Tuesday, 8 September 2026

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (18:41): I rise after that cavalcade of memories heading out the door, and hopefully, when the opportunity arises to debate and get the true benefit of an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission with extra powers, there will be many more out the door before we get a chance to see that – and probably many of them will not have had an opportunity to do a valedictory, but we will wait and see. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, this Parliament, the community, the media and the commentary in the state have been calling for more powers and more sensible capacity for this organisation to hold corruption to account here in the state of Victoria. We are broadly supportive of this bill because it does increase some of the powers for the commission to follow the money and other commonsense objectives that the community have been calling for for quite some time. However, for some reason the government, in the dying days of its regime, has decided to bring some changes, but it has cunningly not allowed these changes to look into some of the biggest issues of the last 12 years. The community has been calling out now for some time: what happened to the $15 billion? Or is it $15 billion? Is it more than $15 billion? And if it is $15 billion, where has it gone, who has got it, who has benefited, and worst of all, who in government has allowed it to happen? These are some of the most important questions of our day at the moment. What has happened to it?

It is not just the corruption at this massive level that has been wrapped up in the Big Build, which seems to have been undertaken by everyone from bikie gangs to the CFMEU and probably big business and others within the realms of the Big Build that have taken advantage of a system. This government, right up until this week, the very last dying days of the government, has finally been prepared to accept that there is a problem and bring in some changes. But there is a loophole in this, and this is the part that most Victorians will have great concern about. It is all very well to increase the powers of IBAC, but in increasing the powers of IBAC, the community expects that all the carry-on for the last 12 years will have an opportunity to be looked at. This legislation specifically excludes any cases that have already been referred to the police or to IBAC or have been looked at.

We know that over the last 12 months in particular the former Premier, the member for Bendigo East, made much of the fact that these various cases were being referred to the police and that in itself excluded them from being looked at further by IBAC, and that is the great missed opportunity in this bill. You might call it a missed opportunity, but many others, including the opposition, say it is a deliberate act by this government to protect two former premiers and most likely our current Premier and Deputy Premier. It is simply not good enough that we are going to bring a piece of legislation in that is not going to seriously look at the missing dollars, the missing cash, and who has been responsible.

We know that there is much work to be done at the IBAC level in terms of crime and corruption. The member for South-West Coast, who is sitting here alongside me, and I have for a long time been campaigning about the missed opportunities on the Warrnambool train line. Those missed opportunities are because there have not been enough funds in this government to maintain train stations, maintain enough seats and maintain catering. Catering on the Warrnambool train, for example, was a service that was in existence for well over a hundred years. For well over a hundred years those that managed our V/Line services managed to move a train from Warrnambool to Melbourne and serve you a cup of coffee, some sandwiches and a hot pie. These are services beyond the capacity of the state these days. One of the reasons, quite simply, is we read last week in the late-night update that the former CEO of V/Line had literally stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from V/Line. The one CEO and four other as yet not-named co-conspirators have just taken cash from the V/Line system under the watch of this government. And that is just one department. We need an IBAC that can fully investigate and find out: if that is happening in V/Line, is it happening in the Department of Education – which it has in the past – and is it happening in the Department of Health? Where else is hard-earned money from taxpayers evaporating under the watch of this government? We do not know, because this government has absolutely failed transparency 101. We do not know where else the cash has gone as we rapidly approach the $200 billion debt level in this state.

Quite frankly, when we look back to see what that has delivered us, it has delivered us a budget deficit and it has delivered us tunnels and civic projects that this government has been happy to proudly talk about, but the reality is they have cost way too much, they have taken way too long and they really are not delivering the benefits the government has spoken of. Most notably, people from Polwarth have absolutely driven past, in fairly large degrees of disgust, the West Gate Tunnel, for example, which on any given day during peak hour is empty. We know, just looking at that, that not only has that tunnel cost twice what the government said it would and not only has it been delivered over budget and years behind schedule – it was supposed to open in 2022, and it has only just opened – but also it is not delivering the time savings to people getting to the city on a basis that means it will even pay for itself with the revenues, so who is picking up the tab there? These are just some of the examples of where the money has gone. The question that our community has is: how did this happen? How did we substitute an obvious link that would have linked from the Eastern Freeway all the way through, ultimately, to the Western Ring Road – a really obvious east–west transit of the city of Melbourne, and by the way it cost us over $1 billion to stop that project – with the West Gate Tunnel? These are questions Victorians want answered, because we have now spent $11 billion-odd to build this tunnel that clearly is not what it was cracked up to be.

These are some of the questions that IBAC will be able to look at. Who made that decision? Did people benefit when they made that decision? What was in it, ultimately, for the people of Victoria? We know, for example, that Operation Richmond, which has been sitting on this government’s books for the best part of 10 years, is just a disgrace in terms of what it has meant for the wonderful volunteers of the CFA that have worked in and looked after particularly our regional and country communities so well for so long. We find that all sorts of words were used – ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’ – for all types of behaviours that the current IBAC has not been able to progress in any way, shape or form. It has not been able to hold people to account. We have seen huge upheaval in our emergency services provision to our volunteers, and in that upheaval we have found that the average age of our trucks has got older. We have got CFA stations all over Victoria that are no longer fit for purpose. They may not have proper toilets, they may not have change room facilities and they may not even be able to house the local truck.

We have got this complete breakdown in basic infrastructure. We have had disconnect and discontent for nearly a decade now, and yet when the government has allowed some sort of inquiry into what went wrong we have got no outcomes. These are the types of issues that a beefed-up IBAC needs to be able to reprosecute if necessary and look at to the satisfaction of the average person in Victoria who really feels that the last 12 years have left a very long and sad legacy of lack of governance, lack of transparency and lack of care and concern by government. In my role on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, for example, we saw time and time again a minister and senior bureaucrats prepared to fob off obvious problems with: it was not their responsibility, they do not recall or they were not responsible at the time. These types of responses have got to stop in the state of Victoria. At some point the government of the day must take responsibility. This bill, sadly, will not deliver the benefits this government has promised, and it makes it hard to imagine how we get it clear.

 Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (18:51): I rise to speak in support of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment Bill 2026. I would like to take the member for Polwarth up on a few of his contributions there, starting of course with the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, where I am also a member. Just to clarify, no minister said they could not recall, and when a minister said it was not under their purview, that was because you were asking the wrong minister with the wrong portfolio, which was actually –

Richard Riordan: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, just to remind the member for Yan Yean that the Treasurer at the time, when asked about her taxes to pay for the tunnel –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. I encourage the member for Yan Yean to make her contributions through the Chair.

Lauren KATHAGE: I am glad the member for Polwarth raised the Warrnambool train line, which we have spent a great deal of money upgrading so that it now carries a full fleet of VLocity trains.

Roma Britnell: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, the upgrades are downgrades. We have got 10,000 less seats per week.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Frivolous points of order that are not points of order are very annoying.

Lauren KATHAGE: The reason I am talking about this is because the member opposite made an argument that we were not investing in important infrastructure, and I want to show that that is incorrect. Never mind the pies and sausage rolls, I am talking about a full VLocity fleet; safety infrastructure upgrades, including 60 public level crossings, which is massive; as well as higher service frequencies, which I am sure the good people of that train line would welcome. I do not want to delve too much into his contribution regarding emergency services, because I found that he did not really have a clear line of argument there. I would just like to point out that funding and support for our emergency services such as the CFA and SES are much larger under this government than they were under the Liberal–National government. That will always be the case, because we are a party that supports the regions, that understands the importance of being ready for fire season and that takes practical action to support brigades and make sure that our fantastic volunteers have what they need.

Putting that aside, I turn to the heart of the bill, which is about the simple principle that public money should remain accountable wherever it goes. Whether it goes all the way down the Warrnambool line or whether it goes into the CFA, wherever it goes, it should remain accountable. When it moves through a major contractor, subcontractor or labour hire, if they are performing a public function, then scrutiny should not evaporate.

That scrutiny must remain. Wherever public money is involved in that way, IBAC should be able to follow it. In a fast-growing area like mine this is really important because we are building so much infrastructure for the benefit of our community. Four new schools have been built. There have been eight school upgrades and many large road upgrades. There is a lot of public money being invested into Yan Yean, and it is only right that the people of Yan Yean and the people working on those sites can have full confidence that that money is being spent as it is intended, which is for the benefit of the good people of Yan Yean. I want to make sure that every last cent in the dollar goes towards them, and that is one of the reasons why I so strongly support this.

There are two important ways that this bill supports the ability to make sure that every cent in the dollar is carefully watched. The first is the follow-the-money powers, which I spoke about earlier, but the second is around broadening the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’. At the moment, as we know, the act refers to a relevant offence, which is a relatively narrow threshold. We want to make sure that IBAC is able to investigate serious integrity concerns that may not fit within that existing definition. This bill replaces that threshold so that now the threshold is conduct that would constitute any offence or a serious disciplinary matter. I think the member for Polwarth was getting that a little bit confused in his contribution when he was speaking about V/Line, because he was speaking about somebody who had actually been found guilty of a criminal offence and I think jailed for six years or for quite some time. Obviously that was already within potential scope.

We know that integrity rules need to apply to people exercising public power, including elected people, so we should not be asking for stronger scrutiny unless we are willing to have stronger scrutiny ourselves. There is no lower standard that we would be willing to accept. We know that IBAC has strongly supported the key reforms of this bill, as well as Integrity Oversight Victoria. The bill deals carefully with historical and existing matters, and I am sure we have heard that thrashed out in the media and in the chamber today. But I just want to be clear that there is a sensible balance that is being struck through what is before the house. We want a stronger integrity body, and stronger integrity laws still need clear rules, procedural fairness and legal certainty, and there is that practical transition as well. This was something that was announced immediately upon the current Premier being elevated.

This bill will commence the day after royal assent, showing that substantive powers will be available immediately, because it is something that is a very high priority for this government. At IBAC’s request, however, mandatory notification obligations will begin six months after, giving IBAC the time to work with affected organisations on their responsibilities. But this is part of a broader reform program. We know that the Integrity and Oversight Committee conducted work into IBAC’s legislative framework. The government supported 21 of the recommendations in principle from that work, and we are bringing forward these reforms now knowing that there will be another tranche to come, because the work does not stop here. In fact we will never stop ensuring that there is integrity and accountability for public money. This is not the end of the work.

I also want to address the context in which these reforms are being debated. There are serious allegations concerning misconduct and criminal activity on major public infrastructure projects, and as I said, with such big –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am required to interrupt the member under sessional orders. The member will have the call when the matter returns to the house.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.