Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (16:31): I rise to grieve for the people of regional and rural Victoria, who have been absolutely let down by this government – not just the Carroll Labor government, not just the Allan Labor government, but also the Andrews Labor government. Indeed I could go back to the Brumby and Bracks governments as well, because we have been sadly neglected by this Labor government for a very, very long time. I know that we have got the Minister for Roads and Road Safety here at the table. That in itself would be enough – to say that roads are the area where we have been neglected the worst would be fairly easy to do, but most particularly we have been neglected in terms of the infrastructure spend and the services that we deserve in regional Victoria. The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has found for the last five years that we are getting in regional Victoria less than 13 per cent. In the last couple of years, 12 per cent. Indeed in the current budget, 2026–27, the estimate of the infrastructure spend in regional Victoria by the Parliamentary Budget Office is just 11.9 per cent.

Why is that important? It is important because we are 25 per cent of the state, but we are getting just 12 per cent of the infrastructure investment under this state government. That is in every aspect of our lives. It is the lack of investment in roads. It is the lack of investment in improving our roads. It is the lack of investment in rail. One of the reasons that I actually first asked the PBO to do this work four or five years ago was that I noticed that everything the government was doing in regional areas was largely funded by the federal government. When it comes to rail, the government likes to spout about the regional rail revival projects in Ballarat, Bendigo, Gippsland, Warrnambool and Shepparton. Eighty per cent of it has been funded by the federal government, but when there is a project in the city Labor is happy to put its hand in its pocket and actually fund those for its constituents, but not in the regions.

We have seen time and time again that this government has failed to invest in our hospitals and in our schools. We hear so much about this being the Education State. Well, not in most of rural and regional Victoria, where our schools are falling apart. Schools like Sale College have been campaigning for nearly 10 years now for consolidation onto one site. They are across two campuses and both of them are actually falling apart. We have got videos of teachers on rainy days having to go and find bins – not buckets but bins – to catch the water that is coming in because the roof is so poor and the maintenance is so poor. That is an example of one. We have got fire stations that are not getting done, like Foster fire station and Korumburra. It has taken 10 years to get Yarram underway and now it is finally getting built. We have got a commitment to Mirboo North. Again, that was actually funded. It was committed to by the CFA several years ago, but that money got taken away by the government and it is only now that they are committing in this year’s budget to do Mirboo North. That is certainly something that the Nationals and Liberals will match. That is a commitment that we will give.

We are missing out so often because the 12 per cent that we are getting is across the board, when we are 25 per cent of the population in regional Victoria. That is why the Nationals and Liberals have committed to our fair share guarantee. If we are elected this year on 28 November, we will guarantee a minimum of 25 per cent of the state’s infrastructure investment will go to rural and regional Victoria in our first term. That is an important thing because it actually sets an expectation for the entire government that we will deliver for rural and regional Victoria. The Leader of the Opposition and I have both said publicly that that is not just how we want to do infrastructure investment, but we actually want to go a step further. We actually want to make that the way we run the government, that regional Victoria actually gets its fair share, not just of infrastructure spending but of the services and the things that we need, because we are certainly not getting them under this Labor government. We know that to do that we have to have a strong economic plan, and we are hearing the government at sixes and sevens on this issue. They do not actually know what to say, and it is best evidenced by the notices of motion that are on the government business program. One of them refers to the Liberals committing to cut $40 billion, and another one refers to the Liberals committing to cut $22 billion. They cannot actually even get their own negative story straight.

Members interjecting.

Danny O’BRIEN: Well, you tell me, member for Lara, because none of it is true.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Member for Werribee!

Danny O’BRIEN: Member for Werribee, you should be careful on this, old mate.

The SPEAKER: Through the Chair, Leader of the Nationals. Member for Lara!

Danny O’BRIEN: This government cannot lie straight in bed. They do not know whether they are Arthur or Martha, even on their issues when they are attacking the opposition.

We have got a 10-year plan that we are being very clear on. We have committed to a hiring freeze in the Victorian public service. I heard the member for Albert Park talk about it, and I have heard everyone on that side talking about the Australia Institute. I mean, for people that apparently do not like the Greens very much, they are very fond of quoting the Australia Institute, which is predominantly run by former Greens staffers. You do know that, don’t you? It is funded and run by former Greens staffers. They run this Australia Institute rubbish that there are going to be 31,000 jobs cut. The Parliamentary Budget Office, the independent Parliamentary Budget Office, which the Labor Party established, is the one that has said, after we asked them if there is a hiring freeze, what would it save? The Parliamentary Budget Office came back and said it would be $22 billion over 10 years.

Bridget Vallence: And there are no redundancies.

Danny O’BRIEN: With no redundancies, no-one will lose their job. The opposition has committed to a Victorian services guarantee that we will not be cutting –

Bridget Vallence interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: Essential services guarantee, thank you very much. We will not be cutting jobs, unlike those opposite – thousands. We remember the former Premier being asked the question, ‘Is it hundreds of jobs?’ ‘No, it is thousands.’ Oh, okay, but that is different. When there are cuts by the Labor Party, they are not really cuts, they are just efficiencies and they are reviews and everything. But apparently there is this rubbish that we get thrown about the cuts that are going to happen here. We are actually going to run a disciplined process. Absolutely, we are. We know that we can save that $22 billion over 10 years. The Parliamentary Budget Office said it. So forget the Australia Institute rubbish that it has come up with. We have got that plan. We have got a plan to make those savings. Scrapping treaty will save $1 billion over 10 years. We have committed to getting rid of Breakthrough Victoria, which is $1.2 billion. There are savings to be made in things that we do not think should be priorities and savings that will help us get the budget back under control and also do the things that we want to do.

We actually want to send a signal to business that we want to grow. We want to grow in regional Victoria in particular as well, and we are going to start to reverse Labor’s changes on land tax. Land tax is where we had a threshold of $300,000. Tim Pallas, the former Treasurer, dropped that to $50,000 and brought 300,000 people into the land tax system. We will progressively raise that up. We will raise the threshold and reduce the rate for payroll tax. Now, both of these are very modest, and I am being completely up-front and honest in saying that these are not massive tax cuts, but they are sending a signal to the private sector, to investors around the world and around the country that Victoria is going to be open for business under a Liberals and Nationals government, and regional Victoria in particular will be open for business.

We want people to come and invest, to create jobs and to get Victoria back on track, because we know at the moment all we hear constantly is the term ‘ABV’. We hear it from investors in the property sector, in the manufacturing sector and in others – ABV, anywhere but Victoria – and we are not going to have that under a coalition government.

That 10-year plan is critical to get the budget back under control and to return us to a cash surplus by 2032 so we can actually start paying down the debt and save that $11 billion that we are currently spending – or we will be spending – on interest payments. $11 billion is more than the police budget, the ambulance budget and the kindergarten budget put together, with $1 billion left over. Those opposite never understand and never accept the opportunity cost that comes with that debt.

We will deliver safer communities, in particular in regional Victoria, with 3000 new police. That will allow us to reopen the 40-odd stations that have been closed or had reduced hours under this government. We had the Premier only a couple of weeks ago saying that he is about reopening police stations and not about closing them, and then he closed another four. Another four inner-city Melbourne stations got closed. Three thousand more police – 1500 of which are to fill the vacancies that currently exist. I heard the member for Albert Park talk about their commitment to recruit 1500 police. That is just filling the vacancies that they have left, which have been there for so long and have left our police undermanned and have left our streets without an active police patrol.

We will bring in new bail and sentencing laws. We will stop the revolving door that we have had here. I heard previous speakers talk about how they back their police. The best way you can back police is to let them do their job and to back them when they do their job. One of the things that police tell us every day is that they are sick of arresting crooks, them getting out on bail and then arresting them again the next day, and we see that particularly with youth offenders. It has got to stop. That is why we will bring in ‘break bail, face jail’. That is why we committed a long time ago to Jack’s law, something that the Premier has jumped on board with in the last week or so. The member for Morwell spoke about the importance of that this morning. Once again we actually moved a private member’s bill on Jack’s law and the Labor government voted against it. So are they really committed? We had members stand up and say they support it, but they voted against the bill. It is ridiculous.

I started with roads, and the Minister for Roads and Road Safety is at the table now. I do not hold the minister responsible for the state of the roads entirely, because he has only been there for 5 minutes. He is, though, the third roads minister in four months that we have seen under this government. We know that the current Premier, when he was roads minister, cut the roads maintenance budget by $200 million. Do not ask me. Do not believe me. That is in the Auditor-General’s report from two weeks ago. That is where we saw the rot set in, when those cuts were made under the now Premier back in 2021–22. We have now seen our roads fall into disrepair. The Nationals and Liberals will deliver a $5 billion plan over four years to eliminate a million potholes and get us back to doing the preventative maintenance that needs to be done – grading the roadsides, cleaning out the table drains and doing the reseals. We are down to less than 2 per cent of the network every year being resealed, when it should be 7 to 10 per cent every year. It is simply not happening under this Labor government. We will make sure that we hold contractors to account. We will review the contract arrangements and make sure that we are actually getting value for money and the best possible efficiency we can with our roads.

We will lower costs with no new taxes or charges. We will abolish stamp duty for first home buyers up to $1 million, versus the current arrangement at $600,000. I mentioned how we will progressively raise the land tax threshold. And very importantly, we will scrap Labor’s emergency services tax. This is an egregious tax that is all about filling Labour’s budget bottom line, not about supporting our frontline emergency services. Workers will go back onto the fire services property levy, and we will ensure that our CFA, SES and Fire Rescue Victoria are funded properly.

We will deliver reliable regional health care, and we have already made some significant funding announcements for some of our hospitals, on capital, whether it is the Mildura base hospital thanks to the member for Mildura or whether it is the member for Lowan delivering a commitment for the Hamilton hospital. We have had Bass Coast health commitments and we have had Albury–Wodonga commitments, and there will be more to come to make sure that our regional hospitals are looked after, up to scratch and meeting modern conditions.

I went to Hamilton with the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Lowan, and I could not believe just how bad and how cramped and tiny the Hamilton emergency department was. We will fix that.

We will deliver stronger planning protections for our farmland. This is a government that – and I have followed the member for Albert Park multiple times on renewable energy projects – does not understand the impact on regional Victoria. It has never had the respect for regional Victoria when it comes to renewable energy or transmission lines. We will give people their power back to appeal at VCAT, we will repeal the new compulsory acquisition powers the government brought in, we will repeal the fines that the government brought in, we will scrap VNI West, we will do a review of the Victorian transmission plan, including Western Renewables – and I will make the point that whilst the member for Albert Park was talking about how wonderful these projects were, she neglected to mention how her own Premier is now committed to reviewing Western Renewables Link. We will introduce legislation that gives agricultural land stronger protections, that treats it like we treat the environment, like we treat cultural heritage, and make sure that we actually address the concerns of our farmland, which is absolutely critical. We will deliver affordable, reliable energy, whether it is gas, whether it is our energy security guarantee, whether it is solar panels on roofs and the like. We will reverse Labor’s ban on gas and we will deliver honest and accountable government. But most of all, we will make sure that regional Victoria gets its fair share. It has not been getting it under Labor, it will under the Nationals and Liberals.