Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 John LISTER (Werribee) (17:16): Zooming out from inner Melbourne to the outer suburbs, I would like to grieve for the potential impact of a Liberal–One Nation coalition on growth suburbs like mine. But first, to reflect on something more positive, since being elected to this place I have been laser focused on listening to people in my community – whether that is out and about knocking on doors, at community events or talking to families, especially families of those that I have taught in my community – then working in government on solutions to the problems that they raise with me and then ultimately delivering for my community. We have seen this in many different cases recently, with things like the route 194 bus, an orbital route between Wyndham Vale and Werribee station made possible through advocacy by those estates through that area and the work that I did in government to make sure that it met the community’s expectations. It now runs that rapid service through communities like King’s Leigh and Riverwalk. And there have been other things, like getting Ison Road open months ahead of schedule to provide that alternative to Ballan Road in central Werribee for that traffic through Manor Lakes and Wyndham Vale – something that is particularly important, as I will come to in a moment, when it comes to the record of those opposite on planning in our growth areas like Wyndham.

We have also seen many other achievements, like more schools in our electorate – more schools being opened – and upgrades to schools. One of the proudest upgrades that I have managed to champion in my time as the member of Parliament for Werribee is not necessarily one of the biggest in terms of dollars – we have $45 million in this budget towards a new high school in Wyndham Vale – but the few hundred thousand dollars towards Riverwalk Primary School on a project to help create closed spaces in what is currently an open learning area to help with the move to explicit instruction by that school. As a former teacher who has had to teach in many an open-plan area but also in a proper classroom in an enclosed environment, I know just how important that few hundred thousand dollars is to that school community, and going out there and visiting the principal Barry last week and seeing how it will work was a great moment.

I know when it comes to the Liberal record in my community it is quite stark, particularly when it comes to schools. A few months ago I was humoured to see the Shadow Minister for Education show up to Werribee Secondary College with a gaggle of other Liberals in tow and talk about infrastructure at Werribee Secondary College. He would have walked around things like the auditorium there and the new classrooms that were built by Labor governments after a shocking fire burnt down a fair chunk of that school about a decade ago. But what is most abhorrent is that those opposite, back when they were in government, refused to fund the final stages of that important rebuild for Werribee Secondary College. At the time state Liberal MP for the upper house Andrew Elsbury – who, I will say, was so impressed with the Liberal Party that he is now a candidate for the West Party – said:

Every opportunity I get I raise the issues at Werribee Secondary College …

…

Just because things don’t get mentioned in an election campaign doesn’t mean they don’t happen.

But still they did not come to the party with any funding to complete the build at Werribee Secondary College.

To go there and to talk about our school infrastructure is quite ironic, given that at one point the electorate of Werribee actually had most of the new schools that were opened. I think it was around 50 per cent of the new schools that were opened in the state of Victoria one year were in the electorate of Werribee, which is a credit to the school building program that the Labor government have championed in our outer suburbs.

But our community do not have the short memory that those opposite would like them to have. Previous Liberal governments, particularly federal Liberal governments, have invested $0 in the infrastructure and the services that my growing community needs. In fact at one point about four months after the Catherine McAuley centre, which is our acute mental health centre at the Werribee hospital, was opened, it was at risk of closing because the federal government refused to provide the funding to keep that service running. This is the contempt that those opposite and their mates in Canberra, when in government, have for my community.

While I am still talking about historical matters, I do want to go to some of the issues around planning for growth. Back in the dying hours of their government, the then Minister for Planning – who I do know is sitting at the table, so I am going to go a little bit easy on him – approved many a precinct structure plan across the City of Wyndham. Unfortunately there was no investment in the infrastructure needed to be able to cater for those tens of thousands more homes. Since then the Labor government has delivered the schools, the community centres, the roads and the bus services that these communities needed. But there has obviously been a gap because that planning was not done when it was opened up – fast-tracked, some would say – to developers in my community.

We now see curious situations where, because of the planning system that was set up by those opposite with these precinct plans, we have entire gaps in the road network, which means that we cannot run buses through places like the Savana estate down Pear Street. There is literally 300 metres of Pear Street that does not exist because the rules were changed and developers could take their jolly good time to finish those roads that were necessary as part of those precinct plans. We also see situations like the gap in Ison Road, where route 194, which I mentioned earlier, cannot actually run down that road because there is no intersection at Ison and Greens, again because the rules were not in place, when those precinct structure plans were approved and started, to make sure that developers did that work.

We have made it pretty clear on this side that we believe that growth should be sustainable in our outer suburbs, which is why in the electorate of Werribee there will be no new precinct structure plans under this government until 2029–30, and what we are developing will mostly be industrial and commercial properties on the western side of Werribee. This stands in stark contrast to the plan of those opposite, which is to fast-track houses in my community. Yet there is very little mention of the necessary infrastructure needed to be able to cater for such growth. I think it is almost vandalism when it comes to our outer growth areas with that plan.

There has been a lot of talk on this side about this so-called plan – the glossy brochure that the member for Kew waves around so often – and some of the financial assumptions behind it. Yes, there has been a lot of discussion of the Australia Institute report into what that would mean for our community. Our community in the outer western suburbs relies heavily on good public services and having a good public service through public entities that operate different things like our water corporations, our Country Fire Authority and the Victorian Institute of Teaching – I am just naming a few that I will mention in a moment – and not just the Department of Education and the core public services through that. We rely on them heavily, so when we heard that there will be a so-called pause on our back-of-house or back-office jobs, I was curious about what that would look like. The Australia Institute report tears this apart. It will mean that there will be job losses, and it will mean that there will be a $40 billion hole in the budget of a potential and dangerous Liberal–One Nation government.

This is particularly worrying because some of those so-called back-of-house functions or back-office functions are very loose and ill-defined in their glossy brochures. The people who we are talking about in these back-office roles, these administrative assistants, support the people on the front line. It is not like they are just sitting there twiddling their thumbs and putting together slide decks, they are supporting people on the front line. Some of those administrative support people I can think of that I have engaged with quite heavily through my role as a volunteer firefighter and as a teacher are people like our brigade administration support officers, our wonderful BASOs working out of district 14 headquarters in Melton. They help the secretaries of the brigade and the captains and officers to be able to run those brigades. They are back office, and there is no real clarity from those opposite whether or not they would be at risk from this so-called plan that they have got. People who sit at the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing at the Footscray housing office, the people who coordinate the maintenance, the people who we contact from our electorate offices when someone in public housing needs assistance, they would technically be back-of-house or back-office staff.

I think too across my electorate, flood mitigation is particularly important. Those experts, when it comes to flood mapping in our catchment management authorities and Melbourne Water, they are back office and they are at threat of the plan that the Liberal–One Nation coalition have. The people who process your Victorian Institute of Teaching registration – I just did mine about 20 minutes ago because it is September, and a reminder to all teachers out there, make sure you get it done before 30 September otherwise you have to pay extra – are back-office, and they are also at risk. It even goes to people like the lady from the hospital who called my partner last week to confirm our outpatient appointment at Werribee Mercy – that person is back office. This is what is at risk with the nasty, small-minded conservatism of those opposite with their mates in orange T-shirts.

Now, I think it is particularly important to reflect on what back office means, because in the end we want to make sure that people – and I have got a bit of a list here from all the different public entities – like Cenitex, literally the IT service for the entire public service of Victoria; people like the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel; people like the Commission for Children and Young People, who often go in and make sure that our services are acting appropriately with young people; all our health agencies, our public health boards and the staff under them; not to mention our biggest employer in Victoria, which is the Department of Education, are all of those in positions that would be at risk because, and the Australia Institute goes to this in much detail, you cannot have a hiring freeze and cannot achieve the savings which the member for Kew wants to try and achieve in this so-called plan without actually affecting these sorts of roles.

I think it is also particularly important to place on record this idea around not being able to afford things because we are in debt. The reality that is outlined by the Australia Institute and in multiple different publications from Treasury as well is that we finance to build projects that increase productivity in our state. We are asset rich now in Victoria because of 12 years of this government and continuing with the Carroll Labor government because we build infrastructure. If those opposite with their One Nation mates get a chance to run the state, they will not be able to afford the infrastructure to cater for that so-called fast tracking of growth in the outer suburbs, because the reality is they have said they want to have a cash surplus. That means that they will not necessarily be able to pay the say $83 million for the Ballan Road and Bolton Road intersection upgrade that the Labor government has committed to, which I would say the Liberal Party are particularly silent on. They could not afford to pay for things like their hybrid trains from Spain – trains from Spain, it is a great line – further delaying electrification for the Melton and Wyndham Vale lines through an interesting jaunt into foreign-built trains and also putting people out of work at our factories in Ballarat.

I think what I wanted to end on today is not necessarily the grim reality of the legacy of the Liberals when it comes to my community or the plans that they have through their glossy brochure but a little bit more hope – and what I want to achieve as a re-elected member of Parliament for Werribee, I think, comes down to hope. As someone who grew up in my community, left to go to university and to start their first jobs, I know just how important it is to be able to have a community to come home to. I want many young people in our community to be able to have the jobs, the training and the services they need to start their own families, like I have, and to be able to continue that beautiful thing in our town where so many kids leave home and they always come back to Werribee. It is like the Hotel California of the western suburbs.

We cannot let parties in blue and orange T-shirts divide our community for their own personal political gain or the interests of billionaires – I do not even want to go down that path with One Nation, because it is just really interesting; they claim to be of the people, yet they really are of Gina Rinehart – because we are better in our community together. I look out at those community events and the diversity of experiences represented, but we all want the same things. We want good public services. We want to have those jobs in those public services to be able to help each other. We want to be able to make sure that we can work together and have good schools and good health care – all things that are at risk with the Liberals and One Nation, and we have seen it before in our community, but things that I know that if we are Werribee together with a Labor government, we will continue to achieve.