-out to all of those educators that do such an amazing job. Without the support of the government and without the support of those that support our teachers, we would not have the opportunity to be able to deliver the education that is needed and the work that is done.

What we have been focused on is making sure that we are providing for well-equipped, stronger and better communities. There is a really very long – longer than 5 minutes – list that we have focused on right across all portfolios, and making those investments and doing important policy work stands in stark contrast to the offering from the other side. But it is about more than that: it is about the risk that is posed by what might come. We know and understand on this side of the house that that $40 billion in cuts will have a serious impact not just on frontline services but on all of those services that Victorians rely on and all of those services that we know and understand are important for local communities, whether they be investments in the Boardman athletics track, the new Sunbury TAFE, Diggers Rest Primary, Diggers Rest Recreation Reserve, the Dulap Wilim Hub, the Gap Road and Horne Street lights, the Gap and Horne level crossing, Gladstone Park Primary, Goonawarra Primary, Holy Trinity, the Old Calder level crossing removal, the Salesian sports pavilion, Sunbury Global Learning village, the Sunbury West upgrades, Tullamarine Primary – the list goes on and on, and we want to make sure that we have got the opportunity to be able to do them. They are just some of the investments that we have made within my local community, and this of course is all at risk should and if the Liberal–One Nation coalition move through in November.

We know of course that this is a point of serious debate, a point of serious difference. And what we have heard, certainly from those opposite this afternoon through the journey of this MPI, has really been a circus when it comes to knowing and understanding what is up for debate and the contention around what is on offer. We have made sure that we have focused on funding those core services and the work that has been done not just in education and not just in health but right across the whole board. Whether it is funding all of those projects in a really important, sound and considered way or whether it is making sure that we are investing in so many of those services that we know are right up for debate, this government stands for making sure that we are providing for and working with local communities. I have said on numerous occasions in the house: we get the best policy outcomes when we listen to local communities. When we have the opportunity to do that and we have the opportunity to be able to fund so many of these programs and initiatives, we want to make sure that this work continues to be done. All of that can be at risk, and all of that is something that is absolutely on the line when it comes to this matter of public importance. I am conscious of time, so I think I will leave my comments right there.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I acknowledge in the gallery former member for Footscray Marsha Thomson. Welcome back.

The time has come for me to interrupt business in accordance with the resolution of the house this morning for the members for Ringwood, Macedon and Bayswater to make their valedictory speeches. The Speaker has relaxed the prohibition against applause in the chamber following each valedictory statement, but I am to remind members to refrain from hugs or handshakes within the chamber.