Wednesday, 28 May 2025

Motions

Economy

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:37): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes:

(a) the Bracks government introduced a debt ceiling of 6 per cent of gross state product (GSP) in 2004;

(b) Victoria’s general government sector (GGS) debt has increased from $21.7 billion, 6 per cent of GSP in the 2014–15 budget update, to $155.5 billion, 24.5 per cent of GSP in the 2025–26 budget;

(c) the Andrews Labor government increased the debt ceiling to 12 per cent and then removed the debt ceiling entirely;

(d) Victoria’s debt-servicing burden has increased significantly;

(e) the state’s extraordinary indebtedness will reduce the opportunities of younger Victorians;

(f) the Andrews and Allan governments have squandered over $40 billion in unscheduled cost overruns in infrastructure projects, contributing directly to increased borrowings and surging debt;

(g) the Auditor-General’s report titled annual financial report of the state of Victoria, 2023–24, noted:

(i) debt for COVID-19-related expenditure totalled $31.5 billion, 18.7 per cent of the government’s current outstanding debt;

(ii) $137 billion of GGS gross debt relates to investment in infrastructure programs;

(iii) ‘the state has not articulated a clear plan for long-term fiscal management … Current strategies are short term, reactive and do not address both the existing financial challenges and emerging financial risks’;

(2) calls on the government to:

(a) establish a fiscal repair plan with quantitative measures to provide a certain budget repair path; and

(b) re-establish and publish a debt ceiling.

I am delighted to move this motion, but I also wish that it were not the case that I needed to move a motion that drew attention to the state government’s failures, its fiscal failures, its failures on debt. We know the huge interest cost per day, and I will say something about it shortly. This is the sad story of Victoria’s debt position – that it does reduce future opportunities for all Victorians, including young Victorians. The Andrews and Allan governments have squandered over $40 billion – in fact I think it is up to nearly $48 billion now.

I want to step through this motion carefully because there is a lot of information in it that has never been gathered together in one place in this approach. What is first important is that a Labor government, the Bracks government, introduced a debt ceiling in the early 2000s. It was 6 per cent of GSP. It was a Labor government that introduced the debt ceiling, and the Andrews government under Tim Pallas as Treasurer increased that debt ceiling to 12 per cent and later abolished it. The week before the 2018 election the government said, ‘We’re going to go to 12 per cent. We’re going to double the debt-to-GSP ratio.’ They did that immediately before the state election and said, ‘We’re going to spend a truckload on certain infrastructure.’ But they did not even stick to that. They then abolished the debt ceiling entirely, and it is clear that that has been a loss of some guide rails, some indications. The Bracks government believed it was worthwhile having those guide rails, and the early Andrews government believed it was worth having those guide rails.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: I am just trying to step through this carefully and methodically. These are all facts. They may be inconvenient facts for some on the other side of the chamber, but they are actually facts. It is true that the Bracks government put a debt ceiling in, it is true that the Andrews government lived with that debt ceiling, it is true that the Andrews government lifted the debt ceiling to 12 per cent, and it is true that the Andrews government threw away the debt ceiling completely and utterly and got rid of that in a policy decision that they were going to go for a very, very high level of debt.

The other thing that is important here is this enormous growth in the debt. When the government came into power in 2014, we got a budget update. Very close to $21.7 billion was the figure, a very modest debt level. I was part of that government. We worked hard to keep our debt under control whilst expanding in a number of areas – in my portfolio of health and in other portfolios we did a hell of a lot and we did it within the debt parameters. We did not add immeasurably to debt in the way the current government has, and now we see debt at $155.5 billion but heading over the forward estimates to $194 billion. This is an historic level, and we have seen the credit agencies circling. The credit agencies are peering down. The credit agencies are looking closely at the books in Victoria, and they know that Victoria is a poorly performing state under this government. They know that the budget estimates cannot be trusted. We know that year after year a set of estimates is put forward and the final outcomes bear little or no relationship to the estimates that are put forward at an early point.

I think what is also important here is that the Auditor in his very important report from 2023–24 looked at the government’s so-called plan, and the plan has not fundamentally changed from what Tim Pallas had. It still talks about the four steps and so forth. But the Auditor canned it. In Auditor speak he said this is not really up to scratch. He said:

… the state has not articulated a clear plan for long-term fiscal management. Current strategies are short term, reactive and do not address both the existing financial challenges and emerging financial risks …

He pointed at where the debt had come from. A lot of people say it is all because of COVID. Let me tell you something. The state government’s operating budget was in deficit on 31 December 2019. It was already in deficit BC, before COVID. COVID around the world obviously had a significant impact on budgets. But the Auditor has usefully quantified that impact, and he says COVID expenditure totalled $31.5 billion, 18.7 per cent of the government’s current outstanding debt. The debt has grown more, and the COVID share of the debt will have consequently, as a comparative part of that, shrunk, not in absolute terms of course – the state government does not pay down much debt in this state – but as a share of the overall expenditure it will have become a lesser percentage. But the point here is that even at the time the auditor looked closely 18.7 per cent of the debt was due to COVID, but most of the debt – a huge share of the debt – was due to investment infrastructure programs. We just need to be clear: you hear government ministers and others say, ‘Oh, it was all COVID. It was all COVID.’ No, it was not and it is not. It is because of the state government’s failure to control these programs.

We all know these programs, these large infrastructure programs, whether it is level crossing removals, which have gone billions and billions and billions of dollars over budget, or whether it is the Metro, which is currently more than $4 billion over budget but likely to chip in at well over $5 billion over budget. Let us be clear: it was a $9 billion project costed up, with a cost-benefit analysis done. It is a good project. I support the Metro Tunnel – I think it is a good project – but it looks very different at $14 billion or $15 billion. It looks a very different project.

They do not seem to have the capacity to control the cost blowouts. Out in Mr Welch’s area there is the North East Link, beginning in the top corner of my electorate, the northern corner of my electorate. That project was initially scoped at just a bit over $5 billion, but when the government signed it, it was about $10 billion – $10,000 million. But now the project is over $26 billion – $26,000 million.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, it is very difficult to stop, as you know, but the point is the government should constrain these costs. The government has allowed these costs to blow out. The government seems to have no capacity to actually keep the costs under control.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, I will tell you what we are going to do: we are going to keep the costs of these big projects under control.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, a proper oversight committee would be a good start. We have tried to move a parliamentary oversight committee in this chamber, which you blocked – a public works committee that would have oversight of these projects and try and keep the projects on track. That would be one very simple start – proper costings at the start, honest costings, instead of the Suburban Rail Loop that they have run out and there is no business case. Make no mistake, there is no business case on the Suburban Rail Loop. There is what the previous Premier called ‘an investment case’. ‘Oh no, no, no,’ he said on radio, ‘it’s not a business case.’ That is what Daniel Andrews said. ‘A business case is a thing that you do,’ he said, and I am paraphrasing, ‘when you’re looking at options and alternatives. Now we’re doing this. It’s only an investment case.’ The alternative would have been to look at the options properly.

But looking back at the North East Link – $26,000 million. It is a good project in the sense that we need that road. Whether we needed precisely the road that they have chosen is another question. Whether you would have done it differently is another question, and whether you would have used the alliance model that they are using. I mean, let us be clear what is going on with these alliance models: they are all a little group, and it is like a cost-plus model. You have got your house, you have signed the contract, the amount is X but it is ‘cost plus’. If there is an overrun, the builder gets more, and strangely, the builders have a slight interest in getting a bit more, so these projects splay across the land in cost overruns. It is shocking. It is adding to our debt, and we have got to control it.

The opposition has already talked at length about the need for a public works committee, an old-fashioned public works committee. We used to have such a committee. The old Public Works Committee in Victoria oversighted the underground loop and all the major dams. All of those major projects were oversighted by the old Public Works Committee. My point is: a lot of the costs here and a lot of the debt are because of the government’s inability and incompetence to manage major projects. If you want to build major projects, build them. We want to see major projects, but we want to see the costs controlled. We want to see the costs constrained. We do not give you a blank cheque to go out and write whatever you want, because if you use your money wisely, you can do more. This motion about debt recognises that the state government used to have guardrails. The Bracks government had a 6 per cent limit – a 6 per cent debt ceiling was put in.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: We want you to publish it. We want you to re-establish a debt ceiling and we want you to publish it. We want you to publish it. You are in government. I will give you a tip: you might not realise it, but you are in government. We are not in government.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): Order! Mr Davis to continue through the Chair without pointing and with interjections to be kept to a minimum, please.

David DAVIS: I say that the job of the government is to actually get in there and control these projects. We need to get those projects lassoed in so that the costs are not out of control. It is completely unacceptable to see a project go from $10,000 million to $26,000 million.

Jacinta Ermacora: On a point of order, Acting President, you did request he continue through the Chair, and I think Mr Davis should speak to the Chair.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): I uphold the point of order. Mr Davis, to please continue through the Chair.

David DAVIS: Ms Ermacora should be worried about the expenditure of so much money in the city and so little in the country. That would be something that she should focus upon. More than $40 billion, and closer now to $48 billion, is the cost overrun. This is not the cost of the projects; this is the overruns. This is the tabulated overruns on these projects. You wonder why our debt is so far out of control. As the Auditor-General said, $31.5 billion of the debt is related to COVID-related expenditure and $137 billion of it is related to the infrastructure blowouts.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Acting President, just on a point of order, you might want to ensure that there is not this constant barrage of interjections.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): Noting that interjections are quite common when provocations occur, Mr Davis, I will ask that the volume in the room be kept to a minimum and ask that members do not interject from outside their seats.

David DAVIS: Thank you, Acting President. The truth of the matter is that the state’s extraordinary indebtedness will crimp the future for so many Victorians, younger Victorians in particular. There will be a reckoning. The debt will have to be repaid in due course, and there is no doubt that there will be challenges in that process. But the start of this process is to make sure that we get control of the spending on these major projects. Good projects should have good cost control. Good projects should be managed properly. Good projects should be kept within their budgets. That is the first step in controlling the state’s debt position. We do need the guardrails, like the Bracks government had and like the Andrews government initially had, but then they jacked the debt ceiling up and then abolished it completely.

It is a task for the state government to sit down, to work out how it is going to manage these major projects and to establish a proper fiscal repair path, with quantitative measures, that provides a certain budget repair path. I have very rarely seen the Auditor be so directly damning as in that report that I have quoted, so directly damning in terms of the ability of the state to deliver, the lack of confidence that he has in the state government’s projections and approach and its ability to articulate a long-term plan. Let us requote what he said:

… the state has not articulated a clear plan for long-term fiscal management. Current strategies are short term, reactive and do not address both the existing financial challenges and emerging financial risks …

This is right. He is absolutely right. We have said the state government has got to establish that proper fiscal path forward, with quantitative measures to provide certain budget repair path steps, and we have said that they should re-establish and publish a debt ceiling. That is a job for the state government, with Treasury, and perhaps consulting the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and working with other agencies, but particularly for Treasury to help. Our plan is to say: you should do it right now. You should do it now. We are not in government. I will give you the tip: we are not in government. You just might want to understand that. I cannot do this. I cannot establish a fiscal repair path, nor can Mr Newbury – he is not in government. All we can do is say ‘This is what the auditor is saying.’ He is giving us a very clear warning. There is a history of the state putting in place sensible steps and actually working our way forward.

We know that the state’s future is in the balance here. The state government needs to really settle down and actually focus on what is important here. We have had the warnings from the ratings agencies. The Treasurer yesterday wanted to try and reject these points about the ratings agencies. But the truth of course is that the rating agencies are going to have an effect. If the interest burden grows because our credit rating is downgraded, that affects our debt level and it affects our ability to go forward. It affects the future for young people. It affects the options of so many people in this state. It is not a coincidence we have got the highest state tax level of any state. It is not a coincidence. The reason is because this state government has jacked tax up and up and up. They have done it because the state’s debt has blown out, because they appear chronically unable to control the major projects debt. It is not COVID – that is not the primary point, and the Auditor made that clear in his report. Do not let us try and put the COVID excuse in place. That is not the reason. The reason is the failure of the government. We need a proper plan before we get to $194 billion, which is where it is projected to go.

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:57): I rise to briefly contribute to this debate on motion 817 in Mr Davis’s name. This issue might be the one thing that Trump and Joe Biden agree on. I say that because we already have a perfect example of just how bad the Liberals’ debt policy is, and it is over in the United States. What is proposed here, a so-called debt ceiling, kneecaps a government’s ability to function, having to beg, steal and borrow just to pass budgetary measures that are in the public interest, struggling to fund core services that people rely on purely because of an arbitrary rationale and ideological political reasoning from the Liberal Party. It is nonsensical to try to import this flawed mechanism from the US when the US itself is trying to stamp it out – they are trying to stamp it out. The Liberals proposal that Victoria introduce a US-style approach to debt is frankly ridiculous, and I have yet to hear a sound argument as to why we would introduce this broken system right now here in Victoria.

What is proposed is a tool of bureaucracy. It slows down government, forcing it to go back to Parliament every time it wants to spend money. If the debt ceiling is not raised each time, the government shuts down. This means services do not run, it means laws are not passed and it means public service workers like teachers and our nurses have their pay frozen. If people in this place are genuinely worried about our state’s debt, I point them perhaps to the Greens suggestions in the past about measures to raise more money for government, to bring in more revenue to fund services and programs that people need, to fund our hospitals and to fund schools – measures like taxing the big banks through a quarterly levy. We have talked about this in the past and yet the Liberals have not been supportive. So, sorry, I am seeing some crocodile tears here from the Liberal Party on debt. In summary, this is a dud pitch from the Liberal Party which the Greens will not be supporting.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (10:59): I rise to speak on the responsible economic management which the Allan Labor government has demonstrated in the 2025–26 budget. I want to congratulate Treasurer Symes on her first budget, which restores the Victorian budget to an operating surplus for the first time since before the pandemic. There are many things that we need to speak about as parliamentarians if we want to be taken seriously on the economy, because these matters are very, very rarely as simple as those on the other side of the chamber would like you to believe.

Firstly, it is a fact not often mentioned, generally forgotten and rarely spoken of by those on the other side of the chamber that since first being brought to office, this government has cut or abolished taxes, putting money back in the pockets of Victorians and making it easier for Victorian businesses to create jobs. Another thing that we do not hear mentioned very often from those on the other side of the chamber is the fact that Victoria is the only state in the country which currently has a fiscal strategy – a fiscal strategy, mind you, which unlike the economic plans of those opposite is not just an idea, not just a concept of a plan, it is setting goals and is meeting them. The fiscal strategy was first created in the 2020–21 budget, responding to debt which accrued as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a long-term strategy coming from a government which has the foresight and the attention span to look past one budget or deficit or even one term of Parliament, to look for the best interests of Victorian people and the best interests of succeeding generations of Victorians.

But a budget is not a simple thing. A whole fiscal strategy cannot be contained within a TikTok or tabloid article. It takes serious work from serious people. So far we have had five budgets worth of sticking to this fiscal strategy, and the budget handed down last week was the sixth. The return to an operating surplus did not happen overnight, it took years of hard work.

The first step of the Allan Labor government’s fiscal strategy was to create jobs, reduce unemployment and restore economic growth. We have seen this not only in the Allan Labor government’s investments in infrastructure, delivering more train services, including the Sandringham line in Southern Metropolitan Region, new schools, hospitals, homes – everything a growing state like ours will need over the next few decades. We have also seen this succeed in the fact that last year Victoria had the highest business investment growth anywhere in the country. Since June 2020 when the fiscal strategy was first announced, 113,000 new businesses have been created in this state, and our economy is growing larger than ever before. That is the first step – getting the economy growing properly after COVID. The second step is to restore the budget to an operating cash surplus. For the past two years the state has achieved this and the projected operating cost surplus over the forward estimates is expected to reach $5.8 billion in the 2028–29 budget. The third step is to restore the budget to operating surpluses, which are projected in 2026–27 to the degree of $1.9 billion and in 2027–28 to the degree of $2.4 billion. These figures announced in the recent budget are a significant improvement on what was projected previously in the 2024–25 budget and are a credit to the hard work and prudent economic management of the Treasurer. The fourth step is to stabilise debt as a proportion of the gross state product by improving the state’s operating cash flow surpluses year on year while growing the economy. Last week’s budget projects that this will be achieved in next year’s budget. The fifth step is not just to stabilise net debt as a proportion of the gross state product but actually reduce it. Projections in last week’s budget look good on this front, with decreases in debt to gross state product expected in the 2027–28 and 2028–29 budgets.

There is something to be said about the government’s strong fiscal management during the difficult economic times we have all been through since the pandemic. Making enormous investments like operationalising the Metro Tunnel, $1.5 billion for school buildings, opening and operating nine new and expanded hospitals all in one budget is certainly one thing, doing it while also delivering a budget surplus of $600 million is certainly another. But making those investments while delivering a budget surplus under the economic circumstances which have faced us since the pandemic is quite another thing. Treasurer Symes and the former Treasurer, Tim Pallas, certainly deserve a lot of credit for the hard work over the years – not months, but years – which has gotten us to the point which will take us further as the Allan Labor government fulfils the promises laid out in the fiscal strategy.

It is worth making the comparison between the last 10½ years of the Andrews–Allan Labor government and the previous four years of the chaotic Liberal government when those on the other side of the chamber sat on the Treasury benches. Instead of making important investments which are growing the state like Victoria needed, they made cuts. They cut $300 million from TAFE. They could not even deliver a single one of the rail projects. They picked fights with nurses, they picked fights with teachers, and in the end they still delivered back-to-back deficits. They refused to fix the roof while the sun was still shining and refused to make the investments that growing states like Victoria need. Our record, on the other hand, tells a different story. Prior to the pandemic, this government was making the big investments in level crossing removals, the Metro Tunnel, the Suburban Rail Loop, delivering more trains more often, delivering on our commitment to build 100 new schools and new hospitals, and delivering free TAFE. Mind you, this was all during the time of the Abbott–Turnbull–Morrison federal coalition government – back when they had a coalition. They may have changed leader again and again, but they always held on to one fairly backwards idea: they thought it was fair to give Victoria, the fastest-growing state at the time, only 7 per cent of the federal infrastructure spending. All this, and we still managed to hand down surplus after surplus after surplus.

Since the pandemic and the significant costs which were left to be carried by the state, we have had more than a difficult situation. This was immediately recognised by the government. That is why we devised the fiscal strategy. But budgets are not all about the past; they are about the future. It is perfectly legitimate for us to compare present budgets with past budgets, but I think we can get more value out of taking a look at what those opposite would do if they ever found their way into government again. Historically Liberal governments have never liked announcing what they would like to do in government before an election, preferring to wait until after the election to make announcements on big issues, so a little bit of speculation about what they might do with power is warranted. Perhaps, instead of doing what requires grit, hard work and discipline, like sticking to the state’s long-term fiscal strategy, they would bring back the former Shadow Treasurer’s idea of privatising the sewerage system and draining the Future Fund, short-term policies which can only deliver the worst outcomes for Victoria.

So far in this term of Parliament those opposite have had only one idea for how they will fix the budget, and that is to kill the Suburban Rail Loop. It is to kill the biggest housing project anywhere in Australia, which is going to deliver 70,000 extra homes in the direct vicinity of the new SRL stations. Any young Victorians hoping one day to have a home in suburbs close to public transport would be told to forget all about that if those opposite have their way. Their policy is also to sack the 4000 construction workers who are hard at work delivering this project as we speak. The Suburban Rail Loop is a project which will reduce traffic congestion in the suburbs while creating the public transport connections that people need to get to key locations, particularly for education and health. Students from all across Melbourne will be able to use the brand new stations of SRL Burwood and SRL Monash in the Southern Metro Region to get to Deakin University and Monash University. Other stations in the Southern Metro Region include SRL Clayton and SRL Cheltenham. These would also be cut and cancelled under the naive and short-sighted proposals of those opposite.

For a party that never stops having a go at some of the people who I represent in the inner city, it seems strange for them to say they will cancel a project which will bring more homes, more transport, more jobs and more business investment out of the CBD and into the middle suburbs like Burwood, Clayton and Cheltenham. When the new public transport connections make it viable for more big businesses to base themselves far away from the CBD, more small businesses will also be set up to serve residents living in the area and new commuters going to and from work. In opposing the Suburban Rail Loop, those opposite are also rejecting the economic growth in the suburbs that this project will generate, creating more jobs, more homes and more opportunities. At the end of the day the Suburban Rail Loop is not just a policy for growth – it is our public transport network, it is a policy for housing growth, it is a policy for economic growth and it is a policy to deal with population growth. These are not issues the government can just ignore; they are central, they are crucial and they are unavoidable. We on this side of the chamber in the Allan Labor government have a plan to address these issues, and those opposite have no plan whatsoever. That is why they cannot be taken seriously.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:09): I am pleased to rise to speak on Mr Davis’s motion 817. Mr Galea, I think maybe you gave ChatGPT the wrong prompt, or it was clearly hallucinating when it came up with the idea that your government has cut taxes and any other number of things. People raise capital for all kinds of purposes – for business, for charity, for buying a home. What is always interesting is to observe how people behave with that money. There is a very clear set of behaviours when it is your own money. There is an obvious discipline around that – the sensitivity to cost and appreciation of value – because it was you who had to accumulate it, had to work for it and had a purpose for it when you decided to accumulate it.

We see very different behaviours when it is not your own money. We all know stories of the entrepreneurs who get the big investment and then go and blow it all on cars or fancy offices rather than the purpose it was raised for, and on all kinds of accolades for the appearance of success, with increasingly more creative accounting to justify that expenditure. But there is an underlying reality to all of that. You do not acquire virtue just by spending other people’s money and calling it investment. It takes absolutely no talent to spend other people’s money. It takes even less talent to spend other people’s money badly, but it takes a very special kind of talent indeed to spend other people’s money you do not even have yet badly. That is what we have in the state of Victoria – a government that spends other people’s money badly and spends money it does not have badly. It does so while adopting the worst traits of those who do this, claiming the virtue of it and claiming the achievement born of other people’s sweat.

State debt is a very dry topic; it is about numbers. It ceases being dry when the investor comes back and asks the entrepreneur where the money went or when the charity does not pass on the money it raised for its cause. When you run out of other people’s money everyone loses. In Victoria it ceases to be a dry topic when we look at the cost to everyday life. On the one hand it is what we lose – education, school buildings, health services, roads, policing, mental health services, fisheries officers, drought support; on the other hand it is what it costs. It costs us higher taxes, higher levies and paying specific fees for things that were previously accounted for or already paid for or things that your parents’ generation fought hard and worked for that cannot be passed on to the next generation.

It takes a special kind of talent to spend other people’s money that you do not even have yet. In Victorian terms it is known as the Cane–Kirner doctrine. This was the explicit position of the Cane–Kirner government, which last bankrupted Victoria: that future generations should pay for our excesses today, that future generations should be on the hook for what we want now and that there is some kind of virtue in this. It is an incredibly dangerous doctrine because it starts with small good intentions, but as the money of this generation runs out it is impossible to stop. We are at the tipping point where the next generation will be paying more for present projects than we are. In human terms we are taking away their choices, their priorities, and imposing ours. That is the legacy they inherit, and it is wrong.

In economic terms we are doing two things. It is inherently inflationary. While the government may not be able to print money, uncontrolled lending and injecting that money into the economy has the same effect. In needing to service that debt our interest liability increases further and further to consume our income. State interest on debt is at $9 billion annually; under the debt strategy of this government this will increase to $10 billion annually in coming years. Consider this simple maths: there is $10 billion interest, and each of the three single highest tax revenue sources we have in the state – payroll tax, land tax and stamp duty – is less than that interest we are paying per year. In the last figures I have got here from the budget office from 2023 – I know it has gone up – payroll tax is $8.2 billion. We are paying $10 billion interest. For land tax we are paying $5.3 billion. It is going up a bit more, but it is not going to reach $10 billion. Stamp duty is $8 billion, and we are paying $10 billion. Tax from all other revenue sources for the state was $9.9 billion. We will be paying more in interest than the top three individual tax sources of the state.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Richard WELCH: They are taxes, taxes, taxes. These are Parliamentary Budget Office figures here saying that is what we take. It is tax. If you did not have the debt, you would not need the tax; that is the principle. Maybe that is a bit hard to grasp over there because you do not feel accountable for it. They are dry figures. And if we describe the human cost, the human cost is felt in the family of every business owner who is struggling to keep their head above water. It is seen because they have to meet the tax. It is seen in the human cost of farmers and their families, where the tax impost has reached for many the final straw. If you do not think state debt has consequences and you do not think tax has consequences, just look at the situation in the regions. Debt demanded tax. The more debt you have, the more tax there must be. The more tax there is, there must be the point where it destroys lives, and I mean literally. When your local medical practice is told to pay payroll tax and has to close, that is a human consequence. When the government has to roll out 50 activity centres and throw away all sensibilities of urban design and planning in communities in order to get its hands on windfall gains tax, that is a consequence for those communities. And it would be bearable, perhaps, if there was a sense that not so much of it was just being absolutely wasted, made of bad management and waste.

The government has missed its budget every single year by an average of $14 billion. We have had at least $40 billion of project overruns, and there is absolutely no sense that it ends there. The costs of the Suburban Rail Loop have not been updated for five years. The true cost of the SRL is probably the state’s worst kept secret, because we all know it is going to cost more than $34 billion. We also know that in that same budget the federal funding is absent. We know that the project’s value capture does not arrive for 10 years, and when it does, the net present value will be roughly a third of the $11 billion required, so it will require more value capture tax. In fact by the time the project is completely rolled out under the modelling, if you do a net present value of 7 per cent, the $10 billion budgeted is worth $3 billion in present value terms. Victoria’s debt is budgeted to blow out to a record $194 billion by 2028. We are going to pay, and we are going to pay again and we are going to pay again.

It is absolutely beholden on the government to get control of debt, not through semantics, not through describing things that are taxes as being not taxes but they are taxes in practice, not by shifting things around on the balance sheet through statutory bodies and not through any of the mechanisms that a shoddy entrepreneur might use to pull the wool over the eyes of his board or something of that nature. There is a time for a reckoning. The fact is that as much as the government is fond of creative accounting, at the end of the day an auditor comes in and looks at the books, and the numbers do not lie. The threat to our credit rating is no joke. It is no joke. I think you know that too. I do not think in your heart of hearts you can pretend otherwise. There is going to be a consequence we are all going to pay. I support the motion strongly. We should have greater fiscal control. We need to rectify this for the sake of this generation and for the sake of the next.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:19): I also rise to speak on this motion by Mr Davis about debt in Victoria. And yes, we do have a big debt problem, and yes, part of that debt is due to COVID. I mean, when went through COVID I was constantly asking about how the money was being spent, whether it was being wisely spent and who was going to pay it eventually. Of course eventually some future taxpayer is going to pay it. As was pointed out by Mr Welch, it is an astronomic proportion of our current budget for just repaying this debt. It is a huge proportion of our budget, which is only going to get bigger.

I note that the Treasurer outlined a cash surplus of around $600 million in the in the budget. That is pretty slim, and I do not think it would take many blowouts or much mismanagement for that to disappear to nothing. I also note in the budget that we still have this mysterious Treasurer’s advance of close to $10 billion. I hope that the budget surplus, if one is delivered, will not be just through slimming that back. What is that going to be spent on? We are not in COVID emergency anymore. That was the justification for it during the pandemic: we had lots of lots of things that had to be done immediately and were not planned for in the budget. Things happen, and sometimes money needs to be spent that was not planned for, but why does the government still need $10 billion in a Treasurer’s advance? There needs to be better parliamentary oversight on what is happening with that. I think many Victorians do not like the idea of just having this money allocated to whatever the government feels like at the time. It is not good enough.

Some of the messaging from the government I have actually liked. They are saying they are focusing on what is important and this sort of thing. That is good. Maybe we should focus on what is important in government and do that right before we try and do everything else that the government is trying to do. One of the primary functions of the state is maintaining safety – policing and crime. Crime is out of control. Organised crime is absolutely out of control in this state. If the government cannot get these things under control, then what are they doing with all this other stuff? These are some of the most basic functions of the state that the government is failing at, yet they have got all these other extravagant things that they spend money on. The government really should be focusing on things like getting crime under control and getting education, health and basic functions that the government is meant to be doing under control before doing all of these other things.

The messages that I am getting from manufacturers in the south-east and also from others in the business community is Victoria is an incredibly difficult place to deal with. You do not have to read the comments from the CEO of Santos talking about Victoria this morning – this is the attitude that lots of people have to this state. I will give you one example. I have brought this up many times. We have a Japanese consortium who wants to invest $2 billion in Victoria through the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project. What is the government doing with this? Why hasn’t there been a decision on this? This will raise tax revenue. They will be paying payroll tax and probably land taxes and God knows what other taxes, and not only that, it is foreign capital coming into Australia. Why hasn’t the government just said yes to this already? It just seems crazy to me that we have got foreign capital wanting to invest in our state, and the government is fluffing around because someone might not like it or whatever. I do not know. It just seems nuts. I really want the government to say to the world, ‘Yes, we’re open for business.’

One of the problems I have seen with the opposition’s response to the government is that every time the government does cut back on something, which I think is a good thing, the opposition complains about the cuts. You cannot have it both ways. I am not complaining. If the government wants to make cuts in expenditure, I am not going to criticise it. I am going to cheer it on because I think the government needs to be doing that. One thing that I think the government and the opposition are both too scared to talk about, but I will talk about it, is that one way you can get a stepwise reduction in debt is through asset sales. I think the government should be running over its balance sheet and looking at whether there are things that it can sell. If they can sell it, they can directly and immediately reduce debt and reduce the burden on future taxpayers. I think that the government should be looking at that.

Another thing which I am very sceptical about is, frankly, the asset valuations that the government has on some of these projects. I have got a lot of experience in looking at asset valuations and this type of thing. There has been a lot said about the budget blowouts on infrastructure projects, and undoubtedly that is a true thing, but there has not been much talk about the actual value of these projects once they have been completed or what their current value is. Frankly, I do not believe that they are worth as much as they say on the balance sheet. I think that the Auditor-General will be looking at that, and we will see what the Auditor-General has to say about it, but I am very concerned about it.

The government needs to send a very clear message that it has spent a lot of money. The government has to take ownership of that, that they have this huge debt burden. When you have a debt burden, you have to do what people in families do: you have to make cutbacks. That is what families are doing across Victoria at the moment, and one of those big costs is tax. The government cannot raise taxes much further. They have reached the limit. We saw what happened when they brought in the emergency services levy: everyone went wild. The land taxes that have been raised have had big effects on investment, especially in areas like manufacturing. This is a big problem. And now the government wants to think that they are going to have a publicly run electricity supplier. Like, really, the government is going to start running businesses now? It is just beyond a joke. The government needs to focus on the basic functions of government, because if they cannot manage basic functions of the state, how on earth can they manage anything else?

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (11:25): I am very pleased to rise and speak in this debate on Mr Davis’s motion, because it gives us in this chamber a real opportunity to look at the contrasting approaches between the government and the opposition on the question of the best fiscal management strategy for this state. What we have from the government – delivered in the budget last week, building on the fiscal strategy that was first outlined in late 2020 – is a considered, detailed, five-step fiscal plan to get the finances of the state back into a strong position post the pandemic. What you see is the government delivering on each of the steps in that fiscal strategy since it was laid out. Methodically delivering – that is what this government’s fiscal strategy is doing: creating jobs, getting back into surplus and stabilising debt. Those are the key features of this government’s fiscal strategy, and it is working and it is delivering.

What we have from the Liberal Party is a quite frankly unbelievable mismatch of contributions that seem to not understand what the Liberal Party’s policy is in respect to debt, because we heard today from Mr Davis a different position on the question of a debt ceiling than we heard from Mr Newbury in the other place yesterday. We heard Mr Welch talk about elements of the state budget that he did not even seem to understand – the sources of revenue that come into the state’s finances. We are not going to take any advice from them about the best approach to fiscal strategy for this state, because Labor’s approach is considered and it is working, and it is clear in the budget papers that it is. I want to go to just some of the issues that underpin the complete lack of credibility that we see from the opposition on the question of their fiscal strategy, their fiscal approach, and some of the more outrageous claims that have been made during the course of this debate.

I want to start not with the Labor Party’s analysis of the opposition’s plans but some independent analysis of the opposition’s plans. Obviously the Shadow Treasurer in the other place had a moment yesterday to articulate the Liberal Party’s response to the state budget. To quote the headline from the Australian Financial Review today, ‘Economists pan Liberals for no plan to repair Vic budget’. The article goes on to quote noted economists David Hayward and Saul Eslake saying that the coalition had not offered a credible alternative to reducing and paying down net debt. And this is a quote from Mr Hayward:

For all the things they could come up with, this is the worst possible idea.

They are not our words but the words of an independent economist saying that the Liberal Party’s plan, which was basically the basis of Mr Davis’s motion today, is the worst possible idea. The quote goes on to say – and I think this lament at the end sums it up:

… what on earth are they doing?

I think that is a sentiment that we can wholeheartedly endorse.

We obviously had the Herald Sun today – the opening paragraph of the analysis in the Herald Sun today from Shannon Deery said the:

Shadow treasurer James Newbury has dusted off a Howard-era election losing slogan to sell his plan to repair the Victorian economy.

I think that is a far from resounding endorsement of the approach of the Liberal Party – an election-losing slogan from the Howard era. I will get to the other point, that was made in the Age, which I tried to elucidate a response from Mr Davis on. In the debate earlier today, he said the Liberal Party’s plan was not to impose a debt cap themselves. He said that they wanted us to do it. He was quite clear in that. I asked him via interjection a couple of times, ‘What are you going to legislate? What is your cap going to be?’ And he said, ‘No, no, no.’ Their plan is not to introduce one themselves. That is not their policy, but he was suggesting it is something that we should adopt. But that is not what Mr Newbury said in the other place yesterday. He said, ‘We will put into law a cap …’

But what Mr Davis has failed to do in the course of this debate and what Mr Newbury has failed to do is to actually say what their cap would be. They are refusing to come clean with the Victorian community about where their cap would sit. Why you need to know that is Victorians deserve to know where the Liberal Party’s cuts are going to start coming from, because the proposal that Mr Newbury put to the other place yesterday, that Mr Davis either did not listen to or forgot about in the last 24 hours, is to impose a limit on the amount of debt on issuance that the state has. We think that it is only reasonable that if he is going to promise that he is going to legislate a cap, he is going to have to promise and come clean as to where those cuts are coming from.

A couple of other points on the cap, very quickly: firstly, it is such a bad idea that Tony Abbott got rid of the cap on federal debt in 2013. We know it is a bad idea, because we see how it operates in the United States. A point that Mr Puglielli made well earlier is that when you have got a debt cap, you spend all of your time cutting services to fit under it. In particular the design feature that the Liberal Party has proposed – to link it to a percentage of GSP – is potentially the worst option that you could come to in terms of being able to adequately predict and budget for the future. I will not go into that any further; there are a couple of further points that I want to get to.

Mr Welch spent a long time in his contribution talking about the dangers of governments borrowing to invest in infrastructure, which is what this government has done in the past few years. He talked about the Cain and Kirner governments, and he talked about it being at unprecedented levels. He is just wrong. I invite Mr Welch to go and have a look at budget paper 2 from the 2021–22 budget, page 9. There is a really good chart about levels of Victorian government debt as a percentage of gross state product at 10-year intervals for the last 120 years. Under Henry Bolte the debt was 56 per cent as a percentage of gross state product, and it was just slightly below that under Rupert Hamer. Why? Because when the state was growing those governments knew that they had to invest in infrastructure to make sure that the state’s economy could continue to grow. If governments do not invest in productive infrastructure, the state cannot grow the way it needs to. So if Mr Welch wants to have conniptions about levels of debt, then he should go back and have a look at the actual history of this state and see that the predecessors that they so revere understood what was needed to make the right kinds of decisions about how to invest in the future of this state. If those governments had not made those decisions, we would not have the city loop, for example.

I am going to have to leave my contribution here because time is beyond me; I cannot go on. I would love to. This debate could go all day, and I absolutely think that we are going to come back to it over the course of the next 18 months.

Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (11:36): I am pleased to rise on behalf of the Nationals in support of this motion. This motion is very much focused on our state debt. It is important that Victorians know: they need to know how their money is being spent and they need to know where their money is going. But what we see from the state budget papers and what we have seen over the last 10 years is that Labor cannot manage money and that Victorians, all Victorians, are paying the price. Labor love to tax. They love to tax, and they just add tax after tax after tax. They did say ‘No more taxes in the state budget’ – and we have heard it before as well – and yet we had the emergency services tax introduced, coming into effect 1 July this year, with further hikes in bills. But the government did find a way to make it someone else’s problem. It is incredible. They have put it on local councils. The bills will go out from local councils. You will see it on the bottom of your rates notice. We are going to see household bills there double. We are going to see industrial rates going up. We are going to see commercial rates going up. Businesses are going to be paying for it and households are going to be paying for it, and it will flow on to people that are renting as well. But it will look like it is local councils that are sending you that bill. If you have got a complaint, ‘Oh yes, go to your local council again.’ It is just extraordinary.

If someone cannot afford to pay, guess whose problem that becomes? Local councils need to follow a process to recover the debt, and in some cases people can lose their property. I find it extraordinary. Councils have said – I have been contacted by many of them – they do not want to be the bad guys in this, but the government are going to extraordinary lengths to prop up their budget. With that tax, the government like to sell it like it is a tax to help volunteers, but the reality is it is paying our public servants. It is paying people that have previously been paid within the state budget. We are talking about the State Control Centre, Triple Zero Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria and Emergency Recovery Victoria. They were all once covered in the budget. Now there is going to be an extra $3 billion coming from households and from businesses right across the state.

The Treasurer and the Premier were very pleased to announce a surplus, a forecast $600 million surplus, but I am not sure how accurate that is when you consider how out this government has been. They have been well off the mark for quite a number of years – about $14 billion on average off the mark. To quote a Herald Sun editorial – I think it was quite interesting – and their comment about the high-taxing state, referring to Victoria, it says:

The Victorian government’s rather thin $600m surplus forecast this year is itself down almost $1bn from what it projected six months ago. But even that is a result of increased revenue from property taxes, including land transfer duty, land tax, an almost doubling of a congestion levy (a tax on off-street parking in areas of Melbourne) and the much-loathed Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund.

Stamp duty is expected to claw in $9.562bn in 2025–26 (a $362m increase); land tax, including the Covid-19 debt levy will drag in $7.554bn ($358m increase); a growth zone infrastructure contribution raises $223m (up $44m); the congestion parking levy brings in $222m (up $94m); and the controversial emergency services levy pulls in a huge $1.623bn (up $590m).

It goes on to say:

The property tax burden has led to investments in tens of thousands of new homes go elsewhere, while the imposts simply add to end-price property costs.

The upshot of being the biggest taxing state in the nation is a hike in housing prices and a handbrake on business investment and employment.

Under this government we have seen the introduction of over 60 new taxes, so they are bringing in more revenue, but their costs continue to blow out. They like to say that this is because of COVID, that it is so hard because of COVID. But the Auditor-General’s report – and it is mentioned in the motion – titled Auditor-General’s Report on the Annual Financial Report of the State of Victoria: 2023–24 notes debt for COVID-19-related expenditure totalled $31.5 billion – 18.7 per cent of the government’s current outstanding debt – while $137 billion of gross debt related to investment infrastructure programs. It goes on to state:

… the state has not articulated a clear plan for long-term fiscal management. Current strategies are short term, reactive and do not address both the existing financial challenges and emerging financial risks …

State debt is incredible: $194 billion within a few years. That is nearly $29 million every single day in interest, or over $1 million every hour. What happens if our credit rating is downgraded? It is certainly going to cost a lot more. There is not much of a buffer in this budget for a downgrade in the credit rating. But let us talk about the Treasurer’s advance. That is extraordinary – it is like a hidden credit card that your spouse has that you did not know about. It was meant to be used for urgent expenditure claims that were unforeseen at the time of the budget. But this government have used it for everything.

I do want to thank David Limbrick for hosting a night with the Centre for Public Integrity, which shared some of the information about this. According to the Department of Treasury and Finance, the estimate for 2024–25 is over $12 billion in the Treasurer’s advance. That is 12.7 per cent of the total appropriation for government. What is it being used for? Urgent items? That is what it should be used for, but no. The Age previously revealed that in 2023–24 Treasurer’s advances were used to provide $1.36 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop, a $1.45 billion top-up to public hospitals and $380 million to meet the contractual penalty for dumping the Commonwealth Games. There you go. What does that show you? It shows you that this Labor government has lost control of Victoria’s money.

The state election is not far away, next year in November. I would certainly like to highlight that we do need a change of government, because this Labor government love to come up with plenty of spin, they love to come up with headlines and announce new things. We have heard it before. They say, ‘We’re going to build new hospitals’ – we are still waiting; ‘We’re going to build childcare centres – we are still waiting; ‘We’re going to fix our roads’ – we are still waiting; ‘We’re going to build over 80,000 new homes every year’ – we are still waiting; ‘We’re going to get more teachers – we are still waiting; ‘We’re going to add to our police force – yes, well, we are still waiting; ‘Regional rail revival: we’re going to fix our rail’ – we are still waiting; ‘On mental health, we’re going to do a lot of work in that space’ – we are still waiting.

I did note earlier that Mr Batchelor loves to say, ‘What are you going to cut? What are you going to scrap?’ I will tell you what we are going to cut. We are going to cut the emergency services tax. We are going to cut the school tax that Labor has introduced. We are going to cut the tourism tax, the holiday tax, that Labor has introduced. We are going to cut Labor’s GP tax, and we are going to cut the stamp duty for first home buyers on all homes up to $1 million. As I said, we are 74 weeks away from the next state election in November next year, and I am looking forward to a change of government.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (11:45): I rise to absolutely oppose the motion moved by Mr Davis. It is a motion steeped in economic revisionism and political theatre, rather than a genuine effort to strengthen Victoria’s fiscal future. The Liberal Party’s obsession with an outdated and discredited debt ceiling is not only economically incoherent but, frankly, dangerous. It is a proposal that would make our state less responsive, less prepared and ultimately less fair. This government is proud of its clear, deliberate and transparent five-step fiscal strategy – a strategy that is absolutely working. It is grounded in sound economic management and backed by results, not rhetoric. The five steps are clear: job creation and economic growth, returning to an operating cash surplus, returning to operating surpluses, stabilising debt levels and then reducing debt levels as a share of the economy. These steps have underpinned every budget since 2020 and have been publicly reported and scrutinised.

We have already met the first two steps. Victoria’s economy is growing strongly, and we have returned to a cash operating surplus. The most recent budget delivers a forecast operating surplus of over $600 million in 2025–26, with average surpluses of $1.9 billion per year over the forward estimates. That is our step three – it is well, well on track. And what else about debt? Well, net debt as a share of gross state product is now forecast to stabilise in 2025–26 and fall thereafter. In fact Victoria is the only state where net debt to GSP is projected to decline over the forward estimates. That is right – the only state. And let us be absolutely clear: our debt in this state is manageable and it is sustainable. It is deeply ironic that those opposite are now calling for a debt ceiling when it was their federal counterparts who scrapped the Commonwealth debt ceiling in 2013, when then Treasurer Joe Hockey – we remember him – put it this way: ‘We must have a realistic debt limit.’ Apparently what was self-delusion in Canberra is now economic gospel here in Spring Street.

This motion ignores the reality of modern fiscal management. Just as a family might take out a mortgage to buy a home or invest in their child’s education, governments borrow to invest in public infrastructure and services that benefit not only the present generation but also the many generations to come. What matters is our capacity to repay, not some arbitrary percentage plucked out of the air. It is no coincidence that Victoria’s debt grew in the years following the pandemic. We made conscious decisions to use the balance sheet to protect lives, to protect businesses and to protect jobs. The alternative – the Liberal alternative, I have to tell you – would have been to let the economy fall into some deep recession, to leave workers jobless and small businesses without the support that they so desperately needed. If we had imposed a rigid debt cap, as this motion before us proposes, we would not have been able to act to save the economy as we did, to fund our COVID health response or to support schools, hospitals and community services when Victorians needed them the most.

Let me take this time to remind the house of the current gross debt figure cited by Mr Davis. More than $137 billion is for infrastructure investment, and just 18.7 per cent was related to COVID. These are not wasteful expenditures; these are roads, these are rail lines, these are hospitals, these are schools – schools, rail, roads and hospitals that Victorians rely on every single day. Those opposite throw around figures about cost overruns – and I have heard it before – but they conveniently forget to mention that the cost of inaction, the cost of delay and the cost of dithering and doing nothing is always, always higher. And we saw that. We saw that during the last Liberal government, when not a single major transport project was delivered. If those opposite had their way, the Metro Tunnel would not be opening this year, the Suburban Rail Loop would not be underway and 84 dangerous and congested level crossings would still be slowing down our transport system and putting lives at risk. Victorians made their choice time and time again, and they chose a government that builds, not one that cuts and blocks, and a government that invests in the future, not one that prioritises political – I do not know – accounting tricks is probably the best way to put it.

Let us talk about what a debt ceiling would actually mean. The United States has had one for decades, and the result has been political brinkmanship, repeated government shutdowns and public servants stood down without pay. It has never delivered budget outcomes that are better, it has never reduced debt and it has only created crisis after crisis. I have had, frankly, the misfortune to be in DC at the time of a shutdown, and I tell you, the feeling over that town is hard to take. It is hard to take seeing public servants without pay and the uncertainty in the community there that it puts on unnecessarily. UNSW economist Professor Richard Holden put it plainly: ‘The US debt ceiling is a form of self-delusion’, he said. Australia rightly abandoned its own debt cap, and Victoria should not resurrect such a failed policy idea. Yet here we are with the Victorian Liberals once again borrowing bad ideas from Republican politics. I would think that recent events would have taught those opposite that copying Republicans does not work out for them so much.

I can perhaps go through some other decisions made by those opposite to follow in the footsteps of the US Republicans. They have not worked, and 94 seats absolutely tells you that. Let us address the supposed need for transparency. This government’s fiscal strategy is published, it is detailed and it is benchmarked. Our budgets are audited by the Victorian Auditor-General, something no other state mandates to this level. We publish quarterly financial updates and midyear reports. Our commitment to transparency and fiscal discipline is second to none. Indeed the global credit rating agencies have endorsed our approach. Standard & Poor’s highlighted Victoria’s commitment to controlling operating costs, delivering promised savings and slowing down growth in debt. Moody’s called our strategy fiscally responsible and sustainable. These are independent experts with no political axe to grind. The government has also introduced the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, aimed at strengthening financial oversight and fiscal discipline across the entire public sector. It enhances capability, accountability and risk management. These are real outcomes driven by real reforms; this is what modern fiscal management looks like.

Those opposite seem to think that the answer to every problem is a cap, a cut or a closure, but let us look at their own record. They have made billions of dollars of unfunded promises: $1 billion for stamp duty concession, $2.9 billion for emergency services and hundreds of millions in short-stay levies and payroll tax giveaways. They have not explained how they will pay for any of it. These billions-of-dollar black holes are in their costings already, and if they were in charge – let us know this clearly today – that would mean cuts to teachers, to nurses and to ambos, because they cannot say how else they would make the numbers add up. They are asking us to believe in the fantasy of debt caps while quietly – or not so quietly – plotting the return of austerity to our state. In contrast, the government on this side have made over 65 tax cuts since coming to office. We have almost doubled the payroll tax threshold, taking 6000 small businesses out of the tax net entirely. We have slashed the regional payroll tax to just 1.2 per cent; that is the lowest in the country. We understand the balance between raising revenue and encouraging growth.

This motion is not about accountability, it is about ideology. The Liberal Party is fundamentally opposed to public investment, to public services and to the role in government in shaping a fairer, stronger society for us all. They are seeking to impose restraints not for economic necessity but for some sort of political convenience and storytelling time. I absolutely reject this motion. We do not need a debt ceiling. We need responsible government, targeted investment and a long-term plan, and that is exactly what we are delivering. Our current fiscal strategy is clear and credible, and it is working. To vote for this motion would be to undermine this strategy, to put at risk the investments that matter most to Victorians and to turn our Parliament into the stage of political theatre imported from DC. I have been there; I have seen it firsthand. It is a disgrace, and I do not want it on these shores. We will not be drawn into that kind of dysfunction. We will continue to manage the state’s finances in a responsible, modern and strategic way, ensuring always that at the centre we are putting the needs of Victorians first. I absolutely without hesitation oppose this motion.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:54): I have never heard so much drivel and fearmongering in this house over a motion in my entire life. This is actually a really serious motion, because it is talking about keeping this government to account – which is our job as the opposition – and offering an opportunity for you to be able to stay within your budget. That is what this motion is doing. It is simply saying, ‘Hey, in Labor governments in the past, you have had debt ceilings.’ It was brought in by the Bracks government. It is right here in the motion and it is all fact checked. It goes to the comprehensive operating statement of December 2024. It goes to the consolidated general government sector balance sheet of December 2024. It looks at Victoria’s four biggest Big Build blowouts for recent times and the annual financial report of 2023–24 from the state of Victoria. That is your Victorian Auditor-General’s Office reports. It even has the page numbers listed. It is all available. This is all based on research and fact, and I applaud David Davis for bringing this motion to the chamber because it is looking at the fact that it was the Andrews government that removed the debt ceiling. First he increased it to 12 per cent and then he removed the ceiling entirely. And now you are a free range, out of control, budget blowing party that is in government and destroying our economy, and every Victorian is paying for it.

Only this morning I was listening to the absolute appeals on the ABC from farmers who were in tears because they are struggling to feed their cattle. They are struggling in areas that this government has not even declared affected by drought. This is an appalling situation where this government is only interested in helping its own, and every Victorian is paying the price.

I can categorically say that the Liberals and Nationals have come up with an economic plan. We are still working on it, but we have come up with some very, very stable things.

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Ann-Marie HERMANS: We are not in government. This Labor government is letting every Victorian down.

Melina Bath: On a point of order, President, the member deserves to be heard in silence, not the barrage that we are hearing from the government benches.

The PRESIDENT: I uphold the point of order. Can Mrs Hermans be heard in silence, please, government members.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: This is a motion that should be heeded. Shame on this government that it is not prepared to take its own debt ceiling that it once had when it was under a responsible, sensible Labor government, one that actually was willing to work within its budget. This government is not working within a budget. It is blowing it out, and it is making farmers go to the point where they are fearing for their own lives and their own mental health because they are at the brink of absolute desperation. These land taxes are driving people into the ground. Businesses are closing. Nobody wants to invest here in Victoria.

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.