Thursday, 10 March 2022

Bills

Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms SYMES:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (10:23): I am pleased to rise to make a contribution to the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. This is an omnibus bill—another one of these omnibus bills. Some bits we agree with and many bits we do not. It is a bill that claims to increase flexibility for regulators and agencies to provide fee relief; claims to modernise public notices, and I will have more to say about that; claims to implement the government’s response to recommendations of the Electoral Matters Committee; claims to streamline reporting for registered housing agencies; claims to make permanent the ability of certain bodies to meet electronically; claims to allow for the ability of the Victorian Institute of Teaching to extend the registration of certain teachers by amending the Education and Training Reform Act 2006; claims to allow the Secretary of the Department of Health to appoint inspectors from a wide range of eligible persons to enforce the Tobacco Act 1987; and it also has some matters around virtual or electronic activities under the pharmacy regulation arrangements.

The changes in respect to the pandemic that are part of this bill—online meetings, AGMs and so forth, fee relief to accommodate loss of earnings and other similar matters—are not opposed by the opposition. The bill also makes a number of changes around digital points, but we disagree with the government’s attack on print media outlets in country Victoria and will for that reason circulate amendments. I suspect it is probably a good time to formally circulate those amendments if that is possible.

Opposition amendments circulated by Mr DAVIS pursuant to standing orders.

Mr DAVIS: The teaching crisis—there are a number of responses to that. The bill reacts to the crisis caused by the government’s COVID-19 response. A significant number of teachers have relocated interstate or overseas to avoid another stint of online learning here, I note, and a significant number of teachers have left the profession due to the strain of the past two years. I can well understand the pressures that have been put on teachers. Student teachers have not been able to graduate as many were not able to complete their compulsory rounds in schools during the lockdowns. Some schools allowed student teachers to teach online, but many did not, effectively meaning their placements were cancelled. VIT, the Victorian Institute of Teaching, requires student teachers to complete 80 days of placement to gain their provisional registration as teachers.

I say that this is a significant negative legacy of COVID and the mismanagement of COVID here, with the huge number of lockdown days—263—the damage done to our children, the damage done to teachers and the damage done to the learning position of our kids. I can vouch for that being a topic of conversation across the metropolitan area and even amongst groups of friends. One of the early conversations that one has these days is about the impact of the online learning period on kids. Their maths has slipped, their literacy has been impacted and their social skills have been impacted by—

Ms Shing interjected.

Mr DAVIS: They have, and it is a serious matter. You may not like the fact that this occurring, Ms Shing, but the truth of the matter is that teachers struggled in that environment. It is very hard for them. They did the best they could, but with the best will in the world a less satisfactory—

Ms Shing: Our results were the best in the country.

Mr DAVIS: I have got to say our results are not up to scratch, Ms Shing, and you know the maths and literacy results are not up to scratch. You know the impact on kids has been severe, and I know that. I have talked to so many parents, and I think everywhere you go parents talk about this and their concern for their kids is very great.

Another aspect of this bill relates to so-called electoral changes, and we oppose the changes to postal vote application arrangements. We will seek to move an amendment to deal with this. The truth is that Labor has always hated the postal vote arrangements. They have hated them since the 1990s and the late 1980s when we introduced many of these arrangements. It is a longstanding practice of parties, particularly the Liberal Party, to send out postal vote applications. This will be blocked. The reason for this, pure and simple, is attempted voter suppression. The reason Labor does not want these postal vote applications to go out is that they have been exercised more often by Liberal voters, who Labor would prefer did not vote at all. That is the truth.

There could not be a bigger contrast between where Labor is in Victoria and where the Democrats are in the United States. Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have been very clear:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that mail-in voting in the upcoming election will be an essential option for America’s safety and well-being …

Joe Biden said in April 2020, when attacking Donald Trump and others:

He’s already trying to undermine the election with false claims of voter fraud and threatening to block essential COVID assistance if any extra funds go to the US Postal Service …

What in God’s name was that about other than trying to let the word out that he’s going to do all that he can to make it … hard for people to vote.

This is what this Labor Party is doing here: they are trying to make it hard for people to vote. Now, obviously we have many differences with America, not least voluntary voting as opposed to compulsory voting, but the principle of Labor’s approach here is the same—make it harder for those who may not vote for you to get their vote in. I would have thought true democracy demands the opposite; it actually demands making it easier for people to vote in a range of ways, and postal voting is one of those.

Early voting will suit some, but postal voting suits many, with 294 571 Victorians voting by post in 2014—before Labor started tampering—and 281 823 Victorians postal voting in 2018. Whilst it is possible to become a registered postal voter—97 851 Victorians are currently registered postal voters—most people are unaware of their circumstances ahead of time and are unlikely to bother. The option of postal voting is much more likely to be exercised where postal vote applications are widely distributed by parties, making the option accessible. Postal voters were more satisfied, at 83 per cent, than ordinary voters, 81 per cent, at the 2018 state election. It is also important to note that convenience is a key factor. Perhaps that can be through postal voting, but not with this government’s approach and aims. And it would reduce the rate of informal votes, currently running at over 5 per cent.

The fact is hundreds of thousands of Victorians will be travelling, working, engaged as carers, infirm or in some cases for religious reasons or through some other factor—such as, in some cases, COVID hesitancy—and will want access to a postal vote. Why should this not remain easy and accessible? That is a reasonable question. Why on earth is the government doing this? The truth of the matter is it is voter suppression, pure and simple.

Whatever the deficiencies of Australia Post—and we all know the post is not what it used to be—the option should be available, especially given the social distancing and queueing challenges that will be imposed under COVID. Who knows what Brett Sutton will do? Who knows what rules he will seek to introduce near the time? Who knows what rules the Minister for Health, who will have a partisan focus in the decision-making here, and the risk is that he will use the current powers—

Ms Shing: On a point of order, President, it would appear that Mr Davis in his contribution and remarks just now has sought to impugn the reputation of the chief health officer, and on that basis, if he has substantive allegations to put, he should do so by way of separate motion.

The PRESIDENT: Ms Shing, I was listening very carefully. I do not think he went as deep as you said. I will allow Mr Davis to continue but ask him to please stick to the bill.

Mr DAVIS: I am sticking to the bill. Postal voting is an important way of dealing with COVID, President, and I make the central point that there is a serious risk that government authorities, with the power now residing with the health minister, will make partisan and political decisions to limit—

Ms Shing: You have just contradicted yourself.

Mr DAVIS: No, I did not. I have not. I am making the point that—

Ms Shing: First it was the chief health officer; now it is the health minister.

Mr DAVIS: Well, he gives certain advice, as you know, but the health minister now under the pandemic rules, as you well understand, actually has powers to make decisions and make rules, and you know that to be the case—

Ms Shing interjected.

Mr DAVIS: I actually do. I completely get it, and I am concerned that the health minister will use some of his pandemic powers to make decisions that are partisan and that are not made on health grounds alone, and that would concern me greatly.

Labor have always hated postal voting. Let us be clear. They fought against it first in 1911, so for more than 100 years they have fought against postal voting. The simple truth is Andrews wants to tweak and rig—

The PRESIDENT: Order! Can you address the Premier as ‘the Premier’, please.

Mr DAVIS: Daniel Andrews will certainly seek to rig the election. He will certainly seek to take steps to make postal votes as hard as possible—

Ms Shing: On a point of order, President, again, Mr Davis has just made an allegation in relation to the Premier that should be done, if he wishes to pursue it, by substantive motion.

The PRESIDENT: Mr Davis, I have to agree with Ms Shing on the point of order.

Mr DAVIS: I am happy to withdraw that the Premier will do these things. Let me be clear, though: there is a serious risk that the Premier and the health minister will seek to use these rules for their own partisan political purposes.

I also want to point out that Labor have hated postal voting since the very early days, first beginning to fight against it in 1911. That is the earliest situation I can find, but it is a long time ago. The simple truth is that 3300 Victorians voted on average in each lower house seat by postal vote in the last electoral period. That will certainly fall under the arrangements that are proposed in this bill, even though it is clear that that number of votes could easily impact the outcome in some seats. It could easily be that seats are decided where postal votes have not been freely available in the way that they traditionally have been, and that that could impact directly on the outcome of some seats and potentially the election itself. This is why Labor is doing it. They want to suppress the number of people getting postal vote applications because more often than not those people vote Liberal than Labor. That is the simple truth of the matter. They feel that this is a way of manipulating the election outcomes, rigging the election outcomes, and that is what Labor are seeking to do with this bill.

The Liberals and Nationals have a simple amendment which would enable postal vote applications to be distributed by parties after they have been pre-vetted by the Victorian Electoral Commission. The key point in the amendment that will make the change is:

It is not an offence under subsection (3A) for a person to make available or distribute an application to vote by post if the application to vote by post is approved by the Commission …

It is a very sensible, balanced and reasonable amendment. This would enable the distribution of postal vote applications to continue, consistent with federal rules that will apply in the forthcoming federal election. You only need to think about the enormous inconsistency here. Postal vote applications will be distributed by parties in the federal election in May, but when it comes to November they will not, under these changes the government is proposing, be allowed to be distributed here. It is an absolute outrage. It is an absolutely naked attempt at voter suppression, it is a naked attempt to change the electoral outcomes in key seats and it is a naked attempt to ensure that the government is returned by hook or by crook—by fair means or, in this case, foul—and I say that it is an absolute disgrace.

I would urge the crossbench members to think closely about this, because they are either on the side of allowing the maximum opportunity for people to vote and making voting as accessible as possible or they are on the side of those who wish to control and crimp and narrow the opportunities for people to vote. Making it harder to get access to a postal vote application or a postal vote form is in fact very much in that mode. So this is an important amendment, and we would seek the chamber’s support on it.

I should also say on the simple amendment that we have proposed to strengthen the position of small country papers that I do not know what the government was thinking when it thought it would cut them out of government advertising. I think it is an outrageous targeting of these small country papers, and I note that within two days of us circulating the amendments the government had an about face in the lower house. I heard the Premier start to talk about the fact that they would amend the bill. He said, ‘We’ll amend it when it gets to the upper house’. No, Premier, it was already here, and it was listed for debate last sitting week. We know why it was held over; it was held over because the government had to do a backflip. They had to change their position. They had to put a house amendment forward that would actually clean up the unfortunate plan that they had put in place.

The other amendment is a very simple one that we propose, and that is an amendment to highlight the hardship provisions when it comes to council rates. It does not change the actual rights that people have to access hardship provisions—it does not change them in any way. All it does is make them more visible to people, and it requires councils to make them more visible to people. Ratepayers are doing it very tough under this government as they face rising bills and rising living costs everywhere. The truth of the matter is that those rising bills and rising living costs are hurting families—they are hurting people very severely—and these hardship provisions should be known and able to be accessed. Many families need them at this point. Again, it is a very, very modest amendment. It does not change the essence of people’s rights here, but what it does do is require councils to be a bit more transparent about the availability of those hardship provisions, because there is a growing percentage of people who will need to access them.

That is the essence of our points about this bill. If our amendments are not carried, we will oppose the bill, and we are very concerned in particular about the voting changes, which I believe are simply voter suppression through and through. I think the attempt here is to make it harder to get access to postal vote applications. The only reason Labor wants to do that is that traditionally postal votes have favoured the coalition strongly, and there are a number of reasons for that. But the fact is by making postal vote applications harder to get hold of and suppressing the ability to obtain them we will no doubt see a significant fall in the number of postal votes. We have already seen that in 2018, when the government required knowledge of that to be shared with other parties. That chilled a number of people—and that is of course what it was intended to do; it was intended to chill the voting system in that regard—and Labor were successful in reducing the number of postal vote applications in the last election. But still, if you think of the registered postal voters—about 97 000, 98 000, 99 000—it is a far cry from the number who voted at the height of postal vote applications in 2014, when almost 300 000 voted through that mechanism. The truth is a lower number like this will favour Labor. It is an attempt to use these machinery provisions to influence the election outcome.

Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) (10:42): Well, what a rabbit hole we have just been down with Mr Davis’s contribution. It has been filled with fanciful claims, and it has been filled with a lot of misinformation, which I would like to take the time I have this morning to go into in some detail, because when we are looking at the public record in relation to these matters, it is about not just the bill that is before the house today and the omnibus components of its operation in a way which will reflect its passage but also the systems and the processes which sit alongside the development of this bill and the way in which it is intended to operate.

I will get to the electoral matters reform discussion which Mr Davis has just spent a long time on, including in creating and ventilating some strange conspiracy about what I think he referred to as a naked—he used that term many times, Mr Davis—attempt by the government to secure its own return. In fact this is a curious interpretation for Mr Davis to take, because one of the things that strikes me is that when I look at the work associated with the reforms that are set out in this particular bill and which are part of the package of improvements which are intended to reduce the regulatory burden, to increase access to and ease of services and indeed to make sure that there is an equitable opportunity for people to receive information and to participate in democratic processes I am taken to the way in which these matters have been canvassed and discussed and indeed voted on by members of a committee which has been charged, amongst other things, with looking at this very matter as it relates to the conduct of the 2018 state election. The Electoral Matters Committee, which Mr Davis has forgotten the history of—it was an interesting selective recollection of matters—has a minority of government members. Of those government members, I am pleased to see the acting whip, Mr Tarlamis, here today. He is a participating member—sorry, is a member of that committee—

Mr Davis interjected.

Ms SHING: No, that is why, Mr Davis, I have in fact corrected that. It is nice that you are taking an interest in factual matters now rather than the claims that you made earlier when you were on your feet. Mrs McArthur is on that committee as well, as is Ms Lovell. I am hoping that they will both make contributions about the way in which these matters were discussed. And—it is unfortunate that Mr Davis does not appear to be listening to this—his own leader, Matthew Guy, was a member of this committee. His own leader. Mr Atkinson, also in this place, was a member of this committee. The government does not have the majority on this particular committee. There were representatives of all parties, including Mr Quilty, including Mr Meddick and others.

What we have seen from the work of this committee on the very issue that Mr Davis has just spent a long part of his contribution discussing, with a view to underpinning and shoring up a strange conspiracy theory, is a unanimous report on these issues—a unanimous report on the very issues that Mr Davis is now seeking to put forward as being a conspiracy of the government’s making. Mr Davis, your leader signed off on this. Your leader has agreed to and endorsed the position taken in this bill, and that is a really uncomfortable truth for you to have to face in arguing that the situation is of the government’s making. What an own goal there. Mrs McArthur, who sits directly behind you, also backed it in.

Mr Tarlamis: Who is the deputy chair.

Ms SHING: The deputy chair of this committee indeed. When we think about how Mr Atkinson also backed it in and how Ms Lovell also backed it in, you are surrounded by people whose actions speak volumes to the inaccuracy of the position you are now taking. It does not surprise me that you sought to recreate some narrative when getting to your feet here in relation to why it is that you are going to say that holus-bolus you will oppose the passage of the bill if your amendments are not accepted. I note that the Greens were the only ones who put forward a minority report, and that related to group voting tickets, but where were you? Where were you, Mr Davis, and your colleagues in even bothering to put pen to paper on a minority report which sought to ventilate the position that you are now taking in this house? What I would suggest is that you might be well equipped and well advised to take counsel from your colleagues before getting to your feet and undermining the position that they took in a committee set up by this Parliament, the Electoral Matters Committee, which looks into matters like these.

We have a situation here—with the time I have left on this omnibus bill—where we can make significant improvements to the way in which regulation occurs. It is about creating more efficient, faster and more accessible decision-making which nonetheless complies with regulatory frameworks and is in a position to reflect the nature of the various ways that people access information. We are in a position now as a Parliament to continue the work that this government has done to reduce the volume of regulations left by the former coalition government. Since we were elected in 2014, since we began sitting on these government benches, we have seen regulation drop by a quarter. That is a 25 per cent reduction. And the work goes on, including in relation to providing access to virtual means by which to make decisions and have discussions and meetings, which I think reflects how we have come a long way and identified opportunities in the course of the pandemic to connect in other ways where face-to-face connection, in situ connection, has not been possible.

Mr Davis has made claims in his contributions that in fact the results of students suffered. Yes, they did; I am not going to disagree. I am not going to cavil with Mr Davis’s contribution in that regard, but when he talks about results he ignores the fact that Victorian students recorded the best results in the nation as we were emerging from the pandemic. Notwithstanding the challenges to wellbeing, the challenges to connection and the challenges to the support and the collegiate capacity for teachers and staff to come together and to share in situ the challenges that they were facing, the work that they did to innovate and to connect their students with each other, to connect families in a remote learning environment with each other and to make sure that there was that pastoral care and support throughout the pandemic has played an enormous role in making sure that our results here in Victoria have led the way. It is very easy for those opposite to try to pour cold water on the work that we have done since we were elected to invest in an Education State. It is their constant refrain that we have not done enough, that we have not done well enough. The recent results on a national level speak for themselves.

When Mr Davis makes claims about debt he ignores the nature of debt and of financial fiscal policy and management that has in fact enabled governments all around Australia to engage in prudent debt, as the Treasurer has often spoken about, and to engage in investment, in infrastructure and in jobs creation for short-, medium- and long-term benefit to all parts of the state. It is very convenient for those opposite to recraft a narrative—because this is what the coalition always does—that speaks to a desire to undermine our economic credentials. Our economic credentials speak for themselves. They speak for themselves in the way in which our credit rating has withstood some of the most disastrous equivalent challenges that any other jurisdiction in the world has faced.

It is very easy for Mr Davis and for others to stand up and to say that this is not in fact all because of the pandemic. No, it is not. It is because of our record investment in infrastructure. It is because of the job creation opportunities that we have led that mean that we have been the engine room for job creation in the nation. It is because of this fact that we see record low unemployment across the board in regional Victoria. There are still areas where work needs to be done, and in that regard I note that long-term transition and development in the Latrobe Valley forms a key part of this work, with entrenched historical and intergenerational issues that need attention. We do not shy away from that. We have never once hidden our head in the sand and sought to retreat behind a screen and to throw invective into the ether that says that we do not care about economic management or about the way in which people can access support, decision-making, recovery and investment.

We have asked a lot of Victorians through the course of the pandemic. We have asked people to accommodate restrictions that have changed inexorably the way in which they live their lives, from our littlest Victorians—children born during the pandemic, who are used to seeing only the top half of people’s faces—right through to the elderly and people in aged care who have been affected and impacted by changes to visitation. These have been hard, hard changes, but what we have also seen in the process is that we have demonstrated a commitment to public safety. We have demonstrated a commitment to understanding the regulatory environment and how it can be made better. We have demonstrated through our actions and indeed through the omnibus bill which is here today the importance of making sure that there are adequate frameworks and powers in place to waive, defer, refund or reduce fees or other charges. This is about making sure that Victorian citizens and businesses are in a position to avoid financial hardship in the next emergency.

We have an opportunity to learn from and to incorporate continuous improvement into the way in which we respond to the challenges faced by Victorians in some of the hardest circumstances we could have imagined—fires, floods, droughts, earthquakes, storms, a pandemic. It has been a tough, tough number of years, and that is why bills like this are so important. They are not the bills that will make the front pages of newspapers, they are not the bills that will encourage people to stand up at press conferences and talk about ease of regulatory burden, but they are important because they will make a fundamental difference, a beneficial difference, to the way in which Victorians can access services, programs and decision-making. It is about ensuring that flexibility at the levels at which decisions are taken is able to be incorporated and is not then subject to an onerous and counterproductive review or revocation process.

We need to make sure that we continue to use technology where that is available to us but also make sure that gazettal, public notices and other required and important considerations go to print media as well. Gazettal takes up about 10 per cent of the total advertising. When I think about regional papers and I think about the exchanges that I have had in particular with the Latrobe Valley Express and with other newspapers across Gippsland, I think about the fact that dexterity has been something which they have needed, as others have needed, to implement in the course of the pandemic. But it is also important, it is crucial, to continue to invest in print media. And that is what we have done on a number of occasions throughout the pandemic. That is what we have done in response to the need which has been expressed to us for consistency and equity around communication. And to that end we want to make sure that we can reduce administrative burdens whilst also ensuring that print and online media remain accessible. We also want to make sure that we are generating savings, and this is where we will see, with the over 400 requirements across Victorian acts and regulations for public notices, that the change will save Victorian businesses and citizens up to $1700 in print advertising costs per notice.

We have got an amendment that we will be moving in relation to part of this bill in response to changes as they have been ventilated. I look forward to further discussion on this, but I look forward to it being based on fact and not on the conspiracy that others might wish to carry on in the lead-up to an election.

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (10:58): I rise to speak on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. This is an omnibus bill covering a range of regulatory and administrative reforms, many necessitated by the pandemic, that should now become permanent arrangements. The Greens support these measures, including allowing local government, councils and parliamentary committees to meet online and allowing regulatory agencies to waive or reduce fees during emergencies. Speaking of the online provisions, I note the glaring gap in this Parliament’s own processes, where the ability to participate online or in a hybrid way has been removed, despite still being in a pandemic. Too often bureaucratic conventions still stifle common sense, so we are glad to see that some of the more pointless obstacles will not impede people from getting on with their jobs.

But today I will largely focus on the extent to which the bill implements the recommendations of the Electoral Matters Committee’s inquiry into the 2018 state election. That EMC report recommended that political parties no longer be allowed to send out postal vote application forms. We know that this has generally been done as a means of misleading and confusing voters, so the Greens support the government’s move to ban the practice with this bill. However, we need to talk about the elephant in the committee room, and that is the upper house voting reform, because this was the issue that the overwhelming majority of organisations and individuals who submitted to that inquiry spent an overwhelming volume of their submissions seeking to highlight to the committee. It is unsurprising that Victorian people cared most about the upper house voting system in the 2018 election, after members had been elected with microscopic vote tallies by paying a preference whisperer tens of thousands of dollars to manipulate preferences in a way that was unclear to voters and inconsistent with their voting intentions. Indeed the whole system was such a sham that even its architect and major financial beneficiary, Mr Glenn Druery, after declaring the manipulation he orchestrated his ‘single best election ever’, also foretold it would likely be the last time he would get away with it. But all this was largely ignored by the Electoral Matters Committee.

Further, as if in a show trial, before each of the 13 witnesses appearing before the committee could even open their mouths to give oral testimony, they were pre-emptively warned by the government chair that they were forbidden from mentioning upper house voting in their evidence. It was almost comic—a re-creation of the ‘Don’t mention the war’ skit—as bemused witnesses were told they could not give the evidence they most wanted to give. Instead they were reassured not to worry, that the all-important evidence they really wanted to give about the war—I mean, group voting—would certainly be taken by the committee at another time. This is where it gets really serious, though, because the committee chair was not being up-front with the witnesses, it seems. There was no other time when their evidence would be heard, and the committee’s recommendations to hold another inquiry into the matter in hindsight seem to have been a facade, as we now know that the government had no intention of supporting this further inquiry on group voting.

Suffice to say it is a really dark day when our democracy is trodden upon not once but twice: a parliamentary staffer manipulating a system so as to blatantly disenfranchise Victorian voters of their choices, followed by Andrews government committee members banning expert witnesses from even mentioning evidence of the fact, because doing so would force them to confront the problem.

No-one disagrees that it was the Electoral Matters Committee’s job to make recommendations regarding changes to the upper house voting system based on evidence they received and that recommendations should have been implemented in this bill. The committee has not done its job, but we in this place must do our jobs, and that means making legislation better and strengthening our democracy at every opportunity we get. Today we have that chance, so today I will be moving amendments to amend the upper house voting system. I would like those amendments to be circulated now, please.

Greens amendments circulated by Dr RATNAM pursuant to standing orders.

Dr RATNAM: Thankfully the other jurisdictions in Australia have done their jobs, have responded to the evidence and have all now abolished upper house group voting systems for exactly the same reason Victoria should have done. I will speak more on the details in committee, but the amendments I propose will implement an upper house voting system almost identical to the optional preferential system of voting used in the Australian Senate. This has a number of advantages. First, the system is well understood and has already been used multiple times by Victorian voters when voting for the Senate in the last two federal elections. Secondly, we know the system works. It is unsurprisingly proven that the complex backroom preference deals have no correlation to voters’ intentions and that the new system will more closely reflect voters’ choices in the final outcome. Antony Green summarised this effect in his analysis of the 2013 Senate election, in which he said that this system ‘hands the power over preferences back to the voters’. If you too believe that voters should be the ones with the power to choose who represents them in an election, you should support my amendments today.

These amendments have been tried and tested, and they work for Victorian democracy. It really is that simple. There is no credible argument for our current group voting system, just as all the independent experts and submissions pointed out and all the other Australian jurisdictions have realised. Just like Mr Druery anticipated after the 2018 election, we all know that the system is so bad it has to change; it is a matter of when. It is apparent that even the few people who stand to benefit are treating group voting like a dying Ponzi scheme, hastily trying to extract every last drop of money and power from the practice while they can before the whole thing blows up and the broader public realise they have been duped. So what we have before us is an opportunity to do the right thing by Victorians before they get dudded again, because if we do not reform this undemocratic system now there is a lot at stake for the future of Victoria.

As you all know, the Greens are increasingly concerned about the rise of far-right extremism in Victoria. It is the reason we now have a parliamentary inquiry into the rise of these dangerous groups, who threaten the safety and cohesion of our state. But we give those groups a chance to get a foothold into Victorian politics if we leave our system open to manipulation in the way that it is. I do not know about you, but I do not want right-wing extremists elected to the next Victorian Parliament. Before you accuse me of hyperbole, just remember that under this system people with fewer than 100 votes can get elected. We have evidence that they are getting organised and ready to try. It is up to us to stop them.

Democracy matters. We all have different ideas, perspectives and policies as members here—that is a great thing. But what is supposedly meant to unite us is that ultimately we are all accountable to voters—that we answer to people, plural. We all must answer to voters at an election to seek their support and mandate, not simply elicit the support of a single kingmaker who is paid to elect us. Because MPs who do not need votes to be elected, who do not rely on the support of voters, are also unaccountable to voters for their policies and their decisions. Rather than answering to the people—the body politic—they effectively have a constituency of one. They only answer to the man who secured their election. That is not democratic accountability; that is potentially dangerous.

I understand that diversity representation is important; believe me, I do. The argument often used by my crossbench colleagues is that if we reform the system we lose the unique voice that they bring to Parliament. But in a democracy diversity and representation go hand in hand. You cannot defend diversity by undermining democracy and representation, because we are here because of the will of the voters, or rather that is why we should be here, because that is what democracy is. I simply ask that we respect our voters and give back to them the power to elect, or to not elect, their own representatives by supporting this bill with my amendments.

Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (11:07): I am pleased to make some remarks this morning on the regulatory legislation amendment bill, particularly as it relates to a regulatory reform agenda. We all know that the future prosperity of this state and this nation is really driven by one thing, and that is productivity growth. If we are going to improve the standard of living for the Victorian population, if we are going to improve the standard of living for the Australian population, we need to drive productivity growth. We saw through reforms that took place in the 1980s and into the 1990s that Australia had very positive, very strong growth in productivity through the 1990s. In the first decade of the 2000s we saw that productivity growth fall away, and of course in the last decade, from 2010 up to the present day or thereabouts, productivity growth has been negligible. We have seen the Australian economy and the Victorian economy grow on the back of population growth, but we have not seen real growth, which will only come by driving productivity, by making things more efficient, by getting more bang for the buck—working smarter not harder, to use the vernacular.

It is therefore very promising that the Productivity Commission has now launched a new inquiry into productivity performance, which it does on a five-year basis with a reference from the federal Treasurer. That Productivity Commission inquiry is looking to identify the next wave of reforms which will drive productivity growth, drive efficiency, across the Australian economy. There are opportunities to do that in the private sector with the way in which the private sector operates and invests, and there are opportunities to do that in the public sector.

One of the areas where we see great opportunities for improvement, for productivity, for efficiency is in the way in which workplace practices operate. I was recently talking to an HR manager of a large manufacturing business who through the summer heatwave—that period in January when I think we had a week or 10 days of temperatures above 30 and in the mid-30s—had a very frustrating situation where the rostered staff in that manufacturing business wanted to start their rostered shift early. They start at around 9 o’clock and work through most of the day, and to avoid the heat that was forecast for that week they wanted to start their shift early—to start 2 or 3 hours early by agreement. The full work shift had agreed that they would start several hours early and therefore finish several hours early and avoid the heat of the day.

Unfortunately, to the great frustration of this HR manager, she actually had to decline that, because although those workers were happy to start early and finish early to avoid the heat of the day, the industrial environment, the industrial instruments under which they operated, meant they could not do that without the business having to pay a range of penalty rates and engage a range of penalty provisions because they were working hours other than the standard hours for their shift. So the workers were frustrated, they could not do what they wanted, and the business was frustrated, they could not accommodate the needs and the desires of that work crew because of the inflexibility in the arrangements which applied to that workplace. Of course we see that across workplaces all across Australia, all across Victoria. It is not about earnings, it is not about wages, it is not about salary rates; it is about the ability for workers to work in the environment they want to and for business operators to manage that as well. That is no doubt one of the areas where the Productivity Commission will be able to make some recommendations and perhaps improve some flexibility for Victoria and for Australia.

Of course another area for reform is the government regulatory burden. I was fascinated to hear the government lead speaker make a very bold claim that this government has delivered a 25 per cent reduction in regulation over its life. I have to say that is utter nonsense. Frankly, if that claim was true, the minister would have said it in his second-reading speech, and there is not a suggestion in the minister’s second-reading speech that the government has delivered a 25 per cent reduction in the regulatory burden. I would challenge the lead speaker for the government, I would challenge the government, to produce an example of any business in this state that thinks it has had a 25 per cent reduction in the regulatory burden over the life of this government. In fact it might be something we explore in committee as to whether the minister at the table has evidence that the government has reduced the regulatory burden by 25 per cent.

We have in fact seen proposals from the government. The week before last we saw the bizarre announcement by the Treasurer of his planning reform package, where he indicated that the Victorian government had been working on a package of reforms designed to cut red tape, to slash approval times by speeding up planning processes, to support local councils, to create jobs and to bolster construction. The Treasurer claimed the proposed package would have delivered $7 billion in benefits and created tens of thousands of jobs over the next 10 years. So we had the government claiming it had a reform package that would deliver reforms, would deliver productivity growth, would deliver $7 billion in economic benefits and tens of thousands of jobs, and then the government announced, ‘We’re taking it off the table’, in a dummy spit because the property industry would not agree to support the introduction of a new tax. We had a dummy spit from the Treasurer, and they have taken this reform package off the table, which really highlights this government’s understanding of the need for reform and commitment to reform.

We have got a Minister for Regulatory Reform, ostensibly a commitment from the government for regulatory reform, yet with major reforms like that planning package apparently is, the Treasurer spits the dummy and it is taken off the table, notwithstanding the government claiming it would deliver $7 billion in benefits and tens of thousands of jobs.

What we consistently see with government with so-called regulatory reform, or regulation generally, is incoherent and contradictory regulation. Each silo of government has no idea what the other siloes are doing, and there is no-one within government—even the Minister for Regulatory Reform—who would understand the regulatory burden that is imposed on business by different silos of government. There is no coordination. There is no coherent understanding across government as to the regulatory burdens that are imposed on different businesses—no understanding of that whole burden that adds up. As I said, some of it is contradictory, yet the impact on business is profound.

We have got a Minister for Regulatory Reform, and Mr Pearson is a very capable person. I have high regard for his capability. But we are seeing this government impose regulatory burden, and the most recent example of that is the suite of COVID restrictions which are now imposed on Victorian businesses. Many Victorians would think COVID restrictions have largely been lifted in Victoria. The reality is, as of last week when I had a look, that there are still 255 pages of COVID restrictions. The reason I had a look last week is that I was contacted by a constituent who wanted some advice about running a small event in Victoria in a month’s time—a small private event that would attract a couple of hundred people. They wanted to understand what their obligations would be in hosting that event in Victoria. So I was staggered to discover that as of last week there are still 255 pages of COVID regulations which apply to all businesses, covering a raft of mandates—check-in requirements, masks in some environments, vaccination in other environments. Those 255 pages are contradictory, not easy to follow, not easy for businesses to understand and written in legalese for the convenience of prosecutions—not written in plain English for the understanding of businesses that have to apply them—and that is the type of thing we are seeing day in and day out from this government.

So it is fine to have a Minister for Regulatory Reform who is saying, ‘We’re delivering reform’, but in reality it is not happening. In reality the regulatory burden continues to grow unabated with no appreciation from the government as to the actual impact. There are 255 pages of directions on how to manage the COVID environment, and every business has to be across them to know whether they apply. That is not the sort of regulatory reform that we need in this state, and that is the type of thing that you would hope a regulatory reform portfolio and a regulatory reform minister would be all over—in minimising that burden on businesses.

Now, this bill does do some good things. There are some changes it makes with respect to allowing virtual meetings for councils and regional libraries. On the face of it, that is a good reform. However, it is one that needs to be used sensibly. I can envisage scenarios in which councils would seek to avoid face-to-face meetings when they are dealing with controversial issues and want to have less attention than they would otherwise get with a face-to-face meeting. So the capacity to hold virtual meetings is useful and helpful, but care will need to be taken to ensure that that is not abused in execution by councils who seek to avoid public scrutiny and seek to avoid public attention on issues which are contentious.

Another matter which has been raised is reform around public notice requirements for entities that are required to give notice—I think there are 400 notice requirements under acts on the state’s statute book. I think this is actually a worthwhile reform. There have been issues raised, and Mr Davis has amendments to address issues with what it is going to mean for local regional newspapers, but having a single repository where public notices are together and easily searchable is actually a good thing. You see government notices now in the daily newspapers. The Herald Sun, I think on Thursdays, tends to carry a lot of government notices. Other government notices are published in other places. To have them in one location where everyone can access them and where all those notices are made available—obviously a lot cheaper than the current mandatory requirement for things to be published in newspapers—I think is a very useful reform, provided the portal that is set up actually works properly.

This is where there is another opportunity for reform—with the Government Gazette. For a long time now the Victoria Government Gazette has been available online. However, access to that is somewhat clunky. The search facility for the Victoria Government Gazette through the PDFs is clunky and frankly not as good for searching notices that are in the gazette as should be available in 2022.

One of the other provisions the bill makes is with respect to delegation of powers of the Essential Services Commission. Now, the ESC does some great work. It is one of the key economic regulators of the state, and it has done a lot of good work over a long period of time. I was very pleased to work with the ESC in government and have them undertake some inquiries for me into various economic matters. What the bill seeks to do is extend the delegation of their information-gathering powers down to senior Victorian public service staff. Ostensibly that is convenient for the ESC. It is not necessarily in the interests of accountability and democracy. We see this sort of creep continually in government, where changes of that nature—extending delegations, extending powers to demand documents et cetera—are done for the convenience of government agencies. They are not necessarily done with appropriate oversight and not necessarily done with regard to principles of democracy. It is no doubt convenient for the ESC to have that delegation extended to executives and senior VPS staff, but the way in which that information-gathering power is used is something which would need a careful check to ensure that it is being used appropriately and continues to be used appropriately.

There are some worthwhile reforms in this bill, but they are minor. There is so much more that can be done in terms of regulatory reform in this state. While minor reforms are being done, and they are welcome, the regulatory burden continues to increase—255 pages of COVID regulations, which are a burden on every business, is an example of that. This bill does do some good things. There are certainly some issues with it, as Mr Davis highlighted, but there is so much more that government should be doing in the regulatory reform space to drive productivity in this state.

Mr TARLAMIS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (11:21): I am happy to make a contribution today on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. It is a pleasure to be speaking on this bill, which deals with the regulatory reform agenda of this government, especially when you consider what we inherited when we came to government in 2014—that is, a whole lot of problems, with the regulatory system in crisis as a result of the actions of those opposite. The previous government had slashed indiscriminately at regulations which were created to protect Victorians and Victorian businesses. They did this under the catchcry of cutting red tape, but what they actually did was irresponsible, without a plan and without any goals or overarching narrative about what they were attempting to achieve.

In contrast the Andrews Labor government did have a plan, a comprehensive plan, to make regulations fairer and more efficient for all Victorians and Victorian businesses whilst guaranteeing the protections that regulations deliver for them. Over the last eight years we have reviewed and reformed regulations in liquor, environmental protection, essential services, electricity, building and construction, planning, consumer affairs, fee pricing, owners corporations and much more. We have legislated regulatory improvements through automatic mutual recognition, cladding safety, wage theft, gender equality, casino and gambling, worker screening, professional engineering and registration, to name but a few—and that is just in this term of government.

While those opposite talked a big game about cutting red tape, the Andrews Labor government, like always, did what they said they would do. We got on with the job and reduced Victoria’s regulatory burden, and we are not done yet. We have invested in regulatory reform projects, we have streamlined screening checks for NDIS workers and we have partnered with local government to streamline and digitise approval processes, and the list goes on and on. We were even the first government in Victorian history to appoint a dedicated Minister for Regulatory Reform to coordinate the reform agenda across government. That is because, unlike those opposite, we have a plan and we back that plan up with actual investment in regulatory reform, because we know that good reform needs a kickstart and a helping hand to get savings for the Victorian community both now and into the future.

In terms of this bill before us today, it contains a number of elements, some of which came about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Can I say we are all immensely proud of how the Victorian community has risen to the challenges posed by this pandemic and the way in which businesses and citizens have pivoted their work and gotten on with what they need to do. It has been a big ask of them, and not without economic and social impacts. All parts of government have been touched by it too, requiring strict responses to ensure the provision of services and the protection of all Victorians. This has included many temporary changes to regulations which have been shown to be effective in creating a more efficient and fairer regulatory system.

This bill before us today will look towards locking in many of those emergency responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and further strengthen Victoria’s regulatory landscape. It will also make the regulatory system more responsive to the current pandemic and other future emergencies. The bill will also look at modernising changes to electoral matters by implementing every legislative recommendation the cross-party Electoral Matters Committee made in its inquiry into the conduct of the 2018 Victorian state election.

I intend to focus in the remainder of my contribution on talking about those elements in this bill, because there has been a lot of commentary around that. I think it is important that I spend a bit of time talking about this, because the opposition have gone to great lengths publicly, and in the other place when this bill was being debated, talking about these elements, spreading misinformation, running scare campaigns and making unfounded accusations about disenfranchising voters and making accusations about taking away people’s right to vote which just simply are untrue—and saying these changes are somehow being secretly snuck in without anyone knowing about them. These are all accusations which, you know, are fanciful but not unsurprising, given that basically it is what we have come to expect from the opposition, who have been reduced to nothing but misinformation campaigns and basically nothing of substance whatsoever.

With regard to the claim that somehow we have secretly snuck these changes in without anyone knowing, in particular the changes around prohibiting a person or organisation other than the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) from distributing postal votes, I simply point out that these were all recommendations that were made by the Electoral Matters Committee, in which the government is a minority. We have four out of 10 members. Ms Shing pointed that out as well, but I think it is important we make that point again for the benefit of members like Mr McCurdy, who in the other place during his contribution claimed that:

… the Electoral Matters Committee is stacked in favour of sitting Labor MPs, so the outcome was always predetermined.

I am not sure how you stack a committee with Labor MPs when you have got four out of 10. The maths does not work on that. The recommendations were not opposed by any member of the committee, which had representatives from nearly all parties—a committee, I might add, that had the Leader of the Opposition amongst those members—all of whom signed off on the recommendations. And now they are seeking to oppose these very recommendations that they helped recommend. The Leader of the Opposition failed to explain why he has had such a change of heart in the other chamber; in fact he has not made any public comment about this whatsoever. There was no minority report. He has not explained himself.

I note that no other members in this chamber who served on the committee are here today to speak on the bill. So far they have not spoken on the bill as to why they have changed their position on this. Maybe they could come in and have a bit of a chat. Maybe the shadow minister, Mr Newbury, should have checked with his leader before claiming incorrectly that they had been blindsided by these changes. Maybe he could have done a little bit of research himself, because these changes were not just first talked about in the 2018 report; they have actually been around a lot longer than that. In fact I am personally aware of the VEC’s consistent advocacy and recommendations around legislative changes with regard to political parties’ involvement in postal votes as far back as 2010—as Mr Finn would be well aware of, because he chaired the Electoral Matters Committee in 2010, when I was a member on that as a member of Parliament as well. The VEC actually made submissions to the committee at that time around political parties not being involved in postal votes, so this is hardly a new issue.

We actually attempted to resolve this very issue by amending the Electoral Act 2002 ahead of the 2018 election with the change that prohibited postal vote applications that were physically attached to or part of material issued by anybody other than the VEC. That was a change we made in legislation, to the Electoral Act, in 2018. In introducing this legislation the then Special Minister of State, Gavin Jennings, said the effect of this amendment would be:

… that political parties, candidates and persons other than the VEC will no longer be able to distribute postal vote application forms as part of their own campaign materials to voters.

So the intent was very clear; however, the Liberal Party modified how they designed their postal votes so that they could still distribute them despite this change. I would point out that the Labor Party did not distribute postal votes or process any at the last election, honouring the spirit of that change. The Liberal Party did—and we have heard what happened. There was an increase in the complaints that were received regarding postal votes at the last election, when the Liberal Party were the only party that was distributing postal votes. The VEC heard that many voters thought that the practice of parties distributing postal votes was misleading and offensive and that some even took the practice to mean that the VEC were endorsing a particular candidate. So this change is far from something that has been snuck in; rather it is a long-overdue change that should have been made a long time ago.

I will go into more detail about that shortly, but I want to firstly address the accusations of the disenfranchising of voters and taking away people’s rights by pointing out some actual facts in relation to the changes regarding postal votes. There is no change to the eligibility of who can vote at any election or who can apply for a postal vote. That is a fact. To be clear: anyone who was eligible to apply for a postal vote at the last election will still be eligible at the 2022 election—no change. Political parties will still be able to provide information about how people can access and request postal vote application forms with their campaign materials. Voters will be able to obtain a postal vote application from the VEC office in person, by calling the VEC and requesting one be posted or emailed to them or by completing an online application. Alternatively, eligible voters can apply to become a general postal voter, meaning they will be able to automatically be sent a ballot paper by the VEC before each election and not have to apply each election. The eligibility criteria include if you are aged 70 or above, unable to vote on election day or attend a voting centre for religious reasons, are living 20 kilometres or more from a voting centre, are registered overseas, are seriously ill and unable to travel or are caring for a person who is, are a silent elector or are in prison, detention or custody.

I put these facts on the record because if you listened to the ill-informed contributions in the other place when this bill was debated there or here today, you might be confused and think otherwise or that in some way we had reduced the ability of people to access postal votes, which is just not true. It is false. It is incorrect. When Mr Newbury claims, as he did in the other place, that these changes ‘are designed to create an obstacle to postal voting in Victoria … They are aimed at squeezing the life out of postal voting’, he is simply wrong and being alarmist. When he claims that ‘under these reforms there will be significant restrictions on the way people can receive postal vote application information’, again he is completely wrong. Information can be sent out by political parties, just not applications, and rightly so. The VEC is the independent body who processes applications and issues ballot papers. They are the only ones that should be handling applications, not political parties. There is no business for political parties being in that space. And when Mr Newbury attempts to link this reform to changes in voting rights in the US and claims it is ‘suppressing the right to vote’, as was repeated today by Mr Davis, he is in la-la land and he has just lost the plot altogether.

The misinformation campaign continued with a contribution from Mr Southwick where he claimed that the change was part of a:

… political agenda to actually disenfranchise the elderly and disenfranchise those with a religious perspective.

And further, that:

… your postal vote rights have … been taken away …

Again, I made point clear earlier: this is completely untrue. There is no change to the eligibility of who can apply for a postal vote, and there are specific longstanding provisions within the Electoral Act which assist and accommodate voters in these circumstances, which MPs can continue to assist voters to access. So rather than those opposite engaging in scare campaigns, spin and the spreading of mistruths, why don’t they actually just do their jobs and assist their constituents in becoming general postal voters or advise them on the many options they have available to them to access postal vote application forms?

But you see the crux of the real issue, the elephant in the room, is that the opposition do not like these changes and are rallying hard against them because they want to go back to the past and the way that it used to be done. It is not about this being an attack on the democratic process or an attempt to discriminate against voters, as they suggest; it is about removing the competitive advantage that the major political parties have long enjoyed by getting that data about who was applying for postal votes and keeping it amongst themselves and not sharing it with other political parties. It was a system where parties inserted themselves in the postal vote process that they ought never to have been involved in by processing these applications when it should always have been the independent body that manages elections, the VEC, and them alone.

What used to happen with the postal voting process was you would apply through a political party and the application would be taken out of the postal process and go to the party. They would tag you and keep your data. They would put it back in the post and then it would go to the electoral commission. Mr Davis has spoken about how the postal system is not working efficiently and all this sort of stuff. The opposition would actually risk voters not getting their ballot paper in time so that they could derive a benefit from having that data from you, risking the voters’ ability to be able to cast a vote, for their own personal gain. That should never have been allowed. We have made that change, which should have been made a long time ago. The fact they want to go back to the way that it was says more about them than it does about anything else, because it is not about the voters’ rights, it is about those opposite trying to maintain a competitive advantage over anyone else. Now, with the system that is currently in place, all candidates have access to information about who has cast a ballot so they can have the opportunity to send a how-to-vote card to people as if they were voting on election day, and voters can make an informed choice for themselves who they want to vote for or who they do not want to vote for, as it should be. We get this from a party that wants to continuously disenfranchise voters by bringing in voter ID—to disenfranchise some of the most vulnerable. It is nothing but rhetoric from this lot over here. Basically we should not listen to any of the rubbish they say because they are all spin and no substance. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (11:36): I rise to speak on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. This omnibus bill makes changes to around 16 different acts as well as consequential changes. Some of them are quite procedural, and there are substantial changes in this bill to the Electoral Act 2002. I would like to focus my contribution today to this debate on two parts. One is the provision for public health inspectors to be appointed in alpine resort areas to enforce the Tobacco Act 1987. Because alpine resorts are not councils, this is designed to fill that gap. I have raised numerous times my concerns that environmental health officers having remit for enforcement of this act is inappropriate where it relates to the search and seizure of illicit tobacco. In reality, councils do not undertake this work because their staff are not appropriately trained and there are concerns about their safety. Instead they focus on the more appropriate elements of enforcement, such as non-smoking areas, signage and so on. I brought a motion to this Parliament last year to review these matters, including exploring a licensing scheme. The government subsequently commissioned a review by Better Regulation Victoria, and this review is now well advanced. It includes consideration of how to combat the illicit trade of tobacco, which we know has strong links to organised crime and undermines the health efforts towards reducing smoking.

I will now turn to part 11 of this bill, which changes the interpretation of the publication of public notices. When we examine legislation one of the first things we do is determine what consultation we should undertake across the electorate to ensure we have the views of residents and stakeholders and understand what the day-to-day effect of these changes might be in practice. New clauses in the bill introduced to the Legislative Assembly propose changes to the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 so that if a notice is required to be published in a print newspaper this could be fulfilled instead by publication on an approved centralised website. We sought clarification on this in the very first bill briefing and recognised immediately that this would not only affect a substantial number of notices but also affect regional communities and media. There are more than 40 local and regional newspapers in northern Victoria, so we are talking about a lot of public notices in a lot of newspapers. We have been in touch with a number of print media organisations since the legislation was introduced. I have spoken with councils and have had some feedback from members of the public, and I would like to thank them all for their input. I would also like to thank the minister’s office, with whom we have had numerous back-and-forth discussions on this issue.

We were very direct with the government about our concerns, and they were accepting of the importance of local news to regional communities and the need to protect the pathways of information for people who do not access digital platforms or who live in areas where there is poor internet—and we know that there are many of those places. We can talk about how and where the print media relationship has declined compared to years gone by as digital media has developed, but that does not diminish the importance of regional media in regional communities. Thousands upon thousands of papers are distributed in regional areas every day in print and digital form, and thousands upon thousands of people rely on local newspapers for that information.

I am of the understanding that this change affects the publication of around 410 different types of notices. My concern naturally was that while you can still publish a notice in the paper by your own free will, it is likely that agencies or individuals will do the bare minimum in order to comply, particularly if it is a topic that might generate some debate or complaints. Most people do not have the time or perhaps the understanding either to plough through a single website full of public notices for the whole state and work out which ones may affect them and then understand what the contents of the notice mean.

Regional Victoria is still littered with areas where internet connections are poor or non-existent, and there are large numbers of elderly people who have no idea how to even access the internet. So what does this mean for them? The recent Connecting Victoria engagement report highlights the long road ahead to achieve basic internet access in many regional areas. More than 50 per cent of the 11 000 survey responses were from rural and regional Victoria. Forty-four per cent of them said mobile and broadband were a challenge. This report highlights concern that some Victorians are unfamiliar with using digital technologies, that affordability is a concern and that access to high-speed and reliable internet remains a dream for many.

If local newspapers do not have the revenue generated from the advertising of notices, this affects their capacity to employ journalists. The impact on participation of communities is a risk if information is obscured, even if that is not the intent. What is clear is that a balance needs to be found that retains publication in local newspapers. We have had multiple discussions with the government about this, and I am very pleased that they have brought an amendment to this chamber to retain publication of notices in local newspapers where that requirement already exists.

We continue to talk in this place about the importance of transparency, genuine engagement, the value of consultation and participation. I guess as media and technology continue to evolve the time may come when we fully transition away from print media. I hope that will not come at the cost of regional media outlets or the jobs and experience they provide for journalists and the valuable service they provide to our community. I am sure there will be numerous questions raised in the committee stage of this bill as well as debate on other amendments, so I will leave my contribution there. I thank the house.

Mr LEANE (Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development, Minister for Veterans) (11:43): Can I ask at the start of my contribution that the government’s house amendments be distributed, please.

Government amendments circulated by Mr LEANE pursuant to standing orders.

Mr LEANE: I just want to speak on this particular bill in line with Mr Davis’s instruction motion—that contingent upon the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021 being committed, it be an instruction to the committee that they have the power to consider amendments to the Local Government Act 1989 to provide for advertising of hardship provisions under the Local Government Act 1989. I am never one to pretend that I can imagine Mr Davis’s thoughts, but I will have a go now. There was an Ombudsman’s report around hardship policies in local government that was not too complimentary to some of the sector around the way they handled hardship as far as ratepayers in hardship go in paying their rates. That report went a lot further on the advertising of hardship provisions, which some councils do a great job of—it is easy to find their hardship policy—and which some councils are not as good at, as reported by that particular report. Just to alert the chamber—and I have alerted the Municipal Association of Victoria and the ASU to this in recent days—I have been through a cabinet process to be able to say to stakeholders that I do intend to introduce a bill to the Parliament that picks up all those recommendations as far as the hardship provisions go and that makes sure there is a uniform approach. I have got to say some councils, to their credit, have fantastic policies on this in that they actually have people at the council talking to ratepayers in difficulty directly.

Members interjecting.

Mr LEANE: Acting President, this is the peril you get into when you talk about the sector as a whole and other members of the chamber like to mention their favourite or not-so-favourite council themselves—but I am talking of the sector itself. There are some councils that do some great work where they have employees talk to people in hardship and work through it. They have kind of gone away from the red notices and the different-coloured notices and are working with ratepayers and finding a way to help them.

Dr Cumming: Particularly during COVID.

Mr LEANE: Particularly during COVID—thanks, Dr Cumming, for that interjection. And I cannot believe I thanked you for an interjection, but this is a red-letter day for all of us. I think it would probably be an easy process just to continue the practices they have picked up during COVID, and they would probably be in line with the bill that will be introduced around hardship. The bill will also pick up some of the recommendations in the rates review as well around hardship. I am just offering to the chamber that of course my department and my office will, for anyone who wants a briefing on what that looks like, reach out to you, or if you reach out to us we will make sure you have got an understanding of where that is all at.

This is a process that the water corporations went through a number of years ago for water rates. I have had good conversations, particularly with Yarra Valley Water management. They went away from the red notices, the debt collectors and all that going to court. They got some people to work for their corporation. They would ring people directly and say, ‘Listen, you haven’t paid your water rates bill’. Sometimes we can all just think we are going to pay that and we forget. They might say, ‘Sorry, I forgot. Here’s my credit card’, and it is paid. If it is someone that is struggling and they believe them, they tell them they will ring them later on and see what they can work out, even to the point where they have identified people in domestic violence situations and have found ways for them to get the appropriate people to help them and help them out of that situation. So I just thought I would take that opportunity. I actually appreciate where I think Mr Davis is probably coming from on this, but I just want to put on the record that there is work being done.

Ms BURNETT-WAKE (Eastern Victoria) (11:50): I rise to speak on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. This bill has been presented as an omnibus way of making run-of-the-mill changes to numerous pieces of legislation in response to the pandemic. Some of these proposed amendments seek to make life easier through making permanent some of the temporary changes we have adapted to over the last few years. However, other legislative changes slipped into this bill, if passed, could have a substantial impact on our electoral process and democratic society.

Mr Leane did hand around an amendment which may sort out one of the issues that I have; however, I will still speak to it, because that amendment he passed around has not been agreed to. One of the changes proposed in this bill is an amendment to section 60 of the Local Government Act 2020 that would require local councils to set governance rules for meetings conducted via electronic means. There are also changes allowing regional libraries to do the same. Over the past two years many Victorians have resorted to online means of communicating for both work and social interaction, some more easily than others. This amendment in itself is uncontentious; however, I am concerned that other amendments proposed by this bill place an emphasis on the new digital normal that would effectively leave many groups of our society without access to essential information, including elderly people, people with disabilities and those from culturally and linguistically diverse groups.

The amendment I am speaking about is the proposition for the publication of certain notices to move online and out of regional newspapers. Again, this relates to the amendment that I believe Mr Leane passed around before. Despite him passing that around, the bill as it stands at the moment can be read to say that basically the modernisation requirements are for notices to be published in print newspapers while mandating that all notices be published electronically. If passed as is, this would mean any requirement for a notice to be printed in a newspaper will be taken to have been met by uploading an electronic notice to a central government website. It is said that the change will be balanced by an enforceable guideline that ensures government agencies must choose which medium is most equitable for their target audience.

As just one example, planning notices are currently required to be advertised in papers, as they impact people on residential streets all the time. These papers often have both printed and online versions available. On any given street in any electorate we may have some first home buyers in their twenties, an elderly couple, members of the CALD community or some residents with disabilities. How then will these government agencies determine the most equitable medium for their target audience?

The reforms will dispense with the legislative requirement for local councils to place public notices and community classifieds in our regional newspapers. The Warragul and DrouinGazette, the South Gippsland Sentinel-Times and the Mornington Peninsula News are just a few impacted regional newspapers that come to mind in my region.

It has been said by the member for Bentleigh in the other place that less than 10 per cent of spending by the government on regional newspapers is made up of public notices. The justification that 10 per cent is insignificant is misguided. Ten per cent of an income pool is a substantial amount, particularly given many regional newspapers are already struggling to keep afloat. According to the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, 60 regional Australian newspapers have folded since the pandemic began, one of those losses being Leongatha’s Great Southern Star, which closed in 2020 after serving the local community since 1890.

The loss of local papers is something that we as a Parliament should be deeply concerned about. These papers fill a special role in building community and social cohesion and act as a check and balance for the various agencies affecting local townships. The notion of people picking up a newspaper and reading it front to back to learn of local issues may be declining, but it is not dead. I personally know of many people who rely on local newspapers. Although they are no longer delivered to people’s homes, they are readily available at local newsagents and shops.

To summarise my first point: I am deeply concerned about the impact this would have on regional newspapers in our state, and I am also concerned that this change will effectively leave certain groups, especially the elderly, without access to information if everything is moved online. To me the possibility that certain groups may not have access to online notices does not meet the intention of the legislation, as it effectively excludes them. This is not providing accessible information to our community.

Secondly, I wish to speak to my deep concerns over the proposed changes to postal voting under this bill. Around 1 million Victorians receive information about postal voting through the parties. The proposed change to the Electoral Act 2002 seeks to prohibit political parties or anyone other than the Victorian Electoral Commission from distributing postal vote applications. With these changes, those 1 million people who have relied on receiving forms from political parties will be disadvantaged, as they will not be able to do a postal vote as they have done in the past. And that is the thing: it has been done for years. Why are we changing it now, in an election year? What is even more confusing here is the fact that we have been told for two years now to stay home and avoid contact with others to stop the spread of COVID. Why are we removing an option for people to vote remotely in a time when almost everything is being done remotely?

People are used to receiving their forms. They will be waiting to receive them, and they will not. The elderly and those in the CALD community will not know where to get them from, and for many voting on election day will simply not be possible. We have been told for the last two years to avoid gatherings and crowds to limit unnecessary exposure to COVID. People have been conditioned to conduct their affairs remotely where possible. Because of this conditioning many people will not want to line up on election day to vote. It can only be assumed that this will result in less people voting, particularly those who are elderly and vulnerable. Is that the intention here, I ask. To me the intention appears to be voter suppression in an election year, targeting anyone who does not vote for the incumbent government.

Mr ERDOGAN (Southern Metropolitan) (11:57): I rise to speak on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. I want to begin by thanking some of the previous speakers. It has been a very interesting discussion. It touched on a number of matters that I have personally had involvement and engagement with.

Some of the previous speakers spoke about the work of the Electoral Matters Committee, which I currently am a member of. I want to give a thankyou to our chair, who works tirelessly to make the committee function, and to the other committee members that are present, who worked quite collegially to investigate matters of importance to our electoral system. Most recently we had an investigation into the effects of social media. I see Mrs McArthur waving across the chamber. Yes, she was part of that inquiry, as was Mr Meddick, so there were a number of members of this committee. We worked quite collaboratively to address issues of great concern on that committee. That is why it is pleasing to see that some of the work that that committee has done in the past—before my time—has been incorporated into this bill before the house today. We are working on a number of matters on the committee at this point.

Also that was a fantastic contribution by Minister Leane, talking about the work that he is doing and foreshadowing a bill to this chamber about hardship handling processes at the local government level. I want to thank Minister Leane for sharing that with the chamber in such a forthright and transparent manner.

Before I get into the detail of this bill, it is important to understand the objectives and why this bill is needed. The Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021 has four main objectives: firstly, to ensure that regulators are prepared for the next emergency; secondly, to embed regulatory changes that were made temporarily in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; thirdly, to support technology-neutral legislation that does not impede the use of digital and other technologies by businesses, government or citizens—

Dr Bach: What’s the fourth one?

Mr ERDOGAN: Yes, Dr Bach, the fourth one is to make simple, uncontroversial amendments to acts to ensure efficient and effective regulatory systems. This includes simple changes to reduce regulatory burden without compromising effective management of harms. They are very important objectives that this bill seeks to achieve. There are a number of details that I will go into in due course. As the clock is approaching 12, I will continue my contribution a bit later.

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.