Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (16:16): I grieve the fact that the Liberals have no solutions but a conga line of cuts, let me tell you. You cannot make $40 billion worth of cuts without cutting hospitals and schools. And we all know that cutting too hard and fast wrecks frontline services, reduces jobs and actually shrinks the economy. Independent economists have confirmed their plan is simply not credible and does not add up. It is actually ruthless. Part of the plan is cutting one in seven public sector jobs, and that includes health workers, disability workers and child protection officers – and we all know it will not stop there. The report is clear: the Liberals will need to cut more than 30,000 jobs, so that would be a whopper and that would absolutely smack Victorians in the face.

What does that actually look like? It would mean longer hospital wait times, fewer nurses and fewer hospital beds. I will note that our Victorian Labor government has improved nurse-to-patient ratios and increased the number of nurses and midwives by 17,000 just to give a bit of perspective, a bit of compare and contrast. It will mean communities will be less safe and it will mean local infrastructure cuts. We have already seen some of the dazzling policies being floated around by One Nation for what we would call the Americanisation of our hospital system, abolishing the Department of Health. We know that would have absolutely devastating consequences. They are certainly not fans of paid parental leave, and they are not keen on penalty rates either, so really they are the enemy of the worker. In order to get to government, the Liberals would have to partner up with One Nation. That is why I am spelling out what this proposition would mean, what the cuts would mean and what the policy frame would be.

To zone in on health, because it is obviously really important, the Liberals have form; we are not making this stuff up. When they were last in government, they cut more than $1 billion from health and went to war with the nurses and paramedics. They failed to deliver hundreds of promised hospital beds, despite making it a key election promise. In four years they managed to open just two alcohol and other drug beds across the entire state. They defunded 25 community mental health providers and shut down the only 24-hour mental health advice hotline. They voted against the mental health levy, leaving Victorians on their own when they needed support the most. So we can just get a flavour of what sacking 31,700 public servants would look like.

On education, when they were last in, they cut more than $1 billion from TAFE, shut 22 campuses, sacked more than 3000 staff and almost destroyed vocational education in Victoria. They cut more than $1 billion from schools, slashing the education maintenance allowance and cutting speech pathologists, psychologists and social workers. They even cut fresh fruit Fridays.

Belinda Wilson: Who cuts Fresh Fruit Friday.

Nina TAYLOR: Where is the heart. But imagine what they will cut with $40 billion. So we can see that their plan is not credible. Okay, so what have we done? Let us put that on the table. Thanks to Labor’s investments, Victoria’s students and schools are leading the nation. We made a promise to open 100 schools. It is actually more than that: we have delivered 121 schools, more than anywhere else in the country. The government and the AEU have reached an agreement that means Victorian teachers are the best paid in the country, with the best conditions. According to the most recent NAPLAN data, Victorian students are leading the nation for a second year in a row. We all know that is not by accident; that is about investing in our schools and investing in our wonderful teachers who do the hard work to bring out the best in Victorian students. Victoria is ranked in the top two in 16 of 20 measures, cementing our status as the Education State.

What about energy? This is also a matter close to my heart. The opposition said, ‘The SEC is gone if we win.’ What does this mean for Victorians? This means higher power prices for families and bigger profits for overseas corporations. They sold off the SEC under Jeff Kennett in the 1990s. Labor has brought it back, and the Liberals will – make no mistake – abolish it again. The Liberals announced last week they would be ‘pausing’ – cutting – Victoria’s renewable energy transition if they were to be elected. Cutting the energy transition means one thing: higher bills for Victorian families. Their reckless political decision would send bills skyrocketing by over $500 a year, destroy the reliability of the grid and deprive regional Victoria of almost – get this – $10 billion in investment and thousands of jobs. Why would you, even if you were a climate denier like those opposite, turn your back on that kind of investment in regional Victoria? I do not know. I think it is ideological. I cannot understand it. It does not make economic sense. We of course back renewable energy all the way.

Just while we are on the topic of energy, One Nation have announced they will bring nuclear energy to Gippsland. I wonder if the Liberals can categorically rule that out, because they would have to team up with them if they were to form government. We know that the social licence on nuclear energy is pretty weak, particularly when you think that there really are no safe repositories for high-level nuclear waste in the world. Actually, I was on the inquiry that was looking into nuclear energy and uranium deposits. Halfway through that inquiry NuScale – they had thought, ‘This is the opportunity; we’re going to launch here’ – were set back because the SMRs were not ready. They just did not have the commercial viability. SMRs purport to be quicker, but as we know – as there have been so many devastating accidents with nuclear energy – over time it takes longer and longer and longer to build up the protective mechanisms in concrete, steel et cetera to try to protect communities. We have learned through bitter experience, and there are communities that have enduring impacts to this day. But of course under Labor that is not the way we do it. We are transitioning through renewables. I have to say that broadly, when you think about the Victorian community, they really are very supportive of renewable energy. We know that by their fantastic uptake of the Victorian energy upgrades scheme, something like 2.4 million Victorians have been able to upgrade their homes, and thousands and thousands of businesses as well. You do not just have to take it from us; take it from Victorian consumers and Victorian businesses, because they know this is a way to keep their power bills down. At the same time, they are also doing their bit to reduce emissions into the future – because yes, we do need a planet that is actually livable, and a good way of doing that is transitioning the energy that we use.

I note that the member for Polwarth was talking about gas. There were a lot of opinions in that, but facts I think were sadly missing. The fact is that there are just not endless supplies of gas in Victoria. It is just not a factual statement. It is not about us blocking anything in that regard. The market knows. I do not know why the Liberal Party does not talk to the actual operators themselves, because if they did, they would know that they are actually spinning a lot over there. The only thing I can think of is: is it a little back door to fracking? Is it a back door?

Belinda Wilson interjected.

Nina TAYLOR: Or a front door. Surely they have talked to somebody in the gas industry. They would know the truth. Therefore this is all about warming people up for the idea of fracking. We have embedded a ban on fracking in the constitution. Why have we done that? Because we are actually thinking about farmers, we are thinking about agriculture and we are thinking about water. Once you are fracking and you poison the groundwater, that is not good for farmers. It is not a viable solution. We have seen when it has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Trying to reverse it is not good all round; it is actually not an easy thing. It is extraordinarily difficult because it can be so devastating to the environment. That is why we took these measures. It was the right thing to do. That is why I just think there is a veiled allusion to fracking when they talk about gas and that we must invest more in that domain. We know that that is not good for Victorians more broadly but particularly not good for farmers and farming land. That is why I cannot understand why those opposite are tantalised by that idea. Obviously I do not live in a regional area – I live in the city – but I have empathy for farmers, and I think about what that would mean in terms of devastating their beautiful agricultural land. I would not want to have that on my conscience.

There are many other aspects that could experience severe cuts were the Liberal–One Nation coalition to form. Let us look again at the issue of emergency services. When they were in they cut $130 million from Victoria Police and slashed $66 million from our fire services.

Martha Haylett interjected.

Nina TAYLOR: Yes, that is the record. There is a lot of bravado over there: ‘We’re going to do this and we’re going to do that.’ I actually just do not believe it because it is in their nature when push comes to shove to just cut, cut, cut. They cannot get their hands out of the pocket when they really need to at that vital moment. It is like, ‘Nah, we’re leaving it in there and we’re going to cut the services that people need most.’ When you think about it, by contrast our government has invested close to $5 billion in resourcing our police. It has added over 3500. We have also promised to recruit another 1500, and part of that, the how, involves having a second police academy in the west. It means that you have broader accessibility in terms of people not having to schlep over to Glen Waverley. You have got different parts of Victoria. That means we are also getting a broader network of those recruits who might seek a pathway into the police force. I know this is certainly going down very well in Wyndham and in that area because it costs time and money et cetera to have to travel across the city. Having that kind of accessible recruitment pathway seems to be a really good and pragmatic idea. You can set whatever figure you like for recruitment, but if you do not have capacity to actually train up the police, it is not going to happen. That is why I do not really buy the proposition of those opposite: ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll put up X number of police,’ but they are baulking at the idea of a second police academy. The two elements do not match up. We know you cannot only put the goal – that is, the target – of an extra 1500 police; you also need to have the mechanism to be able to train those police.

That is exactly what Labor has done, because we always plan well when it comes to being able to train people for relevant pathways. That is also why we have invested in TAFE and we have free TAFE in this state, just as an example, because we know how important it is to invest in vocational learning pathways so that Victorians have choices and are able to tap into their true interests and passions and find pathways that are meaningful to them. We have form in this, in a good way, because we know the value of education and we know the value of backing it in.

If I can come back to the start of my grievance: I lament the future for Victoria were it to have the Liberal Party’s proposal of $40 billion worth of cuts. It would be savage and it would have devastating consequences. We know, unfortunately, that they have form when it comes to really investing in big cuts across the board. Whether it is police, whether it is education or whether it is health, they have form. Victorians have lived through that, and they really do not deserve to be subjected to that again. Therefore, the Carroll Labor government is the way forward.