Tuesday, 28 May 2024

Budget papers 2024–25

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Harriet Shing:

That the bill be now read a second time.

And Jaclyn Symes’s motion:

That the budget papers 2024–25 be taken into consideration.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (13:43): It is a delight to be speaking on what is not a very delightful budget for my electorate. It is quite a disappointing budget not just for my electorate but really the whole state. We continue on a downward spiral as a state. Almost $190 billion of debt we are staring down the barrel of. All the chickens are coming home to roost for this government when it comes to debt, when it comes to waste and mismanagement – waste and mismanagement of the budget that we have seen over and over and over again. We have got net debt predicted to reach $156 billion by 2024–25. The interest payments will hit $26 million per day by 2027–28. Imagine what $26 million could fund in Ms Bath’s community, in Mrs Broad’s community or in my community – $26 million per day. This is a result of the fact that Labor cannot manage money. When Labor waste with their $40 billion of infrastructure blowouts, someone has to pay for that, and because of the waste and mismanagement we have seen by that side of the house, the chaos that they have got themselves involved in with different ministers going out saying different things, other ministers having to clean up their mess and then the Deputy Premier doubling down, you have absolute chaos today on that side of the house.

It is clear they are tired. They are a decade-old government that have run out of ideas, they have run out of money and they are making Victorians pay the price. We have seen them jack up the waste charge, we have seen them jack up the waste levy, pushing it back onto regular punters that need to use the tip. Some of those on the other side that live in the inner city might not be aware of the crisis going on in our growth areas of illegal dumping of rubbish, but it is actually a very big issue in my community. All jacking up the waste levy does is insert barriers for people to legally dump rubbish. Instead we are seeing littering all throughout our community, particularly my community up in Greenvale and Roxburgh Park, where it is a major issue in that community. All Labor is doing is setting up barriers. They do not care that there is a cost-of-living crisis going on. They are passing and shifting their debt burden onto local councils, who are passing it on as well.

They do not care about the cost-of-living crisis, and we see the fact that they do not care about the cost-of-living crisis through their facetious attempt in giving money to schools. You can get $400, I think, a school voucher – well, it is not really a voucher, because it is going to schools – and it is going to only public schools. Victoria is the most expensive state to send your child to a public school. They have ripped away programs like school camps. It is more expensive to get a uniform in Victoria, for textbooks, for additional curricular activities et cetera, and they are saying, ‘After we’ve taken away all of that and made all that more expensive, here’s $400 to the public schools, and they will administer it.’ So you are creating more of an administrative burden for public schools. Certainly the principals I have spoken to do not even know how they are going to administer it. It seems to have been cooked up at the last minute because they might have realised, or some might have realised, there is a cost-of-living crisis.

But take this for an example – and this shows the discrimination going on over on that side for parents who value choice. It is not just the schools tax which they have flip-flopped on – and Tim Richardson is on one side and Labor members are on another, but it is not just that – it is the discrimination going on with this $400 for each and every family in public schools. It is discrimination against parents who value choice. Parents who decides to send their child to a low-fee Catholic school like, say, Our Lady of the Way primary school in Wallan, where the average house price is around $590,000 to $600,000 – a huge cost-of-living crisis up in Wallan – do not get the voucher, they do not get the support, but a public school in Albert Park, where the average house price is well over $1 million, they get the support from this Labor government.

This government have forgotten the outer suburbs, they are discriminating against parents who value choice, and we will not let them forget it. We will not let them forget it. This government wants to give money to public schools to administer and would rather have it go to a well-to-do area in the inner city than to parents who choose to send their children to a low-fee Catholic primary school in an area like Wallan. This is the discrimination that comes from that side, where decisions are made from within the tram tracks. It is showing contempt for parents and families who value choice, who value sending their children to our great independent schools and faith-based schools, in our growth areas in particular. But we see the government all over the place on a whole bunch of issues.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Evan MULHOLLAND: It is easy for me, Mr McIntosh, to stand here and speak about how cooked the budget is, but I thought I might let other people do that – people like the multiple Labor sources that have recently spoken on background. There is one who spoke to the ABC about the state budget before the budget, a Labor MP who said:

“The chickens are coming home to roost in this budget,” one Labor figure quipped this week, reflecting concerns that Andrews and his close allies in cabinet had borrowed too much money to pay for pet projects in the past.

Sonja Terpstra: On a point of order, I am not sure that the content that Mr Mulholland is referring to is relevant to the bill that we are actually dealing with at the moment. I think Mr Mulholland should confine his comments to the bill that is before the house.

The PRESIDENT: Ms Terpstra, I think they are comments relating to the budget.

Sonja Terpstra: No, it is just a newspaper article.

The PRESIDENT: He is the first speaker on the bill. The first speaker has latitude –

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: I think it is related to the bill.

Evan MULHOLLAND: We have got some others. We have got cabinet ministers, MPs and education sources in relation to all the school upgrades that they have delayed in this budget. They have moved them to the off years – they managed to save a lot in Labor electorates, but if your electorate is a Liberal electorate, a Nationals electorate or a Greens electorate, they popped it off to the out years: no school upgrades for you if you do not vote Labor. They treat the Victorian community with absolute contempt. A source said ‘It’s a bit of a bloodbath’ in regard to school funding in Victoria. Others say the budgeting is very bad. Someone said to the Age:

“It points to bad budgeting and potentially a poor reading to markets,”

That shows the faith people have in the Treasurer.

But we see yet again the government prioritising the Suburban Rail Loop – $216 billion according to our independent Parliamentary Budget Office, so that gets all the money. But worthwhile projects like the Melton to Wyndham Vale train line electrification do not get a guernsey. We saw today the outer metropolitan ring road, which my constituents in the north have been advocating for for a very long time, has been put on ice almost permanently because the government has run out of money. We have today a situation where the government has now said it is backing the BIFT – the Beveridge intermodal freight terminal – which is great news, after great advocacy from my colleague Richard Welch in putting it on the national agenda. When the Morrison government provided the funding and came up with it, it was panned – it was panned by Jacinta Allan, it was panned by Catherine King. Jacinta Allan said that the western interstate freight terminal needed to come first and was prioritised. Countless state government spokespeople said that the western suburbs needed to be prioritised.

What has happened is, because Labor cannot manage money, it is people in the west who have paid the price, and people in the north have paid the price as well due to the scrapping of the outer metropolitan ring road. What was always proposed was that the state government would need to provide funding to Camerons Lane, a 50–50 split. The federal government, even Labor, had proposed $150 million for that project. But then we get Albo up in Beveridge announcing that he will fund the whole thing. Why is that? Because the state government, Labor, have run out of money. They cannot manage money and so they have needed the federal government to bail them out on that.

The federal government spent two years doing some weird infrastructure review where they basically ended up recommitting what the Morrison government had already delivered. So you have got a situation where they said it was a press release announcement but then took two years to do a review that shows that it is the real deal and is going to deliver 20,000 jobs for my community in the northern suburbs. But it was panned, universally panned by Jacinta Allan, universally panned by Labor MPs. They refused to do permits for anything because they prioritised the western suburbs. They have now chosen the option where they basically have to do nothing outside of now prioritising the BIFT. They now acknowledge how good the inland rail is going to be. We have seen that they cannot manage money, and we have seen them neglect both the north and the west through their scrapping of the outer metropolitan ring road, but this is what we should come to expect when you have got a government that wastes and then it taxes, and somebody has to pay for that.

We have got an enormous amount of cost blowouts, and the really important thing for Victorians to remember is that at every decision where there has been a blowout, Jacinta Allan, the Premier, has been involved in it. She was the infrastructure minister. She was the Minister for the Commonwealth Games. She was the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop. We have got North East Link promised at $5 billion, the valuation at $18 billion, current budget at $26.2 billion. That is $21.2 billion blowout. The West Gate Tunnel: promised, $500 million; revised cost, $5.5 billion; 2024–25 budget, $10.2 billion. That is a cost blowout of $4.7 billion, because Labor cannot manage money, and it is Victorians that are paying the price. You have got Metro Tunnel promised at $9 billion; 2022–23 budget, $12.36 billion; current budget, $13.03 billion. That is a cost blowout of over $4 billion. It literally means nothing to these people.

They are throwing Victorian taxpayers money down a pit, because they lie in part; they cannot stand up to the CFMEU bosses; we are seeing more trouble today in the paper, where they are wanting to take over garbos from local councils; they do not like who is being sworn in tomorrow night; there is an almighty war going on within the Labor Party in regard to the CFMEU takeover. They cannot stand up to them on our construction sites in Victoria. We will enforce the construction code. We will bring back construction enforcement Victoria to make sure there are no cost blowouts, because every single one of those cost blowouts there is – $40 billion – means that things cannot get done in our community.

My rail line up to Wallan cannot be electrified – they are plunging hundreds of thousands of homes into my community, stealing the stamp duty out of that community to prop up this state budget and send it over to the eastern suburbs for the Suburban Rail Loop. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of homes going into the western suburbs, into Melton and Wyndham Vale. Labor promised at two separate elections that they would deliver that project. Now it is being put off into the never-never. They are stealing all the stamp duty money out of that community, putting it into the Suburban Rail Loop and putting it into other projects because Labor cannot manage money, and it is the people of Wyndham Vale, the people of Melton, the people of Wallan and the people of Greenvale that are paying the price – because they cannot manage money.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:58): It gives me great pleasure to rise to make a contribution on the Appropriation (2024–25) Bill 2024, and I am excited to rise to talk about some of these things our government is funding, because fundamentally what our government, the Allan Labor government, understands is what this budget has at the heart of it is to support families, because we know families are doing it tough. We understand there is a –

The PRESIDENT: Order! Ms Terpstra, sorry. Mr Mulholland sat down because he thought there was a point of order, so I am going to confuse the hell out of the house by resetting the clock at 14 minutes.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (13:59): I am just getting started. I am not done. We have got a massive amount of blowouts because Labor are sinking everything into a tunnel. We know that there are a few good members of cabinet – but I think they are in the minority – that do not think we should be proceeding with the Suburban Rail Loop and think we should actually fund projects in the western suburbs and the northern suburbs for once, but we miss out. One of the projects that has missed out over and over again – I am sure Mr Erdogan knows about it because he probably drives on it – is the second stage of Mickleham Road in my electorate up in Greenvale and Kalkallo. It is a single-lane road. The government is only actually duplicating 1.6 kilometres of Mickleham Road, from Somerton Road to Dellamore Boulevard. I have been advocating over and over that this needs to be duplicated all the way to Craigieburn Road, which would make sense. This government, as I was saying before, approved, against the wishes of Hume City Council, against the wishes of the community, and railroaded through the Craigieburn West Precinct Structure Plan, wanting all the stamp duty from the 10,000 homes that are going to go in there to spend in the western suburbs. This is a single-lane road, that stretch, which means in the north in Greenvale, up to Mickleham and up to Craigieburn is going to end up like another Kalkallo, where people cannot get in and out of their housing estates because Labor have not funded the proper infrastructure required to keep pace with growth.

You would think if they were not committing $216 billion to a Suburban Rail Loop, if they did not have $40 billion of infrastructure projects, if they were able to stand up to the CFMEU bosses, we might actually be able to duplicate Mickleham Road all the way to Craigieburn Road or even all the way to Mount Ridley Road. It is costing $222 million. The former federal Liberal government contributed 50 per cent to that project. It is $222 million, but for only 1.6 kilometres. To put that into perspective, when 6.6 kilometres of Plenty Road was duplicated in around 2019 or 2020, that cost $145 million for 6.6 kilometres. But now for $222 million we can only do 1.6 kilometres. And we saw several front pages of the Australian Financial Review about the Mickleham Road site, about Indigenous labour hire firms being pushed out for the preferred ones of the CFMEU bosses. I get several people complaining to me every day about the intersection of Somerton Road and Mickleham Road. There have been several crashes and several near misses, and it is a constant source of frustrations.

But I am trying to give examples in my community of all the things that could actually be funded. Maybe in the western suburbs maternal and child health services could actually get proper funding and support so they did not cut off maternal and child health services in Wyndham after eight weeks. But this is the consequence of a government that cannot manage money. It has wasted $40 billion on infrastructure blowouts – $40 billion of cash down the drain, set alight, by the Labor Party – because they cannot manage money, they cannot stand up to the CFMEU bosses, so maternal and child health services in Melton and in Wyndham Vale are cut off at eight weeks. As a young dad who still goes to maternal and child health services, I can tell you eight weeks is not long enough, and this government does not seem to understand that just because you live in a growth suburb does not mean you should not still have access to basic services that everyone else has access to.

I was talking about the vital electrifications that are needed in my community but also in Melton and Wyndham Vale because they are still stuck on V/Line services. I know that Mr Welch knows as well, as a former candidate in that area, that when the train gets to Donnybrook it is already full, which means people are standing clogged into V/Line trains all the way to Southern Cross. It is not a flash experience. But it also negatively affects people in Mrs Broad’s electorate, because it is not a great experience for them either, particularly at peak hour. The same goes with Melton and Wyndham Vale. They do not have electrification, even though they were promised it by the Labor Party not one time at an election but twice. Twice at elections they were promised electrification. Geelong was promised a fast rail, and Daniel Andrews said that we could have both, that we could have hospitals and we could have infrastructure. Clearly he has gone now because he realised he could not do either, and the Labor Party has said that we cannot have one and not the other so we can have neither. That is what it seems like when it comes to this government.

You have got the government touting in media releases that V/Line is the fastest growing regional rail network in Australia, and they are proud of it. It is only the fastest growing because this government is ramming through precinct structure plans in growth areas and not upgrading the infrastructure around them. V/Line was never designed to cope with towns of hundreds of thousands of people, and this is what we are getting under this government. It is only the fastest growing rail network in Australia because this government has treated our growth areas – our former regional communities – with absolute contempt.

They are wasting $216 billion on a suburban rail loop. There are $40 billion of infrastructure blowouts that they have lit alight, and every single one of those infrastructure blowouts the Premier has had a hand in. She is a former Minister for Transport Infrastructure. Six hundred million dollars was set alight because she was the Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery. Now that she is the Premier we are seeing an enormous amount of waste and mismanagement. She cannot stand up to the CFMEU bosses. She cannot manage money – this entire government cannot manage money. They have completely forgotten people in the growth areas of Melbourne that are desperate for services, that are desperate for maternal and child health services, that are desperate for basic infrastructure, that are desperate for new bus routes which, despite the government’s announcements, they are not really getting – not to the same extent that some of our inner-city suburbs get.

I think people in growth areas are pretty darn sick of seeing signs out at their new homes that say ‘Bus stop coming soon’. It is usually put up by the developer or the real estate agent, and then the bus stop does not come for about five or six years. We are seeing so many cases where like in Kalkallo the bus swivels in at the front of the estate and then swivels out, because it was designed a long time ago, but there is still housing several kilometres back. That is a sign of this government, and I think it shows neglect by this government.

I want to talk again about some reflections by not me but others on this government. I know Labor figures have said that the Premier is hamstrung by debt and a worsening cost-of-living crisis, which is apparently driving anti-government sentiment. You would think so. She only needs to travel out to Melton train station in the morning to see the contempt that they are showing this lot. We were out with the shadow cabinet in the south-western suburbs, out in Werribee, and I tell you the community are certainly frustrated with this government. They are angry at this government. Do you know how many times they have been promised a Melton hospital? Twice they have been promised electrification. We see it over and over again. Others – Labor MPs by the way – are saying:

I still don’t know if there’s a long-term strategy or if it’s dealing day to day with the punches, administering in the moment … I don’t know where the narrative writers are.

It shows that under the previous Premier it was all about spin and no substance. Another MP said that the new Premier’s time:

… had been chewed up clearing thorny problems left behind by Andrews, leaving no “clear air” for a new agenda or vision.

‘Left behind by Andrews’ – as I described it, she has been at the table in charge of every single decision they are responsible for. She is responsible for it. The Premier is responsible for it, the cabinet is responsible for it – that is how it happens in our Westminster system. Another Labor figure said:

… Andrews and his inner circle were not confident a majority was guaranteed in 2022 and had promised far-flung election commitments that were proving difficult to deliver.

“They threw the kitchen sink at it,” they said. “I think some of that was always going to come apart,” another said.

So Labor MPs are basically admitting that promises mean nothing in an election, that their word is trash. That is what they are saying – their own word is ‘trash’. Yet again they blame Andrews and his inner circle. Who was in Daniel Andrews’s inner circle? It was Premier Jacinta Allan. She was at every table. She promised the Arden precinct. She promised the Melton to Wyndham Vale rail line. She promised the Wallan diamond in my electorate, which still has no funding – southern-facing ramps onto the Hume. She promised all of these things. She, with Andrews, said we could have it all – we could have hospitals and we could have infrastructure. What she should have said: ‘We can have hospitals, but we’re going to merge a whole bunch of them into one; so it’s still hospitals, there are just a whole lot less of them, so there are less services for people.’ They know that it was always going to come apart. Another said the mantra of ‘getting it done’ was always going to be a challenge to that rhetoric. One said:

Delivery is your brand. No one cares about the Commonwealth Games, but its cancellation was the first visible chink in that armour and delays to projects like airport rail will continue to damage that reputation.

And they are all over the place on airport rail. You have got the Deputy Premier, after a long dispute, saying, ‘We can’t have it – we can’t have the airport rail underground; it can’t possibly be underground.’ I remember when the government came out with a stunt up at the airport saying it was not called ‘airport rail’, it was called ‘SRL airport’. The entire SRL is a tunnel, which will need to go underground, so you have got the government on one hand saying it cannot be underground but on the other hand saying, ‘We will build a tunnel underground.’ Then you have got this week the ridiculous shenanigans where you have got the Deputy Premier on one hand, Mr Galea’s friend, saying that he was open to an underground rail line, and ‘If the airport stacks up’ – and I know he has worked very closely with the airport; he has a lot of friends at the airport – ‘then let’s do it. If they’ve got the $7 billion, we’re open to that.’ Danny Pearson again comes in today and squashes that idea, says it is a ridiculous proposal – ‘We can’t do it.’ The Deputy Premier then comes in and says, ‘Oh, I think it might be able to be done.’ So you have got enormous division within this government. You have got people in the cabinet supposedly saying we should hit ‘Stop’ on the SRL, maybe fund projects in the west, in the north. That would be nice, particularly for my community, if we get some people – I do think they are in a minority – actually paying attention to people in growth areas in my community and in the western suburbs, because this government has done an awful job at the budget. They cannot manage money. They increase taxes, and Victorians are paying the price for Labor’s mismanagement.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:13): I will have a reprise of my earlier false start in regard to this matter. It does give me great pleasure to rise to make a contribution on the Appropriation (2024–2025) Bill 2024. Of course this is our very important budget bill that we are debating today in this chamber, and as I said, it gives me great pleasure to rise to talk about this, because it means that I get to talk about all the great things that are going to be funded in this budget. Of course what is at the heart of this budget – and this is something that the Allan Labor government fundamentally understands – is that we are about helping families. We are about helping families and tackling the cost-of-living crisis, and a number of things that are germane to this budget are in fact designed to help families with some of these costs. Of course as a parent myself I can remember well that when I was putting my kids through school, and my kids are proudly public school educated, we had to buy things like uniforms and shoes. They are always growing out of shoes; I think every six months your kids need a new pair of shoes because they just grow so fast.

One of the really important measures that is part of this budget includes the $400 school saving bonus, which will help families pay for uniforms, camps and excursions. As I said, public education is free in Victoria, but of course you have still got to find some money for all these things. This bonus is designed to and is going to help parents and carers of every child enrolled in a government school in 2025. I want to respond to something Mr Mulholland said; he read something into the record that was not right, so it is important that I correct it. As I said, the school saving bonus is open to parents and carers of every child enrolled in a government school in 2025. For non-government schools – which you do not like to hear about, but it is the truth and we have got to make sure we get this on the record properly – families that are eligible for the means-tested Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund, including healthcare and concession card holders, will also be eligible for the additional $400 support. You do not like the facts. I know, never let the facts get in the way of a good story, Mr Mulholland. It is something you do not want to hear, but it is true, so we need to talk about that.

The other thing that I want to talk about is we are also tripling our free Glasses for Kids program and more vouchers to cover the cost of kids sport. Just on the glasses thing, I want to talk to the house about this. I had a young fellow staying with me. He actually was not so young, he was a teenager. I actually said to him – he was in year 12 – ‘Have you ever had your eyes tested?’ He had never had his eyes tested. For whatever reason, his parents did not get around to that. So I helped him and explained to him the process for going through and getting his eyes tested. Someone like him actually would have benefited from this program. The expansion of this program will mean that between 2024 and 2027, 108,000 prep to grade 3 students will be able to get a free eye screening and glasses, across 770 government schools. I know what it is like; I have got spectacles on. Funnily enough I did not need mine until I was about 21, but I could just imagine: if you are a kid in school and you do not know – if you have not had your eyes tested – and you are sitting in the back of the class and looking up at the board and it is a bit blurry, you might just assume that that is what it is, and it is only later on that you might turn to a friend or someone and say, ‘Hey, can you actually see what’s on the board?’ and they might say, ‘Yes, I can.’ This is critically important, because quite often if kids are having trouble seeing what is on the board then they are going to be having trouble studying, and they might find it all a bit disruptive. This is really important. I know myself, as someone who wears glasses – as I know Minister Shing, as a bespectacled person in here, will understand – that glasses can be expensive.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Glasses can be expensive, and your prescription can change with time, so having to go backwards and forwards to an optometrist to get that done costs a lot of money. This is going to be a really welcome change for kids who may need glasses, and it will help to pick them up early – like I said, not like the young fellow who was living with me for a while, who got into his late teens and was in year 12 before he realised that he actually needed glasses. Not only is it an important cost-of-living measure to help families with those costs, it is going to help the kids study, it is going to help them engage more in the classroom. It really ticks a number of boxes. Like I said, family is really at the heart of this budget, and those are just two measures that are funded in this budget. They are very, very important.

We are continuing to upgrade our classrooms, invest in our teachers and give families confidence and our kids a great education. We are continuing our theme that we have had throughout the last government under Daniel Andrews; under the Allan Labor government we are going to continue to invest in our schools. We are rebuilding our schools. We are making sure the kids in Victoria, if they are in a public school, have got the most modern and fit-for-purpose facilities that they need to continue to learn and thrive in our public education system. We are going to continue to build more schools, particularly in growth areas. We are on track to continue to deliver. We have promised $1.8 billion to build, maintain and upgrade schools across our state and to deliver on our promise to build 100 new schools by 2026. That is a really important commitment, because we know that people in Victoria have confidence in our public education system. We know that in growth areas where housing is being approved, we need to make sure that we have those services. That is $1.8 billion to build, maintain and upgrade schools, and as I have said, we have promised to deliver 100 new schools by 2026.

There are so many things that I could talk about in here. I am going to focus on some of the things that are in my own electorate as well. There is $996 million to switch on our Big Build transport projects, including the Metro Tunnel and the West Gate Tunnel. Neither of those things are in my electorate of course; however, the North East Link project is a fantastic project. This will mean so much to my community. I live in Heidelberg, and I know the communities of Heidelberg, Rosanna and Viewbank, and even Watsonia, Greensborough and many more, are all going to benefit from the North East Link. It is colloquially known – perhaps fondly or not so fondly – to those who live in those suburbs as the missing link. It is something that had been proposed for a long, long time, and I am really pleased and happy to say that so many people in my electorate support the building of this fantastic infrastructure project. North East Link will connect the end of the freeway through to the Eastern Freeway. It will return local roads to local communities, getting thousands of trucks off the roads every day, and that will make such a massive difference to my community. People have been talking about it for many, many years, so that is a really important project that I cannot wait to see delivered.

It is amazing. Every time I drive up the Greensborough Highway, if I am heading out to Bundoora or somewhere, I drive alongside the construction site there at Watsonia, and I just love looking at it. There is so much going on there. There are so many piling rigs there and there are cranes there, and it is a massive site. I drove back home the other day going through Bundoora, heading down the Greensborough Highway towards Heidelberg, and I could just see it. I was thinking, ‘Right, that’s where the portal is, and that’s where the tunnel boring machines are going to go and get boring and go underground and make that tunnel happen.’ It will go under the Banyule Flats, and that is a really important thing. The Banyule Flats are something that people were very, very clear about. They did not want to see a flyover through those flats, and the Banyule Flats and the really important environmental aspects – whether it is wildlife or whether it is the Yarra River, which goes through there as well – will all be protected. That is why Victorians, particularly in my electorate, embraced this project. They voted for it.

I will talk about the Suburban Rail Loop in a minute. I know those opposite want to pan it, but people voted in support of it. It is an amazing project that I cannot wait to see delivered. It is an amazing thing to see. I know having a rail link available for people who currently do not have a rail link is something that is going to be very welcomed by many, many people in my electorate. As I said, it is something we took to the election and it is something that people voted on. We have a mandate to deliver those programs, despite what those opposite might say.

I might also talk for a moment about – and I will come back to the Suburban Rail Loop – the state budget housing allocation as well. There is $216 million extra in the housing portfolio, with $197 million designed to address homelessness, $18.7 million to deliver modern IT maintenance systems for public housing and renters and $1.1 million for food relief services for social housing renters, and it builds on our $9.8 billion investment in housing and homelessness since 2014.

In my electorate, particularly in Croydon, I was really pleased to go and open with Minister Shing, the Minister for Housing, some fantastic housing on Lusher Road. I think there are 137 brand new homes. We had a fantastic visit there. We got to speak to some public housing tenants. I have to say I was so impressed with the quality and the standard of these apartments. It is what Labor governments do. We actually do what we say we are going to do: we fund it and we deliver on it. It is something that those opposite do not care about. When they were in government they did nothing, right? What they actually believe in is small government and no government and for government to just get out of the way and let the market rip. Well, we all know that that produces failures, and that is why this government, as I said at the beginning of this contribution, will fund the programs that make a difference to people who need governments to step in. Again, it is all very well if you are a wealthy business owner or you are a millionaire and you do not need to rely on the government – that is all very well and good – but we make sure in our budgets that families are at the heart of them. As I said, we will go on to deliver housing relief for many, many Victorians, and there is so much. Like I said, the landmark record-breaking $5.3 billion investment in the Big Housing Build will deliver more than 12,000 new dwellings across the state. As I said, 137 new dwellings at Lusher Road, Croydon, was absolutely amazing. Community Housing Limited are the ones that are delivering those projects. Those projects are going to absolutely mean the world to so many people, and it is just amazing.

Just on the Suburban Rail Loop for a moment, the part of the Suburban Rail Loop that we are developing is known as Suburban Rail Loop East. It will run from a number of places. It will go from Box Hill right down to Clayton and cut through Glen Waverley and the like. It is so important to my community. Like I said, it will go from Cheltenham right up to Box Hill. It is known as Suburban Rail Loop East, and it will basically connect major employment, health, education and retail destinations in Melbourne’s east and south-east. The line will slash travel times and connect people travelling on the Gippsland corridor, and building it will create up to 8000 direct jobs. Construction has already started, and trains will be running by 2035. That is why in this budget – and as I talked about in some of the funding for the Big Build projects and other projects that we are funding – these things will make a massive difference to people’s lives, particularly in my region, the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region. I cannot wait to see these projects being delivered.

I mentioned Metro Tunnel before. I have had the benefit of going down and seeing some of the progress that has been made in the Metro Tunnel, and it is amazing to go down and see that we will actually have a modern train service, another inner loop, that means we can get more train services on train lines. Of course the other program that we are funding is the level crossing removal authority. We are removing those level crossings. Seventy-seven are already gone, and what that will mean is that we can put more services on and can then reduce congestion around roads as well. Obviously I talked about North East Link, so we are funding roads, but we are also funding public transport. Melbourne in particular is one of the fastest growing cities and communities in Australia. So we know that if we do not do anything, then our roads will just become gridlocked. We have got the planning and the foresight to make sure that people can get around, get to where they need to be, get to work on time and basically make sure that roads support the community in what they need to do in getting around.

We are making sure there is proper investment, thoughtful urban planning and local projects that build on the character and qualities of local communities with safe and attractive neighbourhoods as Melbourne grows. Look, there is so much more that I can talk about. Again, we have got $41 million to deliver maternal and child health and fertility health care to more families and bubs. We have got $700 million to extend the Victorian Homebuyer Fund. Importantly, and something that is close to my heart, there is $555 million to build the workforces we need for the future, including supporting skills and TAFEs. We have got $302 million to support fire- and flood-impacted communities, helping them recover and rebuild for the long term. There is $273 million to support Aboriginal families and communities. The list goes on and on and on. There is $129 million to continue the statewide rollout of our early education reforms, including universal three-year-old kinder and supporting families with free kinder, and, importantly, there is $211 million to help keep women and children safe and support victims of family violence as well.

I have got 1 second left on the clock, so I commend this bill to the house.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (14:29): Right now people are looking to their government for support. They are asking: what are you doing to tackle the housing crisis? Are you taking action to ease the cost of living? They want to know how each and every member in this chamber is using their influence to relieve the daily stress of putting food on the table, of keeping a roof over their heads or of trying to decide if they can afford a healthcare visit or to turn the heating on. The reality is bleak. Life is tough for many in the community at the moment.

When we look at renters, there is not a single home on the private rental market that a person on Youth Allowance can afford – not even a share house. If you are on the minimum wage working full time, less than 1 per cent of homes are affordable. People are having to pay, on average, $200 more rent a week than they did before the pandemic. Recent forecasts show that if governments continue with business as usual, like they are doing, things are set to get much worse over the coming years. Then we look at public housing. The public housing waiting list has grown to over 120,000 people. The most vulnerable, such as women fleeing family violence, are having to wait nearly two years. Thirty thousand Victorians are experiencing homelessness every single night, and yet this government is walking away from public housing.

Cost of living – people who have never faced food insecurity are now struggling to afford groceries, are skipping meals or going without. In the past year around a third of households experienced moderate or severe food insecurity at some point. That means they skipped a meal or went without food for a day. Community service organisations are overwhelmed with requests for food and material aid. Calls to Lifeline are going through the roof because of the cost-of-living pressures people are facing.

Then we look at the environment, which we all depend on for our health and wellbeing. We are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate, and the impacts of climate change are being lived by Victorians right now, particularly in rural, regional and coastal areas. The need to invest in protecting our environment, rapidly transition off fossil fuels and support communities to withstand the impacts of climate change that are already locked in is greater now than ever before, yet this Labor government not only massively underinvests in the environment already, they are cutting spending. This budget continues the trend of reducing funding for environmental protection and to the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action over the forward estimates.

Our economic system is failing people and the environment. For too long we have been led to believe that it is normal, that it is okay, to put the interests of those doing well – big corporations, the fossil fuel industry, wealthy investors who own multiple homes, property developers, the big supermarkets – ahead of the interests of everyday people and the environment. Governments have left essential services like supermarkets unregulated and private markets deciding how much people should pay for essentials. This country has been treating housing as a commodity rather than a human right. Just this week I was speaking to a worker at a service for people experiencing homelessness in my electorate, who told me about how council and the police went around clearing away tents right across the city, and sleeping bags, due to complaints about the growing number of tents and sleeping bags appearing on the streets. These people’s possessions were cleared and chucked into the back of a truck. People are literally now being evicted from the streets. What sort of society is this? Is this who we really want to be?

For all the talk of debt and deficit – and we have heard a bit of that already – it is easy to forget that budgets are about priorities. They are about choices. This budget was the government’s chance to choose to stand with everyday people and to make sure that everyone has a safe and secure place to call home, to make sure that people can afford to feed their families, to improve access to basic public health services like dental care. The government could have acted with urgency, because the immediacy of these stresses is so real for so many. But this budget is more of the same – more of the status quo. It is a do-nothing budget.

The Greens have presented an alternative vision that reflects the real-life experiences of Victorians, and it is one we will continue to fight for. We will fight for real action for renters, like controls on rent to deliver immediate relief and make unlimited rent increases illegal; like a massive increase in genuine public housing; like regulating supermarkets to ensure that food is affordable. We can do all of this and more by making big companies, who are too often facilitated by government to profiteer from everyday Victorians, pay their fair share of tax. The so-called opposition is up in arms about debt and deficit, but their only response is to cut spending, to cut services. This is not an alternative vision that people need, especially not right now.

The Greens’ revenue measures ensure greater equity and mean we can deliver more. The big banks are effectively subsidised currently, and if we taxed them, we could recoup $5.3 billion over the forward estimates. That is a choice the government could make. The social housing levy that Labor, cowardly, walked away from, could raise $760 million, while increasing the online gambling tax could raise $600 million and a windfall profit tax could raise $8.6 billion. These are all choices the government could be making. Imagine how much better life could be for Victorians if this was a vision shared by their government. A vision that prioritises people having a roof over their heads and food on the table is not one that should be revolutionary, but right now, compared to the vacuous offerings of Labor and the coalition, it is. For the Greens these are key priorities, and we will continue to fight for them every day.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:35): I rise to speak to the Appropriation (2024–25) Bill 2024 that we are debating today, and what we have seen from Labor is a very high spending, high taxing government that will see generations of Victorians pay for the mismanagement of Victoria’s budget. As we have seen in this budget there are cuts in areas that did not need to be cut in the areas of life-saving cancer treatments and research. The VCCC Alliance having 75 per cent of their funding cut in this budget just shows the priorities of the Allan Labor government. Their priorities are to spend on the suburban rail link, a project that not even the Deputy Premier supports. He is at odds with the Treasurer and the Premier –

Michael Galea interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Well, your Deputy Premier, Mr Galea, does not support the government’s approach on Suburban Rail Loop. You want to go and read the news today and go and speak to your Deputy Premier, because he does not support the Premier or the Treasurer on this.

Michael Galea interjected.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! All right. Thank you.

Georgie CROZIER: Through you, Acting President, I know the backbench and Labor are very worried. They should be – this is a shocking budget, and the Suburban Rail Loop is a shocking project. No-one supports it – not Infrastructure Australia; not the Grattan Institute, their own think tank with their own people; or a whole range of people, and the government will not even release the contracts, so Victorians do not have full transparency on what their government has actually signed Victorians up to. This is going to be decades of debt that this government –

Michael Galea interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Mr Galea, I know you are sensitive, but the Deputy Premier himself does not support the Suburban Rail Loop. He is at odds with the Premier and the Treasurer. Your own people – you are all fighting, you are all in angst and you are all over the place. He wants the airport rail link, not the Suburban Rail Loop. That is what the Deputy Premier wants, yet the Premier and the Treasurer are saying, ‘No, we’re going ahead.’ You are all over the place. The government is all over the place.

I want to just go back to what the government has done. They talk the big game constantly. They promise Victorians that they can do it all. Remember what former Premier Daniel Andrews did – he has gone off into the sunset. He knew it was spiralling out of control, because he set Victorians up to fail, and by God his legacy is one that I have banged on about for years and I will bang on for years about it, because he has set this state up in such a dire situation. He promised Victorians that we would have both hospitals and rail, and now the government is saying, ‘No, you choose. Victorians have got to choose. They’ve got to do the hard yards. We’ve got to cut here.’ And they are. They are amalgamating hospitals all over the state; the communities have not even been consulted, and what a disgrace that is. They are all up in arms about that. This government do not consult with the community, and they have not consulted on the Suburban Rail Loop. In my area around Cheltenham they do not want that. They do not understand the value of their properties and the taxes they will have to pay. You never explained that to them before you went to the 2022 election, Mr Galea, and so to say that the people voted for it is not true, because you never put the case to Victorians properly. You never –

Michael Galea interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Well, your Deputy Premier does not support you or the Treasurer or the Premier, because he is at odds with you. The Deputy Premier is positioning himself to take over from Jacinta – she should be very worried. That is what Labor does – they put a woman in, and she has to wear all the garbage that Labor men leave her. Well, you know, John Cain did it with Joan Kirner, but I have got to tell you Jacinta Allan is a clone of Daniel Andrews.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Minister Shing! I know it is tax time, but it is too early in the week for all this yelling. Can we keep it down, please?

Georgie CROZIER: Thank you, Acting President. I have got to say that the difference between Joan Kirner and Jacinta Allan is that Jacinta Allan is just a clone of Daniel Andrews. She has been around him and been tied to his hip, and she is identical. She was the minister for infrastructure, and the budget blowouts have blown out by billions of dollars. She made the decisions. The Arden precinct was sacked in this budget. They went to the Victorian public and spouted that they were going to have the biggest medical precinct in the nation and were going to provide a new home for the biomedical sector, a new home for the Women’s and a new home for the Royal Melbourne. They cannot do it, and as a result, that investment for the biomedical sector has flooded out of this state. That is what they are telling me. It has been a disaster for the sector. And again, it is Labor lying to Victorians.

Michael Galea interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Well, I asked in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC), Mr Galea, where the Women’s and the Royal Melbourne are going, and you could not answer it. Your government, your minister and department –

Michael Galea: That was answered, actually. It is on the site in Parkville.

Georgie CROZIER: No, they did not. We said, ‘Where is the site?’

Michael Galea: On the site in Parkville, and you were tutting and muttering in the background. We could all hear you.

Georgie CROZIER: Through the Chair. I have got to say, this government says one thing to the Victorian public, then they con them. They did it with the Commonwealth Games. They have done it with this Arden medical precinct. They go to the public and say, ‘We can do it all.’ They said they could build hospitals and do the Suburban Rail Loop. They cannot. They are sending this state broke. The debt is spiralling out of control. Victorians know it, and you know it. Members of the government know it. It is spiralling out of control. At $187 billion, it is $25 million a day in interest that Victorians will be paying in just a couple of years time. This is irresponsible. Let us not forget what Daniel Andrews said as well. He said in 2014, ‘I give you my word – no new taxes.’ Well, we have got 55 new or increased taxes: a tax on schools, a health tax –

A member interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: I do not care what he said. Are you interjecting that Daniel Andrews said he did not drink? Well, he drinks a lot. We all know that. We know that.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! This is starting to get a bit personal now on a former Premier.

Georgie CROZIER: Well, you know what, that man is responsible for a lot. He conned Victorians. This government conned Victorians, and they have let Victorians down.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): I might just take a moment here. We have got wildly off track here. Let us keep it not personal to individuals, and let us move on and talk about tax.

Georgie CROZIER: Well, I say it because the former Premier made a multitude of promises to the Victorian public. In 2018 he promised 10 community hospitals. Now three have been scrapped. In 2022 he promised Australia’s biggest medical precinct. That has been scrapped. He promised we could do the Commonwealth Games. That has been scrapped. And Jacinta Allan has been by his side the whole way, so I do think there is a problem with this government and what they are saying to Victorians and what they are actually delivering. What they are delivering Victorians is record debt, record taxes and unbelievable spending that is causing increased inflation, and that is a problem for not only Victorians but also Australians. It is reckless and it is irresponsible, and they seem not to understand how dire this situation is. I am completely frustrated when you have got people like the former Premier and the current Premier who think there is nothing wrong and they have done nothing wrong. Well, they have. They are setting generations of Victorians up for a decrease in the standard of living, and we are seeing that, whether it is access to health care or whether it is access to quality education.

We have got so many problems in this state that this government does not understand or just refuses to. What do they do? They throw more money at a problem. They are over-inflating it. They state, ‘We’re fixing that problem up.’ I will give you an example – the Royal Children’s Hospital and the doors in the emergency department. You know what, everybody knew that the trolleys could not go through those doors. They made a mistake. So what did they say? ‘Oh, no, we’ve had a review process, and we’ve decided to throw more money,’ another $25 million, ‘at the project and redesign it so it’s better for all.’ They never admit to their mistakes. Whether it is the Metro Tunnel and the rail lines, or the electrification stuff-ups – stuff-up after stuff-up after stuff-up – and the tens of billions of dollars that Victorians are now paying for with services they are now missing out on because of the project blowouts. The mismanagement is just extraordinary.

This is symptomatic of Labor. They are hopeless economic managers. They have no regard for taxpayers money. They do not understand that it is not their money. It is the taxpayers money that they have responsibility for and they should be accountable for how they spend that taxpayers money, but they are not. They do not care; instead they just spend. They con Victorians into believing that they can do things like the Suburban Rail Loop, they can build all these projects like the 10 community hospitals that they promised, the Arden medical precinct which they promised, and deliver the Commonwealth Games which they promised. What do they do? They have to rip up contracts, whether it is the Commonwealth Games, which has cost over $600 million and rising, or foreign investments flooding out of the state in the biomedical sector, as I said before, because there is no confidence left in that sector. They are seriously worried about what the government says and what they then actually do. This is a government that has no credibility when it comes to economic management and the Victorian public know. They actually know.

Now we have got projects like four-year-old kindergarten being pushed out. Urgent infrastructure rebuilding at the Alfred hospital, which was promised two years ago, is now being pushed out for another six years. How urgent is that? Not that urgent according to the Allan Labor government. Well, they are doing that for a reason, because the budget is so shot. That is what I am talking about – appalling economic management, appalling abuse of taxpayers money, appalling project management that has seen tens of billions of dollars in project overruns, and it is Victorians who are paying the price. They are paying the price for this government’s failures, for this Premier’s failures in particular. She is the Premier. All of those major issues that have caused so much grief for so many people have all blown out under the Premier’s watch as Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the Commonwealth Games, I might add. She is seriously out of her depth. She has got the Deputy Premier Ben Carroll breathing down her neck, at odds with her over the Suburban Rail Loop. He does not support it. He thinks the airport link should be done. She does not support that. They are all over the place. Yet Victorians are the ones that are suffering, and that is a disgrace.

This budget fails in so many areas. They have increased taxes, whether it is the bin levy or upping the fire services levy. We hear that from the minister. She cannot answer questions in PAEC. She fudges them in here. Where is the increase in services for the CFA? This is just failure after failure after failure. And the 800,000 homes that you promised, let us talk about that. I just listened to the Premier in question time. She could not answer. Another big policy they have been talking up and telling Victorians they can do it all: ‘We are going to build 800,000 homes over the next decade.’ They cannot even deliver 80,000 this year. She could not even answer that in question time. It is like the surgeries.

Michael Galea interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: No, no, no. What, are you going to do 10,000 this year and 150,000 next year? No, no, Mr Galea. You lot cannot count. It is like the elective surgery waitlist. You promised 240,000 elective surgeries, and the minister just six months ago, in November, said you would do this year in, year out. You promised it and you cannot even do it. You failed this year – 33,000 elective surgeries less than promised in last year’s budget – and you are going backwards. You are delivering backwards. You are going backwards. Two hundred thousand – Mr Galea, you were in PAEC. You heard the questions, and you know that this government is going backwards on the delivery of the elective surgery waitlist. It is like your housing statement: you make these big promises and you do not deliver them. Victorians have woken up to the con. They know that your government cons them, and you have the whole time. Again, I say there is just list after list: Commonwealth Games – any of the projects that you say you will run on time and on budget have all blown out – the housing statement, elective surgeries, community hospitals, no new taxes. We have got 55 new taxes.

In my concluding 10 seconds I want to say again: Labor cannot manage money, and it is Victorians who are paying the price, and it is a very severe and big price that they are paying.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:50): I rise to make a contribution to the Appropriation (2024–2025) Bill 2024 on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. As a member of Legalise Cannabis Victoria I must start this speech by recognising the $4.9 million in this budget for the medicinal cannabis driving trial. Why are we not up here jumping for joy? Well, when you think about how the Victorian government will have waited a decade from when it legalised medicinal cannabis in 2016 to complete a study that might lead to certainty in the law, this is why we are disappointed. Victoria’s driving laws criminalise medicinal cannabis patients; they impact their right to freedom of movement and their right to live a life free from discrimination. Patients take their medication as prescribed and ensure they do not drive while impaired, but they can still return a positive roadside drug test. These patients are often barred from driving, are hit with heavy financial penalties and often make the difficult choice to stop taking their life-changing medication. You can imagine for those with conditions like epilepsy, not taking their medication makes them a much greater safety risk on Victorian roads.

The studies have been done. The working groups have been completed. This trial is redundant. If this government was serious about impairment, it would have included other prescription drugs, like opioids, in this trial. But it did not. So while we welcome any investment in medicinal cannabis research, we are deeply troubled by how this trial will delay certainty for medicinal cannabis patients until at least 2026. I am not optimistic that even when we get given an outcome in an election year there will be any hope for change of legislation.

Before I turn to other investments in this bill, I implore this government to prioritise the health and wellbeing of medicinal cannabis patients and adopt the Tasmanian model of a legal defence for unimpaired drivers who have prescribed drugs detected in their system who have taken them in accordance with their prescription, like every other medication.

Speaking of health and wellbeing, it is troubling to see that this budget reveals delays in the rollout of the remaining 35 of the prioritised 50 local mental health and wellbeing hubs. These hubs would offer free support without the need of a GP referral. The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System showed just how critical these kinds of community supports are. If this government have done all they can, then workforce shortages causing delays to the rollout are understandable and corners should not be cut. But we fear that this is a blanket excuse for deeper issues. We implore the government to do all they can to have these services delivered as a matter of priority.

In this budget we saw a welcome commitment of $211 million for family violence intervention, including continuing the Respectful Relationships program and greater funding for specialist support services for victim-survivors and therapeutic interventions. But stakeholders are telling us that community legal services are facing unprecedented and unsustainable levels of demand. This demand is often from victim-survivors of family and sexual violence dealing with police, child protection, Centrelink, creditors and the immigration system. In the absence of additional funding, little has been done to address this. If this government is serious about tackling this national crisis, it must give extra funding to these services. These services are critical to helping people leave violent relationships.

Similarly, in this budget I was disappointed to see that the submission by Southside Justice’s statewide sex worker legal program was unsuccessful. They have been told by the Department of Justice and Community Safety that they do not fall within the priority commitment to fund lapsing community legal centre groups. There are so many legal issues that stem from the decriminalisation of sex work – planning law, equal opportunity, employment, criminal, personal safety and privacy law, just to name a few. This organisation has seen a tenfold increase in demand for their services over the last 18 months and anticipate this will only grow. Ongoing funding and support for this industry is so important. This government cannot just legalise a whole industry and then let it fend for itself. Independent workers will cop the brunt of these funding shortcomings. I urge the government to meet with Southside Justice, to support their work and to assist with their plans to engage with sex workers from migrant backgrounds.

It is further disappointing to see funding in this budget for a two-year youth justice bail supervision and support project to electronically monitor young people. We were promised youth justice reform. We were promised the repeal of reverse onus provisions for young people on bail. We were promised ambitious change. In the absence of any of this, we fear this government has gotten cold feet on these essential reforms.

On a lighter note, as someone with a history in the creative arts, I was pleased to see a $6.5 million Victorian festivals package to support creative festivals and events across Victoria. Unfortunately this fell short, including the funding we advocated for on behalf of the Melbourne Fringe festival. This funding would have secured the program’s viability into the future, ensuring the longevity of their socially inclusive projects. These include the First Nations program Deadly Fringe, disability arts programming, CALD programming and LGBTIQA+ programs. As the arts community continues to bounce back from the impacts of the pandemic, support has never been more vital, and the government’s response here was overwhelming.

This budget was a mixed bag when it came to housing. We saw investments in programs and providers to support people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. It was great to see funding that was about to lapse for services like Pride in Place, the homelessness after-hours service, and Better Health and Housing. Having stood in this place and asked the minister to ensure funding for Pride in Place, it was particularly great to see this funding delivered. Specialist homelessness services are an integral part of our state’s response to homelessness. Pride in Place does incredible work for LGBTIQA+ people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness or living in housing that is unsafe, insecure or too expensive.

As I have previously raised in this place, I was troubled to see the transition out of the Victorian Homebuyer Fund and into the Commonwealth government’s Help to Buy scheme. This will slash income and property value caps, preventing thousands of Victorians from being able to buy their first home. The $1.2 million in this budget to support those facing rental stress to access advice and advocacy is essential given that this government has trapped more Victorians in the rental market.

Regardless of the merits of this bill, given the government’s willingness to subject medicinal cannabis patients to what will now be a decade of discrimination on Victorian roads, we will be abstaining from voting.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (14:59): I am pleased to rise today to make a contribution on the 2024–25 budget papers. In doing so I would like to prosecute the fact that this current government that has been in been in place, been in leadership, for 10 years is certainly one that cannot manage money. We have seen a government that is arrogant, that has driven policy based on ideology and overwhelmingly not on science, and regional and rural Victorians are paying the price for that. We have seen a government that cannot manage money, cannot manage major projects and cannot manage our health system, our education system and our infrastructure projects in Victoria. It is making a botch of what to do or not to do with our environment, our public land spaces and our road networks, and rural and regional Victorians are paying the price. I am sure – I know – that there are some very decent staff working in departments, but so many of them must be wringing their hands and shaking their heads in frustration.

Ten years ago the Labor Party took over. Ten years ago Victoria’s debt was in the vicinity of $22 billion – quite manageable, in fact slim, by today’s standards. Yet now we see in the budget estimates that by 2028 there will be a budget deficit of $188 billion. It is eye-watering, and there is fear throughout all of Victoria about the paying back, the paying down, of that debt. There are interest repayments of – and we have heard it before, but it is worth putting on record – $26 million a day.

There is a quote from Elizabeth Dole; she is a senator from America. After a lifetime of public service, she set up foundations and she devoted herself to public service and the public good. She said:

The best public policy is made when you are listening to people who are going to be impacted.

Unfortunately, this budget represents from the government the exact opposite of that philosophy. People will know it is one of the topics that I am very focused on – our public environment and the closure of our native timber industry. There are inputs of the supposed payment of compensation packages, but the government did not listen to the community when they said, ‘Don’t lock it down.’ They listened to a very small few – the ideologically driven Wilderness Society and others. They listened to them because they wanted their seats in the city.

We hear many times over that people are consultold rather than consulted. There are many of those things going on right now – people being consultold rather than the government listening to communities. We see it in terms of our energy transmission and the powerlines that are going to have to go through – the VNI West, for example. Rural and regional Victorians – people with agricultural industries, with farms – feel like they are being consultold.

Let us look at the neglect of rural and regional Victoria. It is clearly visible that of the $98 billion in infrastructure spending in the forward estimates, $2 billion goes to the regions. Rounding it up, it is 2.5 per cent – 2.5 per cent in the forward estimates of all the infrastructure spend in this state goes to the regions. What does that say about the lack of appreciation, the lack of care, the lack of understanding and the arrogance of this 10-year-old government?

Now, Oscar Wilde said –

Members interjecting.

Melina BATH: There is lots of noise in here. I know I can activate people because what I am saying is true. Let me talk about a playwright. Oscar Wilde – one of his many famous quotes is:

Life under a good government is rarely dramatic; life under a bad government is always so.

What we know from this government is that they obfuscate. They say, ‘It’s not our fault; it’s somebody else’s – it’s the war in Ukraine or it’s the global pandemic.’ Well, I am sorry – the global pandemic, by its very nature, was a global pandemic, but what do we see in Victoria? We see that the debt in Victoria is larger than New South Wales – a comparable state with a similar population – Queensland and Tasmania combined in the forward estimates. Those states are not throwing their hands in the air and saying, ‘It’s the war in Ukraine. It’s the pandemic.’ This is dramatic government by a government which cannot manage money, and Victorians and regional Victorians are paying the price.

Let us look at this waste and mismanagement. There is $40 billion in overspending, in blowouts, on this government’s mismanaged projects – $40 billion extra. I am sorry – you do the costings, you do the business plan, you have the budget, and lo and behold it is $40 billion. It is eye-watering. Let us look at it: North East Link, $21 billion extra; West Gate Tunnel, almost $5 billion extra; Metro Tunnel, $4 billion extra; $3.3 billion extra in level crossings; and away we go.

I am going to quote a very good example that my leader Peter Walsh gave in our recent state conference about what that $40 billion could have been spent on. Let us look at it. If you google the state government, under Roads Victoria it is responsible for 23,000 kilometres of roads in Victoria. Any regional Victorian only has to drive down the road to see what an appalling state, what a dangerous state, our roads are in – potholes, the verges are disintegrating – and they are just not getting that maintenance. If every kilometre of that 23,000 kilometres of road that the state government has responsibility for cost a million dollars to renovate, to refresh and to resurface, you would spend $23 billion and cover all of the roads. And with that you would still have $17 billion left over to actually rejuvenate the multiple issues that need to be fixed in this state. These are the overruns – not the costs, the overruns – and this is a tired, arrogant, mismanaged government that cannot manage the budget.

Let us look at some of those things that need looking at. I will finish off on the road maintenance project and the maintenance of our roads. We see that, unfortunately, in the last year we had the highest death toll in so many years – in 15, 20 years. That means somebody has got a hole in their family where that human being used to be. Not all road deaths are because of improper roads or road surfaces, but in many cases they contribute to those deaths. We see the rehabilitation and resurfacing programs are slashed by 75 per cent in the next financial year. It is a dire situation for our roads. We see some roads which really should be upgraded in my region: Leongatha’s kamikaze corner, which if you know that – and I know Mr Welch knows that town very well – is a very dangerous intersection. The local council and everyone are on board to upgrade it. We know that there are roughly a thousand bridges that the Department of Transport and Planning said need to be upgraded, and there are four in my electorate that will be upgraded – they must be in a terrible, terrible state.

Let us look at some other things that this government has done. What a waste, almost $600 million for the con games – to not hold a Commonwealth Games. We have seen that. Let us look at the other one, the con SEC. Only recently in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee it was discovered through our Liberals and Nationals, through the very fantastic work that Danny O’Brien does, that the SEC has one part-time worker in the Latrobe Valley –

David Davis: Three days a week.

Melina BATH: three days a week in the GovHub. I saw at the time of the election commitment the Premier brought all of his fan club down, stood in the old Yallourn power station and said, ‘We will bring back the SEC.’ Well, they have brought one person three days a week to our region. By the way, Morwell did not want it. They did not vote for it, they did not want it and it is a con. We have got the con games.

David Davis: Did the electricity prices go down?

Melina BATH: No, they are skyrocketing – absolutely skyrocketing. Up, up, up – absolutely.

Let us talk about some other things that are near and dear to the people of West Gippsland.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): I think the noise level in here is too high.

Melina BATH: The government was also happy to say they want to build the West Gippsland Hospital. It was a Nationals and Liberals commitment at the 2022 election –

David Davis interjected.

Melina BATH: And 2018 – exactly. Also, the government said, ‘Yes, we’ll build it.’ Last year they did a little sliver that is called ‘planning’. It has been there ready for almost decades, and what we see is the government cannot be bothered building it. They are kicking that tin down the road. If you have been to the Warragul hospital, you know the fantastic staff who are there but you know its dilapidated state. My grandfather was born in that hospital in 1912, and I think there are parts of it that are that age.

Let us talk about some other things. The government was so pious, so conscientious, about the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and made so many pledges. Now what is it doing? The 35 locals – the local mental health and wellbeing centres – which are really supposed to be this interconnector between hospitals and services do not matter. They are kicking the 35 of them down the road.

What do we also see in education? Let me count some of the ways that they have kicked the tin down the road. They have kicked the tin down the road with the San Remo Primary School. Ready to go that was. They have got the architect there ready to go. It is from 19-whatever – some of the buildings are 150 years old. That is on the backburner. We also see the Drouin secondary school, Lakes Entrance Primary School, the Leongatha secondary school, Mount Eliza Primary School and Foster Primary School still waiting for upgrades. This is how important schools are to people.

And what of it? When Labor made these promises in 2022, 70 per cent were in Labor seats. That sounds parochial, doesn’t it? Eighty per cent of those schools in Labor seats have received funding, whereas only 40 per cent in Liberal and National seats have received funding. Here are some quotes. Let me quote some members in relation to the early learning centres. Here on 6 March this year Mr McIntosh said:

… the need for more early learning education centres.

Done. Ms Ermacora said:

… to deliver the 50 early learning centres, the commitment we made in the 2022 election …

Minister Blandthorn said:

… not delaying the delivery of this reform …

Mr Berger said:

… speed in the establishment of early childcare services and service centres.

What have we got? What is this government doing? It is kicking the tin down the road once again. There is another five-year delay. The children who would be going to those centres will have cars and mortgages and three children by the time the rollout is complete. This is just some of their appalling nature. They can dish it up here, they can spruik it here, but it is not delivered.

Let us look at housing commitments. There are so many. I had a constituent in the other day who has seen people sleeping rough in my electorate and who has been not accosted but shocked by seeing people virtually nude sleeping under park benches. That is not we need.

We also see that there are levies up. We see the industrial and municipal waste levy – up. We see the fire services levy maxing out. Will that go to volunteers? No, it will not – it will go into metro Melbourne and to Mr UFU. This is a warped and disingenuous government. It is a tired government, it is a government that cannot manage money, and it needs to put a greater focus on rural and regional Victoria.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:13): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to this budget, which is in fact one of the worst budgets in the state’s history. It is certainly a contender for that title, and I propose today to talk about some top-line issues around tax and around the issues of spending and the state government’s debt that they have left us with.

There was a conversation that went around the press pack the other day that Tim Pallas was going to go. Now, that did not happen in recent days, but people have asked me, ‘What would you say would be his epitaph?’ I would say he would be the worst Treasurer in Victoria’s history. He is the one who built the greatest debt in the state’s history. Some of us remember what went on in 2014 – the promise that there would be no new taxes and the promise that they would treat the state properly and be honest about what they were doing. Just before the 2018 election the state government said, ‘We’re going to lift debt from 6 per cent of GSP to 12 per cent of GSP,’ and it blew out massively. Somewhere deep in the COVID period they just washed aside any focus on controlling the debt, and now it is heading for more than 25 per cent of gross state product. These are enormous numbers. I want to distribute to the chamber a copy of some charts, as I did last year and the year before.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): Is leave granted?

Leave granted and material incorporated at page 1786.

David DAVIS: These charts make some things very, very clear. The sources are all from the state budget papers, with the exception of the comparative table, which draws on other state budget papers as well.

Michael Galea: Did you draw this yourself?

David DAVIS: Yes, we did these ourselves. That is right. I am not claiming to be a great graphical person, but these are very simple, straightforward graphs.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: Yes, that is right. I make for the chamber the point that this will appear in Hansard in black and white, so that is to be quite clear. Victoria’s debt goes from about $19 billion or $20 billion in 2013–14 up to $187.8 billion in the estimates. Now, who knows whether the state government’s estimates are right. The borrowings go up massively to $226.9 billion at the end of the forward estimates period. Victoria’s annual interest rate is important; this is where the rubber hits the road, as the state has to pay more and more interest as its loans roll over and new borrowings have to be made as the new debts come in because the state government is spending at a huge rate, an uncontrolled rate.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, there is certainly a risk of a credit rating downgrade. Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have been quite clear that the state government is all but on close watch.

Let us have a look at the interest rate bill going up from just over $2 billion to $9.375 billion by 2027–‍28. These are huge increases in the payments that are required. That is a massive payment that will be required. People in this chamber can break that down by month, by week or by day if they want. They can break it down by head of population, and they will see that the increase in debt is absolutely massive across that period. If you look at the next chart, you see net debt to GSP.

John Berger: What page?

David DAVIS: You can just follow me through, and you will see it in the charts. ‘Vic – Net Debt to GSP (2024–25 Budget)’ is the title of the page. As you will see, it goes again from 5.9 per cent, and this is the promise from just before the 2018 election that they would lift it from a cap of 6 per cent up to 12 per cent. Well, that did not last very long. I will make it clear here – people need to understand this – the debt surge began before COVID. BC – before COVID – the debt surge began. It began that long ago under this Labor government, which has been in power for 10 years now. The debt surge began before COVID. There is no doubt that COVID added to the debt, as it did right across the state, but it actually began before, and the state government had taken the decision to force debt to surge before COVID. They made the decision announcement in the week before the 2018 election, and the big projects were all committed – the big projects that have blown out of control. Whether it is the Metro or the West Gate Tunnel or the North East Link, all of these projects have blown out of control.

There are more than $40 billion – more than $40,000 million – in cost overruns under this government, more than $40,000 million in cost overruns because of failed management of major projects, incompetent ministers and an incompetent Treasurer. Incompetent ministers, like Tim Pallas and like Jacinta Allan, who was the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, oversaw the massive surge in these projects. She should have been called the minister for surging project overruns; that is what she should have been called. That is what she has presided over, and a huge amount of the debt that has been built up is cost overruns, because Labor cannot manage money and they cannot manage projects. They do not know what they are doing. They are one of the most incompetent governments we have seen in this state’s history. So the debt-to-GSP ratio is very relevant. On the comparative chart, the projected net debt on Australian states, you will notice that both our state and WA have got the updated figures. The others will be updated on my website for people who want to follow it as the states come in, but suffice to say that Victoria’s debt at the end of the forward estimates period will be bigger than Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania combined. That is how big our debt will be. It will be far bigger than all of those combined, and that gives you some idea. The New South Wales economy is a bigger economy than ours, yet New South Wales will be a state with a lesser debt and a lesser debt-to-GSP ratio than Victoria.

These are very bad figures for Victoria. This is a scorecard on this state government’s performance. This is a scorecard on how they have performed, how they have delivered for this state and how they have done so in a comparative sense. Some of the people want to go around and say the debt is due to COVID. We know the debt started well before COVID – BC – but actually I will give you the tip: COVID was all around the country. They had COVID, but actually they do not have as much debt as Victoria – not as much debt as Victoria. And our debt is going to be so great that it will be bigger than New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania combined. The whole east coast matched up against us – we will have a bigger debt than those three combined. That gives you some idea of the comparative performance of the Victorian government and the debt that it has left our kids and our grandchildren.

If you look at the chart on tax revenue, you will see it going from just about $17 billion in 2013–14 to $45 billion in 2027–28. It is a huge surge in total revenue collected. This is not the whole input money of the state – of course we get federal grants, and there are sales of goods and so forth – but this is the tax revenue. That is where the rubber hits the road, and Victorians know that the taxes are increasing. They can feel it. People are being slugged with land tax. People are being slugged with payroll tax. People are being slugged on every turn. There are 55 new taxes under Labor – 55 new or increased taxes under Labor. It is a massive hit on businesses, on families, and so many people are deciding, ‘We’ll move our investments interstate.’ That is what they are doing, and that is very bad for Victoria. We have seen key groups like Seeley leave; we have seen the tomato manufacturers in Echuca begin to talk about leaving. All of these groups are leaving for a variety of reasons. Of course part of it is taxation. Part of it is excessive regulation, and I pay tribute to the work that the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has done in exposing the high level of state regulation in Victoria compared to other states in Australia. If people doubt me, go and read VCCI’s own documents on their website.

At the same time we have got problems with gas supplies, so groups that want to invest and proceed with investments or who need security of gas supply are actually having to look at this very closely and say, ‘Can we proceed?’ Many of them are saying no. Then you look at the payroll tax, and this has got all the layers of surcharges that are clobbering people – $5.1 billion in 2014–15 to $10.446 billion in the estimated period of 2027–28. It is going nuts. It is going up and up and up, and businesses are paying, and that is a tax on employment – make no mistake.

With the Victorian government’s land tax, or land transfer duty – you see the inherent fluctuations in land transfer duty, but nonetheless – you see the massive increases. Through that period of 2010–11 you can actually see that we in government, the Baillieu–Napthine governments, tried to manage the land tax costs to keep them under control, to stop them surging out of control, to provide relief for businesses and for those who hold land. But you can see the increase under this government heading up well over $10 billion by the end of that forward estimates period. Now you see the land tax revenue as well, from $1.3 billion in 2010–11, and you can see the essential flatline across the period of the Baillieu and Napthine governments, the essential flatlining of land tax through that period. And you can see the surges start under Labor. The surges go up and up and up, and now the new surges, so-called COVID levies and all of that. They are all just another name for a three-letter word, and that is ‘tax’, and you are going to pay more under Labor, as you always do. Labor always hits people: they smack families, they smack businesses, they strip away their livelihood and they make it harder for them to live, harder to build a business and harder to employ people. This is the story of Labor – these huge, huge tax increases that are being laid out on every Victorian. They flow all the way through the economy. Whether you are in the tourist sector, you are paying it; if you are in any other sector, you are paying it. If you are in the manufacturing sector, you are paying these taxes, which are fed into the competitiveness – or lack of – of Victorian goods, and the same is true of the services sector.

I want to say something very quickly – and I have only got a short period of time – about my portfolio areas. It is true that in the resources sector the government cut – by almost 20 per cent, by about 18 per cent – spending to support the resources sector. In the case of energy I see they have sliced back spending there, and it is true that the support that was there in previous times for hard-suffering businesses and families with electricity and gas costs surging – and I hear from over the chamber there is a tiny little come-off of $100. But let us be clear. The St Vincent’s figures are absolutely crystal clear. Last year electricity for households went up on average 28 per cent, and on gas it went up 22 per cent. There are similar sorts of figures for average small businesses too. These are huge increases, so it is going up and up and up, and then there is a tiny little tweak on the top. Well, I do not think that is anything to crow about. This government has allowed these costs to surge. This government, the Andrews government and the Allan government, has allowed these costs to surge. Labor has allowed the costs to surge. Labor has put the pressure on individual families, and individual families are suffering. Individual families have not had the outcomes that they deserve.

What is happening now is the government is beginning to walk away from so many of its commitments. We heard today the stories about the 80,000 homes that they promised per year. Well, that is not going to happen this year. That is not going to happen this year, nor next. We were hearing that at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. We saw the performance at PAEC. We saw the bizarre performance of the energy minister at PAEC, who tried to say that there could not be any new energy found – any new gas found. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. We saw that today in the paper. Key energy sector people are indicating that there is energy to be got, energy to be achieved, energy to be found. Gas in particular – onshore conventional gas – is available, and we should get on and do it. I make the point that not one exploration licence has been granted by the Labor government over its period in government – not one. You wonder why the process of gas coming through is stalling –

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: No, none. Not one.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Did you? Well, that is not what your minister said this time. It is not what your minister said at PAEC. She admitted that not one has been granted. (Time expired)

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:29): I move:

That debate on the question that the budget papers 2024–25 be taken into consideration be adjourned until the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until next day of meeting.