Tuesday, 12 August 2025

Bills

Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Harriet Shing:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:20): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 and in doing so indicate that the opposition is opposed to this bill. This bill substantially weakens accountability measures, particularly through reduced budget reporting in election years, warrant removals and expanded discretionary exemptions for declared bodies. Additionally, there is a series of provisions that have come back from the dead, from a lapsed 2017 bill, without any comprehensive contemporary review. This further undermines confidence in reasonable and robust legislative scrutiny.

I want to just lay out some of the provisions of the bill. It amends the Financial Management Act 1994, the Constitution Act 1975 and the Local Government Act 1989. It updates financial management principles, it says. It claims to embed budget overrun notification processes. It empowers ministerial discretion to include or exclude agencies from the Financial Management Act. We are troubled by that. It removes Governor-issued warrant requirements for accessing public funds. We are opposed to that. It clarifies, it says, the responsibilities of accountable officers, boards and chief financial officers. It removes reporting obligations of the budget updates and the September quarterly reports. It refines creation and cessation of agencies and ministerial direction-making powers.

In the 2024–25 budget papers the government announced it was undertaking a review of the Financial Management Act to ensure it remained fit for purpose. The government noted it had been 30 years since the Financial Management Act was introduced, and it was followed by the global economic downturn, the terrible outcome of the Cain–Kirner years, and it was a Kennett government act that was forward leaning. It was much more transparent than what had been there before. The Department of Treasury and Finance has advised the bill was the result of a review known in that period. It should be noted that a bill similar to this one was introduced in the 58th Parliament, the Financial Management and Constitution Acts Amendment Bill 2017; however, the 2017 bill lapsed before the 2018 election. There are a number of provisions of the 2017 bill which are mirrored in this new bill. It is therefore clear that a number of measures proposed in the bill are not a result of the most recent DTF review.

There are changes to definitions in clauses 3 and 4, updating a number of those definitions. The updated definitions have the same meanings as defined in section 4 of the Public Administration Act 2004. The amendment to ministerial direction seeks to clarify that a person or body given a direction must comply with the direction. The amendment seeks to give directions made by the minister stronger teeth and remove any ambiguity as to whether compliance with the direction is discretionary. There is the establishment or abolition of entities and warrants. This removes ministerial consultation for entity creation or abolition, adding administrative complexity. It removes warrant-based procedures, eliminating critical oversight previously provided by the Governor and the Auditor-General.

The budget discipline provisions we think are less satisfactory. It establishes a principle that each department or public body should operate within its budget, but we hold no belief that the government will adhere to that. It lacks an explicit enforcement mechanism or measure, and the term ‘should’ will make the insertion largely meaningless – it does not say ‘must’.

The election period financial reporting exemptions – we are troubled by some of this – insert a new section in the Financial Management Act that grants significant exemptions from critical financial reporting such as budget updates and quarterly reports during election periods, reducing government transparency. With the document transmission issues, it extends submission deadlines for financial documents from 15 November to 15 December, diminishing timely parliamentary scrutiny. This we think is a problem, especially near an election period. It allows selective application of budget management provisions to public bodies via gazette notification, risking an arbitrary set of exemptions and reduced oversight.

There are accountability and reporting issues. The bill inserts a new section 41, which includes a number of new definitions. One of these new definitions is of a declared body, which is defined as a prescribed office or public body specified in an order made under section 41A of the Financial Management Act. New section 41A provides that:

The Governor in Council, by Order published in the Government Gazette, may declare a prescribed office or a public body to be a declared body …

under part 7.

The financial management obligations in clause 16 insert new provisions which impose a number of responsibilities and requirements on departments, boards and other public bodies. The new requirements are referred to as overarching obligations. Section 43A imposes an obligation on the board of a prescribed office to ensure the accountable office fulfils its overarching obligations. The board is responsible to the Minister for Finance in fulfilling these obligations, new section 43B imposing a new overarching obligation on the accountable officer of a department or public body to manage the following in a financially effective, economical, efficient and sustainable way:

the operations of the department or public body;

the public resources for which the department or public body is responsible.

In order to carry out its overarching obligation the accountable officer must establish and maintain effective controls and reporting mechanisms and ensure that the person who holds the position of chief finance officer can meet the responsibilities of that position under the Financial Management Act.

The accountable officer is required to report on compliance. New section 43A requires the chief financial officer of a department or public body to assist the accountable officer to fulfil and report on compliance with overarching obligations. New sections 43D and E specifically relate to declared bodies, with the new sections providing that a board or the accountable officer of a declared body will be required to comply with these overarching obligations. There is no requirement to report on compliance with the overarching obligation to DTF or the head of portfolio department. As such, there does not appear to be any mechanism for external oversight or scrutiny of these declared bodies in relation to their new financial reporting obligations. We think these are fatal flaws, fatal weaknesses. We are not at all convinced that this will help. We think it will make things worse. Already we have a lot of problems across this government, and they are getting worse, not better. We think that this is designed to weaken many of the provisions.

Clause 17 deals with disclosure of financial information. Section 44A is to be repealed and replaced by new provisions concerning accountable officers being required to provide financial information either on receipt of a request or by determining that a person or body should be made aware of the information. The following persons may request financial information: the relevant minister; the department head of DTF; in the case of a public body, the department head of the portfolio area; in the case of a public body or prescribed office, the board. Declared bodies are again excluded from this requirement, and it is not clear why that is. Under new section 44AB, a declared body will only be required to provide or disclose financial information to the head of DTF or the board, if any, of the declared body. We think there are a series of weaknesses here. I think I have made my point.

The budget overrun reporting – at clause 18 a new section 44C will be inserted, which will require departments or public bodies to provide written notification to the department head of DTF if the department or public body is likely to exceed its budget. If a notification is given, it must be accompanied by a plan of how the department or public body intends to manage risks associated with exceeding its budget or other identified issues. The bill does not provide any timeframe by which such notification must be made after a department or public body identifies it is likely to exceed its budget. This new provision will not apply to a declared body. Why are these declared bodies all exempt?

Financial statement dispensation – a new section 52A will be inserted, which provides the Minister for Finance with the power to dispense with the requirement for a public body to prepare and submit a financial statement to the Auditor-General if the Auditor-General has dispensed with the requirement to audit the public body’s financial statements for a particular year. The intention of this provision is to relieve small public bodies, mainly operated by volunteers, such as small cemetery trusts, from being required to incur significant costs in order to prepare financial statements that comply with the Auditor-General’s requirements. I understand what is trying to be achieved here. I understand the logic of what the government is trying to do there. The example of cemetery trusts was used in the briefing, as I understand it. As a former Minister for Health I understand the problems of small cemetery trusts and went to a lot of effort to try and assist them. I also know that there are financial risks with smaller bodies of this type. We need to be very careful in having lesser control and oversight. It has got to be a very close balance. I am far from convinced that the government has struck the balance right on this.

Clauses 22 to 25 are around the removal of warrants and related matters. The amendments repeal warrants provisions, removing crucial oversight from the Governor, and correspondingly amend the Constitution Act 1975 and the Local Government Act 1989, weakening traditional accountability mechanisms. For those who maybe do not understand about warrants, this is where a financial call is to be made. There needs to be a tick off by the Governor, and that enables a better and stronger oversight by broader government, through the Governor, to ensure that there is a really clear and tight set of decisions about whether financial matters, through a warrant, are justified. It is not, in my view, simply an old bit of cobweb to be swept aside or a bit of an old practice. It was put there for a reason – to tighten and sharpen financial accountability. As with most of this bill, this is all about weakening financial accountability, leaving the state and Victoria more generally more exposed. It is about weakening all those checks and balances that have been built up over a long time.

I am, frankly, very concerned about this bill and where it heads. My colleague Mr Newbury, the Shadow Treasurer, did a comparison with the lapsed 2017 bill, and as he pointed out, this 2025 bill significantly mirrors the provisions of the lapsed Financial Management and Constitution Acts Amendment Bill 2017. It had the removal of warrants. It had the ministerial directions. It had the same sorts of provisions on financial management obligations, reporting and disclosure arrangements. There are some differences. The budget overrun notifications are new; the election period reporting is new. The bill significantly reduces mandatory financial disclosures during the election period compared to the narrower approach of the 2017 bill, and I think this is about reducing scrutiny for this government, a government in financial strife ahead of the state election next year.

The Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill introduces some enhanced financial mechanisms, but these are far outweighed by the critical weakening of traditional accountability mechanisms and transparency. Reducing the election period reporting exemptions and removing the Governor-issued warrants, as I say, will reduce historical checks. This is a bad bill, a bill that strips away longstanding mechanisms that are understood and have built up over many years to provide a stronger set of controls on finances. Broad ministerial discretion to exempt declared bodies from financial oversight introduces considerable risk of inconsistent oversight and diminished transparency. This is not the time to introduce measures that weaken financial oversight and control. Victoria’s deteriorating financial position is significant. We have got a terrible escalating debt, with projections of it reaching, for the general government sector, $194 billion over the forward estimates. There is an increasingly fragile credit rating. The bill’s erosion of financial governance safeguards is, in my view, concerning, and ultimately that is one of the reasons that the coalition will oppose this bill.

This is Labor through and through. It is a bill designed to weaken accountability, weaken oversight, weaken control. Labor wants to spend taxpayers money and it wants to do it with abandon. It wants to do it without proper checks and balances. It wants to do it in a way that the controls on taxpayers money are weakened and watered down to next to nothing. I am very concerned about where this will head. Everything we have seen from this government over the last few years – I mean, we dealt with a motion in this chamber a little while ago that dealt with the Bracks government. Do you remember Steve Bracks? He introduced a debt ceiling of 6 per cent. That was stuck with by Brumby, Baillieu and Denis Napthine, and then after the change of government in 2014 it was stuck with initially by Andrews. But then just before the 2018 election we had Andrews and Pallas go out and say, ‘We’re going to go to 12 per cent of GSP for debt.’ Well, they went off and away it rocketed. Even before COVID hit it was skyrocketing high, and now we are heading for 26, 27 or 28 per cent of GSP. This is what you get with Labor governments, Labor governments that have no control over the projects, no control over the spending, Labor governments that squander and waste money on projects because they cannot control the projects. You look at them –

John Berger interjected.

David DAVIS: I will tell you what, what we would not be doing is weakening control on these projects and letting things rip and letting them run out of control as taxpayers money is squandered and blundered. That is what they do. This is what Labor governments do. They always do this. They cannot help themselves. It is in their DNA. And I have got to say it is very clear that this government is a real risk for the Victorian community now, and this bill will make it worse. It will weaken the controls, weaken the checks, weaken the balances and weaken the control over taxpayers money. I think it is a bad bill. I think it is a bill that should be absolutely and implacably opposed.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: No, they are doing it to weaken control over taxpayers money so that this government can spend the money uncontrolled and they can do it without the normal checks and balances. This is what you get with Labor governments. They cannot be trusted with money. They blow up the money – they blow it up – and that is the shocking thing about the story of this government. Andrews and Pallas went out there in 2018 and ripped away all pretence of sticking with financial arrangements. They went, ‘We’re going to 12 per cent of GSP for debt.’ But actually it is way up in the 20s now, and it is going to go higher under the current projections. It is going to go to $194 billion in debt for the general government sector – more if you count the outer sector. But all of it is because this government cannot control money, because they do not have control of these major projects. These projects are careering out of control, and it is taxpayers money. What this bill seeks to do is weaken those controls even further. It is a bad bill. It is a bill that the community should be concerned about. It is a bill that the community should be very, very worried about, and we will oppose it.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:40): The Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 modernises and brings up to date the Financial Management Act 1994. Just reflecting on Mr Davis’s contribution, it really makes me think of the definition of ‘conservatism’. The definition of conservatism is ‘keep everything the same, do not change anything’, and when I go through what I have to say in my speech you will see the opposite to conservatism. This is all about ensuring the Financial Management Act 1994 reflects the realities of the 21st century. It is about strengthening transparency, accountability and clarity so that every department and every agency knows its responsibilities – not weakening, strengthening. It has been more than 20 years since the last major update to this act.

The bill makes a number of important changes. It updates the financial management principles so that every department and agency is expected by law to operate within its budget. What is wrong with that? It embeds an early warning system requiring departments and agencies to notify if there is a risk of overspending. This means intervention can happen early, giving the opportunity for the Department of Treasury and Finance to provide timely support. There is a good governance principle that is very apt here, and that is: bad news early. When something is not going well you want to know about it early, not late.

The bill clarifies the roles and responsibilities of accountable officers, boards and chief finance officers, including strengthening reporting requirements. It provides the Minister for Finance with the ability to include or exclude certain agencies from particular provisions of the act where that makes sense, and it gives incoming treasurers more flexibility around post-election budget updates. It is important to note that the bill removes the mandatory requirement to publish the budget update but does not prevent a future Treasurer from doing so if they want to. The reality is that there is no significant difference between the information published in the pre-election budget update in November of an election year and the budget update a mere few weeks later in December. Let me point out that the reason why there is not much difference is because we get on with things straightaway. The election happens, then Labor is sworn in and the legislation and the work begins straight away – virtually no difference. Of course if a new government were elected and they took a couple of months to schedule the opening of Parliament and they had no agenda to do anything, well, then maybe things might change in several months.

The bill also adjusts the timing for the September quarterly report so it is delivered by 15 December, aligning reporting with better data analysis. Sometimes July financial reporting can take a little bit extra because it is calculating totals for the end of the year, and you do not want to be messing with the finance department while they are trying to work that stuff out. So giving this more appropriate timeline suits in that regard as well. It requires portfolio ministers to consult with the Minister for Finance before creating or abolishing agencies, ensuring strong financial governance from the very beginning. This is hardly loosening things up; it is tightening things up. It updates the regulations and the powers to issue directions so that the act is clear, current and workable. It abolishes outdated processes such as financial warrants. In fact abolishing warrants is a great case in point of exactly why this bill is needed. This particular reform is both symbolic and practical in modernising Victoria’s financial framework. The warrant system is a historical relic, an anachronism that persists only in Victoria and Western Australia. All other states and jurisdictions have abolished the warrants.

The warrant was included in the very first Victorian Constitution in 1855. The Crown needed a mechanism to physically control the assets provided to fund the colony. Gold was the standard of the time. Back then a warrant was the legal instrument issued by the Treasurer that gave the departments permission to access and spend public funds, and that meant, literally, to access the vaults. The warrant process provided an assurance that amounts of gold had been lawfully drawn and were duly recorded as such in government ledgers, manually so. Once money was removed from the vaults, any tracking of how it was used involved manual records maintained by the entity that had received the money. Obviously gold is no longer the currency of the state, and it is appropriate that more contemporary controls are in place.

Funds are dispersed electronically now, with every transaction tracked through sophisticated financial management systems. I would like to point that out to those opposite. As I said, it is conservatism: ‘Let’s just keep the warrants. Let’s just use gold and have someone go with a trolley down to the vault, walk in, hand over a piece of paper and take a pile of gold out for their department.’ Really? That is the definition of conservatism: change nothing. Strong requirements to provide audited annual reports demonstrate how funds are allocated, rendering warrants completely outdated. We no longer physically move money around. There are a few of us that have cash but not very often. We do it virtually, actually through computer systems.

The warrant system is still in place. This bill abolishes it. It currently operates as a duplicate system. It literally still happens. Currently the same information that is provided by the appropriation bills, which receives the Governor’s royal assent and is based on the audited budget papers, then goes back to the Auditor-General, and the Governor has a warrant to be approved once more. So you can see the warrant system has become completely redundant, like perhaps those opposite. It consumes significant administrative time and resources, resources that could be better spent on service delivery, on building things, on doing things and on reforming things. A parallel would be a requirement to sweep up horse manure on the street – if we still had that in place – when actually everybody is currently being transported by cars. Why would you keep that law in place? Why would you keep doing that?

A member: You wouldn’t.

Jacinta ERMACORA: Yes, exactly. Examples such as this show that the changes in this bill might sound technical but they are very, very important, and they make clear the government’s expectations of departments and agencies. Labor governments have a strong tradition of enshrining in legislation robust public financial reporting. Government delivers more, partners with more organisations and manages more complex budgets than ever before. Our financial management laws need to reflect that reality, and the bill ensures that this is the case.

We are making the role of the Secretary of the Department of Treasury and Finance central to that oversight. Every department and agency will report to them and alert them at the sign of any budget risk. This will allow early intervention, as I mentioned earlier, early solutions and better outcomes. And by writing into law the expectation that public bodies operate within their budgets, we are embedding stronger discipline, clearer rules and more consistent oversight. It is about making sure the public sector uses its resources sustainably and transparently.

Just as Victorian households are watching every dollar, so too should our government. Strengthening financial performance helps us deliver surpluses and supports economic growth. It also allows us to keep investing in what matters most – education, health and easing cost-of-living pressures. That is exactly what we have done in the 2025–26 budget. That budget delivers real help with the cost of living, it invests in the services that we rely on and it returns Victoria to a surplus.

In conclusion, I would say that we do not need to conserve the current status quo. What we need to do is respond to the new and changing operating environment, the new and changing technical environment and of course the changing needs of the Victorian community, and this bill responds to those challenges.

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:51): It is not old-fashioned or out of touch to believe in transparency and accountability. I found that contribution quite bizarre. I wish that we could go to the vault, but the fact is our currency has not been backed by gold for an extremely long time. Reality check: Victoria has more debt than New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania combined. So whatever the attempt was to put down conservatives or to put down the Liberal Party, I do not think it landed at all.

I rise today to speak to the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. It is a bill we oppose, not because we do not support financial reform but because this bill represents a strategy to avoid scrutiny, to delay and conceal budgetary exposure and to rewrite the rules of public finance. I found it so bizarre, the whole analogy that was supposedly about gold versus internet banking, essentially. No, this is not about that at all; this is about transparency and accountability, something that this bill weakens.

This government presents this legislation as a modernisation, but it is yet another bald-faced example of doublespeak. The Minister for Finance stood before the Assembly and said:

We continue to demonstrate targeted and disciplined financial management …

And he promised it will:

… improve accountability and transparency across the public sector …

He said:

It is a signpost … of … sound and sustainable financial management.

But let us allow the numbers to speak for themselves. Victoria’s debt is forecast to hit nearly $200 billion by 2028, hardly the gold bullion that we are going to the safe to get out that Ms Ermacora spoke about – if only. With all her trashing and bagging of so-called conservative government, maybe we should have conserved some of our wealth and Victorians would be having a lot less cost-of-living crisis and a much better quality of life, but I will let that one slide anyway.

Interest payments are expected to rise to nearly $11 billion per year. Let us break that down into what it costs per day: $29 million per day in interest payments alone, over $1 million per hour. This government has either forgotten the basic responsibility of financial stewardship or never understood it at all. Governments exist not as a creator of wealth but as custodians of the wealth created by Victorians. There is no such thing as government money; there is taxpayer money. Every dollar that this government spends originates from the productive efforts of Victorian families, Victorian workers and Victorian small businesses, yet this government’s track record suggests a profound disconnect from that reality, and I think there is no better example of that than the speech we just heard before this one.

Infrastructure projects like the Suburban Rail Loop have negative cost–benefit ratios but continue to have billions of dollars invested despite federal warnings – and not just from the coalition government, from their own Labor government. This and other projects are labelled bad debt for bad infrastructure. We should ask: if the exorbitant costs are not benefiting Victorians today and in the future, who are the real beneficiaries of these projects? In fact this government has consigned the state’s taxpayers to decades of debt and servitude and reduced living standards for projects that serve political vanity and in some cases, with what we saw with the CFMEU, criminal interests rather than the public that they are put there to serve. S&P and Moody’s have warned that Victoria risks further credit downgrades if it fails to demonstrate genuine fiscal discipline. They specifically state that Victoria’s governance and investment decision quality are ‘lagging those of many highly rated … peers’. That is not financial discipline; that is financial delusion, and it is intergenerational theft. The debt that this government has racked up will not be paid off by our children. It will not even be paid off by our children’s children. But children in Victoria are born into the debt that this government has racked up.

I find it offensive to sit here and to be raising things about transparency and accountability and have people from the government make jokes about the good old days – trivialising it – when we actually had resources and we actually had gold that could back up some of the building in this state. It is pretty appalling, and I think it is embarrassing to come in and to trivialise and to downplay the amount of tax that our state pays. It costs more to grow a tomato in this state than any other area in Australia because of the taxes and charges. I think it is interesting that to note that key cabinet members in charge of Treasury and finance all have backgrounds in arts and law, and that could explain their laser-focused pursuit of ideological commitments ahead of real-life fiscal responsibility. I do not think it is right to come in here in this chamber to represent the people of Victoria and to trivialise the mess that we are in and the pain that they are going through.

I think that it is unsurprising then that, when we examine the bill’s actual provisions, we discover that there is something far more troubling. It is a systematic dismantling of the very transparency mechanisms that allow Victorians to hold the government accountable. The trademark of a democracy is a government that can be held accountable, and this is weakening that. This bill did not emerge in isolation. It followed its predecessor, the Financial Management and Constitution Acts Amendment Bill 2017, which lapsed at the end of the 58th Parliament without passing. While both bills share the stated goal of modernising Victoria’s financial legislation, their approaches reveal a telling evolution in the government’s priorities. Where the 2017 bill sought to streamline but retain public-facing updates, this 2025 version enables selective withholding of key budget data. Where the earlier bill extended controls over definitions, this bill empowers discretion to reduce reporting obligations entirely. The pattern is clear. We have moved from reform to concealment, from transparency to tactical opaqueness.

In a Westminster democracy the people’s representatives must have access to all financial information necessary to make informed decisions. More critically, the people themselves, who ultimately bear the cost of government decisions, deserve to know how their money is being spent, particularly before they cast their votes. We must remember a fundamental truth, one that was championed by Sir Robert Menzies, which he impressed upon Australians: governments possess no money of their own. Every dollar in government coffers is the Victorian people’s money.

Government is not some magical treasury that creates wealth from thin air, but rather it is an apparatus for collecting revenue from citizens through taxation and redistributing it through public expenditure. The basic arithmetic is inescapable: what all citizens receive from the government can never exceed what the citizens contribute to the government in the first place, something that seems to be completely lost on this government. This principle makes financial transparency not just desirable but democratically essential. When citizens are compelled to fund government through their taxes, they absolutely have a right to know how those funds are being used. When the government can selectively withhold financial information, when they can exempt agencies from reporting requirements at their discretion and when they can delay budget updates until after elections are decided, that is not modernising; they are betraying the fundamental agreement between citizens and the state.

Perhaps no provision better illustrates this bill’s true purpose than the removal of mandatory September quarterly budget updates in election years. Let us be up-front about what this means. Voters will no longer have access to updated financial figures in the lead-up to state elections. Just let that sink in for a minute. Independent economist Saul Eslake has called this crucial budget update essential ‘regardless of any looming election’. He notes:

Normally there would be information released between the pre-election update and the ordinary timing of the mid-year review … that would likely be relevant to the budget numbers …

He emphasised:

The budget update is very important, it gives you an account of what has changed, that is the economic and other assumptions, and will give you an update on any policy decisions the government has made including election commitments

He particularly makes the point that transparency becomes more important in the event of a change of government. How convenient then that this government seeks to eliminate this 18 months before the 2026 election is held.

This bill grants the Minister for Finance discretionary power to exempt certain public bodies from financial reporting requirements. According to the minister, the amendments will create:

… the settings for a more risk-based approach to financial management by enabling smaller agencies to be more agile …

And yet while the minister highlights small agencies, the very plausible risk that ‘declared’ bodies could include big agencies and major statutory authorities such as the Suburban Rail Loop Authority, IBAC and Court Services Victoria under these changes means it is entirely possible that the minister could exempt major statutory authorities from financial reporting obligations, including risk reporting.

The implementation of this provision becomes starkly apparent when we consider the Suburban Rail Loop, the project that exemplifies everything wrong with this government’s approach to financial governance. Since former Premier Daniel Andrews made his captain’s call to announce the SRL, it has been shrouded in secrecy and deception. Infrastructure Australia never reviewed this project. No business case was ever developed prior to the announcement. The SRL was not even disclosed to Victoria’s transport department beforehand, because the government knew it would object. Recent revelations show the depths of this government’s duplicity. Modelling provided years ago to Premier Jacinta Allan but kept secret showed catastrophic passenger demand projections. By mid-century, when Melbourne has 8 million people, there would only be 24,000 daily trips between the first two SRL stations while trains between Sunshine and Footscray would carry 270,000 passengers. As one Labor minister admitted:

This is exactly why they didn’t bring the SRL to the general Cabinet …

They knew western suburbs and northern suburbs MPs would be angry.

This project’s cost has exploded from an initial $50 billion to beyond $200 billion, yet the government has attempted to disguise this fiscal catastrophe by rebranding the SRL as a housing project and failing to mention it in the latest budget. This is a government which conceals even from its own cabinet members, saying, ‘There’s nothing to see here.’ They are completely opaque. They need to, I think, front up and be honest. This is precisely why declared body exemptions are so dangerous. They institutionalise such deception, allowing politically sensitive entities like the SRL to vanish from public scrutiny entirely. They create a dual regime where transparency becomes a matter of ministerial discretion rather than a legal obligation.

This is not reform; it is institutionalisation of secretive accountability, designed to hide projects, and it epitomises financial irresponsibility. Unfortunately, I have run out of time.

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:06): I rise to speak on behalf of the Greens on the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I will commence by noting that it is no secret that the Victorian government is under serious financial pressure. We have seen escalating debt, significant cost blowouts on major projects and also a narrowing of the tax base, which already collects little revenue beyond duties on property and gambling, for example. While some of these issues I note have been caused by factors outside of government control – that is, things like a global pandemic and global conflicts, which have triggered spiralling ensuing inflation – I also note that much of the state’s current predicament is attributable to poor decisions that have been made by state government. It is too often reactive to the latest headline, desperate to change a narrative by governing by press release and, quite frankly, posing for pictures with a hard hat on rather than working out how much one of these projects will actually cost. How else can we find ourselves in a situation where we spend a billion dollars on an empty prison or find ourselves in a situation where we are paying $600 million to not host the Commonwealth Games, just as some examples. The fact is that even with these difficult financial headwinds the government too often have prioritised spending money on what they think is good politics over what is actually good for people in our state.

Considering those points that I have just raised, one can be tempted to be drawn in by some of the statements we hear from the opposition – slogans like ‘Labor can’t manage money’. But then you take a look at the opposition and what they have actually put on the table to date, and there is a bit more to speak on there. When we look at the, to be quite frank, Trumpian Liberal financial announcements that have been made so far, which would narrow the tax base even further through repealing taxes and providing more tax concessions for investors across the community, for example, under these measures the state debt would balloon even more than what we are seeing under Labor right now. You could also consider that while we hear the opposition cry out about the government’s lack of financial acumen, lack of planning and lack of transparency, when push comes to shove, as we have seen in this term of Parliament, they team up with the government to oppose Greens amendments that would do things like strengthen our budget oversight committee processes – the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee – so that we could apply real scrutiny on government spending and on our state budgets.

Without descending into throwing punches any which way here in the contribution to debate today, the truth is that to date, from what I have seen in this term of Parliament from Labor and the Liberals, they are all as bad as each other when it comes to financial management and budget accountability, to be quite frank. Both parties have been committed to doing as little as possible to make governments accountable and transparent because either they are right now in government and it is perhaps not in their interest to do so or potentially they think they might soon be in government and therefore they do not want to implement changes that would put them under more pressure should they be in that position. That is why I think we have seen this term and in the past on matters of political integrity, on transparency and on government accountability that often improvements follow when the Greens or the crossbench bring changes to this place to force either Liberals or Labor, whoever is in government, to act.

Broadly speaking, though, looking at this legislation, the bill at face value proposes to strengthen budgeting and reporting requirements of government agencies to clarify the legislated accountabilities for accountable officers and chief finance officers and reduce what are referred to as duplication and inefficiencies to make the state’s financial management procedures more reflective of what would be described as modern financial practices. To that end the Greens are supportive of the bill, but we do not think it goes far enough, particularly in regard to improving government transparency when it comes to our spending and our overall financial performance. The Greens have been saying for some time – we have been saying it in here for a while – that the only way to end government waste and cost blowouts is to have laws that actually force government ministers to be transparent and accountable about their spending. It is not enough to make statements that pretend to be about better financial management, as too often we see from the opposition; we actually need to be making changes in this place to entrench improvements in our legislation to make governments more accountable and transparent about their spending and about their budgeting, whoever is in power. Surely we can agree that should be in our interest here.

For over a decade state governments of all stripes have been tabling hundreds of departmental and agency annual reports – tens of thousands of pages of financial and performance reporting – on a single day, 1 November. It is a process that is both deeply cynical and a very effective ploy insomuch that it buries much, if not all, of the bad news contained in these reports from the public, at least for a week or two, by which time the media news cycle may have moved on. It has become such a perversely celebrated tradition in our state that the day even has its own afforded name, dump day, an ongoing testament to the lack of government transparency in this state. The Greens amendments here today seek to end dump day by requiring these reports to be tabled sooner.

Our other amendments that we have brought today relate to Treasurer’s advances and seek to provide better reporting of their use by mid-year financial reporting, as would be required to be tabled. Victoria is fairly unique, I would say, in its excessive use of Treasurer’s advances as part of its financial management. Treasurer’s advances are also often referred to colloquially as ‘the government’s secret credit card’. These are payments that are supposed to cover emergency or unforeseen expenses outside of the formal budgeted appropriations. But we have seen increasingly in Victoria this emergency credit card used not just for emergencies but for projects and programs that really, one would think, should be properly costed and outlined in the annual budget. Because this expenditure is paid from Treasurer’s advances and not comprehensively outlined in the budget process, as with other spending, the first the public sometimes finds out about it can be over 12 months after it has been paid. It is really quite outrageous when you think that you or I spend 20 bucks on a credit card and we receive a statement from the bank within a month but the state government can spend tens of billions of dollars in secret and not have to report on it for more than 12 months. To that end, the Greens have amendments to improve financial transparency and accountability of government by addressing both these issues I have mentioned, one being so-called dump day and the other being Treasurer’s advances, and I kindly request that these amendments be circulated now. I would also like to acknowledge, in so doing, the good-faith consultation and feedback that we have had from right across the Parliament on these matters, particularly noting consultation and feedback that my colleagues received from the offices of the Treasurer and also the Minister for Finance in putting these amendments together.

In concluding my remarks, I will just end by reminding the house that the opposition have stated clearly on the public record during this term that if they are elected they will abolish dump day and excessive use of Treasurer’s advances. I also note the Treasurer has publicly committed to being more transparent around use of Treasurer’s advances. In that sense I am very hopeful, given Labor and the Liberals have indicated public support for what these amendments seek to achieve and that the crossbench have generally also been united in supporting more transparency and accountability in government, that we may in fact be in a rare position today of being able to unanimously find support for these amendments. There is absolutely much more work to do, but passing the amendments as proposed by the Greens today on integrity would be a significant step in the right direction for our state and a great credit to all members of this Parliament. In saying that, I commend this bill to the house.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (16:14): I rise to speak in support of the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. This bill represents a significant stride towards enhancing the financial governance framework of our state, ensuring that Victoria remains resilient and responsive to the fiscal challenges of the 21st century. This bill is ultimately about sound fiscal management, an issue that has come up a number of times this year. Members of the Legislative Council are certainly aware of and do not need to be reminded of the sound fiscal management which allowed the Treasurer to hand down a budget surplus back in May. Likewise, members on the other side of the chamber have no doubt read the government’s fiscal strategy and know that our fiscal management is starting to show results. It is this sort of sound fiscal management that will enable us to stabilise debt as a proportion of gross state product by next year’s budget. We are on track to achieve this result by sticking to a fiscal strategy over the course of years.

Just as we promote fiscal prudence in our budgets each year, it is important that we are promoting sound fiscal management in the public sector through bills such as this. This bill proposes to ensure that departments and public bodies are using resources in a fiscally sustainable way, demonstrating yet another example of this government’s commitment to ensuring sound financial management. Sound fiscal management is important because without it we would not be able to have so many of the things that we Victorians depend upon. The public relies on state governments to deliver some of the most important services. The health, education and public transport systems are in constant need of expansion and improvement, and it all has to be paid for. Of course I have recited the Allan Labor government’s achievements on these issues many times in this chamber. Building 100 new schools, nine new or expanded hospitals and the Metro Tunnel are achievements that deserve to be brought up again and again and again.

I think it is also important to remember, on the other side of the coin, the tax cuts that this government has been able to deliver. I know that small businesses in my constituency, the Southern Metropolitan Region, have been benefiting from the lifting of the payroll tax threshold at the beginning of this financial year. When we came to government in 2014 the payroll tax-free threshold was $550,000. As of 1 July this year it is $1 million, and small businesses across the state are benefiting because of it.

This bill also seeks to make sure that the Financial Management Act 1994 and the financial framework of the state are fit for purpose and that the public sector is resilient to future changes, as well as to ensure that Victoria’s public sector financial management legislative framework complements and supports administrative reforms to manage fiscal risk. Not only does this drive better financial discipline within departments and public bodies, but it also increases central oversight and financial management capability and accountability.

I find it difficult to comprehend why those opposite would not be supporting this bill. Updating, modernising and improving the financial reporting obligations is something that we on this side of the house take very seriously. Circumstances, technology, reporting obligations and different mechanisms change over time, and making sure that budgetary and other processes are contained within this bill, as well as other complementary bills, upholds that the most updated mechanisms are crucial. This legislation is recognition of this. The diversity and the speed at which many of those industries and sectors have evolved and changed mean we need to make sure that we are taking the necessary steps to provide those processes. That is why across the nine important changes to the act this work has been done in a diligent and dedicated manner, and that is why this bill is supported by the government.

As a government, we have always invested in the services and infrastructure that Victorians need to keep our economy strong, and despite numerous challenges of our government we have continued to effectively map plans and solutions that protect jobs and grow our economy. We are focused on the important work of governing and outlining what was announced in the budget, and more than a decade of preceding budgets, because we on this side of the chamber know and understand that local communities are at their best when they are supported by a government that listens to them and delivers for them – a government that makes sure to provide opportunities for our growing communities, particularly in our growth corridors. We are making sure that no matter where you live right across this state, opportunities exist through the budgetary process as well as through a range of programs and initiatives that exist within local communities. This is a most important obligation, of course alongside keeping people safe, that the government can continue to work on.

This brings me to the Allan Labor government’s fiscal strategy, which I alluded to earlier. This plan, which was written at the height of the COVID pandemic, lays out a plan to bring budget back into surplus and get debt under control. We did this so that we could show Victorians that while we would engage in significant deficit spending during the crisis, we were not doing so in a way that was unrestrained or reckless. We faced significant economic challenges at the time, and it was important that we showed business and the public that the government were not abandoning them in difficult times. Those members of the chamber who are familiar with the basic principles of economics would know that at a time like that, significant deficit spending is absolutely justified. But they would also know that deficits bring about challenges of their own, those being that a government needs to plan for and manage the deficit. With that, I commend the bill to the house.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:20): I rise to speak on what is romantically called the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. It is romantic in the sense that it is a fairytale. I was sitting here waxing and waning between what tone I should adopt for a speech on a budget. I think it is pointless getting angry about it and it would be less than honourable to be resigned about it, because I have got a duty to represent the points of view of Victorians and the interests of Victorians around it. But I will start at the top. Again, it is one of these bills where what is on the label is not what is inside the can. It is like the tough bail bill, which was adding another layer of lettuce to its toughness. It is like the debt reduction strategy that successfully stabilised debt from $170 billion-odd to $180 billion-odd and then finally stabilised it at $194 billion. That is a great debt stabilisation. I think next year it will definitely have stabilised to over $200 billion. That shows again that what you see on the cover is not what you are going to get in the can.

At a time when we are $194 billion in debt, we are paying $10 billion in interest, which is larger than any one source of state revenue. It is going to be $36 billion over the next four years in interest. At a time when spending is uncontrolled, when you look through any of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee papers, you will see ‘to be confirmed’ on the state’s largest project. You would think at this point in time that the last thing you would do is actually weaken governance and oversight of it. If you were running a business right now, you would be certainly asking yourself the questions: how come we have to comply with every financial reporting? How come we do not get extensions when our land tax comes due? Why don’t we get these exemptions? But it is okay, the government is always entitled to make rules for itself.

I will take up Mr Puglielli’s points. He wants to legislate in effect what have always been Westminster conventions around transparency and financial reporting. What this bill actually seeks to do is abolish Westminster conventions on financial reporting. I have often noted that Victoria is in a curious situation. The Westminster system was never designed for a government like this, because the Westminster system relies heavily on conventions of ministerial accountability, accountability to Parliament, reporting transparency and fiscal transparency, and there are various bodies and organs set up to do this. What this legislation aims to do is critically undermine and weaken most of those, and it does so in the most nakedly transparent political way to avoid accountability. Even more so, it does so because it is leading into an election year. The checks and balances that you would have in a normal Westminster system, including warrants and having weights and balances where the Governor will actually have to sign off expenditure – to say that it is an anachronism can only be said by someone who does not want to be accountable for what they are doing, does not want any daylight on it. To say that there can be exceptions at the discretion of the minister as to who gets to report and when they have to report – as if that not is not actively incentivising corruption. You are simply opening the doors and saying, ‘Waltz on through.’ You can hide. If it is inconvenient for them this week, there is now no constitutional mechanism to stop them doing that: ‘Just let it rip.’

Why would you do that now? You are a government that has got so many projects so over budget that there are going to be ramifications, so the last thing you would want is the disinfectant of sunlight being cast upon them. This is a government which, every year it has been in government, on average has missed its budget by $14 billion – every single year. In that environment they want to say, ‘Let’s have less reporting.’ I can see the motive. I can see the intention. Why would you want to have to keep putting up your report card when your report card shows you have got it wrong again and again and again and the community’s credibility is stretched further and further?

The people of Victoria are taking note of this. You cannot rule by press release – you cannot say that you are going to do X, Y, Z and never have a plan of how you are going to fund it. We have a situation with the Suburban Rail Loop where the government has admitted it cannot raise the revenue from value capture tax, but it also does not have a figure for how much the project is actually going to cost. We have the biggest project in Australia with no revenue model, no funding costing model in our state’s financial reports. It is a scandal – it is an utter scandal – at a time when our credit rating is in jeopardy, as we all know. I am sure that this government claims it has a budget surplus this year; it has sort of manufactured and engineered a budget surplus. I wonder whether that surplus even exists any longer. I am sure if we had some up-to-date reporting it would not be there. I am sure it would be gone. It is ephemeral because it is fake, like everything this government does. Everything is fake; it is a pretence. The tough bail laws are not tough. The debt reduction strategies do not reduce debt. There are no costings for the SRL. They are $14 billion out in their budgets every single year on average and rolling over debt, $30 billion in Treasury bonds, with no plan going forward. It is a –

Ryan Batchelor: What’s your plan?

Richard WELCH: What? You are the one trying to reduce accountability.

Ryan Batchelor: What’s your plan?

Richard WELCH: This is not a debate on that; this is a debate on you.

Ryan Batchelor: Oh, so it’s a debate on that.

Richard WELCH: You’re the topic of conversation here. The removal of quarterly reporting prior to the election is probably the most transparently, nakedly corrupt element of this bill. The idea that the people of Victoria should go to vote without knowing where the books are at –

Ryan Batchelor: There’s a pre-election budget update. Do you not know the law?

Richard WELCH: So why are you cancelling this, then? What is the problem? Why are you cancelling this? If everything is fine and dandy, why shouldn’t the people of Victoria know it? We do actually live in a democracy. I can see and we can all see that opens the door to naked pork-barrelling within the last months of an election with no transparency to it whatsoever. Then, conveniently after the election, we will get the real figures and you will have the apparatus of government to paper over what you have done. In fact it is not so different to what Labor have done in practice in the last couple of elections. We can have the airport rail, we can have SRL, we can have hospital investment, we can have all these things, we can have all our cake and eat it too – but we never do. This government is an untruthful government at best. That is a very generous characterisation of what you are. You are untruthful to the Victorian people. You are leading us to a financial apocalypse and you do not care, because you know that you can announce something, you can spend other people’s money with abandon and you will just kick the can down the road to the next generation for them to deal with.

We oppose this bill. It is bad for democracy. It is bad for the Westminster system. People, particularly the crossbench, should not support this. Beware of what you wish for. If it is going to be good for the goose, it will be good for the gander. I do not like the direction we are going in. Financial reporting should be transparent. Financial reporting should have consistent reporting, period to period. I was on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and it was almost impossible to find like-for-like items, period to period. It breaches the most fundamental rules of accounting and it is done for the purposes of camouflage, deceit, distraction and obfuscation. Enough is enough. Victoria wants light at the end of the tunnel. They want a future beyond Labor, because the culture of Labor now is irreversible. It is a self-fulfilling machine of debt and disguise, and ultimately it is going to end in significant problems for this state – well, it already has. Look at how many institutions have been hollowed out, and due to insufficient reporting –

Members interjecting.

Richard WELCH: This party of cuts over there, Labor, have hollowed out every institution and kept a bit of a facade going. We know what has happened to the police, we know what is happening in health services, we know what has happened in education – hollowed out from the inside. We know what has happened with fisheries officers. We know how they drag their feet on drought support. We know what they have done in domestic violence and emergency housing. We know what they have done on youth intervention programs. We know what they have done with the children’s courts. We know across the board they have hollowed out this state and then are still, like predators, going around looking for every last cent of tax from every corner. The sole purpose this government has to exist is to tax and spend, tax, spend and borrow, which is a hauntingly familiar refrain for a Labor government, isn’t it? Tax, borrow and spend – hauntingly familiar. Where will it end?

The people of Victoria want hope. They want something different. They would like someone who respects the way the laws are meant to be made and finances are meant to run. But they are not only unwilling to do so, they are frankly incapable, because it is in their DNA to tax, it is in their DNA to borrow, because they do not like to address things at their source. They do not like to address the underlying fundamental problems; they like to spend their way out of a problem – spend, spend, spend – because actually fixing things is too hard. I think it is too hard for them probably because they are a bit of an exhausted government, but I think it is too hard for them intellectually as well to grasp with the big problems. Spending is always a nice solution when you are spending other people’s money or when you are borrowing money and there is no accountability. But there will be a reckoning. Victorian people will deliver a reckoning soon enough, I would hope. I will conclude my contribution there.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:32): I would also like to say a few words on the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. The fundamental functions of the state are to protect against force, fraud, theft and contract enforcements – the very, very basic functions of the state. If a government cannot manage these basic functions of the state, then they should not be doing more than that. We have got a government at the moment that interferes and thinks that it wants to interfere in every aspect of people’s lives. It has grown larger and larger and larger and larger, and as we know with any organisation, as it grows larger, it makes errors. There are inefficiencies in the way that communication works within the government, and things go wrong. We have got the situation now where the government is trying to do everything but cannot do the basics. Almost every day there are new arson attacks that go unsolved. There are home invasions that happen all the time.

Yet at the same time as these very, very basic functions of the state go unmanaged or not managed well, we have the government saying, ‘Well, there’s this wonderful thing called work from home, and it works very well for lots of employees and lots of businesses.’ In this sort of weird style they frame this idea as a right, totally demonstrating that they have no understanding of the concept of rights whatsoever. They say, ‘Well, if it’s something that we like, we must make it a right.’ So now they say that they are going to interfere in the management of businesses throughout this state by saying workers have a right to work from home two days a week.

This shows a government that has gone too far. It cannot even manage the most basic stuff, and yet it thinks it can manage private businesses. I mean, really? You only have to look at what has happened in this term of Parliament and in the last term of Parliament, at the number of projects that have overrun because of mismanagement and corruption in many cases and projects that never went ahead. The obvious one was the Commonwealth Games. There is stuff from the last term of Parliament. We still have not got the documents on the HEPA filters that went out to schools. We do not even know if they still use them or whether they used them at all. There is so much mismanagement.

There are a couple of things in this bill that I am okay with. One thing it does that I think is good is legislate that departments have to give notice if they are expecting to exceed budget. This is a good thing. You get a heads-up in advance that you might be going to exceed budget. That is a good thing. Some of the other things that it does, like removing the constitutional requirement for a warrant – yes, okay, this does seem pretty outdated, and maybe it is time to get rid of that. But some of these other oversight mechanisms being removed I think is a big problem. I would like to see far more transparent reporting on contracts, procurement and this sort of thing. But ultimately, the bigger problem here is the government thinking that it can do so much when it just cannot.

Another good example, which is a big area of government spending, is procurement. In the normal world, when you procure something, you look at, ‘What’s the reputation of the person I’m buying the product or service from, what’s its cost performance, is it good quality and is it going to fit the need and be what I want?’ These are the rational concerns that people have in the normal world, but in the government world they say, ‘We’re not going to just consider price, quality and the reputation of the person that we’re buying from. We’re going to say, “How do you manage your workforce? What sort of workers do you have in your workforce?”’ They use the concept of procurement to force out from the public sector into the private sector their ideology – their belief system. They force it out to the entire private sector, and it is like the government says, ‘If you don’t operate your business in a way that enacts our ideology or our beliefs, then we’re not going to do business with you. You’re not going to get a government contract.’ And what ends up happening, as we have seen, is that these procurement requirements have unintended consequences, and some of them are horrific.

I have spoken before about one of these unintended consequences of procurement policies by the government. In the last term of Parliament we passed the Gender Equality Act 2020. Anyone would think that this sounds like a great idea. We want more equality for men and women and this sort of thing, and it sounds great, but what ended up happening, especially in the construction sector, which is mostly dominated by men, was that we ended up with situations where labour hire companies were infiltrated by organised crime to supply labour that would fit the diversity requirements. It is absolutely outrageous what has happened here. I do not know whether this has been cleaned up yet or not, but the incentives for crime and corruption were created by the government itself. What they should be doing when they are looking at procurement is going back and saying, ‘We should be buying the best product or service for the best price from a reputable person,’ and not trying to force their belief system onto an entire economy when it is totally unnatural to do that and creates all of these opportunities for mismanagement, for corruption, for inefficiencies, for communication problems – all sorts of issues like this. This is a big problem. The government need to do less, and the things that they do do need to have better transparency so that Victorians, the taxpayers who are paying for everything – either the taxpayer today or their children in the future, if the government are racking up debt – know how this money is being spent.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:39): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, which delivers on a range of measures that the government has committed to implementing to modernise the Financial Management Act 1994 (FMA) here in Victoria, the act that governs how the state’s finances are managed at a very operational level. It was first passed in 1994 and has not had substantial revision or amendment in 20 years. It was very interesting to listen to some of the contributions made in the chamber, particularly by those opposite, who have said that we do not need to modernise, that we do not need to change our practices, that –

Renee Heath: On a point of order, Acting President, Mr Batchelor is verballing, and he has not even come close. I have listened to every single contribution, and not one person said what you just alleged.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): I ask Mr Batchelor to return to the topic.

Ryan BATCHELOR: I am very happy to return to a discussion about whether the Liberal Party believes that we need to remove anachronisms from legislation. What we have before us today is a piece of amending legislation that seeks to make some important changes to the Financial Management Act 1994, some of which are anachronistic – so anachronistic that they were described as such by the former Liberal Treasurer in 1994 when the act was first put into the Parliament. So if those currently opposite have some sensitivity to being described as anachronistic, being described as unable to modernise, that is an issue that they are going to have to deal with and work through, because this government is absolutely committed to making sure that the financial management arrangements we have in this state are responsible, are modern and are delivering for the people of Victoria.

What the government has demonstrated both through the legislation that is before us today but also through the way that we have approached responsible budget management in the last period, particularly in the last budget, is that what this government is focused on is delivering the services that our community needs and ensuring that we have got a fiscal strategy that enables sound financial management right across the public sector and that improves accountability, oversight and sustainability of our fiscal settings across the public sector here in Victoria, and that is exactly what this legislation is a part of and exactly what our entire budget strategy that underpins it is. This legislation is about making sure that the rules that govern the way our financial management system is are up to date and modern and in accordance with the realities of the way that government works today – something that those opposite may be completely unfamiliar with and something that we hope they will not be familiar with again for a very long time.

We are delivering on our commitment in the 2024–25 budget to undertaking a review of the FMA to make sure that it is still fit for purpose and that it is not just delivering on best practice from 1994 but indeed that it brings both the legislation consistent with emergent financial practices and current best practice financial practices across the public sector and ensures that we have the settings that we need in place going forward. We know a lot has changed since 1994. Maybe those opposite do not understand much has changed since 1994. Perhaps they would rather be in 1994; we cannot tell.

There are a lot of things that we have today that we did not have in 1994. A second rail tunnel in Melbourne is probably one good example of something that is very different today than it was 30 years ago, but I am not going to get distracted by a comparison between Victoria of the mid-2020s and Victoria of the mid-1990s, because it will not do anyone any good, least of all Mr Welch, who will not be able to contain himself.

The bill does make a series of important amendments to provide government departments and agencies with the principle of responsibly operating within their budget. It identifies potential risks to that in a timely manner that departments and agencies have to have through enhanced notification processes; ensures clarity in roles and responsibilities for accountable officers, for boards, for chief financial officers and others; provides the power to include or exclude agencies from the operation of certain provisions of the FMA; and makes some changes to the way that particularly the relationship between the timing of the pre-election budget update and the budget update operate in election years, a point which those opposite seem to have absolutely no understanding of whatsoever, judging by their contributions.

They seem to have forgotten the fact, given some of the outrageous claims that were being made by the opposition when talking about the level of information that is provided to Victorians about the state of Victoria’s fiscal position in election years. I want to make this crystal clear, because we know that the Liberal Party likes to base its claims on things that are false. What is very, very clear under the terms of the FMA is that the pre-election budget update continues to be provided by the Secretary of the Department of Treasury and Finance to the Victorian people after the writs have been issued for a general election. An independent source of information on the financial position of the state of Victoria is provided to the people by the Secretary of the Department of Treasury and Finance before Victorians vote. That is what is in the law. That is what those opposite do not seem to understand at all, based on their contributions to the debate today. So I will not take any sort of high and mighty lecturing from them about the provisions of the financial management bill when they clearly have not even read it. If they had, they would know their contributions were just wrong. We will not take any lectures from them when they do not understand how the law is written.

The bill also makes important changes to ensure financial governance by requiring that portfolio ministers consult with the Minister for Finance on the creation or cessation of agencies and, importantly, we think, abolishes the anachronism of financial warrants which duplicate existing processes. I know that those opposite particularly have problems getting rid of anachronisms, and we see that every day in their considerations in this chamber.

I will leave my contribution here. The bill is an important part. It delivers on a commitment that we made in the 2024–25 budget process to review the FMA as an important part of ensuring that the financial management settings we have in this state assist us to deliver the services, infrastructure and support the Victorian people need, and to do so within a responsible framework of fiscal management, ensuring that we continue to deliver what Victorians need.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (16:48): As I rise to make a contribution on the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, I want to reflect on what an oxymoron that is, coming from the Allan government. ‘Financial management and the Allan government’ is certainly an oxymoron. Indeed it stemmed from amendments to the Financial Management Act 1994. Now, for those of us who can remember back that far, and I know I certainly can, that came off the end of a dark period in Victoria’s history called the Cain–Kirner government. And when we passed through that and out the other side, there was massive debt. There was massive debt across the state of eye-watering proportion. At that time the then Liberal and National government came in and enacted the Financial Management Act 1994. It was also coupled with the period of time when in the federal Parliament we had the Hawke–Keating government that was also stripping away the fabric of good financial management in that scene. So in many ways, we are duplicating – history is repeating itself in terms of this amending bill. We have now got an Andrews-cum-Allan government 11 years in, a tired government, that has introduced 63 new or increased taxes. It says ‘financial management’, but it should have ‘mismanagement’ in the title of this bill. It is sincerely eye-watering and concerning, the level of debt that this country and this state is in. In terms of the forward projections, as we have heard from members on our side, there is $194 billion in net debt. That is just frightening for our children. The children born today have to wear that burden.

The Nationals and the Liberals are certainly deeply concerned about the erosion of financial accountability, the erosion of transparency, particularly in the light of this woeful mismanagement. One of the areas of the bill, just to wander into them for the sake of this debate, is the erosion of oversight in terms of the removal of the Governor’s issued warrants. Labor now no longer has to formally approach the Governor and say, ‘Can we access further money?’ It erodes the layer of scrutiny around not only the Governor but the Auditor-General. The Auditor-General has certainly had things to say about this government – fiercely independent, an assessment and an accountability tool that is highly valued. The Auditor-General made an assessment last year – there were repeated criticisms from the Auditor-General – in terms of the lack of transparency and poor financial accountability of this government.

Let us note Mr Andrews had been in for many years but for all of the time that he was in this Parliament his understudy was doing her apprenticeship, and now she holds the reins as the trajectory goes over the cliff into the abyss of mismanagement. What did the Auditor-General talk about in that 2024 report? He commented that 61 per cent of performance measures from the Department of Treasury and Finance could not be verified – performance measures sent out to the public and available could not be verified – and 76 per cent of Department of Treasury and Finance’s calculations had documentation issues. So what is being presented is not fair or accurate, and most departments failed to meet their reporting standards under the resource framework.

We know, as we have heard, that debt is growing every day. The next part of the bill that is before us, this oxymoron of a financial management legislation bill, looks at exempting declared bodies. This bill allows for the minister to exempt certain public bodies, like the Suburban Rail Loop Authority, from financial reporting obligations. It is not a topic that I deal with a lot, because it is overwhelmingly an issue of metropolitan Melbourne. The Premier had the temerity one day of saying how much it will benefit regional Victorians because they will be able to hop on it and go to uni. Let us look at the proportionality of infrastructure spend. If we are looking at management of this state by the Allan government, let us look at that proportionality. Rural and regional Victorians make up 25 per cent of the population – considerably more of the landmass but 25 per cent of the population. The Parliamentary Budget Office has verified that in the last few years this government has been spending somewhere around 11 to 13 per cent of the infrastructure spend there, so there is a disproportionate variation in this government’s concept of what fairness is. It is all going into metropolitan Melbourne, and it is all going into billions of dollars of overspend – again, financial management this is not. If we look at the Metro Tunnel or the North East Link, they are billions and billions – I have not got a recent update – over and above the cost of the proposed budgets. The former Premier spoke about some of these Big Build issues and indeed the Suburban Rail Loop and said something along the lines of ‘If you’re building a kitchen, it costs what it costs. If you’re building a kitchen, it costs.’ But families who build kitchens have budgets. They must keep within that budget, and if not, pay the consequences themselves, extending their loan. This government is extending the loan to my grandchildren’s children and our prosperity, wealth and service delivery, not only in metro Melbourne but in the regions. ‘It costs what it costs’, and that is where the current Premier got her stamping ground – got her, we will say, training from. ‘It costs what it costs’, and this government is talking about fiscal management. It is hypocrisy in the extreme.

We have seen that this bill has removed the independent oversight by scrapping those Governor-issued warrants. We have seen that there have been key agencies exempt from financial reporting. We have seen silenced transparency in elections in this bill, and we have seen a careless, negligent, irresponsible and immoral government.

We heard before that they love talking about cuts. Let us look at some of the cuts that this government has made in relation to some of those core services that are very dear to my heart. We have got the emergency services tax, one of those new and increased taxes that we have seen. We have seen a cut to the CFA budget, and I congratulate my colleague –

Jaclyn Symes: On a point of order, Acting President, Ms Bath is misleading the house by referring to cuts that have not been made to the CFA. If she wants to refer to history and look at the coalition cuts to the CFA, perhaps it would be accurate, but she is misleading the house. It is an inaccurate statement.

Melina BATH: Further to the point of order, Acting President, that has no relation to this debate, and the Leader of the Government was out of order.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): I am happy to make a ruling. I am sure the minister will be happy to correct the record during her contribution. I will allow Ms Bath to continue.

Melina BATH: The government in this bill in clause 7 is looking at language like ‘departments should operate within their budget’. We heard from the newly minted Chief Commissioner of Police that he has been told by the government to operate within the budget, although and otherwise we see the fact that our Victorian police system is under so much strain, so much pressure, and it is bleeding out onto our streets and into our communities. What this government is doing –

Jaclyn Symes interjected.

Melina BATH: Clearly I have touched a nerve of the Leader of the Government, which I actually feel quite exercised by.

What this government fails to do is provide transparency about keeping within its budget. We had the Shadow Minister for Emergency Services putting the question to the Minister for Emergency Services in the other house about giving us the value – providing to this house and providing to the Victorian public the budgets for the CFA, for FRV, for VICSES and for 000 – on a number of occasions over the last few weeks, and the minister will not provide it.

Jaclyn Symes interjected.

Melina BATH: I like the fact that the Leader of the Government – and the Treasurer, while we are at it – is getting quite activated by my contribution.

The other thing that I want to just relate to this financial quote unquote oxymoron of a bill is the discussion around keeping within their budget. I know Mr Davis related this, and I think it is important to put it on record. I know the former Leader of the Nationals and former minister in the previous government Peter Walsh spoke about the importance of keeping to a gross state product (GSP) budget cap of 6 per cent, and Treasury were very, very nervous about that when there was a Liberal and National government between 2010 and 2014.

Jaclyn Symes interjected.

Melina BATH: Minister, you get to have your say in a moment, and we will all enjoy listening to your defence.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): Through the Chair, please.

Melina BATH: But now it has evolved; it has somehow blown out. It has evolved into a budget blowout of 25 to somewhere around 28 per cent of GSP. That is a frightening amount as well, and indeed this government does not know the name of fiscal responsibility. The other thing that we have seen over this period of time is that there is this bucket of money which is fast disappearing and yet this government has shut down industry and in some circumstances has actually said there is no money – not ‘It costs what it costs’ but ‘There is no money’. There are industries like the native timber industry and like the people who have been put out of work having done a great job of providing fibre for this state for its prosperity, to be able to do that. Yet sometimes it does not cost what it costs; it only costs what we are going to give, whether or not that is sufficient recompense and compensation for these good people. These people deserve our thanks and these people also deserve to be recognised, because their mental health has been shredded over the last decade from this government.

I have not gone into the other areas where this government has not been able to keep to budget. The other thing that I will just relate is the misuse of the Treasurer’s advance. It is supposed to be for emergency, urgent situations. In the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee the other day we had the Minister for Environment actually go in and speak in terms of bushfire mitigation, bushfire preparedness, Forest Fire Management Victoria and the work that needs to be done. We have a known quantity of forest and it is a known event and activity, and yet Minister Dimopoulos said, ‘The budget in this is lumpy.’ Well, I do not consider that to be good governance, I do not consider it to be good fiscal management, and I will not be supporting this bill.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (17:02): It is very interesting, isn’t it, when people want to paint history in their own version and their own light. It is very interesting. This bill modernises, brings up to date, the Financial Management Act 1994. Anyone living in regional Victoria – indeed anywhere in Victoria – in 1994 knew exactly what a Liberal government meant to them. It meant a cut to local services, and it meant train lines being ripped out, whether that be Bairnsdale, Leongatha, Ararat, Maryborough, right around the state. We knew that the banks followed suit. They pulled out, and regional Victoria suffered. Indeed, metropolitan Melbourne and all of Victoria suffered. Schools were closed and hospitals were closed. Victorians know that if a Liberal–National coalition had half a chance again, there would be cuts to investment in housing, there would be cuts to health, there would be cuts to education, there would be cuts to transport and there would be cuts to jobs and their economic policies of driving down workers wages would be rolled out in their full force, whereas the Labor Party are investing in new homes, investing in the hospitals that our communities need, investing in schools, investing in public transport and ensuring that our nurses, our ambos, our teachers, our police – the workers that deliver the quality of life that every single Victorian wants – have not only the infrastructure but also the pay, wages and conditions to ensure they can deliver what Victorians need.

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to go into so many of the wild, outrageous comments that have been made by the other side, so I will not. But I have touched briefly just on a few points that Victorians are very aware of about the risks of a Liberal–National coalition opposition and what they mean to this state, and I am proud to support the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I will leave my comments there.

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (17:04): I will just provide a few remarks in summing up on the Financial Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 and thank the members that have made contributions on the bill. I have had the opportunity to listen to many of the contributions, and I am concerned at the opposition’s comments – a lot of their comments, actually. I am wondering whether it stems from the fact that they were a little bit fast out of the gate to oppose a bill before actually understanding what it is doing, because anyone that argues that this bill weakens transparency unfortunately does not know – or conveniently does not want to know – how government actually works. The contributions were just riddled with errors. I will really try not to pick on people too much. I did offer some comments in relation to Ms Bath’s contribution, so I will leave my comments there and maybe just pick up a few of the other corrections later in my contribution, because I want to really focus on what this bill is all about.

It is pretty straightforward. It is an important step in supporting the government’s fiscal strategy. It is about responsible financial management. It makes changes that will improve accountability and transparency across the public sector and entities, removing outdated aspects of existing legislation and ultimately better reflecting the needs of an increasingly dynamic financial and economic environment. These are commonsense changes and, I can confirm, aligned with the views and reflections from ratings agencies. Many people have asked me about credit rating procedures and credit rating conversations. It is not my practice to go in depth into the conversations that I have had, but I can assure you that the changes in this bill were a topic of conversation because they reflect the views that the rating agencies have provided.

Moody’s reflected on the importance of such reforms, for example, in their public report on the budget, saying that broader financial reforms aimed at improving fiscal transparency and accountability may also improve governance, strengthen financial oversight, support more responsive budgeting and enhance long-term fiscal planning. Unsurprisingly, these were commitments that I gave to strengthening our financial management system in discussions with the agencies during both my visit to New York and follow-up conversations that I have had here in Melbourne, and I was pleased that S&P have now reaffirmed Victoria’s credit rating with a stable outlook – against the championing of a different result from those opposite, despite the fact that would be not a great outcome for Victoria. But it shows where their priorities lie.

The changes in the bill include making it crystal clear that the CEOs and CFOs across government have a responsibility to stick to their budgets and to proactively manage financial risks. I do not think there is a dispute in relation to that. The bill also requires departments to notify the Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) when they are at risk of exceeding their approved budgets through an early warning system. This will allow government to better manage financial risks as they are identified, putting in place the intervention before these risks may manifest into more significant challenges. The bill also strengthens the financial management obligations associated with the creation or cessation of agencies to ensure accountability for these agencies is well defined.

There will be greater clarity on how to correctly establish new entities so that consistent and appropriate financial management requirements are applied to those entities. The amendments also create the settings for a more risk-based approach to financial management by enabling smaller agencies to be more agile while holding the larger ones to a higher benchmark, which is appropriate. It is disappointing that the opposition, as I said, have indicated they will not support the bill, even though it helps protect our credit rating and reflects previous coalition policy. This is a reckless position that the opposition are taking, and I honestly was quite surprised when I heard about it and put it down to opposing for opposition’s sake.

I also do question opposition members and whether they actually know why they are opposing the bill. Listening to Dr Heath, for example, she described her concerns about removing the budget update until after elections. That is not what is happening here, and there was quite a conversation from Dr Heath about her concerns, about the fact that there would be no budget update pre-election. We are actually reaffirming that that is an important step. That is something that the secretary of DTF is obliged to do, and we have reaffirmed that in this bill. So I do, again, have concerns about the understanding of the opposition about why they are opposing this bill. Perhaps it also is reflective of the fact that there was very limited interaction – this is not a reflection necessarily of people in this place, but there was limited interaction – with the opposition on this bill. They just basically decided very early on they were going to oppose it. That was in stark contrast to members of the crossbench, particularly the Greens, who took the opportunity to understand the bill and what it is doing and therefore could have constructive conversations. I think it is disappointing particularly from the Shadow Treasurer to not embark on a similar course of action.

The first element of the bill that there has been a little bit of talk about – and it is almost embarrassing that we are doing it now; other states have done it except for WA – is the removal of the antiquated cash accounting system of warrants. The original intent of warrants stems from the Victorian constitution in 1855, when the UK still provided funding to Victoria. We obviously have a much more modernised banking and IT system now and the requirement to provide annual reports demonstrating how funds are allocated, rendering warrants outdated and ineffective. I think others have reflected on former Treasurer Alan Stockdale’s comments in 1994:

… given modern parliamentary and management practice, the warrant procedure is an anachronism … and any suggestion that that procedure imposes accountability on the Parliament or, indeed, on anybody else in the executive government simply flies in the face of reality.

I do not think I have ever met Mr Stockdale, but I certainly agree with those statements. Fifteen years later a 2009 Public Accounts and Estimates Committee inquiry into Victoria’s public finance practices unanimously recommended that the use of warrants be discontinued. I looked at the membership there. I did and do still have a lot of respect for Mr Rich-Phillips in relation to a lot of what he could contribute to the Parliament with his understanding of finances, and he was certainly of the view that warrants should be discontinued also. Here we are a further 16 years on. Again, I do feel as though we should have acted earlier, but for the Liberal Party in particular to be saying that they object to something that they have, frankly, been supporting for decades goes to my point that this is a case of ‘Let’s oppose for the sake of opposition’.

In relation to some further opposition that we have received to this bill to the requirement of the release of a budget update by 15 December in years where a pre-election budget update has just been released, I would just repeat: there will be a pre-election budget update, which is contrary to some of the contributions we have heard. In the debate on the bill in the other place the Shadow Treasurer suggested that when the Liberals last came to power in 2010 they had no problem managing the timeline and the reporting process. But my advice is that that was somewhat challenging, given that the budget update that year was published until six days after the legislated requirement due to the swearing in of the new government not happening until after the due date – and that also happened in 2022. Given how little time there is between finalising election results and the budget update’s due date, there is no time for a newly sworn-in Treasurer to make meaningful changes. As a result election year budget updates are largely re-released information from the pre-election update. Again, my immediate reaction to learning that the opposition were arguing to retain this provision was: ‘They certainly don’t think they’re going to win the election, because why would they want to be in a position where they are potentially signing off the homework which will be mine?’ It will be nothing. They will have no time to do anything, to change anything. Therefore really you are just requiring the department to duplicate processes that they have already done, which is frankly just inefficient and a waste of time.

There have been also members of the opposition who have reflected on the role of the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office and the important role that that office plays. I am again a little bemused why they would be opposing a bill that VAGO would be very well placed to raise concerns with, if they had any, and I can confirm that VAGO have been consulted on this bill. They have expressed high-level comfort, and I will point that out next time the opposition want to rely on VAGO, seeing that they just pick and choose when to think it is appropriate to use the office for their political gain. They are an independent office. They would certainly be well placed to raise concerns if indeed they were warranted. They are not warranted.

Turning to the Greens amendments – and we will have a conversation in committee on these – I thank the crossbench for their engagement. I understand you will be moving some amendments – which have been canvassed by yourself previously, Mr Puglielli – and they relate to two main issues. The first amendment adds a requirement for the mid-year financial report to include reporting on Treasurer’s advances approved in the first half of the financial year. We are happy to not oppose that amendment. It aligns with the bill’s intention. It also is consistent with my commitment, upon being appointed as Treasurer, for more transparency over Treasurer’s advances, which is reflected in this year’s budget. The Greens’ other amendment would also confirm annual reports that go through a minister to be transmitted to Parliament in a timely fashion. It will require annual reports to be transmitted to Parliament between 15 October and the earlier of four sitting days after the relevant minister receives a report, 14 calendar days or 31 October. I want to thank the Greens for engaging constructively not only in relation to this bill but on that amendment, because they had some ideas and they were happy to sit down and make sure that there were no unintended consequences for the policy objectives that they were trying to achieve. My advice from the Department of Treasury and Finance is that your amendments are consistent with the bill and will not cause any issues, and I would argue they support your intention for enhanced transparency.

The bill delivers on the government’s commitment to strengthening the Financial Management Act 1994 to ensure it remains fit for purpose while allowing us to build on the solid foundations of the act and will support the government’s fiscal strategy to deliver surpluses and support economic growth. I would particularly like to take the opportunity to thank my colleague the Minister for Finance, Minister Pearson, who has joint coverage in relation to some of the requirements that are being amended today, and extend my gratitude to his office and to the Department of Treasury and Finance for their work on this bill. With that, I will commend it to the house.

Council divided on motion.

Ayes (21): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Katherine Copsey, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Anasina Gray-Barberio, Shaun Leane, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Sheena Watt

Noes (13): Melina Bath, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Ann-Marie Hermans, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Richard Welch

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Committed.

Committee

Clauses 1 to 9 agreed to.

New clause 9A (17:24)

Aiv PUGLIELLI: I move:

1. Insert the following New Clause to follow clause 9 –

‘9A Mid-year report

After section 25(2)(b) of the Financial Management Act 1994 insert –

“(ba) must include details of payments made during the period of 6 months ending on 31 December in the financial year out of money advanced to the Treasurer in an annual appropriation Act for that year to meet urgent claims;”.’.

Just to speak to this briefly, the amendment in question seeks to provide better reporting on the use of Treasurer’s advances. Currently under the Financial Management Act 1994 details of Treasurer’s advances I understand are included in the government’s audited annual financial report for a financial year currently required to be tabled on 15 October. The amendment inserts a requirement that details of Treasurer’s advances made are also included in the midyear financial report currently required to be tabled on 15 March of the current financial year. I understand that given the way that Treasurer’s advances are paid, which generally occurs at the end of the financial year, this means that the midyear reporting requirement will not capture all uses of Treasurer’s advances, but we are talking about a significant amount of spending here. According to the Centre for Public Integrity, $13.7 billion was spent by Treasurer’s advance for 2023–24, equating to 14.7 per cent of the total amount appropriated to fund government services. So this amendment is an important step forward to promoting transparency on the government’s so-called secret credit card, but there is absolutely more work to do, and if it requires, for the purposes of improving political integrity, the use of these advances for that work to be proceeded with by the Greens, then we will continue to do so.

David DAVIS: I want to indicate to the chamber that we will support this amendment. We think it is an important amendment. We think there is a significant need for tighter reporting on Treasurer’s advances. It has been a shambles in fact, really, and I am not pointing at the Treasurer with that. It is a longer term challenge that has been there. But frankly, the last Treasurer allowed this to get way out of control, and so I welcome the Treasurer’s commitment to at least look at these and look at ways forward. I think what has been brought by Mr Puglielli is an important improvement. I note his point that it does not solve all of the issues, but there is no reason why, as a routine matter, Treasurer’s advances cannot be brought forward in the midyear document.

I should say that this is part of a broader examination. I know the Shadow Treasurer has certainly been involved in looking at these issues of Treasurer’s advances, as has the Centre for Public Integrity. I just want to put on record the work that they have done, and I think it has been an important contribution to the public debate. I note Mr Limbrick hosted them in the Parliament some months ago, and that was a welcome discussion on a lot of these matters. But it is clear that there need to be better accounting and better transparency on Treasurer’s advances. We all understand the generic requirement for them. Obviously there are floods and there is fire and there are unexpected events, and there is a legitimate role for Treasurer’s advances in those. But as I said when the budget was in the chamber, when in the discussion I went through the schedules at the back of the budget document, you can see the spread of Treasurer’s advances which are not truly matters for which there should have been a Treasurer’s advance. It was clear that most of this expenditure was not of that nature. Again, this is not a criticism of the current Treasurer. It predates her, and those figures in the budget more recently related to the earlier period. It was 2023–24, so it was a little while ago. But this will improve the arrangements, improve the reporting. To that extent, we will be wholeheartedly supporting it and encouraging further reforms as we go forward.

Jaclyn SYMES: The government too will be supporting the Greens’ amendment. Like Mr Davis has indicated, this will go some way to, again, furthering transparency in relation to Treasurer’s advances. It is something I have supported and committed myself to continual improvement on, I guess. This year’s budget did separate out the TAs in relation to urgent expenditure but also tried to explain the milestone and contingency releases, which are also via a Treasurer’s advance. I am always happy to have a conversation on this, because it has been, I think, a little lost that there are two purposes of Treasurer’s advances in terms of holding money centrally from agencies and releasing it as milestones are hit. That is a financially responsible thing to do. Having it held centrally keeps a greater sense of accountability. It has more eyes on the amounts rather than having to potentially claw something back when it has been released to an agency. I think there is a need for a conversation. Everyone gets the urgent stuff – fire, floods. I think that is fine; I do not think that is the issue. I would like to have further conversations outside of this bill in relation to those milestone contingency releases, because it is something that I have had the opportunity to have lots of conversations with the Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) about and understand why it is done like that. I think I should make sure that I am availing others, perhaps, of the information that I hold, because I think there will be some greater comfort once that is explained in greater detail. But nonetheless this is about more regular reporting of TA, something that I am comfortable with. Thank you, Mr Puglielli, for your engagement on this amendment.

New clause agreed to; clauses 10 to 18 agreed to.

New clause 18A (17:31)

Aiv PUGLIELLI: I move:

2. Insert the following New Clause to follow clause 18 –

‘18A Tabling requirements

(1) For section 46(1) of the Financial Management Act 1994substitute –

“(1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), the relevant Minister of a department or public body must cause the report of operations and audited financial statements of the department or public body for a financial year to be transmitted to each House of the Parliament on or after the next following 15 October and before the earlier of –

(a) the end of the next following fourth month of the financial year; or

(b) either –

(i) the expiration of the fourth sitting day of that House after the report is received by the relevant Minister; or

(ii) if the first sitting day of a House of the Parliament after the report is received by the relevant Minister is more than 14 days after the date of receipt of the report, the expiration of the fourteenth day after the report is received by the relevant Minister.

(1A) On transmitting a report under subsection (1), the relevant Minister must report to each House of Parliament the date of receipt by the relevant Minister of the report.

(1B) The relevant Minister must not direct a department or public body to submit its report of operations and audited financial statements to the relevant Minister on a particular date.”.

(2) In section 46(2)(b) of the Principal Act, for “laid before each House of the Parliament within 14 sitting days of that House after the request.” substitute “transmitted to each House of the Parliament on or before –

(i) the expiration of the fourth sitting day of that House after the request; or

(ii) if the first sitting day of a House of the Parliament after the request is more than 14 days after the request, the expiration of the fourteenth day after that request.”.

(3) After section 46(3) of the Principal Act insert –

“(3A) The clerk of each House of the Parliament must cause a report transmitted under subsection (1) or (2) to be laid before the House on the day on which it is received or on the next sitting day of the House.

(3B) If the relevant Minister proposes to transmit a report to the Parliament on a day on which neither House of the Parliament is sitting, the relevant Minister must –

(a) give at least one business day’s notice of the relevant Minister’s intention to do so to the clerk of each House of the Parliament; and

(b) give the report to the clerk of each House on the day indicated in the notice.

(3C) The clerk of each House must –

(a) notify each member of the House of the receipt of a notice under subsection (3B)(a) on the same day that the clerk receives that notice; and

(b) give a copy of the report to each member of the House as soon as practicable after the report is received under subsection (3B)(b); and

(c) cause the report to be laid before the House on the next sitting day of the House.

(3D) A copy of a report that is given to the clerks under subsection (3B)(b) is taken to have been published by order, or under the authority, of the Houses of Parliament.

(3E) The publication of a document by the relevant Minister under subsection (3B)(b) is absolutely privileged and the provisions of sections 73 and 74 of the Constitution Act 1975 and any other enactment or rule of law relating to the publication of the proceedings of the Parliament apply to and in relation to the publication of the document as if it were a document to which those sections applied and had been published by the Government Printer under the authority of the Parliament.”.

(4) Insert the following note at the foot of section 46 –

“Note

Section 4 of the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act 1978 sets out values that a Minister should demonstrate in the carrying out of the Minister’s public duties. These values include accountability.”.’.

I am just speaking to this particular amendment regarding tabling of annual reporting under the Financial Management Act. I believe this applies to some 230-odd departmental and agency reports. It proposes additional requirements that a report is tabled by the fourth sitting day from the date it is received by a minister or, if Parliament is not sitting in the next two weeks, is tabled out of session on a non-sitting day within 14 days of receipt. The reporting requirements also provide that a minister cannot direct a department or public body to send them their annual report on a certain date to ensure that ministers effectively are not gaming the system by colluding to try and receive all the agency and department annual reports from within their jurisdiction on the same day.

We have also included, just to note in the amendment, a timely note to ministers that they are required under the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act to display the value of accountability in their public duties. In so doing I am just noting that my colleagues and I believe that ministers displaying accountability is closely linked to the timely tabling of annual reports, while the practice of dump day, as it is so called now, represents a breach of this requirement. I also note that the value of accountability ultimately falls in the jurisdiction of, and so could be referred to, the new Parliamentary Workplace Standards and Integrity Commission.

David DAVIS: Like with the other amendment, I just want to put on record that the opposition will support this amendment. We understand there have often been significant lags between the time of reports coming forward to ministers and departments and being tabled in the Parliament. It is an unsatisfactory practice to have a massive dump in that way, as has often been seen in recent years, so to the extent that this prevents that, we think that is valuable. The 14-day requirement, as I said to Mr Puglielli, slightly worries me, just thinking as a minister you could well be overseas for three weeks and you would actually be concertinaed, as it were. You might have a bad report from a department that you would want to understand and be on top of before it is released, and you would not be being unreasonable. I am trying to be logical and thoughtful on this.

Jaclyn Symes: As a former health minister.

David DAVIS: No, no. I have watched some of my colleagues and this and that.

Jaclyn Symes: But health would have the most reports, wouldn’t they?

David DAVIS: The most reports – I think that is right – and cemetery trusts and this and that. But leaving that aside, the intent of this is correct, that as reports largely come through, they should be tabled in a timely way rather than being dumped en masse. So the essence of it is something that we strongly agree with and thereby will support.

Jaclyn SYMES: Quite a delightful committee. I kind of have a similar view to Mr Davis. I am certainly happy to support this amendment and the intentions that you have put forward, Mr Puglielli. I feel slightly guilty because as Treasurer I do not actually have as many annual reports as some other ministers. When I was Attorney this would have caused me a little more angst than what it does as Treasurer, but I think, as you have indicated, no-one wants to sit on reports. You want to get them tabled. We think this reflects the intention of most ministerial offices. My ministerial officers, who have extensive experience in previous roles, are very comfortable with your amendment in a ministerial office workability sense, and the advice from DTF is that this is also workable. So in the interests of greater transparency and consistent with respect for the way you have conducted yourself in trying to work through improvements from your perspective, we do not stand in the way of this amendment.

David DAVIS: I will just make one further comment. I think there is perhaps one other unintended effect that is positive – that is, it is much less likely that a government will be able to hold back a large number of annual reports ahead of an election. We have seen that in recent times. This government has done this a bit with health reports and other reports – held them back until after the election. That is an unsatisfactory point with respect to transparency and so forth, so this will help with that.

New clause agreed to; clause 19 agreed to.

New clause 19A (17:37)

Aiv PUGLIELLI: I move:

3. Insert the following New Clause to follow clause 19 –

‘19A Annual reports of State-owned corporations and other bodies

(1) After section 53A(4) of the Financial Management Act 1994 insert –

“(4A) The relevant Minister must not direct the body to submit its annual report to the relevant Minister on a particular date.”.

(2) For section 53A(5) of the Principal Act substitute –

“(5) Subject to subsections (6) and (7), the relevant Minister must cause the annual report to be transmitted to each House of the Parliament on or after the next following 15 October and before the earlier of –

(a) the next following 31 October; or

(b) either –

(i) the expiration of the fourth sitting day of that House after the annual report is received by the relevant Minister; or

(ii) if the first sitting day of a House of the Parliament after the annual report is received by the relevant Minister is more than 14 days after the date of receipt of the annual report, the expiration of the fourteenth day after the annual report is received by the relevant Minister.

(5A) On transmitting a report under subsection (5), the relevant Minister must report to each House of Parliament the date of receipt by the relevant Minister of the report.”.

(3) In section 53A(6)(b) of the Principal Act, for “laid before each House of the Parliament within 14 sitting days of that House after the request.” substitute “transmitted to each House of the Parliament before –

(i) the expiration of the fourth sitting day of that House after that request; or

(ii) if the first sitting day of a House of the Parliament after that request is more than 14 days after the date of the request, the expiration of the fourteenth day after that request.”.

(4) After section 53A(6) of the Principal Act insert –

“(6A) The clerk of each House of the Parliament must cause a report transmitted under subsection (5) or (6) to be laid before the House on the day on which it is received or on the next sitting day of the House.

(6B) If the relevant Minister proposes to transmit a report to the Parliament on a day on which neither House of the Parliament is sitting, the relevant Minister must –

(a) give at least one business day’s notice of the relevant Minister’s intention to do so to the clerk of each House of the Parliament; and

(b) give the report to the clerk of each House on the day indicated in the notice.

(6C) The clerk of each House must –

(a) notify each member of the House of the receipt of a notice under subsection (6B)(a) on the same day that the clerk receives that notice; and

(b) give a copy of the report to each member of the House as soon as practicable after the report is received under subsection (6B)(b); and

(c) cause the report to be laid before the House on the next sitting day of the House.

(6D) A copy of a report that is given to the clerks under subsection (6B)(b) is taken to have been published by order, or under the authority, of the Houses of Parliament.

(6E) The publication of a document by the relevant Minister under subsection (6B)(b) is absolutely privileged and the provisions of sections 73 and 74 of the Constitution Act 1975 and any other enactment or rule of law relating to the publication of the proceedings of the Parliament apply to and in relation to the publication of the document as if it were a document to which those sections applied and had been published by the Government Printer under the authority of the Parliament.”.

(7) Insert the following note at the foot of section 53A –

“Note

Section 4 of the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act 1978 sets out values that a Minister should demonstrate in the carrying out of the Minister’s public duties. These values include accountability.”.’.

New clause agreed to; clauses 20 to 26 agreed to.

Reported to house with amendments.

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (17:38): I move:

That the report be now adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third reading

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (17:38): I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Pursuant to standing order 14.28, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that the Council have agreed to the bill with amendments.