Thursday, 10 March 2022

Government performance

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (10:21): I want to again today bring the chamber’s attention and the community’s attention to the developing level of debt in Victoria. The Standard & Poor’s material released yesterday makes it very clear that Victoria is not in a good position. We have actually seen a serious deterioration in our position. Victoria’s debt, the Australian Financial Review says today, drawing on that Standard & Poor’s material, ‘is on track to quadruple to more than $200 billion between 2019 and 2025’.

Victoria is the stand-out failure in this, and relative to the gross state product of the state a very significant debt is being ratcheted up by this government. It is not true to blame this entirely on COVID. This debt began well before COVID. The state was in significant deficit by the end of 2019. Standard & Poor’s makes it absolutely clear that the huge projects that have been mismanaged by this state, the massive failure to control debt, the massive failure to control the cost blowouts, is a significant cause of this problem.

Ms Shing interjected.

Mr DAVIS: Victoria is in a worse position than New South Wales, and in New South Wales the debt is not as great compared to GSP as it is here. The track of the debt here is actually much more serious too, and the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s make that clear, and you should be very concerned.