Wednesday, 10 September 2025

Government performance

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:22): (1940) My adjournment matter is to the Premier, and the action I seek is for her to stop achieving the worst records in the state of Victoria. I rise today in profound disappointment. Victoria is leading the country in many ways, and every single one of them is shameful. Record debt: net state debt sits at $155.5 billion, projected to climb to $194 billion in 2029; that is more than $25,000 for every Victorian man, woman and child. Interest alone costs taxpayers nearly $29 million every single day. Record unemployment: Victoria now has the highest unemployment rate in the nation after years of bloated bureaucracy and reckless spending. Record business closures: in the 2024–25 financial year insolvencies rose by 48 per cent, with 4242 companies collapsing, the largest recorded percentage increase of any mainland state. Record waste: the Auditor-General has found the $11.66 billion jump in costs to the mismanaged Big Build projects last financial year will push Victoria’s bill for 113 major projects to a combined $145.55 billion.

But these financial failures are matched by social collapse. Victoria Police made the highest number of arrests in the force’s 172-year history. Record car thefts: in the 12 months to the end of March, 31,551 cars were stolen in Victoria, a sharp increase of 47.1 per cent, the worst since 2002. Record youth crime: offences by children aged 10 to 17 surged to 25,275 incidents, the most since electronic records began in 1993. They now commit 63 per cent of robberies, 46 per cent of aggravated burglaries and 26 per cent of car thefts. Record total crime: 627,268 offences in the year ending March 2025, a 17.1 per cent increase and the highest rate in a decade. Criminal incidents reached their highest ever recorded figures, up 20.1 per cent to 474,937. Here are some headlines in the past few weeks, and they are from the Age, the ABC and so on. So Premier Allan, instead of defending Victorians, your government continues the legacy of failure left by your predecessor.