Thursday, 19 March 2020

COVID-19

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (11:16): My question is again to the Premier. Premier, even the City of Melbourne has announced a $10 million package to support businesses, including fee suspensions, small business grants and rent relief to help businesses through this unprecedented time. Why is the federal government, every other state and territory government and even local government doing more to support small business and their workers during this crisis than is the Premier and this Labor government?

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (11:16): I am not certain if the Leader of the Opposition understands it, but there is a legislative process for the federal package. That will occur next week in Parliament. I have not heard the Leader of the Opposition calling for federal Parliament to sit this week, so these two days—

Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, first of all the Premier is debating the question. Secondly, this government has used its numbers to actually make sure Parliament cannot come back for the budget session. So what a hypocrite—what an absolute hypocrite!

The SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order.

Mr ANDREWS: I was referring, of course, to the federal Parliament, which will be sitting next week. The point that I am making is that the Leader of the Opposition is at best inconsistent, or perhaps ill-advised I think, on some of these matters. But again I am not interested in partisan attacks on these matters. I will follow—

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: Oh, now it is a funny matter. Now it is matter for laughter. Announcements will be made, and those opposite if they see fit to be briefed—take a break from politicking and be briefed—I will be happy to arrange it.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party!

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kew is warned.

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (11:18): My supplementary question to the Premier: last night on Footy Classified it was reported that you had had a conversation with AFL bosses about providing a secured loan to the AFL and clubs to help them during the COVID-19 crisis. Will the Premier assure Victorians that any financial support offered to the AFL will also be offered on similar terms to small businesses who are fighting to save thousands of Victorian jobs?

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (11:19): As I indicated this morning, I have had discussions—

A member interjected.

Mr ANDREWS: Football does; okay, right. Those opposite are critical of the fact that we have had—

A member interjected.

Mr ANDREWS: No, no. You interjected. Those opposite are critical of the fact that I and others have had conversations with airlines, with the Australian Hotels Association, with the AFL—

Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, the Premier is debating the question. Without repeating it, I would ask you to draw him back to answering it. It relates to: will small businesses get the same deal as the AFL? That is what we are after.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition is now repeating the question. I ask members not to interject, particularly across the table, and I ask the Premier not to respond to those interjections. The Premier to come back to answering the question.

Mr ANDREWS: As I was saying, I, the Treasurer and ministers across governments are having conversations with many businesses large and small, many stakeholders, many sectors, many different people across the board, all of whom are feeling the effects of this crisis. Some of those effects are common, some of them are unique to certain sectors. We are engaging with those sectors to develop a comprehensive response that actually has an impact and that is consistent with the national plan—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! On a point of order—

Mr ANDREWS: and the Leader of the Opposition can be briefed on it at the appropriate time.

Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, I would ask you to draw the Premier back to answering the question, which was simply about parity of terms between offers to the AFL and offers to small businesses. He has not addressed that; he has 6 seconds in which to do so.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier has been relevant to the question. He has concluded his answer.

Mr Wells: On a point of order, Speaker, at the start of the session on Tuesday you referred to a point of order made by the member for Warrandyte and ruled that when you call an opposition member on a point of order the Premier or the minister will sit down, because we have seen in previous weeks where the Premier, for example, has continued to answer the question and then sits down and then concludes. In that case we do not get it. I would ask you to enforce your own ruling that you made at the start of this session on Tuesday.

The SPEAKER: I thank the Manager of Opposition Business for raising the point of order. I did make a number of observations in my ruling around members sitting down when there was a point of order taken, and indeed of points of order being made in the appropriate form. There has been some slippage in that today. I ask members to come back to the proper operations of the house.