Wednesday, 4 March 2020

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2019–20 Budget Estimates

Mr PEARSON (Essendon) (10:13): I am delighted to make a contribution on the Report on the 2019–20 Budget Estimates from October 2019. I did listen to the member for Polwarth’s contribution, and I just want to make one point in relation to public housing. There is a significant amount of public housing stock in the state of Victoria which is quite old, and in concentrated urban areas, particularly in inner-urban areas, there is simply not the capacity for some of the dwellings to have washing machines installed. If I look at the Flemington public housing estate and if I look at the Ascot Vale public housing estate, there are communal laundries on the floors of the high-rises located throughout the Ascot Vale estate. I appreciate the fact that Essendon is a very different electorate to Polwarth and different housing stock is required, but the point to make is that it is not a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to public housing, and invariably when you are looking at older housing there is just that separation.

Clearly going forward in relation to investing in public housing, you will have more of that investment occurring that we would expect in the 21st century—

Mr Riordan interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Member for Polwarth!

Mr PEARSON: I just think it is important to recognise the fact that you have got different housing stock that is built over different periods of time that has different requirements. Anyhow, I will let the member for Polwarth continue to trundle his way through the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee over the course of this term.

I draw the house’s attention to section 2.7, ‘Asset investment’, and in particular the subsection ‘Government infrastructure investment’.

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am having trouble hearing the member for Essendon.

Mr PEARSON: Specifically I draw the house’s attention to the investment in the transport portfolio, which is about $46.9 billion. This is a very important investment that is being made because of the rapid rate of population growth that Victoria is currently experiencing. There is a need to make sure that there is appropriate investment in that level of road and transport expenditure to ensure that we have got the capacity to have that population serviced within Melbourne and within Victoria.

I am reminded that when Steve Bracks resigned as Premier of this great state in 2007 he said his proudest achievement was regional rail. As the member for Bendigo West, Deputy Speaker, and having been a longstanding resident of your community, you would acknowledge the difference that having regular transportation services to Bendigo have made over the course of that time.

This comes down to a question also of social justice and social equality. Many of the great jobs of the 21st century will be within the Hoddle grid or within the four to six postcodes around Melbourne. That is not to say that will universally be the case. Indeed under your watch as the member for Bendigo West, Deputy Speaker, more people now come into Bendigo of a morning than leave for Melbourne. But it is true that many of the high-tech STEM-qualified jobs will be housed or will occur within 5 kilometres of Melbourne. So we need to make sure that we have got really good infrastructure linkages in place so that people who live in regional and rural Victoria as well as outer metropolitan Melbourne can actually get in to those jobs.

The other point to make is that the general government sector represents about one-seventh of the Victorian economy and I think the public sector more broadly—so that would be the general government sector, the public non-financial corporation sector, the public financial corporation sector, local government and the federal government—represents about a quarter of the state’s economy. When you have got a government that is making this sort of investment over a very long period of time you are sending a clear signal to the market that they can have the confidence to invest in property, plant and equipment and to train up and skill up their workforce, because there are going to be many, many years of concentrated economic activity in order to deliver these sorts of projects. So that gives the private sector the confidence to invest as well, and that therefore has resulted in very, very strong economic growth in Victoria over the last few years and a very low unemployment rate, particularly in regional Victoria, and I think a big factor in that is having the lowest payroll tax rate— (Time expired)