Thursday, 11 September 2025

Motions

Budget papers 2025–26

Debate resumed on motion of Jaclyn Symes:

That the budget papers 2025–26 be taken into consideration.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:03): I rise to speak on the Victorian budget papers 2025–26. I would normally speak on this a lot earlier, but I am back and keen to speak on the Victorian budget and the impact that it is having not only on my community but also on the broader state. We know a few things. The budget that was handed down is a deceitful, reckless and irresponsible budget. It will leave Victorian families worse off, services underfunded and the state drowning in debt.

Despite receiving $3.7 billion in GST windfall, Labor somehow delivered a $1 billion worse final result than forecast. That is not a responsible budget. That is what you call an admission of failure. There are fantasy forecasts and spiralling debt. Labor has run a cash deficit, and Victorian debt is now set to blow out to $194 billion by 2029. That will be around $29 million a day in interest – $10 billion a year. That is not to pay down the debt; that is just to service the interest on the debt, which puts a lie to the COVID debt recovery or down payment plan or whatever they called it, disguised as a massive increase in taxes across the state. Because for every massive increase in tax towards the state, it is not money that goes towards paying down debt, it is money that goes towards servicing debt.

We will get to a point where, on the trajectory the government is on, servicing debt per year is going to cost us more than what we afford the entire Department of Education here in this state. That is how dire our economic situation has become. We know that Labor is addicted to debt and to dishonest forecasts. They promised to hold expenses steady at 0.2 per cent growth; instead they blew the budget by $8.2 billion in just 12 months. We know that supposedly there is still around $600 million in savings due to come through public service cuts through the Silver review, but we have seen those promises before. In particular we saw those promises year after year from former Treasurer Pallas, which never eventuated, again because Labor cannot manage money. Supposedly, which we will hear about soon hopefully, they are dropping another report today. Maybe we will hear about it at 4:59 on a Friday afternoon.

Jaclyn Symes interjected.

Evan MULHOLLAND: I hope it is not the plan; I hope we hear about it soon. Perhaps the Treasurer could table it. It is important, because the debt addiction of this government is having a real impact on services. It is having a real impact on my community. There is a real, stark impact in the works for my community, particularly in the City of Hume, through the emergency services tax – again, a tax that no-one asked for and a tax that imposts costs on families, on farmers and on businesses right across the state. Hume City Council, along with a number of other councils, has helpfully highlighted in red what is a state government charge and what is a council charge. In some cases people are paying more on the state government charge section than their actual rates bill, and it is important for councils like Hume – which has – to differentiate the costs that the state government is lumping on Victorians through their rates notice and the council costs. The emergency services tax alone now in Hume is $249 for residential, $2703 for industrial and $2394 for commercial. This is at a time when families can least afford it. If you are a family in Craigieburn, the most mortgage-stressed suburb in the country, or certainly in Victoria, then those cost imposts count. Every cost impost counts. But this is the issue with the government’s addiction to debt and its wasteful spending. I mean, as we were chatting about earlier, there is almost $50 billion in cost blowouts on infrastructure projects across their decade in government, and what those opposite do not understand is that somebody has to pay for that. That does not come from nowhere; somebody has to pay for it. I know much of that amount is now being washed through the hands of gangland figures, the CFMEU, the criminal underworld and people that are fleecing taxpayers money, but somebody has to pay for that.

When you have such a huge amount wasted on major project blowouts, then that has to come from somewhere, and we have seen it with the increase in taxes: in land taxes, the emergency services tax, the $50 million cut from Victoria Police, at possibly the worst time to cut Victoria Police. And there are cuts to services like Parentline and cuts to services like maternal and child health nurses in the growth areas of Melbourne in another cost-shifting exercise.

This is the kind of price Victorians are paying right now because of the government’s mismanagement. We know through S&P Global analysis that the state is already the most indebted among 17 similar subnational jurisdictions across Australia, Canada and Germany. That is not a good statistic, to be the worst out of 17 different jurisdictions. That is not a good stat; that is not something to be proud of. We already have more debt than Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland combined. This is having a massive impact on both confidence and investment, and certainly it is having an impact on people all across the state, because if you do not have confidence that the government know what they are doing – and not many people do anymore – then it is very difficult to have confidence to invest. If you are a small business wanting to make it a bigger business or if you are a new AI startup, choosing between whether to come to Sydney or Melbourne – and certainly OpenAI chose the former, not us. You have got to ask why. The government’s addiction to debt and the government’s mismanagement of the economy has a lot to do with it.

Look no further than their decisions, particularly around the Suburban Rail Loop – as Labor federal colleagues call it, the Cheltenham to Box Hill line – where the government has gone off on what they are saying is a $30 billion to $34 billion project but is actually a $50 billion project, because their business and investment case says that it is based on 2021 construction costs. Since then construction costs have increased by over 20 per cent. But they say that the Suburban Rail Loop will be immune to those cost blowouts, even though that same increase in construction costs has affected every single other development and similar construction project around the state and the country. But the Cheltenham to Box Hill line is going to be immune, apparently, according to those people over there. You are absolutely kidding me.

I know independent research by the Parliamentary Budget Office found that over 50 years this project is going to cost $216 billion plus interest. Speaking to many families in places like Heatherton, they are already paying the price and will be for over a decade. But this government are obsessed with the headline-grabbing projects and are completely neglecting the growth areas of Melbourne. You only have to look at the Craigieburn Community Hospital, which I have made a lot of noise about in this chamber and a lot of noise about in the community, because the government promised it would be open last year. It has been finished for quite some time – the building has been finished since last year – but the community has had to look at it through a barbed wire fence. After we made a lot of noise about this – and it was reported in the Age and all the local papers – the fence has come down. In my absence from this Parliament, the fence has come down.

The former Premier and the then Minister for Health, Jill Hennessy I believe it was when this was announced, promised urgent care and after-hours care at the Craigieburn Community Hospital. So you would think when they opened it those services would be available. And it seemed like they opened it and brought down that fence for political convenience, because there are only about two services that are running, being dialysis and I believe a dentist. I have had a few families contact me saying they have gone in there with chest pains or they have gone in there because their son broke their ankle, and they were told they had to go to the Northern Hospital, because there is no funding for the urgent care or after-hours care that they were promised – no funding. It is the same thing that happened up in the north when they built a new ambulance station at Yuroke near the existing Craigieburn ambulance station but did not fund any ambulances. What they did was they moved one ambulance from Craigieburn to Yuroke for the overnight shift so it could be used. And I know that they have had several break-ins at that ambulance station stealing drugs and whatnot because there are no staff there.

This is the mismanagement we see on display over and over again, and places like Craigieburn are the epicentre of the growth issues in this state. You have got the Craigieburn train line, which is always delayed. The government promised a turnback at Essendon that would speed up the frequency on the Craigieburn line and cut down the wait times on weekends, particularly Sundays, and they have broken several promises when it comes to frequency. It was supposed to be increased by about 70 per cent; that is not going to happen. And we still have a two-tiered system in Victoria between the north and the south-east. If you look at the Frankston line, wait times are only every 10 minutes – 20 minutes on weekends. If you look at the Craigieburn line, wait times are every 20 minutes and every 40 minutes on weekends – political convenience from a government that does not care about the northern suburbs. We also saw the government promised a turnback at Gowrie on the Upfield line, the single worst performing train line in this state. I have run out of time. There you go.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (14:18): Well, it is interesting to see the opposition run out of time with the non-stop negativity. The negativity from those opposite from the Liberals is never, never surprising but always draining – draining and uninspiring. But I am up to talk about the incredible good stories right across Victoria and indeed in the electorate of Eastern Victoria. We on this side are passionate about the things that improve the quality of life of Victorians – of all Victorians – and of course one of the most important things is having a job, and I will come back to it. If you listened to Mr Mulholland over there and the Liberal contribution, the negativity, you would wonder why he has not packed his bags and left Victoria himself if things are that bad. But there is lots and lots of good news in the Victorian economy, and I will step through some of that.

Being on the side of a Labor government passionate about education for Victorians, I am so proud of the early education investment that the Victorian Labor government has made to ensure that our youngest Victorians, when they are at the stage of their most rapid development, are getting those hours of early education. We are getting their parents back to work in the workforce, and as I will go through later in my speech, with unemployment rates where they are we need people back in the workforce, particularly in regional Victoria. As you will see as I go through my speech, the investment that we have made, whether it is in primary schools, whether it is in secondary colleges, whether it is in our special schools or whether it is in our TAFEs, from start to finish there has been an incredible investment to ensure that Victorians have the opportunity to access world-class education.

This sets up the next generation of workers for our state. Not only is it better for people’s personal situation – their ability to earn more money, to contribute more to their employers, their families and our broader communities – but for the productivity of this state, having Victorians come through with that world-class education from three years old right through until the time they commence working in the workforce makes us more productive. It makes our economy stronger. It makes all our local economies, whether metropolitan or in regional or rural Victoria, stronger. I am proud to see the sustained investments in education.

Health – we know how important health care is to Victorians. It is synonymous with Labor. When you think of Labor, you think of investment in health care; indeed we created Medicare. We have seen sustained investment over decades. While those opposite close and privatise hospitals, it is the Labor Party that makes the investment in a whole range of healthcare services that Victorians cherish and hold so dear.

Housing – right around the western world we have seen incredible demands on housing. The state Labor government is leading the nation on housing approvals and completions. We know it is so important that Victorians are in a home so that they have got a home to go to – whether they are in education, whether they are working or whether they are retired. When I am talking about those health services, as I mentioned before, it all fits together. On housing, I am incredibly proud of the work the Victorian Labor government has done to assist with electrifying and decarbonising homes. There are solar panels on one in three homes and electric hot water. Victorians are absolutely voting with their feet on lowering their power bills, reducing those cost-of-living pressures around their home. That has been another sustained – and sustainable, I might add – investment out of this budget and others before.

Our public transport is moving people from A to B, whether it is getting to work, getting to education, getting to see one another or getting to our incredible sporting events or to our food and our wine for our tourists – whether they be domestic to Victoria, domestic to Australia or coming from abroad. It is everything that makes this state such an incredible place to live and, for those not from here, an incredible place to visit. Our public transport and road network is so essential to people getting from A to B. It underpins our economy, and that economy is strong. In the last decade it has grown faster than any other state. It is 31 per cent larger than when we came to government. Employment – 54,400 people have been added into employment over the previous 12 months. Since June 2020, 123,000 businesses and 645,700 jobs have been added to our economy.

I think Victorians are very wise to and aware of the Liberals negativity, the constant, incessant negativity that they try to use to paper over the fact that they bring no values to Victorians. From those values they have no policies. When they cannot identify a collective set of values and then create policies that will underpin sustained economic growth and improve quality of living for all Victorians, they are not able to articulate a plan. When they are unable to articulate a plan for Victorians, they resort to what they know best, and that is negativity.

Having addressed all that, I am absolutely delighted, thrilled and excited to talk about some of the investments in the region of Eastern Victoria, because there have been many. I will start with Mount Eliza North Primary School – $11.7 million. As I have touched on, education is so important, and these infrastructure upgrades are important not only to our children and the families and local communities of those children but to our teachers and our staff – to have a place that inspires learning and to have a place that students and teachers come into to get the best out of the opportunity they have and their education.

I want to touch on the Red Hill Tennis Club lighting upgrades – $200,000. It is a very active, busy tennis club, and I had the opportunity to drop in and give them the good news on the lighting upgrades. It was very, very well received, and I am looking forward to getting back for a barbecue throughout the summer and to have a hit of tennis, much like I did down at Bairnsdale last week. The back held out all right; I got a serve in, and it was a good evening as well. The Poowong–Loch Junior Football Club is getting an electric scoreboard at the Loch Memorial Reserve. It has been great to join local community members in the past with upgrades we had to the playground, but not only that, we are supporting the juniors with an electronic scoreboard. The club, the families, the kids, the parents – everyone is rapt. So that was a fantastic announcement to come out of the budget. And not too far down the road at Nyora Recreation Reserve we got to announce the new lighting upgrades. It is an impressive club, the football–netball club there. They have done work themselves over near the netball courts. They previously received a grant to upgrade their umpiring facilities, and now this lighting upgrade is another major step for them and their club to be able to see the growing population, the growing participant levels they have – boys and girls. I got to go out and chat to them at training on budget night – that was fantastic – and let the kids, the families and all the players there know what is coming their way.

Another one, again not too far down the road, was Leongatha Secondary College – $11.7 million to upgrade the gymnasium. The level of excitement was massive, and we look forward to the college being able to get those works put in place. Further east in Eastern Gippsland it was sensational to be able to announce on budget day that Lakes Entrance Primary would receive $6.6 million for classroom upgrades. In spending time with the principal there over recent years we have had conversations about how important these upgrades are. They do a fantastic job there in the local community, and as I have said before, it is not only for students and the families, who will receive a massive boost in pride for their school, but also for the teachers and the facilities that they work in. Just up the hill at Lakes Entrance Secondary College I was able to drop in up there and celebrate the half a million dollars for the secondary college upgrades they are making.

The news of investment across Eastern Victoria goes on. I touched on in my opening comments the special development schools. Mornington is one of those, with $6.769 million in upgrades there. I remember dropping in in the past and having conversations about rain flooding in on I think it was Father’s Day just about covering one of the stalls. So the fact that we are upgrading and giving them a world-class site for education for the local kids is absolutely sensational.

At Eastbourne Primary School I was delighted to join the principal there Steve and Rodney Eade with the Fathering Project earlier this year. We had a paper aeroplane throwing competition with all the kids. That was sensational. I was able to put in a bit of support to get some pizza on for all the kids there and get the dads involved. Really strong engagement from the dads there and the community, which is great. How good was it in recent times to have been able to talk about the $9.5 million upgrade for the school. The new classrooms are going to be absolutely fantastic.

I should give a shout-out to Lisa Holt, who not only won Principal of the Year in Victoria but has gone on to do it nationally. I think it was announced last week. The upgrades at Rosebud Secondary College, with the $10 million investment there, have just been so incredible for the community, as they have been at the primary school with $13 million, at Dromana Primary School with $9.7 million and the Southern Peninsula Specialist School at $9.479 million, in Dromana.

I should mention the Rye Primary School playground upgrades, just brilliant. I still remember seeing the kids getting to run out to the two new playgrounds – the preppies and grade 1s on one and the bigger kids on another. Absolutely moving. Korumburra Secondary College, the facilities there, between the gymnasium and the classrooms are second to none. Absolutely sensational. South Gippsland Specialist School, as I mentioned earlier with the specialist school upgrades, that is a fantastic upgrade. I should mention the East Gippsland Specialist School as well. The specialist schools at Mornington, Dromana, Leongatha and Bairnsdale are all really, really impressive upgrades. Paynesville Primary School – $4.4 million for upgrades. We know they have got a growing community and again so valuable to the school.

On the early education front, that area that I am so passionate about and love so much, I have visited so many kinder openings: Leongatha Early Learning Centre, Sale Gumnuts Early Learning Centre, Herd learning centre in Mornington – such an impressive centre there. There is the new site at Korumburra Primary School, Yarram, Tootgarook – what a great facility that is – Lakes Entrance was recently opened and Dromana.

I am not going to get through all the ambulance stations that have opened, the aged care investments, things like the synthetic turf at the Paynesville bowls club, the Fish Creek footy club opening. There is just so much that I could continue to go on about. I have not been able to get to capped V/Line regional fares or free rego for apprentices, so I will leave my comments there.

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (14:33): I rise to speak on this state budget, which in truth is not a budget for Victoria’s future but a budget for Labor’s survival. It is the culmination of more than a decade of waste, mismanagement, ideological overreach, denial and stubbornness. The price for this mismanagement will not be paid by the ministers who caused it but by every business, every family and every Victorian now and into the debt-ridden decades to come. The Treasurer may present this document as a triumph of fiscal responsibility, but to anyone familiar with economic fundamentals, it is a monument to imbalance, unreliability and a profound lack of productivity.

This is not a plan to secure Victoria’s future. It is a desperate attempt to manage alarming structural decline, a path that will leave our state poorer and less competitive. The most glaring issue is its reliance on a political narrative detached from reality. The government boasts a $600 million operating surplus, but that is a fiction. Beneath that veneer lie cash deficits averaging $8 billion across the forward estimates. We are still borrowing more and more to fund spending. That is not fiscal health; it is a credit card economy.

Debt figures confirm this failure. In just over 10 years Victoria’s debt will have surged from under $20 billion to nearly $200 billion. Interest payments alone have ballooned to $7.6 billion this year, over $20 million every day, and are set to reach $10.5 billion. That is money that should go to teachers, hospitals and infrastructure, instead vanishing into an addiction to borrowing. S&P’s decision to hold our credit rating was not a sign of strength, it was a stay of execution – a signal that we are on economic life support. Rather than restoring fiscal discipline, the government reaches for its favourite lever: higher taxes. State taxes have surged 183 per cent under Labor, while incomes have risen only 38.5 per cent and inflation 32 per cent. We have now had 63 new or increased state taxes and charges since Labor came to power, hammering the private sector. And the retreat is real. Almost a dozen Victorian businesses shut their doors every single day. When businesses close, the jobs they provide vanish. That is the direct result of this government’s economic vandalism.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the latest unemployment figures. While the national rate fell to 4.2 per cent, Victoria went backwards, rising to 4.6 per cent, nearly half a percentage point above the national average. For 17 consecutive months Victoria has had the highest unemployment rate in the nation, the longest streak since the –

Members interjecting.

Richard Welch: On a point of order, Acting President, the running commentary does not seem to be directed at anything except making noise, and I would ask to be able to hear Mrs McArthur’s contribution, please.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): It is a little bit hard to hear on this side too. So if you can continue, Mrs McArthur, and the chamber can just quieten down a little, thank you.

Bev McARTHUR: Thank you, Acting President. I would appreciate some quiet. We listened in patience to Mr McIntosh. He had nothing to say, I might add. That is why we listened quietly. However, let us go back. Victoria has had the highest unemployment rate in the nation, the longest streak since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began collecting data in 1978. We are also lagging behind other states. New South Wales’s rate has dropped to 4 per cent. When you factor in wages the story worsens. Over the past decade the cost of living in Victoria rose 31.8 per cent while wages grew just 29 per cent, a net loss of purchasing power for every household. As the Shadow Treasurer noted, the Allan Labor government’s policy damage is causing structural damage to our economy. The evidence is clear: high taxes, declining competitiveness, record debt and the longest unemployment streak on record.

None of this is news to those here. Ministers have heard it all before, and they are unlikely to change course. So rather than repeat what others have said, I want to take a different tack as Shadow Minister for Scrutiny of Government, because the story of this budget cannot be told by numbers alone. The figures tell one story, but the numbers that truly matter – the integrity deficit – are hidden, and it is the most dangerous deficit of all. The voices of institutional accountability tell us the truth. The Victorian Ombudsman said to a parliamentary inquiry:

We have picked up a number of functions … with very little in the way of additional funding.

…

… it makes it very difficult to plan going forward and to adequately perform functions such as prevention, which I consider vital.

She added that they cannot deal with the 18,000 complaints they receive each year, and with limited resources they have to be careful about which matters they take on.

IBAC also admitted that in 2023–24 it was able to absorb the gap only by requiring a $1.19 million Treasurer’s advance.

These are institutionally accountable voices telling us that they are underfunded, overburdened and on the brink, not because of ideology but because of choices made in budget after budget. The integrity deficit is not abstract. We see it in the failure to commission a royal commission into the hotel quarantine disaster. We see it in the billion-dollar projects hidden behind ‘commercial in confidence’. We see it when public servants are appointed for loyalty, not merit. We see it when bodies designed to investigate misconduct must ask for advances just to function. The integrity deficit is real. The financial cost of corruption is estimated to be as much as 5 per cent of gross domestic product globally, which if applied to Victoria’s gross state product would be over $20 billion. But the social costs are also significant: community distrust in government, reduced participation in public life and ultimately a weakening of democracy itself.

At the end of the forward estimates period Victoria will be spending more on debt interest payments every single week than the entire annual budget for the Parliamentary Budget Office, IBAC, the Auditor-General, the Local Government Inspectorate, Integrity Oversight Victoria and the Victorian Ombudsman. That is madness, and it comes with consequences, avoidable consequences, like the childcare scandal. Our integrity agencies do not exist to reassure ministers; they exist to hold them to account. When they say they cannot do their job, that is not hyperbole, that is disaster waiting to happen. If you think that this is an exaggeration, please bear with me, for I want to end with just one of the catastrophic real-life consequences of this lack of money.

Most of this I have said before, but it is so inextricably linked to Labor’s failing budget that I cannot fail to reference it again. On one hand Labor is wasting money on overspends, vanity projects, not holding the Commonwealth Games and political pork-barrelling without proper business cases. On the other hand, these are the actual words of the Commission for Children and Young People – the body responsible for the reportable conduct scheme – from its 2021–22 annual report:

For the first time this year a small number of lower-risk reportable conduct investigations were not fulsomely examined by the Commission before being finalised … it is challenging to manage such growth in demand without impact on workplace sustainability … without risking the objectives of the Scheme.

Without risking the objectives of the scheme – that is, without risking child safety.

The next exhibit is the commission’s annual report for 2022–23. Pages 9 and 10 say:

… the Commission has received no additional funding for the scheme. …we are worried that this underfunding may compromise our ability to ensure the Scheme delivers on its objectives to ensure responses to allegations of child abuse are acted on quickly and effectively by organisations.

Could it be clearer? Somehow the next year’s annual report is even more damning. On page 20 it states:

With no additional funding for the Scheme despite increased notifications, the Commission has progressed a risk-based strategy to manage demand. These measures have seen us significantly reduce our oversight of a high number of investigations.

Significantly reduce a high number of investigations. It continues:

Our efforts will continue to be focused on the cases of highest risk, however resourcing for the Scheme has started to impact on the Commission’s ability to run the Scheme in a way that maximises child safety.

This is not hindsight. We are not being wise after the event here. We are not blaming Labor ministers for things they could not reasonably have predicted. These warnings were public, on the record, in reports directed to ministers. They did not fail to read between the lines; they failed to listen whatsoever. And now we know the terrible consequences.

I did not think there was any worse to come, but there is. It is not just annual reports, but the commission’s submission to the government review of Victoria’s reportable conduct scheme from November 2022. This was a review purely about the system, and the submission from the body responsible for administering the scheme – not a disgruntled whistleblower, not a mischief maker, not a political opponent trying to spin things; these are the words of the Commission for Children and Young People – says:

Base funding provided to the Commission to administer the scheme has not changed since 2018.

…

Given the large increase in mandatory notifications, the Commission is currently under-resourced to administer the scheme, which creates a risk of delayed responses to serious safety risks to children in over 12,000 organisations across Victoria.

‘Serious safety risks to children’. They continue:

The Commission is implementing further risk-based initiatives to target its limited resources. However, if no additional funding is received, the Commission will be forced to further reduce its oversight of organisations’ responses to alleged child abuse and child-related misconduct in a way that places children at risk.

Finally, they say:

Without additional funding, the unsustainable workload … presents the following risks:

delays will occur in notifications to police about potential criminal conduct or to Child Protection regarding concerns about a child who may require protection from harm, abuse or neglect

limitations on the Commission’s capacity to intervene in a timely and effective way to ensure organisations manage risks to children …

… delayed referrals to other child safety regulators, such as Working with Children Check Victoria … This increases the risk that people known to pose a risk to children will continue to be able to work with children for an extended period

children will be abused, or continue to be abused, by a person who would have otherwise been prevented from working with children …

They are the words of the commission, not mine. I do not know what more I can say. All the systems in the world, all the bodies, all the regulators, they mean nothing if the ministers responsible for them do not listen when they beg – literally beg – for money to do their job to protect the children of Victoria. Is this the kind of oversight we can accept? A system cracking under neglect, where children are only safe if they suffer high-profile abuse? Would this government really have changed anything at all had the despicable crimes revealed recently remained hidden? This is the consequence of Labor’s budgets over the last decade, and this latest is no better. And finally, it begs the question: what other warnings are being ignored? What regulators are left understaffed? What inquiries are postponed? What audits are abandoned? What fraud, corruption, maladministration? What is festering quietly because of these – (Time expired)

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:48): I rise to talk about a very important topic, and that is the state budget. We have of course seen the budget pass through the Parliament already this year, and I am delighted to take this opportunity to put my contribution onto the record. Along with Mr Welch opposite we have also had the opportunity to take part in extensive budget hearings as part of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and look forward to discussing that more at some future point when our report is tabled. And we certainly miss you, Mrs McArthur, from the PAEC experience. We miss the volume, the interjections, the uncertainty of what you are going to come out with next. It has certainly been missed by us all.

It is an important budget.

Bev McArthur interjected.

Michael GALEA: I think they do actually miss you, Mrs McArthur. But it is an important budget because it is one that is focused on financial sustainability and it is one that is focused on recovering from the COVID period, rebuilding those elements of the budget, and the government is doing that. It is meeting those objectives year by year, point by point. I acknowledge the work of in particular the current Treasurer in getting us to that point. It is one that is a responsible budget, and it has made appropriate decisions.

What I also want to talk about is not just the state budget but the household budgets of 2.8 million Victorian households, because that is also what this budget is about. You do not have a good budget if things are all looking tidy and whatever else in the Parliament but they are not supporting people in the community. A good budget does both, and that is why I am so pleased that this budget has made significant investments in continuing to provide that meaningful support for Victorian families. We have seen it of course with the continued rollout of free school breakfasts and other various programs, such as the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund, seeing that continuation of the rollout so that hardworking Victorian families do not have to make difficult sacrifices or those difficult choices about their children having the same opportunities as everyone else. That is so fundamentally important to the equity of Victorian students. It is a really good program, and it is great to see it continue.

We have seen the very significant announcement of the new youth Myki, meaning that from 1 January next year public transport travel right across the state of Victoria will be free for every Victorian under the age of 18, saving families significant amounts of money, especially if that incorporates school travel. But even if it is just taking the kids out to the footy on the weekend, it is a significant saving for Victorian families. Of course there is also expansion of free weekend public transport for seniors. It currently applies to the zone in which they live and the neighbouring zone each side, and that will now apply statewide as well. So it is very good news for our seniors, but it is particularly good news for Victorians with young and growing families that this new youth Myki is going to make a real difference.

We also have seen significant investments in the space of health care access. I have spoken many times – in fact I have spoken just this week – about the problems that have been caused by the previous coalition government’s complete failure to invest in or support primary healthcare services in Victoria and indeed in other states as well. That is why I am so glad to see continued support in this budget for those 29 urgent care clinics, which provide that critical point of access between needing to go to an emergency room or being able to wait for a GP, meeting that service gap and providing those options for people that need it. We did indeed in the previous round of financial and performance outcome hearings last year receive evidence not only that are these urgent care clinics being used I believe now in excess of 7000 times a week, possibly higher even since then, but that approximately half of those users are estimated to have otherwise gone to the emergency department and the other half would have not sought care at all. Both are very, very good testaments as to why the urgent care clinics are so important, because on the one hand you have reducing the pressure on another very important tertiary healthcare service, providing that health care at the most critical moments, and on the other hand you have meeting those healthcare challenges of Victorians and meeting them where they need it in and the closing of another one of those gaps to access, which can lead to so many further issues down the track.

We do have 29 such urgent care clinics in Victoria, and 17 of them, I am very happy to say, are now co-funded by the Albanese federal Labor government. I am sure it would be very welcome indeed if they were to join us in co-funding the remaining 12 too – after all, primary care is a federal area of responsibility. But when it comes to supporting Victorians’ health care, this government has not let that distinction and those technicalities get in the way of providing those services. We stepped in and funded them fully, as did the New South Wales Liberal government at the time when the federal Liberals were failing to invest. It was a good thing that both states did so. We will continue to invest, and it is very welcome indeed that we have a significant amount of federal support for that program; long may it continue and expand.

We also have of course the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department, a great initiative that is run out of Northern Health but operates across the entire state and provides another point of access for emergency care, and that is emergency care where you may not need to present in person but you can get that specialist video-on-demand advice that you need from the right experts.

And it also complements other services, such as Nurse-on-Call, which has of course been operating for some time. But it adds another point in that triage of pointing people in the direction of where they best need help, whether that is the physical ED or whether that is another support service. Again, it goes to a more fundamental budgetary point of taking pressure off some of the key emergency departments and taking pressure off those systems as well. But it also goes to the point of providing that greater equity of care, so it is something that is to be welcomed. Some members of the Liberal Party seem unaware that we do have a virtual emergency department in Victoria, going so far as to ask an expert in a committee who was talking about the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department if he had ever heard of any such department operating anywhere in the world and if perhaps we could do that in Victoria, to the bemusement of me and Mr Batchelor, who has just walked in. The witness rightly noted that, yes, we actually do have one. We do have a virtual ED, and that is what he had spent the previous 20 minutes talking about. It is good that we are expanding awareness of this program, even if it is one Liberal MP at a time. Hopefully the word will continue getting out there. There has been some advertising on the VVED as well. I think I saw it in a YouTube ad quite recently and ads talking about the urgent care clinics, talking about the phone support services and talking about the virtual ED. It is really important that Victorians know that these services are there and also of course that those other triaging options are available as well.

I spoke about the federal government. We have seen a recent announcement from them on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. From 1 January next year we are going to see the cost of prescription medications – those co-payments – reduce from just over $30 to about $25, and that is a saving of about 20 per cent, a significant impact on Victorian households. It is something that I certainly welcome as well. Again, it is good to have a government in Canberra that actually cares about and invests in Victorians’ healthcare needs. When it comes to accessing prescriptions, we know that many Victorians in the past struggled with having to go to their GP – having to go through the whole process, often without being able to bulk bill because of the failures in bulk billing from the previous federal government – just to get the same prescription that they had got repeatedly before. For those common prescriptions, Victoria has implemented the community pharmacy co-pilot program, which is really, really important. It actually allows registered pharmacists – those specially registered for the program – to be able to prescribe a select number of schedule 4 prescriptions for a range of around 22 conditions.

It has been a pilot program. It has been established and expanded under this budget to 22 such conditions, everything from oral contraceptives to simple UTI medications and the like. It has been welcomed by the pharmacy industry, and certainly the Pharmacy Guild of Australia has been very outspoken in its support of it. It is not something, I should say, that is exclusive to Victoria. Other states have been moving along with this at the same time, but what is actually exclusive to Victoria is the fact that in this state it is free. Mrs McArthur would be so excited to hear that if she was here, I know, and I am very sad that she is not. But it is free at the point of access. In other jurisdictions you may well have to pay the consultation fee still with the pharmacist in order to get the prescription, but in Victoria it is completely free of charge – again, removing another barrier to access and meaning that more people can get the medications that they need. It is a very, very good program and an exciting program, one that pharmacists in my community that I have spoken to have been excited by as well. Also it is one more way in which we are freeing up that pressure on, in this case, the primary healthcare system, because everything in this space is interrelated.

Despite all the huge investments that we have made, whether it is in new hospitals, including in this budget, whether it is in our wonderful emergency services, whether it is in supporting our paramedics in Ambulance Victoria, whether it is supporting those great people who deal with Victorians when they are in often the worst situations of their lives and those people that work for Triple Zero Victoria as well, we are supporting and continue to support those organisations. But we are also making investments in addressing the cause of some health problems, not just the symptoms, and all of these measures in some way or another help towards that.

We have also seen in this budget a number of investments made towards continuing to improve and expand our transport network. I have spoken in this place repeatedly about some of the new bus services in my electorate. So as not to be needlessly repetitive, I will avoid the temptation to talk about them today. In this budget in particular we have seen an expansion of bus services in my electorate as well as particularly in the west of Melbourne, with new services around the Rockbank and Aintree areas. A new route is linking Aintree directly with Watergardens station over on the Sunbury line, which later this year will become part of the new Metro Tunnel, improving those cross-town connections for people in the west as well – whether it is to go to Rockbank station, their nearby local station, or to go to Watergardens and have that direct access to the Metro Tunnel line.

There have also been expanded services for late-night services in Wyndham and Hume. As a result of the new Metro tunnel opening this year, there is a significant investment in increasing train services, with peak-hour services on the Werribee line and interpeak services on the Sandringham line going up to every 10 minutes. The Craigieburn line is also seeing increased frequencies interpeak and off-peak, and the Upfield line is seeing frequency increases in the off-peak. For V/Line, there are additional peak services on the Seymour line. I am sure that will be of great excitement to Minister Symes, those extra services to Seymour – whether it is the extra weekend services to Bendigo or the 40-minute services, minimum, from 8 am to 9 pm, seven days a week on the Gippsland line.

The Gippsland line is one that not so long ago was barely able to run trains every hour, let alone every 40 minutes. A significant reason for the ability to now provide that much-expanded service is the regional rail upgrade program undertaken, including the track duplication between Bunyip and Longwarry. It is a significant investment in that regional rail line, where you see today that we now have services running at that higher capacity, at that higher speed – so much so that it is hard to believe that just 30 years ago this was a rail line that the Liberal government was shutting down. They actually shut down the line to Bairnsdale. It was opened again by the previous Bracks Labor government and is now significantly expanded under the Allan Labor government, with the new and upgraded Gippsland line providing a much more frequent service.

With the Metro Tunnel coming into effect this year we actually saw an interesting question posed in the Parliament by Ms Bath to the transport minister, asking for a guarantee that V/Line services would still continue to the city once the Metro Tunnel opens and not just terminate at Pakenham.

Jaclyn Symes interjected.

Michael GALEA: It was quite surprising, and you are quite right to note it, Minister Symes. It is quite an odd thing for someone coming from the Nationals to say. It was particularly interesting, because she actually got an answer from the minister very clearly saying, ‘Yes, I can give that guarantee basically. Yes, those services will continue to the city.’ Despite this Ms Bath decided to then go to the local newspapers in Gippsland and Pakenham and say it was an outrage because the minister could not give a guarantee. I am happy to help Ms Bath, and perhaps at a later time I can dive into this further. This is a very important budget, a good budget, and I commend it to the house.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:03): I rise to make my contribution on the budget. Victoria is a state economically adrift. We have no clear path. We have no genuine leadership. The budget personifies this. The only tax reform we see is more taxes: increased taxes, wider taxes, more punitive taxes and more technical taxes. There is no productivity policy. There is no progress in reducing debt. There is no industry policy of any substance. The only fiscal reform we see is spending cloaked in that very disingenuous use of the word ‘investment’ – record investment here, record investment there. There is never a word about outcomes. You cannot call something investment if there is no return. That is just spending. Spending more on roads repair is not investment if it actually repairs less roads than before. It is just spending. We spend in Victoria; we do not get returns in Victoria. We spend, but all we get are worse roads, worse hospital services, closed police stations, police officer shortages, hospital mergers and environmental protections gone.

We also saw in this budget cuts to domestic violence accommodation, to Parks Victoria, to police, a $2.4 billion cut to education, the slow and steady degrading and hollowing out of our state institutions, the closure of children’s courts and cuts to the fisheries department so that there are now more office staff than actual fisheries officers out on the ground. A facade is maintained, but that is all it is.

Here is how that manifests in government promotion of what it does. We now have basic maintenance of schools – basic spending on gutters and toilets – being announced as if it is some kind of special support or investment in a school – that is, basic functions of government are described as an investment. We see the Premier and others out on a near daily basis on social media videos announcing the same thing. I mean, how many times does the Premier need to go and walk through the Metro as if it was the first time she had been there and gaze about in wonder? How many times can you cut the same ribbon? Re-re-announcing and squeezing every last drop of PR out of an announcement is a hallmark of buying time when you have nothing else to talk about and want to distract the community from genuine problems the state has.

Consider this: this was a budget handed down where the debt stabilisation plan increased debt by approximately $10 billion. Only Labor could put that forward with a straight face. It is a budget surplus that has been completely artificially engineered by relying on things as nebulous and spurious as speeding fines to achieve it. No economic growth, no new IP to export, not tourism – road fines. It is a budget surplus so wafer thin it will not survive any new needs that could easily be expected to crop up, like drought support. We are only six months in, and I am in genuine doubt that this surplus exists. I think it is gone.

There is so little of the normal contingency a responsible budgeting government would put into the estimates that when things like the need for drought support come along, or speeding fines are down, we are plunged back into the deficit. The government is so uncertain on what patches it needs to put where, what shuffling of money it needs to move around, that it does not report departmental budgets within their own accounts but allows for unspecified amounts to be held by the Treasurer and provided as Treasurer’s advances without scrutiny. Gone are the days when a department’s budget was set out and made transparent and had to be stuck to, unless there was clear explanation and accountability for failure to do so. Our state’s budget process has been completely inappropriately compromised. It meets no acceptable standard for transparency, clarity and fiduciary accountability.

But there are more than financial accountability problems in this budget; there are clear competency issues and a clear lack of vision issue, and it leaves the state economically adrift. It is eerily reminiscent of what happened in Victoria in the 1980s, when the lack of planning and economic management led to Melbourne losing the position of the financial capital of Australia to Sydney. We are in the same economic malaise. It has not happened overnight, but it is the result of a decade of financial and industrial aimlessness in the state, a state muddling along, funding everything from debt and building inefficiently while everything winds down around it. This is a state government that is completely oblivious to the wider trends in the national and international economy, papering over the ever-widening cracks in our economy, institutions and society with lazy, rampant expenditure, patching everything and solving nothing. It has created a state that has forgotten it needs to compete and has no overarching economic strategy or narrative for industry, productivity, innovation or entrepreneurship. Victoria’s productivity has now lagged the whole of Australia for 10 years.

To get a picture of our lack of competitiveness, Victoria used to have a trade surplus. We now run a state trade deficit of $92 billion a year. We are not a competitive state. We are not an economically driven, hugely ambitious state because, force-fed a diet of state debt, taxes and overregulation and state enterprises blowing out the cost of doing anything, our private sector has become shuttered, hesitant, beaten down and is looking for better opportunities elsewhere.

The unspoken scandal of this budget is that it does not even give the most basic nod towards addressing the fundamentals of building a platform for the future economic security of the state. There is a focus on debt-fuelled spending, the expansion of state powers and regulation and of course increased taxes. It is a totally economically illiterate budget, but even that is being too kind. It is worse than this. Its highest aim is to stabilise debt – that is it. And it does not even do that. It is a budget that screams that its authors do not know what they do not know. There is neither explicit nor implicit reference to the relationship between taxation settings and productivity, between productivity and economic growth and between economic growth and revenue. It does not attempt to grow revenue, it just aims to tax more of it.

The increase of commercial and industrial land tax is the clearest example of exactly this. There is absolutely no understanding of the role that industry working capital ratios play in empowering innovation, capital deepening and slow capital investment. Commercial and industrial land tax on business is a tax on working capital. What the government, in its greed, has engineered is effectively a working capital famine in Victoria. It taxes every company’s working capital, starving them of the ability to move forward, and then, get this, graciously offers to return crumbs of it by way of grants and has its own state-owned venture capital firm Breakthrough Victoria there to pick the winners. Consider this: Breakthrough Victoria is a body that was given over $2 billion of businesses’ money, of businesses’ working capital, to invest in the businesses it chooses. That is it. It confiscated $2 billion of our businesses’ working capital to use as its own, and then it trumpets how impressive it is that it spends that money, providing working capital back to those few lucky, hand-selected companies. The irony is deep, profound, and undoubtedly the underlying mindset that allows this is the arrogance, to the point of stupidity, that says that the government knows how to spend your business’s working capital better than you do – better than the business that actually created it. How can any business get ahead in this environment? How can any business have the necessary budget and forecast headroom to make patient investment in their own businesses?

On the one hand, they have to deal with the world’s stupidest tax, payroll tax – a tax on employing people, obviously. But more accurately, the best way to characterise it is as a tax on a business’s cash flow – that is, the underlying consequence which means you cannot afford to employ people, matched with the commercial and industrial land tax, which is a tax on a company’s working capital, which means you cannot invest back into your business to the extent needed. This is exactly the worst time in history for this state to be so overtly hamstringing its economy and its businesses in this way. This is the worst time in history for a state to be so deeply in debt and so committed to nonproductive projects, and that is because we are in the middle of a technology revolution, with the advent of AI, automation and 3D printing, incredibly disruptive technologies that demand that our state’s laws, capital and capabilities are rapidly realigned to meet them. The world is not standing still. If we fail to make that transfer – and make no mistake, underlying it all, in the most practical sense, it is a transfer of the state’s working capital – we will be left behind in a world that is not only willing to do so but, because it has managed its finances more responsibly, actually able to do so, and much faster than us. Our state’s working capital, an entire generation’s worth of working capital, is tied up in debt, concrete tunnels and land tax. That is where it is stuck. We cannot adapt. It is locked in. The budget has just compounded that problem.

If we want economic success for this state for the next generation, if we want to enjoy the social and equality benefits of well-funded health systems, affordable quality homes for families and law and order systems, we cannot have another budget of this nature. We need urgent reform. We need to not only reduce taxes but have economically efficient taxes that drive capital to productivity.

This is self-evidently a tragedy for our state, and the only people who do not understand this are in the government. Their ignorance of this fact is the ignorance at the heart of this economically lazy, intellectually stunted budget – a budget that takes us from nowhere to a deeper, darker nowhere. Businesses and industry in Victoria and those who rely on employment from them, and those who benefit from the taxes they provide to state revenue, please understand this is not a government that understands what needs to be done to safeguard and foster the state’s future prosperity. It is a government that only operates within a paradigm of tax and debt and to feed government expenditure. There is no perspective beyond this. We are a state that is economically adrift, and it needs to change. If your only language is debt, increased tax and spending with no return, you cannot address it.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:16): I rise to speak about the 2025–26 state budget, which Treasurer Symes handed down in May. This is a budget with a lot in it, and there is a lot going on dealing with the big issues and the big questions of the day. There are some of us that will look at the challenges we are facing – a growing state with a growing demand for housing services and infrastructure – and simply say that it is all too difficult. Those on the other side continue to labour that point. There are others – those of us in the Allan Labor government – who see these challenges and get on with the work of building the things that this state needs to get going for the next few decades.

This is a budget that delivers impactful cost-of-living relief, opens and operationalises nine of the new expanded hospitals and operationalises the Metro Tunnel while delivering more trains more often to key lines. It also facilitates the construction of new homes and invests $1.5 billion into building and upgrading schools, all while delivering a surplus of $600 million. Delivering a surplus is never easy, and it is never free. Everything must be paid for, and governments need to make decisions on what to prioritise. What makes this budget so impressive is that the Treasurer has managed to hand down a budget that delivers on every major issue that matters to Victorians and still hand down a surplus.

We know that the cost of living has not been easy over the last few years,. That is why this budget delivers $2.3 billion in cost-of-living support. This means delivering a $100 power saving bonus to those who need it the most. This means delivering another 27,000 rebates for heat pumps and solar hot water systems which once installed can save households up to $400 on their energy bills each year. This helps families to make an investment which can drive down their power bills in the long term and give people the opportunity to produce their own energy themselves, because one-off cost reliefs can help people save money this year. Rebates like this can help people save money every year while simultaneously helping us to fulfil our responsibilities as a state government to reduce Victoria’s carbon emissions. This program is popular and effective and that is why we are continuing with it. Victorians want solar panels on their roofs and energy efficiencies in their homes.

This budget also increases funding for school camps, sports and excursions, helping families with concession or healthcare cards to afford some of these additional costs associated with education. Payments will be increasing from $154 per primary student to $254 per secondary student, and $400 per year for all eligible students, helping more than 200,000 school students get the most out of their education and, importantly, ensuring that students are not excluded or left out of school activities based on their parents’ ability to pay for them. This budget also makes public transport free for all under-18s starting next year, as well as making public transport free on weekends for seniors. Families can save up to $755 per child per year on a myki fare. This is one of the fairest, most cost-efficient ways that the government can help families with the cost of living. It will be implemented by creating a new youth Myki, which will remain valid until the holder turns 18.

The new youth Myki will be valid for all public transport in Victoria: weekends and weekdays, peak hour and early bird and off-peak times. Whether heading 5 minutes down the street on a tram, travelling to school every day or travelling as far as V/Line will take you, it will all be free for the kids.

I really could not talk more about the public transport issue without mentioning the new youth Myki, which will also be valid to touch on at Anzac station, located in Southern Metropolitan Region that I represent. The station will open later this year as part of the brand new Metro Tunnel. Speaking of the Metro Tunnel, the budget also includes $227 million to operationalise and run services on the Metro Tunnel, benefiting commuters in the Southern Metro but also across Melbourne. The Metro Tunnel has been delivered a whole year ahead of schedule, creating five new stations in the inner city. The Metro Tunnel will also allow for more reliable and frequent turn-up-and-go services across the Sunbury and Cranbourne-Pakenham lines, which will run directly through it. Also, by taking those lines out of the City Loop we will ease the City Loop congestion, allowing for more reliable and more frequent services on other lines as well. For example, the Sandringham line receives funding this budget to run services every 10 minutes during non-peak periods. Other lines receiving frequency boosts in this budget include the Craigieburn, Upfield and Werribee lines, all thanks to the Metro Tunnel. The opening of the Metro Tunnel later this year will be something to celebrate, and it is an achievement for all Victorians. It will serve to remind us that our that at our best we are a state of builders and a state that looks forward, that is ambitious and aspirational, where our ambitions are about our infrastructure projects and our ambitions are about giving every Victorian child the best possible education.

On the issue of education, I cannot help but notice that a lot of conversations about education in this budget coming from the other parts of the chamber, have completely ignored the fact that this budget is investing in $1.5 billion in capital investments for schools. On education investment, no-one in this place should be taken seriously if they disregard the fact that this government promised to deliver over a hundred new schools by 2026; we have already delivered 81 of them, with six new schools opening their doors at the start of this year. And guess what? Term 1, day 1 next year, 19 new schools will open their doors for students for the first time. For those playing along at home, that is 100 new schools being delivered in the timeframe that we promised. If, hypothetically speaking, a government had been in power which did not believe in building new schools, then students and families would have suffered. Schools would be facing overcrowding, having to accept more students than the facilities are equipped to accommodate. Families, particularly in growth areas, would increasingly be finding that they would not have access to a school in their local area, and I am particularly looking forward to term 1, day 1 next year when Fishermans Bend primary school opens, located in Southern Metropolitan Region, which I represent. The budget also includes the funding necessary to plan for and acquire land and build brand new schools.

Just because we have hit one target, kept one promise and made an impressive achievement in building a hundred new schools, we are not stopping there. The challenges of growth are not going away any time soon; that is why our new investment is not stopping any time soon either. The Allan Labor government understands the reality that education systems will never stop needing new investment. We will always need new schools somewhere, and we will always need to upgrade, improve and refurbish existing schools. There is no finish line on this issue. There will never be a day when the government can finish their last project, pack it up and let the education system run on pure inertia. Things are consistently changing in education. The needs of our state are constantly changing, and responsible governments are alert to these changes. As impressive as our school capital program is, it is as important as building and maintaining our school buildings, as this is not the only factor to consider when running an education system, and it is not the only challenge we are facing either.

One of the most important things we have to deal with at the moment is attracting, training and retraining our education workforce. It is no good to have all these big, beautiful new school buildings if there are not any teachers to work them, because it is the teachers who work the education system and who make the education system work. Without teachers we could not have the education system; that is why the Allan Labor government has made the workforce recruitment and retention a key pillar of our education investments.

This budget uses $68 million to fund school workforce programs, including providing 200 scholarships for tertiary students to study secondary teaching in specialist subjects, making sure that pre-service teachers are paid on their placements by funding 70,000 placement days, thereby making sure that would-be teachers do not have to choose between paying their bills and training for their careers; providing relocation bonuses for teachers who move into the areas most in need of an education workforce; and funding the Teach Today and Teach Tomorrow programs, which provide 1200 places for on-the-job training. It is important that we offer as many pathways as possible for people to train to become teachers, because it is a big commitment and it is not easy. Everybody’s circumstances are different. We need to put everything on the table as we find a way to recruit more teachers and remove barriers to entry into the profession without sacrificing teacher quality.

Additionally, the budget is investing $91 million in our existing teaching workforce, with programs supporting graduate teachers, supporting the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership and offering training and professional development to teachers. The budget also provides $10.4 million to expand the successful schoolwide positive behaviour support program to an additional 400 schools, nearly doubling its reach. We have listened to schools, listened to principals and listened to teachers. The program has worked where it has been implemented, and that is why we are expanding it. Teachers and parents alike are worried about behaviour and discipline in classrooms and the impact that it can have on a student’s ability to learn and a student’s overall experience at school. We need to make sure that teachers and students have a classroom that is a safe, positive and fair environment, otherwise learning becomes a lot harder.

On the issue of health, I am very proud to be part of a government that is making the largest ever investment in frontline health care, with an additional $11.1 billion being put into the health system and a total investment of $31 billion. This includes an investment in mental health of nearly half a billion dollars. It includes opening and operationalising nine new or expanded hospitals and includes more than $400 million to triple the capacity of the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department. This is important so that we can offer more help to Victorians when an emergency department is too far away or if they are unsure as to whether the emergency department is there or not. It offers free advice and it takes pressure off our hospitals and emergency departments. It also includes investing $167 million into improving our ambulance response times, including hiring more call takers and more dispatchers. There is a lot in this budget for health, and this is because this is a budget that fundamentally understands the complexities of the health system. That is why the budget provides both the muscle and the nuance which our health system needs. It provides raw increases in funding that our health system needs. It also delivers the innovation and infrastructure that the system needs to get the best possible value for money.

Community safety is one of the most important issues there is in politics, now and always. People are thinking about it all across the state, and I know people are thinking about it in my electorate of Southern Metro. Earlier this year we passed the toughest bail laws anywhere in Australian law, because the Allan Labor government always puts community safety first. Removing the principle of remand as a last resort put significant financial strain on our justice system, and that is why this budget invested $1.6 billion to provide the funding basics for implementing Victoria’s new bail laws. We will provide the police force, the court system and our correctional facilities with the funding they need to accommodate this new burden which we are asking them to undertake. Since coming to office in 2014 this government has increased police funding by roughly 88 per cent. The 2025–26 budget spends $4.5 billion on policing. The Allan Labor government supports our police.

I have touched on a lot of things so far, and I have not come close to covering everything in this budget, but it bears repeating that the Treasurer has handed down a budget which has made investments in the right places. This budget has put the right priorities front and centre, and while doing all of that it has handed down a budget surplus of $600 million. This is a return to an operational surplus in this state for the first time since the pandemic. Of course members on this side of the chamber know that prior to the pandemic the then Andrews Labor government handed down surplus after surplus.

It did this while also making investments in schools, infrastructure, training and the health that the state needed. But in the post-pandemic era fiscal conditions are different, and a return to surplus this soon after the pandemic is a testament to the work of the Treasurer and the work of the former Treasurer, Tim Pallas. We only ever see results like this when governments do the hard work – put pragmatism before populism and set out long-term plans and stick to them. This has been a multi-year effort and it has taken half a decade. Victoria’s fiscal strategy is a long-term plan to balance the budget and grow the economy. In 2025 the budget is in surplus and the economy is growing. There is still more work to do, and we are on track to meet the targets as set out in the fiscal strategy. There are still years left to go. We are on track to stabilise debt as a proportion of the gross state product by next year’s budget, and over the next few budgets we are on track to reduce net debt as a proportion of GSP.

Talking about the debt is all well and good but doing some of the things takes work. This state is lucky to have someone like the Treasurer, who is willing to put in that hard work.

Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (15:31): I am pleased to be able to speak today about the state budget papers, and I think a lot of people might switch off. They tune off and they think ‘budgets boring’.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Gaelle BROAD: But no, not you, Mr Batchelor. I am glad to hear it, because it is very important. How money is allocated, what the priorities are, is so important. We have three levels of government – the local, the state, the federal – but the state government has responsibility for so many services that are really critical, essential services. When we look at the budget we can see that roads, for example – I hear from people all the time their frustration about the state of our roads, and after 11 years of Labor in government we have seen a lack of funding for the maintenance of our roads.

I had local residents raise this issue just this week. I had one that had been on a recent trip to South Australia. They spent three weeks there and they talked about how smooth the roads were, and then when they came back to Victoria, going along the Calder Freeway and other roads, they got so frustrated at the amount of potholes and the condition of our roads. I was speaking to another lady at Parliament who came just yesterday, visiting from Bendigo, and she was talking about a trip that they had taken to New South Wales and Queensland and then seeing how beautiful the roads were in those states and, again, the frustration on coming back to Victoria. Again, that is a priority. That is where taxes should be going, and under this government they certainly have not.

Health is another crucial area, a core service of government. What we have seen is threats of mergers of services, particularly in regional areas. I know areas that are in need of a lot more beds for hospitals – and we see that particularly around the Albury–Wodonga area, and Mildura is another area in my electorate that is affected by that – and ambulance ramping is a huge issue. This is being felt right across northern Victoria, but I have spoken to a number of people that have rung for ambulances and been told that none is available and have ended up in the position where they are having to take their loved ones to hospital. Again, this is what this state government should be doing. They should be delivering these services, and again, this is why budgets are so important.

Another area that impacts us all is community safety. Yet we have seen crime escalating. The amount of crime that we are seeing and the difference that you see on the streets today in Bendigo compared to 20 years ago, it is just so different. In other states they have made reforms to bail laws – for example, Queensland are seeing their crime reduced. But in Victoria, because this government weakened bail laws, we have seen crime escalate. The money, again, is there from the state government to support our police, who do such an important job, being that first line of defence and keeping us safe.

But right now in our police force we have over 1100 vacancies. We have hundreds more who are currently on leave. We have more officers leaving the force and retiring than we do coming into the force. This is a big challenge for our state. Again, it is a core service of government and we are seeing failure on that front.

Education – crucial. Money from this budget is going to our schools to make sure that they are maintained, their facilities are upgraded and our students have access to the best education standards in the world.

That is how it should be, but right now we have a shortage of teachers. We have over a thousand vacancies in our educational system, and that is putting immense pressure on teachers. And we have seen the pressure that they are under and the pressures that principals are experiencing and some of the, yes, complications and the challenges they are facing in the classroom.

Housing is another core area of government, and yet I can tell you, on the steps of Parliament I remember we had the origami houses reflecting the number of families waiting for a home in this state who are in need of social housing. We have over 60,000 people on the waiting list, and Victoria is lagging behind other states when it comes to that provision of housing. Big goals have been set with the new housing, but no, they are not certainly reaching those targets. We have seen in some electorates the amount of housing has actually gone backwards as places are being demolished.

Transport is another core service of government – so important – but in regional areas I know Bendigo has one of the highest cancellation rates. I know wi-fi was promised on the train line many years ago by Labor. Opening of the Harcourt station was something that they had promised, and seven years has elapsed and we still have not seen anything there. It was actually under this government, and I believe it was under Jacinta Allan, who was the minister at the time, that the second track was taken out on the line to Bendigo, which means that you get stuck behind other services as you are coming down. I do travel on the train regularly to Melbourne, so I have experienced some of that frustration or being put into a bus for some of those services. I have spoken to many people that have felt very frustrated, because we do need to be a state of cities not a city state. So supplying transport across the regions is so important, and yet right near Bendigo, very close to Bendigo, we have very few bus services. There are so many areas in our state that do not have public transport. That is one of the reasons that I have been pushing for the lowering of the P-plate age in Victoria, because Victoria is the only state that requires you to be 18. In every other state you can be 17, or younger in some cases, to get your probationary licence. We know that in other places overseas – New Zealand, the UK and America, – you can get your licence at a younger age, and that would help more young people get to work, provided they have done the safety driver training, which I think is very important, because you have got to make sure that they are ready to take on that big responsibility. But it could certainly make a huge difference. It has been raised a number of times, and this government continues to say, ‘No, we don’t believe it’ll be in the community’s best interest.’ So again, we will hope for change there.

Energy is another critical area of responsibility of the state government, but under this government, we have seen prices continue to escalate. I have spoken to so many people in business and families that are really struggling with the increasing cost of electricity. It is a huge part of their costs. The Commonwealth Games are in July next year, again. The Commonwealth Games, I should point out, was a massive waste of funds under this government – very poor decisions. But it does remind me about records and setting some records, and we certainly have a record state debt under this government heading towards $194 billion – billion dollars, that is incredible.

I am old enough to remember record players. Do you remember record players? Well, I thought I would share or make up a bit of a soundtrack for the government, a bit of a record, maybe the state budget hits. We will have a few hits. I was just thinking of some songs that would suit this Labor government. I think the first song –

Ryan Batchelor:Back in Black?

Gaelle BROAD: No, you are so far away from back in black, I can tell you. Back in black and back on track is something I certainly remember from working with Peter Costello many years ago. I would say this is just the furthest I have ever seen from any government being able to claim that. No, I think the most appropriate song is Money, Money, Money – a bit of ABBA, there you go. I would say:

I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay

Ain’t it sad?

That is this government. It is certainly very sad indeed, because we are heading towards $29 million every single day in interest.

That is over a million dollars every hour. That is certainly very sad.

Here is another song for you. The second track on the record for this government would be Bills, Bills, Bills by Destiny’s Child. The lyrics go ‘Can you pay my bills?’ I think that is something that the Treasurer has probably heard quite a lot from different ministers under this government. We saw the Treasurer’s advances absolutely blow out of the water. I think it was $12 billion on the little credit card to pay off the other credit cards there. This was not used for emergency situations; it was used for projects like level crossing removals. It is quite extraordinary and just shows you how out of control they are and how they cannot manage money.

Another one might suit a different demographic to Destiny’s Child. A bit of Johnny Cash should go on this record. I think After Taxes is an appropriate song, because this government has introduced 60 new or increased taxes since they have been in government. I will not list them all, but you are probably very familiar with them. The emergency services tax is one. We had the holiday tax, the schools tax, the GP tax and the land tax. When I look at the lyrics, they say:

I feel so good come payday

I think of all the things I’m going to

Buy when I pick up my pay

Don’t you know, but then they hand me

That little brown envelope

I peep inside, Lord I lose all hope

Because from those total wages earned

Down to that net amount that’s due

I feel the painful sense of loss between the two

I think that is what every Victorian family is feeling under this government. I was looking at a few different songs, but Annika Smethurst from the Age found a song a while ago that she thought was fitting for this government. It is Taylor Swift’s This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. It is a fitting description of the state’s debt predicament. Some of the lyrics there:

But I’m not the only friend you’ve lost lately

If only you weren’t so shady

I would say ‘shady’ is certainly something I hear said about this government quite a lot. The secrecy and the lack of transparency – we have had a front row seat to that. When you do not manage money well, services suffer. When money is going out the door paying interest, there is less to pay for services. This government also does not really know what is free. They say ‘free kinder and free dental care and free TAFE’. It does all actually cost money to run these services. People do not work for free, and nor should they. The state government is there to provide services like education, police, health and roads, like I said before. The government collects taxes and then uses the funds to deliver these services. But when they do not manage money well, services decline, and that is what we are seeing under this government, big time.

They like to suggest that on this side of the house we may cut things. Again, I want to set the record straight on that because this government has been in office now for 11 years, and it is cutting programs, particularly in regional areas. We have had the rural maternity program cut, the By Five program. We have had mental health jobs cut in regional police stations. I have spoken to people, and I understand there are about 20 jobs that were lost in that. That is a critical service for our police to have that support in regional stations – again, it has been cut. Regional Development Victoria had jobs cut. Parks Victoria had funding slashed and programs cancelled. We have had tourism funding cut by 85 per cent. We have had road maintenance programs cut. I will say, SprayLine is up for sale– there we go. This is something that the government like to spruik as well, yet here they are selling a government service that is to maintain our roads. We have had court services asked to cut over $100 million over four years. Our education – we heard Mr Welch talking before about the delayed state funding for public schools. The Public Accounts and Estimates Committee revealed cuts to our emergency services: the CFA, $42 million cut; Fire Rescue Victoria, over $100 million cut; and SES, $8.4 million cut. Our police had over $50 million cut.

The Victorian budget showed a $3.2 billion cut to the public sector over the forward estimates. The Helen Silver review is meant to be giving a bit more insight into all of that. We have seen time and again this government cannot manage money. But I will say I do not want to be all negative – Mr McIntosh said we can be negative. I am saying, no, I am excited and I am getting more excited, because we are only about 60 weeks away from the next state election, people. So I think there is plenty of reason to be very excited because we need to fix the broken record of this government that we hear time and time again, and a Liberal and Nationals government will get us back on track.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:45): I am really pleased to join the debate today about this budget – this excellent, responsible budget for Victorians that delivers cost-of-living relief, investments in infrastructure and frontline services to Victorian households, which Victorian families in particular rely on. I think it is a budget that is emblematic of a Labor approach to managing the state’s finances, where we take responsible decisions. Sometimes we have to take tough decisions, but every decision that we take is fairly and squarely framed through the reference point of what we can do to be on the side of Victorian families, to be on the side of Victorian households and to make sure that they are getting the cost-of-living relief that we can provide to them and to make sure that they are getting improvements to services, investments in schools, investments in health care and support for police and community safety. We will continue to build more homes for more Victorians, we will continue to build the infrastructure improvements– the roads, the rail – by getting rid of the level crossings, building the new train stations and building the new train lines that are going to transform our city. That is what a Labor government does, that is what a Labor budget does, that is what this budget does, and I am very, very proud to be part of a government that is delivering like this. I want to, at the start, pay tribute to the Treasurer for the budget that she has, with her colleagues, put together and delivered. I think she has done a great job in delivering this budget for Victorians.

I want to start the contribution with just a bit of an overview about the way that the budget is helping to support the continued strength and the continued growth in the Victorian economy, and particularly to support our key objective as a Labor government to make sure that we are creating jobs and economic opportunity for all Victorians and to make sure that they have got a stake in the economic future in this state. What you have seen in Victoria is that our economy is continuing to grow. Economic investment – business investment – in this state is exceeding what we are seeing around the nation.

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: I know that the Liberal Party and Mrs Hermans like to scoff at the investments that are being made in Victoria. But this side of the house, the government, the Labor Party, do not talk down Victoria. We do not talk down the Victorian economy, we do not talk down Victorian businesses and, unlike Mrs Hermans, we do not laugh at them. We do not think that Victorian businesses are a joke. That is what they do – the Liberal Party talk down Victoria. They think –

Ann-Marie Hermans: On a point of order, Acting President, I am actually highly offended by the comments by Mr Batchelor. I am not laughing at the businesses, I am laughing at the government’s behaviour. So I take offence and would ask that Mr Batchelor please withdraw his comments.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): That is not a point of order, but if Mr Batchelor could just be wary.

Ryan BATCHELOR: I am very much aware about how well the Victorian economy is growing and about how strong business investment is in this state compared to around the country, evidenced by the fact that our economy is estimated to be about 14 per cent larger in real terms in 2024–25 than it was in 2018–19, before the pandemic. And over the last decade Victoria’s economy has grown faster than any other state’s.

Over the past year business investment has grown by 3.7 per cent, compared to a 1.3 per cent fall across the rest of Australia. As at the production of the budget, more than 113,000 new businesses had been created in Victoria in the last five years, an 18 per cent increase – the largest percentage growth in new businesses created in any state in the country. Victoria’s economic strength has resulted in 648,800 Victorians finding jobs, as of the budget, since the start of the pandemic in September 2020, rising by more than 20 per cent – more than any other state over the same period. Business investment and employment growth – that is what Labor is delivering in Victoria.

We are obviously doing so in an environment and in a context where there is significant global uncertainty. You just need to look at the front pages of the newspapers, particularly over this calendar year but really since global uncertainty began several years ago with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to see that the resilience of the Victorian economy is even more stark considering the economic conditions and the economic uncertainty that we see in other parts of the world. Victorian households, households around the country and households around the world have certainly felt significant cost-of-living pressures in the last couple of years. We have seen significant inflationary pressures here in Victoria, as have people right around the country and right around the world. But what we are seeing recently and what this budget update tells us is that those pressures are easing. We are well off the peak of inflation. The cost-of-living increases, as measured in the CPI, are now far lower than they were at their worst a couple of years ago, and that I think is welcome relief for Victorian households.

On the topic of relief for Victorian households, what this budget does is make targeted additional investments to provide extra cost-of-living relief for Victorian households to make sure that we can give them a little bit of extra help when and how we can. We cannot fix all of the pressures, all of the issues, that confront Victorian households, because we do not have all of the economic levers. But the economic levers that are available to us as a state we are acting on to make sure that we are delivering assistance where we can.

I want to go through a few of the measures contained in this year’s budget that Labor is delivering that are providing cost-of-living relief and cost-of-living support to Victorian households. Obviously some of the big ones are that from next year all kids in this state get free public transport, which will be saving families whose kids use the train to get to school, to get to sport, to get around to other parts of the community around 700 bucks a year per child. That is what the average the family will be saving if their students are using public transport on a regular basis – a huge win and a huge relief to the everyday hip-pocket concerns of Victorian families. We are also providing free statewide public transport for seniors on the weekend from 1 January next year, particularly to enable them to get out and about on the weekends, maybe with their grandkids, also travelling free. What they might be able to do is ride a train through the new Metro Tunnel, but I will come back to our investments in transport infrastructure in a minute.

We are providing free pharmacy care by making permanent the community pharmacy program, which provides free consultations and prescriptions dispensed by pharmacists for certain common ailments. Unlike other states where people have to pay for this program, it is free here in Victoria, saving time and money so that people do not have to go to the doctor to get repeat prescriptions or to get prescriptions for common ailments. Unlike in other states, here in Victoria when you do that at the pharmacy you do not have to pay.

We have got $400 vouchers for sports and excursions for eligible primary school and secondary school students. We have got the kids active vouchers – $200 to help with uniforms and equipment – and there is a $100 power saving bonus that has just started for eligible concession card holders, providing additional and targeted cost-of-living support to help those most in need with energy costs.

I am really concerned if members of the Liberal Party who consistently interject do not care or understand about the cost-of-living relief. That just shows, I think, how little they care about the cost-of-living pressures that are being faced by Victorian households, but Labor cares, because we are delivering relief and we are delivering support in this budget.

The other big area that I wanted to talk about in terms of the investments that this budget is making is in the area of education and particularly the investments that we are making as a state government in our education infrastructure and in our schools. Labor is building more schools – Victorian Labor is building more schools – than we are seeing anywhere else in the country. We are upgrading schools right across the system, and particularly in the Southern Metropolitan Region there have been significant investments in this budget in local schools. Caulfield South Primary School has received funding in this budget of around $10 million, I think, to build a new competition-grade gymnasium and make some other improvements. Hampton Primary School has received nearly $10 million in funding to build a gymnasium and a new performing arts space and some new classrooms as part of a modernisation and upgrade project. Gardenvale Primary School – $11.7 million in funding; I visited the school with the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education just before the budget. We did a tour, met some great kids and saw some great facilities, but we could see how much better that school could be with this sort of investment – $11.7 million into Gardenvale Primary School for the next stage of their modernisation and upgrade project. Labor is investing in new schools right across the state. We are building and upgrading schools, particularly in the Southern Metropolitan Region, and I am really proud to represent a part of Melbourne that Labor is investing in. These are three new schools that are getting additional funding, and there are many others that I will not have time today to go through that have received additional funding from Labor over the last few years.

Not all investments that matter are large; you do not have to spend millions and millions of dollars to have a real impact on certain local communities. One of the things that I was really proud of in the budget was the $250,000 that Labor has committed towards the upgrade of Peterson Reserve in Highett – better facilities for the two ovals at Peterson Reserve in Highett, home to the Highett West Cricket Club and the Hampton Hammers football club and also used by the East Sandringham football club, with whom I played my one glorious season of under-10s. I am absolutely sure that the investment that we will be making there, which will have some funding contributions matched by the Bayside City Council, is going to deliver additional and improved facilities at that reserve, helping the local community.

The other significant investment that obviously has been made by this Labor government over the past decade has been the construction of the Metro Tunnel, and the Metro Tunnel is going to transform the way Melburnians move around. It is going to create a connection between Sunbury in the north-west and Cranbourne–Pakenham in the south-east with a brand new high-speed, high-tech train line that cuts a new path through the city, the new Metro Tunnel. This budget funds the operationalisation of the Metro Tunnel, and I am very much looking forward to riding that new train when it opens with my constituents, hopefully with some younger constituents who are on the train for free. But particularly for people who live in and around that Caulfield area who will have access to both the city loop on the Frankston line and the Metro Tunnel on the new Metro line and will be able to get from Caulfield to Melbourne Uni for the first time with a direct-connection service, and I am sure that will be of great benefit to many in the local community.

The Metro Tunnel is enabling us to make improvements to other lines as well. Alongside the introduction of the Metro Tunnel, the Labor government is increasing frequency of intrapeak services on the Sandringham line. We are now going to deliver services every 10 minutes between peak instead of every 15 minutes, improving the level of service to the Sandringham line, as well as the improvements that are being made for people who live on the Cranbourne–Pakenham line, who can get through to the Metro Tunnel. Those on the Frankston line will be going back around the City Loop again.

These are real improvements that are being made to the metropolitan train network that are really going to benefit the residents of southern metropolitan Melbourne. They are funded in this budget because Labor is investing in infrastructure, because Labor is investing in the things that matter to Victorian communities. We are doing so in a way that is measured and responsible. We have got a fiscal strategy that has got us on track. We are creating jobs, we are bringing the budget back to operating surplus and we are stabilising net debt, and we are doing so while continuing to deliver on important and vital services. This is a budget that delivers for working Victorians, and I strongly support it.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:01): I rise to respond to what can only be described as a con job of a state budget, a budget crafted not to deliver outcomes for Victoria but to save face for a tired, arrogant and out-of-touch Labor government that has lost control of both its finances and its priorities. In May the Treasurer had the audacity to stand up in Parliament and claim victory, to wave around an illusionary $600 million operating surplus and hand out token cost-of-living sweeteners. But Victorians are not stupid. They see through the spin. They know what Labor calls a surplus. It is built on unsustainable debt, savage cuts and record tax hikes. Let us be clear: this government is presiding over the most indebted state in Australian history. That is right.

According to the budget papers, net debt is projected to skyrocket to $194 billion by 2028–29, the highest of any jurisdiction in the country. Interest payments will soon hit $11 billion per year. You heard it right: interest payments alone, $11 billion per year. That is nearly $30 million a day. That is more than what is spent on our schools, our hospitals, our roads and our police. It is not a recovery; this is a fiscal calamity. After 10 years of Labor, this is their legacy: a debt burden of $26,000 for every Victorian. Do you know what that works out to be per week? That is $500 a week for every Victorian. Some people are paying someone else’s share, so they are paying even more than that. Interest repayments of $1 million every hour and capital project cost blowouts have become the norm, not the exception. This is not a budget that invests in the future of Victorians. It is a desperate attempt to plug holes created by more than a decade of mismanagement and incompetence by the Allan Labor government.

Let us look at infrastructure, where the government has turned waste into an Olympic sport, which is just as well as they could not deliver the Commonwealth Games. The airport rail link is paused indefinitely under this government. You will not be able to use the airport rail link because they are not investing in it, not because of planning but because the money has gone. Poof – $67 million flushed away just to stop a project. The Metro Tunnel is $827 million over budget, but listen to those on the other side of the chamber. They are saying how great the Metro Tunnel is, but can you believe it is $827 million over budget? The Big Build has become the big blowout. In fact it is the biggest budget blowout.

And then we come to the Suburban Rail Loop. Well, do not even get me started – Labor’s white elephant, projected to cost up to $125 billion, with a benefit–cost ratio that barely scrapes above 0.6, that is 60 cents back for every dollar spent. And what do Victorians get in return? Nothing. Debt, debt, debt that results in taxes, taxes, taxes. Higher taxes, fewer services and a declining quality of life.

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I just want to clarify if Mrs Hermans is actually saying that Victorians will get nothing out of the Metro Tunnel project?

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Thank you, Mr Galea. That is not a point of order.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: But nowhere is this government’s betrayal more shameful than in education. As a former high school teacher, I cannot stay silent while this government trashes the future of our young people and burns through the goodwill of our educators. Education is meant to be the great equaliser, but under Labor, it has become the great afterthought. The government crows about being the Education State. That is what they call themselves. It is on our number plates – the Education State. But their actions speak louder than their slogans. We have the poorest paid teachers, and we have schools scrambling to get upgrades. Some of those upgrades are simply toilet renovations, for goodness sake.

The 2025–26 budget delivers a brutal $2.4 billion cut to public education. The promise to fully fund public schools? That is delayed until 2031, eight years too late for today’s students. Cuts to TAFE and vocational education? Oh, that is all buried in the fine print. Investment in early childhood education? Well, that is token at best. Let us not forget the schools that were promised upgrades. Clayton South Primary School and Seaford North Primary School are just some of the schools in my area and in my electorate. They were told they would receive funding. They were told construction would begin. Instead they are stuck in tender preparation limbo. They are victims of a government that cannot manage money and cannot keep its promises. The Australian Education Union said it best:

… this makes a mockery of the government’s claim that Victoria is the ‘education state’ ...

The union said that, the education union. Interestingly enough, on this side of the chamber we have four former teachers; on that side of the chamber I do not even know if they have a single one. This is not an education state. The unions are right in this case, and NAPLAN results reveal the damage. Almost 30 per cent of students are not meeting minimum standards in English and maths. Two thirds of year 3 Indigenous students are failing grammar and punctuation. Seven in 10 year 9 students from non-university educated families are falling behind. This is not just underperformance, it is systematic neglect.

And what of our teachers, the ones who are meant to hold it together? Well, they are being driven to burnout. A government-commissioned review found they are buried in red tape, suffocated by compliance tasks and robbed of time to actually teach. I can attest to that. They become teachers to teach. But no, they are doing all these other things. Offering $50,000 to relocate is just a gimmick. It will not fix the culture of overwork, the endless administrative burdens or the broken system that this government refuses to reform. Then there is the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, the VCAA, the authority responsible for managing our senior school exams. After several botched exam papers and catastrophic errors, the independent review was scathing. This is what it found: a total lack of board oversight, weak risk management, poor executive leadership and no evidence of crisis planning.

Labor’s failure has not just been economic. Labor’s failure is cultural, it is structural and it is political. The result is a system in which students are left behind and teachers are abandoned. Our trust is broken.

This is not a government focused on people; it is a government focused on headlines.

Joe McCracken interjected.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: It is obsessed with spin. It is absolutely obsessed with spin. It is addicted to debt and allergic to accountability.

Joe McCracken interjected.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: They hate transparency, and Victorians are paying the price, with higher taxes, with failing services, with declining confidence in the basic institutions of government. This budget is not a road map, it is a cover-up. It is a desperate attempt to hide the damage caused by years of financial negligence and warped priorities. I say to this government: stop the slogans, own your mistakes and start governing for the future, not just the press conference, because this budget is not just a political document, it is a statement of who you serve. You are supposed to be public servants, and tragically Labor have shown us that they are no longer able to serve the students, the families, the small businesses – all working Victorians. They serve only themselves.

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (16:11): I rise to make a contribution on behalf of the Greens to Victoria’s state budget for this year. At its core a budget is a list of priorities. It tells Victorians what the government believes matters most right now. When you look closely, this budget fails the big tests that Victoria is facing – acting in accordance with the speed of the climate crisis, funding public schools fairly and tackling the housing emergency with solutions that will actually help renters and first home buyers. At the same time this is a budget that finds room for almost $1 billion of new prison spending and hundreds of millions of dollars for luxury upgrades attached to the grand prix. Tellingly, the Treasurer’s budget speech did not mention climate or environment once. That omission is not just symbolic but rather reflects the way that climate programs and environmental protection have been treated across the budget papers, with little to no new funding to reduce emissions quickly, to support households to electrify at scale or to restore degraded ecosystems that protect communities from floods, heat and fire in this budget.

Victorians are already living with climate impacts – smoke, heatwaves, flooding, coastal erosion and biodiversity loss. They expect a budget that moves urgently to cut emissions and build resilience, and that would start with practical measures that we know will work – electrifying homes and small businesses so that energy bills fall permanently, with a special focus on renters and low-income households, helping people move away from gas and getting rid of that bill entirely; delivering frequent, reliable and affordable public transport services so people can leave the car at home; and protecting and restoring nature, including urban tree canopy as well as our wetlands, rivers and coasts, because these are our natural defences in a hotter, drier climate and for our wildlife as well. There are some positive steps, but they are outside the budget, including standards for rental energy efficiency, for example. But still, the investment in these does not meet the scale, the need and the urgency of this moment.

Victorians also really value public education. And in fact not so long ago we called this the Education State, yet this budget pushes full funding for public schools out beyond the estimates and delays the Gonski uplift that we owe until 2031, effectively ripping $2.4 billion out of the Victorian school system across that period. However the government chooses to characterise it, schools are feeling this gap now, with fewer teachers and aides than are needed, older buildings waiting longer for basic upgrades and more and more fundraising needed by school communities and parents to cover the essentials. This is not just a theoretical argument. Principals are juggling rising employment costs and complex post-pandemic needs amongst student populations. Teachers are already carrying really heavy workloads. Students deserve smaller classes, specialist support and safe and modern facilities. So many are lacking. Deferring full school resource standard funding shifts the costs onto families and school communities, who are already stretched with cost-of-living pressures, and in many cases students and teachers will simply be going without.

I have had teachers and union representatives in my electorate reach out, fed up beyond belief that it is a Labor government that has reneged on its own Gonski commitments. The Greens are joining the calls to bring forward full and fair funding in this term of Parliament, not 2031; to publish a transparent schedule for capital works so school communities can plan around construction, not speculation; and to make sure that funding is being allocated based on need rather than other political reasons. If we can find hundreds of millions of dollars for corporate event infrastructure like the grand prix and billions of dollars for prisons, we can fund our public schools properly. The return on investment in this case is so obvious: better learning, better wellbeing and long-term social and economic gains that completely dwarf that up-front cost.

Speaking of prisons, the budget finds nearly $1 billion of new money for prisons. It is the government’s own bail settings, sadly, that are exploding remand numbers. The response in this budget is to pay for more prison beds, which is the most expensive and least effective way to manage disadvantage and harm and in many cases will magnify it. Evidence shows that smarter, safer investment earlier in the pipeline – secure housing, mental health care, youth programs, diversionary programs, alcohol and other drug treatment, and bail support – are the interventions that will reduce crime, will reduce reoffending and then overall will reduce costs while also investing in our community. If you spend the lion’s share at the back end, as we continue to do, Labor and those opposite will always be chasing their own tails, our community will not be safer and the cost of this will keep rising – human and financial.

Victorians are living through a housing crisis, with rents rising, vacancy rates low and first home buyers being locked out, and the budget’s only significant housing change is an extension of the uncapped stamp duty concession, which is overwhelmingly benefiting buyers of higher end properties rather than people who are doing it tough. That does little for a renter who is in a mouldy flat facing a rent rise, and it does little for a nurse or tradie trying to buy their first home near to where they work. At the same time, the government continues with this shameful plan to demolish all 44 public housing towers across Victoria. This approach risks pushing thousands of people into deeper insecurity, while replacement homes are many, many years away – if they arrive at all. As we have seen reported just in the last week, tenants living in so-called affordable housing under the ground lease model have had their rent steadily increased to a point that it is not affordable and they have to move out anyway. A responsible budget would accelerate construction of new public and genuinely affordable homes on public land so that we do not go backwards on public housing in this state. It would also adopt stronger renter protections and minimum energy standards to make homes healthier and bills lower now, not in a decade.

Housing is the foundation for health, employment and education, and it is also key to a smarter justice system. I have heard personally in my electorate office and through my portfolio duties from a number of people who already qualify for parole – who have done their time, who have been through prison and been rehabilitated – but are unable to access it due to precarity of housing being a barrier to their release. If we invest in homes, we reduce costs in every other area where homelessness and housing insecurity exacerbate other social disadvantage, and they are countless in number.

The Treasurer’s silence on climate in the budget speech sits along an Economic Growth Statement that talks up fast-tracking new fossil gas projects. That is a clear signal of priorities, and bold action on climate is not at the top of Labor’s list. Pursuing new gas is taking us in entirely the wrong direction. It will delay the bill savings that households can get from efficient electric appliances, and it locks in pollution that we then have to pay to clean up later. And it sends investors very mixed messages about where Victoria is headed at a time when we need rapid investment in and expansion of renewables. The practical path is the one that Victorian households are already choosing – induction cooktops, efficient electric heating and hot water systems, rooftop solar and storage, and public transport that is frequent and clean. Targeted electrification support for renters and apartments continues to be vital and must be expanded. This is a win-win to back faster electrification – we lower household bills, we cut pollution and we make communities more resilient. But when we chase new gas, as Labor continues to do, we literally go in the opposite direction.

I will also make the point that many LGAs are behind at the moment in their greening targets. The budget is silent on urban greening at scale, and we have concerns about the government’s ability to meet its own canopy expansion targets. Shade and biodiversity are not only worthwhile public health infrastructure investments; they are essential in a warming state for keeping our suburbs livable and our amenity high.

The Greens have put a concrete revenue plan on the table in response to this budget. We could raise $14.7 billion by fairly taxing big banks and large corporations, and that money could then be invested in housing, climate action and essential services. This is about asking those who at the moment have the largest profits and dividends to contribute a fair share to the state that they rely on – its workers, its infrastructure and its legal system. With that revenue Victoria can bring forward full public school funding, clear the capital backlog, further scale household electrification, build public and affordable homes rapidly on public land and shift justice spending to prevention without leaving us with widening gaps in safety.

When the government says there is no money for schools or climate but finds billions for prisons and premium event infrastructure, the problem is not the balance sheet, it is the government’s priorities. Victorians want the opposite. They want public schools that are funded fairly and fully, with buildings that are safe and fit for purpose for students’ learning. They want homes that are secure, affordable and healthy, especially for renters and people in public housing. They want clean and frequent public transport. They want no more public investment in dirty gas and coal, locking us further into fossil fuels. They want nature protected and restored and better urban greening so communities are safer in heat and floods. And they want a justice system that prevents harm, not just pays through the nose to manage it after the fact. They want honest numbers as well on major events, with our public parks kept for people first.

All of this is achievable. The Greens have set out a way to pay for it by asking those who have done very well to contribute fairly, and we have tabled practical, evidence-based steps the government can take this year, not in 2031, to improve people’s lives. If the government truly want to fund what matters, they should work with us to bring forward school funding, to properly reinvigorate and expand public housing, to accelerate the state’s shift to electrification, to shift justice dollars into prevention and to shine a light on major event spending. Victorians will thank us for choosing substance over spectacle and over spin and for acting with the urgency that these times demand. I will leave my remarks there.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (16:23): Today I rise to speak on the Appropriation (2025–2026) Bill 2025, which sees this government deliver on some of the most important projects in the state’s history. It is a budget that includes some big wins and small for my local community in the Northern Metropolitan Region and delivers on what I have been hearing from so many locals. One of the biggest wins in this budget is the investment in transport, and not just in the big projects but also in expanding services up the Upfield and Craigieburn lines. This will mean that on Sundays and weeknights we will have extra services so that both lines will have a 20-minute minimum across the week, so whether you are heading into the city for a Sunday shop or coming home from a late shift, we will have you covered.

The investment in transport does not stop in Northern Metro, with the four out of five Metro Tunnel stations in my electorate receiving funding to finalise their opening and begin operation. The Metro Tunnel is one of the most significant and transformative infrastructure projects in Victoria’s history, and it is set to transform the way people live, work and travel across Melbourne and beyond. By creating a new rail line through the heart of the city, the project will not only reduce congestion on the network but also unlock capacity for thousands more passengers every day. This means trains can run more often and more reliably and connect more Victorians to jobs, education and essential services. At the very centre of the transformation are five brand new underground stations: Arden, Parkville, State Library, Town Hall and Anzac. Each of these has been carefully designed to improve accessibility and to provide seamless connections to trams, buses and existing train services. Students will now be able to get in at the new Parkville station and get straight to uni. Now you can trade in the packed morning trams for a train in the tunnel, something I am sure many Melbourne Uni students are looking forward to.

Beyond transport, the Metro Tunnel will reshape Melbourne’s urban environment.

Each new station precinct is designed with open spaces, bike facilities and pedestrian-friendly areas, encouraging more sustainable forms of travel. In this way, the Metro Tunnel is not just about moving people more efficiently but also about shaping a more connected and a more livable city.

I have got to let you know that the Metro Tunnel will also deliver longer-term benefits by supporting jobs and economic activity. Thousands of Victorians have already been employed through the project, and the improved transport links will continue to strengthen productivity into the future. Reduced travel times and more reliable journeys mean businesses can operate more effectively, while workers spend less time commuting and more time contributing to the economy or enjoying their personal lives.

Perhaps most importantly, the Metro Tunnel futureproofs Melbourne’s transport network. As the population continues to grow, demand for reliable and frequent public transport will increase. This project ensures Victoria is equipped to meet that challenge by taking cars off the road, reducing overcrowding on existing lines and supporting sustainable growth. The Metro Tunnel will stand as a legacy that transforms Victoria into a more connected state.

The other Metro Tunnel station I cannot forget is Arden. This marvel of engineering is the crown jewel of the Arden precinct that is being transformed by this government with homes, facilities and amenities, one that I know the Minister for Precincts is enormously proud of. One of these amenities that I am very proud to talk about today is this government’s commitment for a secondary school within the Arden precinct to serve the Arden community and surrounds and educate the next generation of Victorians. Arden is in fact one of the fastest-growing parts of my electorate, with a vibrant and diverse community forming around this area, and you can now look forward to a high school being the beating heart of Arden.

The investments do not stop either. One item in this budget that will make a huge difference, that I heard many constituents raise all around the region, was the need for greater accessibility in train stations – a simple, practical investment that will make more difference to so, so many Victorians. A major upgrade program includes construction of brand new accessible stations at Albion and Sunshine, with modern designs, elevators, tactile indicators and step-free access to support users with disability, seniors and families, boosting safety and inclusivity. We are anticipating great take up through the Metro Tunnel to Parkville station in fact, which is home to the brilliant Parkville medical district; I know that that will be very much welcomed by so many. You see, anyone and everyone should be able to use Melbourne’s public and Victoria’s public transport system, and they should be able to do that with ease of mind and ease of access. We also have statewide investment in tram stop and bus stop accessibility, such as the $27 million for accessible tram stops outside Footscray Hospital, which is about to open, let me tell you, paired with $72 million for tram safety infrastructure, ensuring the network is more secure and user friendly.

Victoria is growing. Melbourne is on track to reach the size of London by 2050. We need a long-term plan to build more homes in connected communities close to jobs, transport and services. That is why we have cut red tape in the planning system, opening up government land for new homes, and sped up the renewal of our social housing. This budget continues that work, unlocking planning, reducing the cost of purchasing off-the-plan apartments, units and townhouses, and building new homes faster, including $61 million to extend the stamp duty concession announced in October of 2024, slashing stamp duty on eligible off-the-plan apartments, units and townhouses until October of 2026. There is $24 million to deliver new planning controls for activity centres in metropolitan Melbourne, so Victorians are not forced to move away from the communities they grew up in to find a home or move away from their communities when they want to downsize.

There is also the delivery of the Suburban Rail Loop, which is Australia’s biggest housing project, which will support more than 70,000 new homes over the next 30 years. And I can see the enthusiasm from the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop as I speak. Actually she is bursting with excitement because there is also $249 million, I have got to tell you, to enable infrastructure works such as roads, sewerage and water, which will increase housing supply across the state, including $88 million for regional Victoria. There is $61 million to help people experiencing homelessness find a permanent place to live, which is just so critical here in our community.

I have also got to let you know that, importantly, there are more moneys to support in this budget efforts to advance our commitment to self-determination through the $167 million in funding for culturally controlled services in health, education, housing, justice and beyond. These investments are going to empower communities, improve outcomes and support treaty-informed reforms. There is $25 million to strengthen Aboriginal community controlled organisations (ACCOs) in child protection and family services, ensuring that First Nations children and families receive culturally informed advocacy and care. There is $18 million for pilot programs for community-controlled VET, growing the First Nations vocational education workforce and creating pathways driven by community needs. There is $18 million allocated to First Nations led diversion programs and legal services, tackling overrepresentation in the criminal justice system with some community-based solutions. I was excited to also see $16 million to support First Nations mothers during pregnancy and post birth, importantly, ensuring culturally safe maternity care via our Aboriginal community controlled organisations. There is also $5.3 million to establish culturally responsive early years services, including kindergartens, under the early childhood education transformation.

Furthermore, I have got to tell you there are incredible investments in our First Nations community, including $5.6 million to assist First Nations businesses to compete locally and internationally and also to host the 2025 World Indigenous Business Forum. I have got to tell you the $5.4 million to expand the Aboriginal community infrastructure program is especially welcome. This will enable ACCOs to lead community-identified infrastructure projects. The $4.9 million assigned in this budget for the creation of the First Peoples Leadership Academy is especially exciting for our young people and will nurture emerging leaders across all sectors.

The Koorie Youth Council is an organisation I have spoken about, and I have outlined my engagement with their predecessor organisation, VIYAC, the Victorian Indigenous Youth Advisory Council. There is also the Koorie Heritage Trust, an organisation with which I had the good fortune of celebrating 40 years of their commitment to community. Cultural events as well that elevate First Nations leadership and heritage are in this budget, receiving $3.8 million. There is more to come, including $2 million to back young diverse creatives, helping First Nations talent thrive in festivals and careers across the arts; $8.4 million ensuring Yorta Yorta traditional owners continue to jointly manage country with the state; $1.5 million to strengthen the Wamba Wemba Aboriginal Corporation in cultural decision-making; and $1 million to support traditional owner corporations participating equally in Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 negotiations.

It would be wrong for me to not mention the government investments in health, because there is in fact in this budget an additional investment of $11.1 billion in health, and as a result the budget bills provide for over $31 billion in funding for our health system this year alone, the biggest investment ever in frontline care. This investment covers the globally increased cost of providing care while making sure that Victorian hospitals, our much-beloved hospitals, have everything they need to look after patients and their families. It includes $634 million to open and operationalise nine new or redeveloped hospitals, with one of them, Craigieburn, in my electorate, so I look forward to seeing the positive results this hospital will produce for the community.

There is $57 million to upgrade infrastructure at Royal Melbourne Hospital, ensuring it delivers the very best care to patients; $52 million to support new and upgraded medical equipment, supporting operating suites, emergency departments, surgical wards, intensive care units and neonatal and maternity services in hospitals right across the state.

I have spoken before about the 12 urgent care clinics across the state, and there is a $27 million investment to give more Victorians access to free health care when they need it, without needing that trip to the emergency department. There is $203 million to back our healthcare workers, ensuring they have the support and resources they need to keep delivering world-class care, as well as $437 million for the virtual emergency department, which has taken off in this state, let me assure you.

I have spoken at length about Triple Zero Victoria, an important organisation that is there to really target the bottlenecks in emergency departments, get paramedics on the road sooner and improve ambulance response times with more call-takers, more dispatchers and supported of course with a $167 million investment.

There is a commitment to additional funding under the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. We will recall that very powerful piece of work, and this budget has ensured $497 million for it to continue its important work. There is $23 million to expand our mental health and wellbeing locals, and $6 million to support the existing networks.

I need to let you know that one that I am pretty excited about and I have a long history now with is the Parkville Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing Service, which will be established with a $35 million investment in mental health and wellbeing for children and young people. So under that $35 million is that carve out for Parkville. For our LGBTIQA+ community there is $25 million to support suicide prevention programs, and we have also got $50 million for public aged care, including new government-funded aged care beds.

This budget is about building for today while preparing for tomorrow by investing in the services and infrastructure most relied upon, like health care, housing, education, transport and, importantly to me, cultural self-determination. It ensures that, as our population grows, no Victorian is left behind. It supports workers for better transport, families with more schools and hospitals, First Nations communities and treaty-driven reforms and for everyday people for more affordable homes. The investments we make today will shape the Victoria of tomorrow. This is a budget that delivers, and I am proud to commend it to the house.

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (16:38): It is a real privilege to be able to stand on the government benches and talk about the work that continues to deliver budgetary outcomes that are balanced, that are considered and that are responsible. I do not think anybody for a second seeks to ignore or diminish the challenges that Victoria has faced and has endured in recent years. I have heard contributions from people in this place relating to COVID debt recovery, to the five-step fiscal strategy that was outlined firstly by former Treasurer Tim Pallas and latterly by Treasurer Minister Symes, the leader in this place. And the contributions that have been made around the budget quite willingly ignore the reality and the necessity of support that was required and indeed demanded from government during the period of an unforeseen, unimaginable challenge to every part of our system, from public health through to workforce, frontline support, housing, education, health care and the very way in which we connected to each other and to the world around us.

The fiscal strategy that we see as part of this particular budget continues with a trajectory based in responsible decision-making, and returning to an operating surplus shows very clearly that the steps that have been outlined, those responsible fiscal decisions, are enabling us to return to those settings which were in place prior to circumstances which required and indeed demanded unprecedented support for people in need in any number of different ways and in any number of different circumstances across the entirety of the state. That is one part of the work and the landscape within which we are operating and in which the budget has been set. When we talk to the priorities in the budget and the decisions around allocations, we can also see that those enduring concepts – those values around fairness, around equity, around opportunity – are infused within the various portfolio allocations, whether that is schools and continuing the investment for the bonus programs that have helped more kids be able to get support to participate in more activities; building on the school sports, education, uniform and excursions fund; the Active Kids vouchers; the work to deliver the breakfast club; the ongoing assistance to specialist developmental schools; the huge capital upgrade program that has continued; or the work to make sure that Smile Squad can continue to provide little kids with the opportunity to ensure their dental health is front of mind. These are the sorts of things that make a real and practical difference for families.

I want to turn to the way in which this sits over a range of programs dedicated to or with the impact of improvement relating to the cost of living. We have seen and we saw prior to the Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates a steady increase in the amount of household income that was going towards servicing mortgages. At the same time, we saw stagnation in wage growth, we saw cuts in penalty rates in real terms and we saw challenges around security of employment, which, as we all know, in vulnerable industries like retail and hospitality have an overrepresentation of women. What we have done here at a state level with the levers available to us is to ensure support to counteract those cost-of-living challenges.

When we look to the delivery of free TAFE, with more than 80 courses on the free TAFE list and more than 200,000 people having undertaken a free TAFE course, we know that it is having a profound impact in a number of different ways. Firstly, it is ensuring that people who have not been in the paid workforce are able to gain a relevant qualification in a growth area, in a sector where jobs demand exists and will continue to exist, and have therefore been able to derive an income following completion of part or all of that course.

Some like to talk about completion rates and argue that non-completion rates indicate that free TAFE is not working, but that is a very, very, very naive way of looking at the way in which the TAFE system is assisting people into work earlier and more frequently and more enduringly than any program that was ever offered under the coalition, where TAFE campuses were closed and locked, where sham courses flourished. We have taken what occurred under coalition governments, a system starved to the brink of existential viability, and we have opened campuses, we have delivered free TAFE across the state and we have delivered first-class learning facilities and resources to complement the work that we are doing across our school system in STEM and in access to learning opportunities for students, whether in the middle of Melbourne or out to the borders of the state, whether that is through the high-tech schools or through programs involving partnerships to encourage students to get involved in a range of different course and subject offerings and choices to give them the best possible opportunity to reach their full potential.

The TAFE system is one part of the cost-of-living support which has been provided, and as I have indicated, a free TAFE course is a very useful starting point for that work. But importantly, when we look at free TAFE and we look at the uptake, we see that in a number of parts of that system, more than 80 courses, it is women who are benefiting significantly. We see therefore that when women are moving into paid work – and I say ‘paid’ work very, very deliberately, because all too often the work that women do is work but is not paid – this is an area that then provides input and income to households. It ensures that where there have been no incomes, for example, there may be one; where there has been one income that may increase to two. If we have two income earners in a household and that ensures that children are able to have universal access to three- and four-year-old kinder, the saving of more than $2000 per annum per child is an additional way in which the cost-of-living assistance is having an impact.

When we add to that the further work that is being done to provide better access to health care, this is of essential importance. I want to go to the women’s health angle and the priority and the focus that this government has placed upon the health of women, whether in accessing services and support within our health and hospital system, the community pharmacy work that is occurring, the Hospital in the Home programs or the work with Nurse-on-Call. Providing better and more accessible assistance for women in managing health care that all too often has been ignored, has been kept sidelined because it has not been deemed legitimate, is something which the women’s pain inquiry has very clearly identified as an area for improvement – that we need to undo generations of misogyny, systemic misogyny, in health and hospital systems of care. This is again an area where we see an uptake at last from parts of the media who were all too prepared to turn their backs on invisible illness and the challenges that women face in being believed and not derided or dismissed or misdiagnosed in the health and hospital system.

Minister for Health Mary-Anne Thomas has led the charge in this work, and alongside her work we continue, through the reforms in the mental health portfolio, to make sure that the many people who experience mental illness or are diagnosed with a mental illness in the course of their lifetimes or are caring for somebody who is living with mental illness have the support and the care and the expertise that they need and that the billions of dollars that we have invested in response to the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System is squarely directed at making sure that we can lean into those challenges, those uncomfortable truths of disadvantage because of psychosocial circumstance, and move toward better outcomes based in stepped care, community care or a health and hospital system that is more equipped and better able to respond to the needs of people with often complex presentations.

I want to also acknowledge the work that is happening in the way in which we move around. Public transport is a key priority for this government. Not only have we removed I think 86 level crossings now but we continue the work to deliver better access to public transport as the city grows. People would be aware that the city is growing at a significant rate. This is not our growth – it is growth which is inexorable; it is growth which is inevitable – but the way in which we grow is a choice, and the choices that we have made, the choices made by the Allan Labor government, are squarely directed to making sure that people can experience good growth. This includes the work to provide access from the beginning of next year to anyone up to the age of 18 to get free public transport.

This is another measure not just to assist with the cost of living but to provide people with better opportunities to connect. Fares across our regional network being capped at metropolitan prices have also enabled people to move around more easily and to discover rural and regional Victoria from the middle of Melbourne or vice versa. This has, in turn, increased access to the best of our events calendar. When we look at the statistics showing that more than 113,000 businesses have been created in Melbourne since 2020, we can see very clearly that the activation of our city and a very, very full calendar of events is having a significant impact. Every month this year, I think bar one, we have seen our hotels and our accommodation within metropolitan Melbourne at their highest ever rates. Whether you are coming for the Australian Open or for the grand prix, whether you are coming for the NRL and for this trilogy of epic, iconic events or whether you are coming for the art exhibitions, for the work that happens to celebrate our cultures, celebrate our stories and bring those international drawcards to Melbourne, we can see that that activation, that economic activity, is translating to jobs, is translating to economic growth and is translating to a momentum that is not being experienced in other parts of Australia. In short, we are growing to prosperity. We are growing into further opportunity. We are growing into additional jobs, supports, services and potential for people irrespective of their age or their socio-economic circumstance.

When we talk about rail too, it would be remiss of me not to refer to the Suburban Rail Loop, a project which is on time and on budget. Notwithstanding the fact that those opposite continue to do more backflips than Nadia Comaneci when it comes to their position on the Suburban Rail Loop, we have only ever had one position, and we are building it. Cheltenham to Box Hill – we will see trains running on that line in 2035. Tunnel-boring machines arrive later this year, and they will be in the ground next year. We continue the work not because it is a good idea but because it is a necessary investment in our growing city.

Housing – 800,000 homes. We are at 98 per cent of our target under the Commonwealth accord. The things that we are doing under the housing statement are working and not by accident. It is precisely because of our investments that this growth is occurring.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:53): I rise to make a contribution on the budget take-note motion. I have had the benefit of listening to a number of speakers today who have done an amazing job outlining all of the things that the Allan Labor government is investing in, but again, disappointingly but predictably, those opposite have done nothing but talk down Victoria and complain. They hate each other, but they complain and whinge and whine about everything rather than looking at the bright side, because there is lots to look at on the bright side. In fact I might just talk about some of those things on the bright side. I am going to go through and detail some of the signature investments in our budget. But I am also going to talk about how Victoria since 2017 has also, as part of delivering on our state budget, prepared a ‘Gender Equality Budget Statement’ and has embarked upon gender equality in Victoria through responsible budgeting and how it impacts women. That is an analysis of budgets and of how, when we spend money, it might impact on women, whether that is in an overt way or in an unintended consequences kind of way. It is sort of interesting, and I will get to that. Gender responsive budgeting looks at decisions that relate to spending and how that might impact on women. But I will come to that in a moment.

What I want to talk about first of all is the record $2.3 billion of spending to deliver new and expanded cost-of-living help for working people and their families. I know that in my region, in the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region, we just did a recent community survey and cost of living is certainly number one, on the top of the pops and at the forefront of people’s minds in my region.

We knew our budget needed to target that as an issue and provide lots of support for people who might be doing it tough. There are lots of cost-of-living measures, and I will just go through some of them. $320 million to make public transport free for Victorians under 18 every day, and then for seniors every weekend across our state. I know people have been talking about the savings that that will mean for families, but I also want to point out that if you are a young person, perhaps between the ages of 15 and 18, you may be catching public transport to go to your part-time job, so it will also save you money if you are purchasing your own Myki fares. Mum and dad might have got you a card to get you to school or whatever, but if you are becoming more independent because you have got your own economic independence, you have got your own little part-time job, then you are also going to benefit from that. It is not just a benefit and a saving to mum and dad, it is also a benefit to you as a young worker.

Also. $18 million to enable pharmacists to treat more Victorians and more conditions, saving them time and money in visiting a GP – it is expensive to see a GP often. If you have some of the conditions that need treatment like non-complex UTIs and the like, rather than going to see a GP you can now go to your pharmacist and get treatment for those sorts of things. Also, $50 million to deliver a new $100 power saving bonus for Victorians. We have seen that has been incredibly popular amongst Victorians, because getting some help and cost relief with the cost of power bills has come in extremely handy. That puts money back into the pockets of Victorians so they can use that money for other things rather than their power bills. That was very welcome relief. Another cost-of-living measure was $859 million to continue free kinder, saving families up to $2600 a year per child in fees. I remember when my children needed to be enrolled in three-year-old kinder; it certainly was not funded back then. We had to find the money for that and then four-year-old kinder. It is a very welcome saving; $2600 is not an insignificant amount of money, so it is good to put that back into the pockets of Victorian families.

Then we have $152 million to increase support for families to pay for camps, sports and excursions. We have heard before how important camps are to kids; they get to go away with their classmates, hang out and get up to all sorts of mischief and hopefully come home in one piece and not horribly ill. They normally come home with a bag full of smelly washing that they have either worn or not worn as they have been in the same clothes for maybe three or four days. All those sorts of stories, parents will relate to very well around Victoria. But the kids have a great time, and it is important that they are able to go out on those camps and excursions.

Community sports – we have seen absolute growth in community sports and not just the usual suspects. It is not only football but things like karate or tennis or other sorts of sports, even table tennis. Whether or not it is the usual sorts of sports that get most of the attention, we are seeing a greater uptake of sports. One of the things our government also does is invest in upgrading sporting facilities. There is $15 million to deliver more than 65,000 extra Get Active Kids vouchers – again helping families with the cost of kids sports – so things like uniforms or equipment, whether it is particular balls or knee guards or shin guards or whatever it is, again that all costs money. Soccer boots, footy boots, whatever – a little bit of relief towards the cost of those things goes a long way. Of course when kids are young they grow out of shoes at a rate of knots, and they might have a pair of shoes for one year and before they are even worn out they need another pair, so that is also very welcome relief.

There is $18 million in food relief to support those that are doing the toughest. We know that food insecurity is increasing within our community. It is sad, but it is a fact and a reality of life at the moment, so $18 million in additional money for food relief. Then additionally $900 million in new cost-of-living relief as well – an extra $11.1 billion to make sure Victorians can rely on great health care, including opening and operationalising nine new and expanded hospitals, including the new Footscray Hospital and the redeveloped Frankston and Maryborough district hospitals.

The next thing I am going to mention is the Metro Tunnel, and I know many people are looking forward to seeing it open.

There is $727 million to switch on the Metro Tunnel, delivering more services for the Sunbury, Cranbourne and Pakenham lines, as well as an additional $99 million to deliver even more services across the network, because we know Metro Tunnel is significant and key to unlocking the ability for us to plan more services on our network. With Metro Tunnel opening later this year, I know many, many people are looking forward to that. We cannot wait.

I know those opposite talk down our roads and complain about roads up hill and down dale. Well, there is $976 million to fix and resurface our roads in this budget through the better roads blitz. I know those opposite keep saying that there is no money for roads and the potholes and this and that and whine and complain, but there is actual real money there – $976 million to fix and resurface our roads. It is something that comes up a lot in my electorate office. I know we get some inquiries about it, but we make sure we let our constituents know that local councils own I think 90 per cent of the road network, so local councils do have some responsibility. But also there are opportunities for people to nominate roads under the federal blackspot program, for example. Anyone can nominate a road that they feel needs attention of blackspot funding. They can do that. Then also of course we are investing in upgrading our roads, and we have got some very significant road upgrade projects. Particularly in my region, the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region, we have the North East Link, which I know I cannot wait to see open. It is going to be a very welcome project, taking tens of thousands of trucks off roads each and every day and returning local roads to local communities. I cannot wait to see that open. It is going to have a massive impact on my local community. We are also upgrading the Eastern Freeway as well. We have seen some recent closures there to bring in some newly upgraded bridges, and those works are part of the overall North East Link package. There are some very significant state road upgrades as well.

And then there is $2.7 billion to give our kids a great education, building new classrooms and supporting our teachers. We are building many, many new schools and upgrading many existing schools. I have just this year been out to open a number of upgraded schools. I just last week went to East Doncaster Secondary College and opened their new buildings that they got – modular classrooms and upgraded toilet facilities as well. Then there is $1.6 billion to strengthen our justice system and keep communities safe.

In the last 5 minutes I have I am going to talk about gender-responsive budgeting and what that actually means. As I said earlier, gender-responsive budgeting looks at decisions about our spending and how our budgets are spent. It identifies how investments in areas like health, education and social services affect different groups and focuses resources on people who need them the most and those who experience existing inequalities. It also ensures new projects and programs benefit the whole community.

I will just talk about one initiative here, gender-responsive budgeting in action. The focus area is on apprenticeships. Gender-responsive budgeting seeks to understand the effects that policies, programs or services have on Victorians from all walks of life. Of course women are less likely to undertake apprenticeships than men, and where they do, they can face challenges with sexism and structural barriers like inequitable care responsibilities and the like. So of course these sorts of structural inequalities limit the capacity of and the opportunity for women to pursue careers in trades. With that understanding, Apprenticeships Victoria is working with industry to break down those barriers to women completing their apprenticeships, and that includes continuing to support priority cohorts, including women, to address workplace harassment, mental health and wellbeing. With that in mind, we have seen increased participation of women in the apprenticeship system, including on our Big Build projects, where female apprentice representation is almost double the state average. So you can see that with those sorts of investments that target structural inequalities and barriers and by focusing on those areas and looking at them through a gender-responsive budgeting lens, we can see real change and improvements for women who want to access trades.

We made history with the passage of the Gender Equality Act 2020. This was a landmark step in breaking down discrimination and gender barriers in the workplace, and last year we embedded gender-responsive budgeting into legislation, amending the Financial Management Act 1994. These reforms allow the Treasurer to request gender impact assessments for any matter concerning the Financial Management Act, and they help decision-makers understand the gendered impacts of policy.

Some of the other achievements that I can talk about in the few minutes that I have left in terms of a gender-responsive approach to budgeting include the following. We have established or continue to establish 20 women’s health clinics across our state, with five clinics opening in 2024 and a further five to open in 2025. These clinics will deliver free comprehensive care to women and girls. We have also delivered six further sexual and reproductive health hubs to improve women’s access to care, adding to the 14 hubs currently in operation in Victoria. I note the Minister for Health today made an announcement that the sexual and reproductive health hubs will have access to ultrasound machines, so women who are seeking abortion care will not need to make additional appointments to have an ultrasound to confirm the gestation of the pregnancy. That is a fantastic announcement and saves much-needed time when the clock is ticking on those sorts of matters. We are also delivering an additional 10,800 laparoscopic surgeries to diagnose and treat conditions like endometriosis, and dispensing 25,000 free pads and tampons across nearly 70 public locations, making sure women and girls are not caught out and delivering cost-of-living relief. If you are out somewhere and you do not have a pad or tampon on you because you have got your period, obviously we are making them free and available in public places so you can get them when you need them and at no cost to you. That is a very welcome policy initiative.

We are also leading the nation in the prevention of violence against women with support for victim-survivors of family violence, the rollout of our women’s safety package, non-fatal strangulation criminal offence law reform, delivery on the new Safe Workplaces for Women initiative in partnership with the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and also support to make sure that family violence victim-survivors have secure and safe housing with homes provided as part of the Big Housing Build. They are all incredibly welcome initiatives as part of our budget, and as I said, these sorts of initiatives and reforms come about because our government is a leader in this area. Not only did we think that gender-responsive budgeting was a good policy initiative, we made sure that we enshrined it in law, amending the various financial acts to make sure that it was embedded in the law so that we continue to make sure that any structural barriers and discrimination, whether intended or unintended, can be dealt with.

There is more to talk about, and I have just been told I have got to keep going for another few minutes. It is amazing. There is so much to talk about; I am glad I have got some more time. Also the rollout of the women’s safety package continues to target root causes of violence towards women, and this, again, is a signature reform of our government, particularly the Royal Commission into Family Violence and all of the –

Lee TARLAMIS: I move, by leave:

That Ms Terpstra have another up to 5 minutes.

Motion agreed to.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Wonderful. Thank you, because I get to talk about all these amazing gender-responsive budgeting initiatives that our government is doing. Again, $4.4 billion was invested in this year’s budget to address gender equality in Victoria. So there are lots and lots of initiatives, including $1.4 billion to help with the cost of living in targeted support to assist those cost-of-living pressures which disproportionately impact women and a further $844 million for services that recognise and respond to the unique health needs of women and girls, ensuring care is inclusive and accessible. As I said before, President – I do not think you were in the room, but I will just repeat this for those who might be playing along at home now and watching us on the live stream – just recently I visited the virtual women’s health clinic last week, which is based at EACH in Ringwood, and it was fantastic to see. I visited that facility with the Minister for Health.

[The Legislative Council report is being published progressively.]