Friday, 19 August 2022

Motions

COVID-19

Debate resumed.

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (12:44): We need a royal commission into how this government managed COVID over the last 2½ years. We need to learn more from the mistakes of this government so we do not repeat them in the future. Victorians want to see the details. They want to see the emails. They want to see where their money went. They want to see the advice that was given. They want to see the minutes of those meetings. They want to know who made the decisions and who was in the room at the time. They do not want to hear ‘I can’t recall’ or ‘It’s not my job’. Victorians deserve transparency and accountability after what they have been through.

The last few years have been tough. They have been hard. Everybody in Victoria—individuals and businesses—has felt the strain of the last two years financially, mentally and emotionally. It has taken a toll on all of us. We are all exhausted. I am exhausted. Some have felt it more than others. Some lost their loved ones through illness, suicide or stress. Some died waiting for surgery or waiting for ambulances. Some lost their businesses.

Here there is a saying: ‘If you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything’. Our healthcare system should have been a priority, and COVID has shown us all that we have a second-rate healthcare system here in Victoria. The system is broken, and it is breaking our workers. New hospitals have to be built. They need to be the priority of the next government—not tunnels and rail loops. We need to train up a workforce that can fill these hospitals in the next four years. Could you imagine—dream with me now—no hospital waiting list? This can be achieved if we have the hospitals and the workers trained in four years time. The government may say that I am a dreamer, but we need to dream big, and even getting halfway there would be better than what we have got at the moment.

I have been disappointed for the last 20 years with the infrastructure of hospitals. When the new Footscray Hospital was announced—$1.5 billion—it sounded fantastic. I pushed for 20 years for that. Now the cost has already blown out by half a billion dollars. Then we come to Melton hospital, promised for years—not a cent in this budget. Instead, this government just took $2 billion out of the health budget. In 2021–22 the healthcare budget was $27 billion. In this year’s budget it is $25 billion. You can spin it all you want, calling the budget ‘Putting patients first’, but how can you take more than $2 billion out in one year when we have a system like this that we are living under? Our healthcare system is in crisis. Our mental health is the worst that it has ever been. This is the time to invest everything we can in health care.

The Productivity Commission earlier this year released a report that showed that we have the worst healthcare system in Australia. Victoria spends less money per person running public hospitals than any other state in the country, with fewer beds, fewer staff and longer waiting times in emergency departments. Victoria was lagging behind the rest of the nation across a range of measures even before the pandemic pushed the system to the brink.

Victoria deserves the best healthcare system in Australia. We do not want pop-up tents in emergency departments, and we did not want pop-up tents during COVID near shopping centres such as Highpoint. Victorians deserve bricks-and-mortar hospitals. They deserve more ambulances to turn up—to be bought. They deserve to be able to see a doctor without waiting weeks. They deserve to have surgery when they need it. They deserve this because they pay the most in taxes. This government gave us 40 new taxes. Where is this money? There are no freebies. You know it.

The Independence Party will commit to ensuring accountability for those who are making decisions on behalf of all of us. We are not right or left. We are not Labor or Liberal. We will vote on legislation on its merits. The community wants hospitals. We will fight to get funding and services to our local community and local hospitals. We know what it is like to live within our means. We need to drive down the cost of living. We cannot continue to waste budgets. It is so extremely important at this time. I might leave it at that, and I look forward to the debate within this house.

Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (12:51): I rise to make a contribution on motion 832 standing on the notice paper under Dr Cumming’s name. I have had the benefit of listening to the previous debate on this matter, and I might just note that this motion calls on the house to note a number of things but essentially in noting a range of things goes on to call on this government to establish a royal commission into Victoria’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we know, there have been a number of things canvassed in this debate today that essentially relate to our public health system, our mental health system, the mental health of Victorians and the like.

I might just reflect on my contribution earlier this week when this house was considering the Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2022, which was a very important bill that the government introduced into the house last week in response to the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. It was in response to, I think it was, recommendation 42, which called on us to implement legislative change and to lay the foundations for some really groundbreaking responses to Victorians’ mental health not just as a result of the pandemic but as a comprehensive root-and-branch review of Victoria’s mental health system, which really has been in decline and in need of serious reform for many, many years.

The royal commission took extensive evidence from people with lived experience, mental health practitioners and experts in the field, and I can say with quite a level of confidence that the work that is being done in that space will meet the needs of Victorians not only now but into the future and give patients the responses that they need when they need them. Our mental health system previously was really predicated on the fact that you got the help you needed when you were in absolute crisis, and we know that with regard to mental health the earlier the intervention you get, the better the trajectory you have for the prospect of recovery.

Again I will reflect on my comments in that debate, where I talked about during the pandemic when I saw the Victorian chief psychiatrist, who is actually well able and qualified to speak on these matters. Like many other Victorians, I follow the science, I take note of the science and I listen to experts in their field when they talk about these matters. I reflect on the chief psychiatrist’s comments at that time, when he was asked a question I think about the mental health of Victorians through the pandemic. I am paraphrasing—I cannot say directly word for word, because it was some time ago—but the essence of his comments was that most people can respond to and cope with challenging circumstances. We all have the capacity to cope with those circumstances. The idea that we are all completely fragile and will be fallible with every challenge that we meet is actually not correct. That is not correct. However, it is correct to say that there are some people that will find circumstances more challenging than others, and it is those Victorians that the root-and-branch reform of our mental system is there to help when they need it.

Many of us through our lifetimes will be subject to, feel vulnerable to or suffer vulnerabilities to our mental health. This idea that only some of us will, others will not—it does not matter. We can all suffer the ill effects of mental health issues at some point. I know women sometimes, after childbirth, experience postnatal depression; that is a mental illness. Some people may experience an eating disorder; that is a mental illness, right? You may experience depression. There are lots of things. There are lots of illnesses. So when people talk about mental health, it can be anything from ‘I’m feeling down, depressed and blue’ to a whole range of things that need proper diagnosis. It is a very big, broad spectrum of things when we talk about mental health.

Going back to the chief psychiatrist’s comments in regard to experiencing challenging times like we are experiencing in a pandemic, let us talk about this for a moment. This is a one-in-100-year event. This is something that none of us in our lifetimes have actually experienced before. There is no playbook on this, there is no rule book on this. This is about responding to the needs of people when they need it. As I said yesterday, some people—for example, children who are neurodiverse—actually liked learning from home. Why? Because they did not have to engage with the sensory overload that often school environments can bring—the lights, the noise, the sounds. So it is incorrect to say that everyone suffered badly. There is no doubt people have suffered badly, but when we talk about this we actually need to look at the entire experience of Victorians and Australians throughout the pandemic, because it is incorrect to pitch it in any other way. I reflect on those people and many constituents in my region who also talked about the fact that they were thankful for not having to battle traffic on busy roads when they were travelling to work. They were thankful for the fact that they actually got to spend more time with their family and children at home while they were working from home.

Ms Shing interjected.

Ms TERPSTRA: Exactly. There are multiple benefits. What this speaks to as well is recognising the diversity of experiences of Victorians and not lumping us all in the one basket. The motion is ill founded. It lumps a whole number of things together.

The work that this government just yesterday started—we started earlier than yesterday, actually, because we made a record investment prior to bringing the legislation into this house on reforming our mental health system, because we knew we needed to inject funds into it urgently so we could then get on with doing the preparatory work and legislating to make these important reforms. We listened to the royal commission. We accepted every recommendation of the royal commission. I am proud to be part of the Andrews Labor government, which is getting on with doing that, because those opposite would not do a thing if they had the chance. They do nothing. They do absolutely nothing over there except criticise the government. They have not got an alternative. I keep waiting for the day that we get an alternative to anything we have to say. It is nothing. It is just negative, carping—nothing—and no-one is here.

Ms Shing interjected.

Ms TERPSTRA: Exactly. No-one is even here. There might be a Lib spill on at the moment; maybe there could be something like that going on. They would be more concerned about that than the mental health of Victorians and this debate today. It is a sad indictment on those opposite that they cannot even be here. We have accepted every single recommendation of the mental health royal commission. I am proud to be part of a government who is getting on with that, listening to the needs of Victorians and listening to experts who guide us in these things. We have got the Department of Health, who are experts; we have got many doctors and GPs.

I note on some of the things that were talked about earlier, when we talk about access to health care there is a bit of an issue with the feds there, for example. Under the Morrison government one of the things that was popping up all the time was that people were struggling to get access to their GPs in their local area. That is not a matter for the state government, that is actually the federal government. Thank goodness we have got a different federal government in Canberra right now. We might actually see some action on that so we can get a better and more responsive local GP network that can support people in local communities to get to their GP and to see their GP. During the pandemic, for example, there were many times, even for me, when I had to have a telehealth consult because I needed to see a doctor, and that was a great initiative. There are always positives and negatives. If we want to have a glass-half-empty approach to all this stuff, it is all terrible, but I look with optimism—

A member interjected.

Ms TERPSTRA: I know. We can just look over there. But I try and look at these things with optimism and a sense of hope because what people in my region are telling me is that they want to move on from the pandemic. They know what we all experienced—and all of us were in it together; we all experienced a challenging and trying two years. But what people are now saying is, ‘Okay. How can we get up and move forward?’. People are not interested in blaming and the negativity and talking about things that only matter to a very small negative-minded bunch of people. What people want to see is this government moving forward and helping people with their lives on things like cost of living, for example. People want to know how they can access housing. They are looking to our government to make that possible, and we are taking serious action on those sorts of issues—housing, climate change, cost of living. The initiatives we have rolled out—free dental in schools; the energy power saving bonus, 250 bucks in your bank account to help you with your cost of living and your bills—that is what Victorians want to hear about.

So I encourage everyone in this chamber to vote against this motion because, as I said, we are doing so many things for Victorians. We do not need another motion in this house, and we certainly do not need a royal commission into the COVID-19 response. As I said, the government has got so many things on the go to help Victorians every day. This motion is just unnecessary.

Sitting suspended 1.01 pm until 2.05 pm.

Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (14:05): I rise to speak on Dr Cumming’s motion 832. There is a lot in this motion, I have got to say. It covers a heck of a lot of ground. I do not know whether it is so much a motion on a page as a vomit on a page, but anyway, there is a lot in here to dissect. The one thing that this motion does talk about of course is COVID, and COVID has been an extraordinarily difficult time for everybody, not just in this state and not just in this country but around the world.

In Victoria there have been almost 4000 new cases and 27 Victorians have died in the last 24 hours from COVID, so we continue to feel the impacts of COVID. Victorians have been doing it tough but doing their best through this winter wave. I myself succumbed to it, and I can attest to how nasty COVID is. I do not wish it upon anybody. I am very grateful that I have received three vaccinations. I was about to get my fourth but had to push it back. In the next few weeks I will be going to get my fourth vaccination, because, like so many other Victorians throughout our wonderful state, I understand that these vaccinations, whilst they do not stop you getting COVID, will alleviate the worst aspects of it in most cases. Victorians continue to pony up with things like the wearing of masks on public transport and in workplaces where they are in confined spaces.

Globally I understand there have been almost 600 million cases—think about that: 600 million cases—of COVID around the globe and about 6.5 million deaths. In addition to that—again from the World Health Organization, and I stand to be corrected—I understand that somewhere in the vicinity of 12 billion vaccinations have been administered right throughout the world, and we understand without those vaccinations those numbers that I have just quoted would have been far higher. But of course it has not just been the vaccinations. As we have been building up to having the vaccination standards that we have reached—what an incredible number, and I certainly thank the 94.5 to 95 per cent of adult Victorians over the age of 16 that have gone out and got the vaccine because that is so important to address this scourge called COVID-19—importantly we have had to take a number of steps over the last couple of years, as we know, to keep those case numbers as low as we possibly could and to limit the impacts on our health sector. And what a wonderful job our health sector has done and continues to do in very, very, very difficult times. Can I thank everybody associated with the healthcare sector, be they a clinician, be they a ward clerk, be they an orderly, be they an ambulance driver or whoever they happen to be. You have done a magnificent job, and we are very grateful and very appreciative of your efforts.

We know that we have had the vaccinations in conjunction with things like lockdowns. No-one enjoyed lockdowns. Gee, they were some of the most difficult times, and of course we are still dealing with some of the after-effects of lockdowns. Nonetheless, as we built our resilience to COVID-19 up, through things such as lockdowns and as we got vaccinated, it was so important for us to take those steps.

Of course the other impact of COVID has been on the economy at the state level, at the federal level and at the global level. We have seen, haven’t we, in recent months around the world global markets starting to deal with economies coming back online. There are difficulties that we know economies are facing, with cost-of-living increases both here domestically and around the world. Importantly, what we also hear from many, many economists right throughout the world is that the governments that have been responsible by injecting money into the economy as best they could, particularly through things such as infrastructure programs, are the ones with economies that are starting to come through far better placed than in other parts of the world. Of course testament to that here in Victoria is that you only have to look at our unemployment rate, you know? We have got a 3 in front of it. Can you believe it? We have just come through—and continue to go through, of course—the global pandemic and some very, very difficult and challenging economic times, but we have unemployment in this state with a 3 in front of it. Depending on which economist you talk to, many of them say we are at full employment. Of course we hear our employers right throughout the state of Victoria who are having difficulty recruiting labour saying to governments of all persuasions, of all jurisdictions, ‘This is a significant problem’. We have got to try and address that. It has been those economies, those states, those jurisdictions which have had an eye on not just dealing with the here and now but ensuring that, as they come through COVID, they could do so and reduce, again, the impacts on their communities through things such as infrastructure programs.

I think one of the things that this motion sort of assumes, if you like, is that you cannot do more than two things at once. It suggests that you should be focusing on this or you should be focusing on that, because this is a pretty broad spray about everything that the government has done over the last couple of years. You think about the things such as the lockdowns that the motion refers to—can you imagine? When they are looking at this motion I just ask people to ask themselves, as they are considering which way they are going to vote: what were the alternatives? It is okay to ridicule and criticise what has occurred, but what would you have done differently? What would we have done to curtail the impact of COVID-19 if we had not had lockdowns, if we had not had mandates on vaccinations, if we had not had curfews and if we had not had the chief health officer and the Premier standing up every day—I cannot remember how many days it was, but it was every day for a very, very long period of time—explaining to Victorians the reason for the decisions behind some of the actions taken by the government? What was the alternative? Of course the alternative would have been that our hospital system would have collapsed two years ago. It would have collapsed two years ago, because we can already see that despite all of the efforts that we have made there are still problems, there are still stresses in the system, and it is a hangover of course from those peak COVID waves. It is one thing to talk about these things, but it is quite another to put up an alternative.

It is okay to talk about financial irresponsibility by blowing the budget. Minister Shing explained beautifully, I thought, during question time, especially to those opposite, about the things that you need to think about with big infrastructure projects and how costs move around. People must think that you sign a contract today and things remain static for the duration of that build. Of course that is a nonsense, and it does not occur. I can tell you if the government had not invested in infrastructure programs during the COVID wave, then what we would see today is an economy in dire, dire straits. Instead, we are powering ahead. We have got low unemployment. We have got record investment. We have got more kids going through TAFE and tertiary education. All of the levers that we have been pulling have delivered a good, strong economic outlook for this state. I am proud of the work the Andrews Labor government has done during COVID-19 and with our infrastructure program, and would I urge the chamber to reject this motion.

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (14:15): The Liberal Democrats believe Victoria needs a change of direction. We support a royal commission into the pandemic response to find out what we could have done, what we should have done and what we did well. We will support this motion. The last few years in Victoria have not been good years. We have had the pandemic and we have endured the government’s response to the pandemic. We have had devastating fires driven by mismanagement of public land. We have had the destruction of the Victorian timber industry. We have had the continuing mismanagement of water. We have had the collapsing hospital system. What we are doing is not working, and Victorians need a change in direction.

The Liberal Democrats have a positive vision for Victoria. We believe in honest government, in treating Victorians like adults and in a prosperous Victoria. The Liberal Democrats want to see a Victoria where the rights of the citizens are respected and protected. Any student of history could tell you that government power is dangerous. Every decade we have new examples of abuse of authority and governments suppressing their people. The last few years were no exception. This government showed it has capacity to wield enormous power over the public. It was not afraid to suppress speech and enforce compliance. The forward-thinking and liberal state of Victoria was just as quick to turn to riot police and arrests to assert its authority. The truth is that Victorians have very little protection against the government. The Liberal Democrats want to change that. The Liberal Democrats propose to draft a bill of rights to be enshrined in the Victorian constitution. This list of enumerated rights will restrict the government and protect Victorians from the tyranny of the majority.

In addition to these protections, we need reforms to emergency powers legislation. We are still in an ongoing emergency. The government is still holding on to the power to make rules by decree. We need powers to enable a rapid response to an emergency situation, but those powers should include safeguards. These powers need limits to ensure they are not used to suppress people’s rights, that they are not used indefinitely and that they follow a strict code of accountability and parliamentary oversight. Now the pandemic is dying down it would be easy to forget about this legislation and move on. But we owe it to the people who will live through the next pandemic to get these protections right. We have the time and the distance to soberly reflect on these powers and to ensure they are reasonable and proportionate for future emergencies. We need these changes and more to keep our government honest and to keep Victorians from authoritarianism.

The Liberal Democrats want to see a Victoria where corruption is exposed to sunlight and held to account. We look forward to our integrity bodies—IBAC, the Ombudsman, the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office—having the independence and the funding they need to hold all Victorian institutions to account and a Victoria where most complaints about Victoria Police are investigated properly and solved. The Liberal Democrats have a vision of Victoria where citizens are treated like adults, where they are free to make their own choices and where consent is always required. Far too often our government acts like a parent and treats us like children. It bubble wraps us, manages us, makes decisions on our behalf and protects us from ourselves. This is not the role of the government. If anything, we are the parents and the government is the child. We are responsible for making sure our government has behaved itself. It is time we had a government that treats Victorians like adults.

The Liberal Democrats have a vision of Victoria that is unlocked and open to the people, with public access to public land. Our forests and parks are increasingly restricted and are managed by bureaucrats in Melbourne. Public land should be managed by local communities and user groups. They should be treated not as government land but as commons that are shared by everyone. Restrictions on camping, fishing, prospecting, hunting and travel get more restrictive every year. The current government sees humanity as a pest that needs to be locked out of the commons. We see the commons as an important shared resource that we need to make the most of. We need to unlock Victoria.

It is not just about the commons, the government thinks it should control our personal lives too. It continues to create and enforce victimless crimes and nanny state laws. We do not need the government to protect us from our own choices. We need to be free to make bad decisions about our own lives. More importantly, we should be free to decide what is best for ourselves—free to choose. The Liberal Democrats look forward to a Victoria where there is no nanny state. We want to see legalisation of recreational cannabis use, and we want to see the decriminalisation of drug possession, moving drug use away from being a criminal issue towards a medical one. We would no longer treat smokers, drinkers and gamblers like children. We want to allow people to consent to risk with their own lives and then to suffer the consequences of those risks if they get it wrong, from small liberties, like choosing to vape, to fundamental ones, like the right to die on your own terms. The Liberal Democrats believe in individual liberty. More than ever we need a government that treats Victorians like adults.

The Liberal Democrats look forward to a Victoria where parents have more choice about their children’s education. We will return choices about schools to parents and about curriculum to schools, and we support independent educational models. Liberty is not just about limits on authority and the freedom to make social choices. Humans are fundamentally economic animals: we produce, we improve and we thrive. All the lessons of history show that liberty creates a flourishing economy and a prosperous nation. Every experiment with socialism and state control has led us to failure. The Liberal Democrats look forward to a Victoria where everyone is set free to pursue their own destiny, unleash their creativity and create a better, richer, more inclusive society for us all.

Years of government meddling and layers of regulation and control have created lasting damage that will not be undone overnight, but there are two growing issues that affect everyone that need to be addressed. If we do not fix the looming energy and housing crises, our entire nation will be struggling to bear the weight of everyday expenses. These crises will not be solved by the major parties, because they are being caused by the major parties. The Liberal Democrats look forward to a Victoria where the people have cheap, reliable and abundant energy to drive the economy, heat and cool their homes and charge their cars.

Government spends a fortune on propping up renewable energy in Victoria. When they say renewable energy is cheap, they are not counting the money they spend on it. Everything is cheap if you do not look at the actual price tag. Governments lie when they blame privatisation for price increases. The energy industry in Victoria is all but nationalised already. The government sets prices, controls sales and makes rules about every aspect of the business. Governments have almost complete control over the sector, and it is a disaster. We are paying more now for energy than ever before. The Liberal Democrats want to see an energy policy that cuts the subsidies for unreliable renewables, that removes restrictions on nuclear and allows access to natural gas in Victoria.

The Liberal Democrats want to see a Victoria where houses are affordable for everyone to buy or to rent, where in the long run new house prices rise no faster than the inflation rate and old house prices decline slightly every year. If our housing crisis is not turned around and quickly, we are going to derail our economy and our society for at least a generation. There are two changes that need to be made to right the ship and save the housing market. First, we need to scrap stamp duty. This tax is the worst tax in Australia. It is difficult to imagine inventing a worse one. Stamp duties cause a full dollar of additional damage to the economy for every dollar collected by the government. The effect of stamp duty is that moving house costs tens of thousands of dollars. This makes it difficult to get a job in another town, to change the size of your house as the size of your family changes and to adjust your expenses when your circumstances change. This tax must go. This is not a high tax versus low tax argument, it is a stupid tax versus efficient tax argument. We should not be using stupid, inefficient and destructive taxes when other options are available.

The other change in the housing market is to allow more houses to be built. The reason housing is so expensive is that there are more people wanting to live in cities than there are new houses being built to accommodate them. The only real solution is to increase the number of houses being built and to increase the density of that housing. This is a mathematical fact and a logical certainty. Subsidies, tax exemptions, lenders mortgage insurance schemes, government part-owner schemes, tenants rights, rent caps, first home buyer grants—none of these things do anything to fix the problem. The government planning controls restrict the amount of new housing being built. The only real solution is to wind back our planning and zoning restrictions and approve more development and construction. The solution to the housing shortage is to build more houses. Everyone should be able to afford a home, and by increasing the housing supply everybody will.

The Liberal Democrats look forward to a Victoria that has low taxes, a budget surplus and low levels of debt, a financially sustainable state with a public service achieving value for money with taxpayer dollars. The Liberal Democrats look forward to a Victoria where regional Victorians are respected and treated as equals, and perhaps that is a future where regional Victoria becomes the new state of Murray, where we can determine our own destiny. The Liberal Democrats have a positive vision for the future of Victoria. We want to see a free and prosperous state where Victorian rights are respected, where consent is always required and where Victorians are free to choose for themselves.

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:25): I rise to speak to Dr Cumming’s motion 832 calling on the government to establish a royal commission into Victoria’s response to COVID-19. I welcome Dr Cumming coming on board and supporting this initiative, because this is an initiative that the Liberals and Nationals announced in September of 2020, almost two years ago. Two years ago we said that a royal commission into the government’s COVID response because of the catastrophic failures and breaches in hotel quarantine where over 800 Victorians lost their lives needed to be looked at. We knew at the time that the contact-tracing failures were just catastrophic, that there were so many issues, that the public health unit had had budget cuts and were not set up properly to deal with COVID. We were told that 4000 intensive care unit beds would be there ready for Victorians, ready for our health system—we would be prepared. We were told that a surge capacity workforce would be in place. We were told a number of things at that point in time. Nothing eventuated.

Since that time there have been multiple failures, and never has the government acknowledged those failures. The issue of the curfew—the decision was made by Daniel Andrews himself. It was not a decision made by the chief health officer, who came out and said, ‘It wasn’t my advice’. So whose advice was it? That curfew was where Victorians were locked in their homes for 23 hours a day and restrictions were put in place on travel—Victorians were not able to cross the border to come home to their own homes, to have vital medical treatment or to say goodbye to dying loved ones. Thirty-three thousand Victorians were locked out of their own state. The Ombudsman found that that was inhumane.

There are so many issues with the government’s response. We have never had the truth or transparency around some of these decisions. We have been told, ‘Trust us. It’s the health advice’. We have never seen that. They brought in legislation, the pandemic declaration, that we all live under now. The Pandemic Declaration Accountability and Oversight Committee has not seen the chief health officer since 31 January this year. We have not even seen the chief health officer in that important oversight committee. Let us not forget that this Parliament was shut down during COVID, so there was no accountability, no ability to question government.

The failures of the Andrews government in their COVID response will go down as the worst in this state’s history. The policy decisions made by this government are the worst in our state’s history. This is the worst government this state has ever had, and we need to be looking at what has happened over the last 2½ years because of the catastrophic consequences—the mental health impacts on our children, with no face-to-face learning; the lockdowns, with the longest city lockdown in the world; and the numbers of suicides and cases of self-harm. Our health system is in crisis now. It is worse than it was before COVID because of the decisions of this government.

This motion goes to the heart of why we need to have a royal commission—to look at the issues, the policy decisions, the decisions made by the Premier alone, and then get to the bottom of that to ensure those failures are never repeated again. We can never again have happen what has happened over the last 2½ years. It has been catastrophic for too many Victorians. Too many Victorians have lost their lives, too many Victorians are going to have impacts that will affect them for the rest of their lives. The royal commission and what Dr Cumming is calling for is something that the Liberal-Nationals wholeheartedly support. It is a pity that the government does not support such an initiative when so many Victorians have lost their lives throughout this entire crisis.

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (14:30): The Independence Party want a change of direction in government, and the Independence Party want accountability, transparency and a royal commission. We all remember the protest at the CFMEU headquarters because they had to be masked working outdoors on construction sites. Construction workers marched over the West Gate Bridge against mandates. People sat on the steps of Parliament for weeks protesting. Parents and grandparents marched in the street for the health of their children. They marched for their children and the teenagers who had to wear masks when they had to go to school. And then this government shot protesters with rubber bullets. I know a nurse who pulled out a beanbag pellet from the back of someone’s arm—someone that was running away. This government was shooting people in the back who were too scared to say they were at a protest in fear of a $5000 fine. She said that that was not how to deal with a virus when we all knew from science that if we were outdoors where there was ventilation we were about 99 per cent safe. Our children had to wear cloth and surgical masks during summer, against the science. And now you are handing out N95 masks for free. You gave schools air purifiers and told them to keep their windows open, defeating the purpose. You need either ventilation or purification; you cannot have both at the same time.

This government has created confusion time and time again. They shut down playgrounds even though it was safer to be outdoors. They let us out for 2 hours a day, and we had a curfew. Apparently the virus must have been worse after 9.00 pm. What was the logic in the curfew? Where is the science to justify that? They created a vaccination economy. Where was the science to justify that? They stopped people from working. Where is the science to justify that? They split families apart at Christmas into the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Where is the science to justify that? They stopped us from celebrating weddings. Where is the science to justify that? They stopped us from attending funerals to farewell our loved ones. They stopped us from seeing our relatives in aged care. They stopped us from visiting families in hospitals. They stopped us from having elective surgery, and now we have a skyrocketing waiting list of people who sit at home in pain. There was no justification for shutting down surgeries—empty hospitals during a pandemic. It is mind-blowing. Where is the science to justify that?

We need a royal commission. This government will continually say that their daily Dans were the medical advice, were the science. But the community want the emails. They want the minutes of the meetings. They want to see the paperwork. They are not happy that this government have been so secretive. They do not want to hear ‘I don’t recall’ or ‘It’s not my job’. ScoMo just did that; look what happened to ScoMo—ScoMo, the minister for everything. We have our own dictator here. He only had eight ministers. I want a royal commission. Show me and show Victoria what you were doing, Dan.

House divided on motion:

Motion negatived.