Wednesday, 18 October 2023

Department of the Legislative Council

Overdue government responses to standing committee reports

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:20): I rise to speak on the ‘Overdue government responses to standing committee reports’ document tabled by your good self, President, on 31 August this year. I think all of us in this house are aware that the government’s allergy to scrutiny extends to Council committee reports and recommendations, so I was surprised to see just how short the President’s statement was: just four sentences long, less than half an A4 side. That was the first alarm bell. I can agree with the first of the sentences:

Standing Orders require the appropriate responsible Minister to provide the Council with a Government response to a Council committee report’s recommendations within six months of the report being tabled.

So I naturally expected a lengthy list. I know personally that two important inquiries have not received the courtesy of a reply, which is indefensible really when you consider the extraordinary time and effort gone to by witnesses, presenters, MPs and particularly house, Hansard and committee staff. The Environment and Planning Committee’s Inquiry into the Health Impacts of Air Pollution in Victoria report was tabled on 18 November 2021, and its Inquiry into Ecosystem Decline in Victoria report followed on 2 December 2021. The government has responded to neither. While not personally involved, I note also the Legal and Social Issues Committee’s Inquiry into Homelessness in Victoria report, tabled 4 March 2021, and its Inquiry into the Use of Cannabis in Victoria report, tabled 5 August 2021, have also not been responded to by government. Is the failure to reply just based on political sensitivity? Can the government not agree with their new friends and allies in the upper house on these matters? It is not as if they are unimportant matters. Housing in particular the government now claims has priority number one. Perhaps the new Minister for Housing can prove this apparent concern by expediting a response to the committee, which is now more than two years overdue.

The real point of my contribution, however, is to note that the President mentioned none of these reports. He wrote, and this is the key part:

As at 31 August 2023, there are no Government responses that were due to be provided and have not been provided in the preceding 12 months.

Those overdue matters have simply disappeared, been erased from the record. Is this how the Labor government operates? If something goes past a year overdue, it falls off the late list. I guess that explains their approach to major projects cancelled, postponed or simply years overdue. The West Gate Tunnel project is just one example. By the President’s reckoning it would not count as overdue. With Labor the mantra is ‘It’s so late it’s no longer late.’ We could add hospital waiting lists, pothole repairs, FOI inquiries, even the multiple apologies from our past and present Premiers. They just have to brazen it out for 12 months and the matters get scraped from the list. We taxpayers can only hope – we live in hope – for our own sake and for the sake of all Victorian taxpayers that the state of Victoria’s creditors take the same approach when the debts become due.

In all seriousness, President, I appreciate you complying with the letter of standing order 23.23(4), but I am sure you would not personally endorse this kind of political sophistry. Perhaps it is time for the rule to be changed.