Wednesday, 19 November 2025

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (16:04): I move:

That this house notes that the Business Council of Australia’s Regulation Rumble 2025 report marked Victoria last of all the state jurisdictions in providing a pro-business, low-regulation and low-tax environment to facilitate economic growth and raise living standards.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Mr McIntosh, from your place, please. If you are going to interject, you know where you need to do it from. Mr Davis to continue unassisted.

David DAVIS: This is an important motion. It is a systematic examination by the Business Council of Australia of Australian state and territory jurisdictions. It looks at the regulatory impact of a range of different regulations. It looks at taxation arrangements. It looks at the ability to do business without restriction and without undue interference, and it looks at it in such as way as to say, ‘Is this a pro-business environment? Is it a negative environment for business,’ And the outcome – it is different in each of the matters examined – is that overall, Victoria is the worst place in Australia to do business, the place that is least satisfactory. People may want to quibble about one measure or another measure, or they may say there is too much weight on this or too much weight on that. I can tell you that the business council has not arrived at these matters lightly. They have no serious skin in the game other than they want a better environment for business nationally. That is what they want and that is what they are trying to achieve. To that extent, they are the independent arbiter of this with this state government.

The state government has not understood that the need for better regulation is now a welcome feature of the national policy agenda. They move their way through a number of different examinations here. On page 4, ‘Best for business in 2025’, overall, South Australia has the best regulatory and tax settings for doing business in Australia. It is not Victoria, it is South Australia. The report says:

Amongst the states … Victoria remains as having the most work to do in improving its business environment. Disappointingly, this is consistent with last year’s ranking … it is the uncompetitive ranking for property taxes and charges, payroll taxes, and business licensing requirements, that heavily weigh down the state’s … performance. That means Victoria continues to have much room for improvement to make it competitive from a business perspective.

As the second most populous state in the country, Victoria accounts for almost a quarter of the nation’s gross domestic product. So a poor performance for the state has an outsized impact on the nation’s global competitiveness.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Well, I am just reading the independent umpire’s view here. You may not like it, but that is the truth.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Let us keep the volume down, team. It is getting a bit noisy in here.

David DAVIS: You may not like it, but that is the reality of the outcomes here.

I am just going to step through some of these so that people understand. On cost and regulation:

Victoria is the least competitive state or territory in terms of cost and regulation. Its property tax settings and licensing requirements were the least competitive nationally, and it also ranked uncompetitively in terms of payroll tax costs.

It ranked eighth out of eight. That is the bottom. That is, dare I say, the wooden spoon, and I think it is a very bad outcome for the state.

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, I believe it has already been confiscated by the President, but Mr Davis knows better than to use a prop in the chamber.

David DAVIS: I will just sit it quietly there.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Mr Davis, do me a favour: can you put that out of view, because should it make a reappearance, I will call the President in to deal with it. Put it down right now. That is very cheeky of you. Mr Davis to continue unassisted, without his wooden spoon.

David DAVIS: I am looking at some of the points here: key findings. Despite changes in the tax-free thresholds in Victoria, Victoria’s threshold remains the lowest in the nation for payroll tax. New South Wales continues to lead in the number of revenue rulings adopted, followed closely by Victoria. It says this is one little area where Victoria is doing a little bit better. It points out that Victoria raised the tax-free threshold in addition to an increased deduction phase-out rate. I am trying to be fair here. So property taxes and charges –

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, Mr Davis has now repeatedly referred to the Business Council of Australia as both independent and an arbiter. What is the factual basis for that? Because they are not – you are misleading the house, Mr Davis.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): That is not a point of order. Mr Davis, to continue.

David DAVIS: In response to the strange point of order that was just raised, I actually dealt with that – I said in the sense that they are looking for an efficient economy and a place to do business. They have no interest in any particular jurisdiction – they want to see the best jurisdiction and the best overall, is the way I laid it out. So in that sense, I said, and I repeat, they are the independent arbiter on this particular matter. So Victoria came in eighth on property taxes and charges. That is the wooden spoon again. I really think it is actually quite important. Victoria did third –

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, would this be the same so-called independent arbiter that the current Leader of the Opposition used to work for?

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Mr Davis. Could Mr Galea tell me what standing order that point of order would refer to?

Michael Galea: No.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): No, because it is not a point of order. Can we have points of order that are actually on standing orders. That would help me along greatly. Mr Davis, to continue along unassisted.

David DAVIS: Victoria is third on costs of workers compensation, and it is eighth on licensing and requirements to do business again – another wooden spoon performance by Victoria. It is a shocking outcome. They are not trying to be unfair here; they are trying to look at ways forward. They make some very good findings. Tasmania and Victoria have the highest licensing and regulatory obligations for cafe operations, approximately two-thirds greater than in the Northern Territory. Tasmania and Victoria have the most voluminous licensing and regulatory obligations; this is nearly double those of Queensland, and they are talking about a range of different metrics here. Overall, the Northern Territory ranks first as having the least onerous licensing requirements, while South Australia is second. Victoria and Tasmania have the most voluminous licensing requirements and regulatory requirements and rank consistently in the bottom two jurisdictions on all three business types that they examined. In insurance duties, Victoria is fifth.

Michael Galea interjected.

David DAVIS: I am trying to be reasonable here and try and point to any strength. They talk about land use systems: Victoria is rated fourth. They talk about consistency: Victoria is rated fifth. They talk about certainty of the planning system: Victoria is rated seventh. They talk about – I am trying to get through the transparency of that system, and they say Victoria is rated third. So it is actually important I think to see overall Victoria’s position is not good. If you are a new business that is trying to open up or a business that is trying to expand this set of –

Michael Galea interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, I am just being quite clear here. Victorians are leaving the state in significant numbers. Net migration to other states and territories is significant, and that is part of the reason: people are going internationally and interstate because there are better opportunities in many regards. I say that Victoria should be the leader. We should have a lean and effective regulatory environment and a regulatory environment that is fit for purpose, a regulatory environment that achieves what it sets out to do but does not add additional layers and unnecessary layers, layers that actually do not help with the outcome that I think Victorians would want to see. We want to see new investment coming into the state. We have heard business after business after business indicate exactly that the Victorian arrangements are not up to scratch, and end even when it comes to matters like crime Victoria has not been the state that has led the way. We have been a state that is dragging – a state that is the mendicant, the slow state, the state that is behind. I think most Victorians would prefer to see our state at the head of the pack rather than at the bottom of the pack.

The taxes are going to be a significant issue for the state. The debt that the state has incurred under this government – this government has allowed the debt to go up and up and up, money that has been squandered, much of it. Much of the money is through blowouts in large projects because the state –

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: That is a very small example, I have to say. What is much more significant is the massive blowouts in major projects. Even good projects that start off, and they are so much out –

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: The Commonwealth Games is a good case of money just being squandered. In July next year when the Commonwealth Games are on in Glasgow, we will be in a position –

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, I would like to remind the house that this is a very narrow motion, and I ask that Mr Davis stick to it. This is a point of order on relevance.

David DAVIS: On the point of order, it is not a narrow motion; it is a motion that talks about the business council’s Regulation Rumble report and the rating of Victoria last. But it talks about the pro-business, low-regulation environment –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Mr Davis, before you continue too far, I am finding in favour of you. If you could just keep going, please.

David DAVIS: We want to facilitate economic growth. We want to raise living standards. I am going to make a point here that Victoria’s living standards have fallen for most of the last 10 years. For most of the last 10 years we have seen income per head and income per household fall. That is the record of this government. The standard of living has fallen in Victoria. People are worse off than they were, and that is partly because our economy has not facilitated the growth that is required. Income per head and income per household are key figures if you want to look at the standard of living in our state, and that is generated in the end by businesses that are able to buy and sell goods and services nationally and internationally and within the state. They need to do so efficiently to deliver for Victorians. That is a critical point. If you make it more difficult for those businesses through excessive and encumbering sorts of regulations and if you make it more difficult through massive taxation – we have seen more than 60 new taxes. Sixty-three, I think, is the number on my website.

New taxes went through the Parliament last night. They have gone back to the Assembly and will be signed into law sometime this week or next week. Those taxes will come in – many of them on 1 January – and they will hit very hard families and businesses, even that tiny but nasty little increase from the doubling of the state government’s charge on those who own pets. I mean, that is a tiny tax, but it is a very unnecessary tax. And then there are some of the taxes that are being put on through the congestion levy that we discussed last night in this chamber – that is going to impact directly on many businesses and make it harder for small businesses in those areas of the state where these new levies are being applied. All of this points directly to this state government’s failure to understand what it needs to do for business. It needs to make sure that regulations are not unnecessarily burdensome. It needs to make sure that the least-cost approaches are adopted where regulation is required. It needs to make sure that we move to best practice.

That was the BCA study, but the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry did a study about two years ago. The VCCI study laid out the regulatory burden in Victoria and pointed out that Victoria was the most heavily regulated state. If we were to pull Victoria back to the middle of the pack, we would be much, much better off than we are at the moment. The taxes were also singled out by VCCI. They made the point that Victoria has the highest taxes for business of any jurisdiction in the country.

Michael Galea: We have the lowest payroll tax in the country in regional Victoria.

David DAVIS: I have to say that Victoria has very high payroll taxes. There are some areas where the payroll tax is a little lower in Victoria, but all over the state payroll tax is a significant burden and there are large additional burdens that have been imposed on bigger businesses. Some of those bigger businesses are now reflecting on whether they stay in the state or whether they expand to other areas.

You want to talk about payroll tax? The business council rates Victoria seventh. That is not good, is it? It is not good. You would not want to come seventh out of eight in the race. You would be running along and you would be right near the back of the pack. You probably would get a wooden spoon for that sort of performance. The business council stated:

Despite changes in the tax-free thresholds … Victoria’s threshold remains … now tied with Western Australia. The Northern Territory has increased its threshold …

New South Wales and Victoria continue to lead in the number of revenue rulings adopted. That is a positive, and I did read that before. But the key point here is that Victoria is facing very high payroll tax because the state government has chosen to lift the payroll taxes up and up and up and put new levies on with payroll tax.

Michael Galea: On a point of clarification, Acting President, when Mr Davis parses away some of the state, is he referring to the entirety of regional Victoria, which has the lowest payroll tax in the nation?

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): That is not a point of order. There is no such thing as a point of clarification. Mr Davis to continue with his contribution, please.

David DAVIS: There are 7 million-odd people in Victoria. A large percentage of them live in Melbourne, and those in Melbourne are paying amongst the highest payroll tax in the country. The overall rate of payroll tax is very significant, and the overall performance when you count the country, you count the city, you count the thresholds, you count the whole thing, according to the BCA, is Victoria is coming seventh out of eight. That is what they show. I will quote you from page 8 of the document: ‘7th’. It is not a good outcome. I would have thought you would be aspiring to do a bit better than that, Mr Galea, for our state. I would have thought you would like to see us up at one or two and more competitive than some other states.

I have to say, with well over 5 million of Victoria’s population in Melbourne, you are seeing most of Melbourne being clobbered hard with payroll tax and you are seeing most of our businesses being clobbered hard with payroll tax. As I said, the new layers of payroll tax that have been imposed are causing many international firms and nationally based firms that have other offices or other outlets in the country to reflect on whether any expansion happens here. I am aware of a number of cases of firms who have said, ‘No. The payroll tax disincentive in Victoria for our firm is such that we will base this new unit or this new expansion in another jurisdiction’ – either in Sydney or in Brisbane usually these days. But there is also a risk for us that business and expansion in activity actually goes offshore to Singapore or the like. We are in a very competitive world now, and sadly, Victoria is not competing very well. In fact we could do much better, and I think the BCA has blown the whistle on the government’s poor performance.

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (16:22): Really? Here we are again with another motion from Mr Davis that has absolutely no evidence base whatsoever. I must suggest that the only place that wooden spoon should be is in the possession of Mr Davis.

Michael Galea interjected.

Jacinta ERMACORA: Yes, or even Mrs McArthur. It seems that for the whole team under Brad – oh, sorry, John or Matt or whoever it is; it is actually Ms Wilson now – it really does not seem to make much difference about what is going on. Jess Wilson, this week’s new leader, was the director of energy and climate change at the Business Council of Australia, that very organisation referred to in your motion, Mr Davis. Let us have a look at the policy settings that the BCA requires in the best interests of businesses. It is their absolute right to advocate in the best interests of business – not the whole state of Victoria, but business. Their website says:

The Business Council of Australia … is committed to affordably and reliably achieving net zero by 2050 and supports the setting of ambitious but – importantly – achievable 2035 targets on the pathway there.

So I guess we can confirm that the Liberal Party is at war with the business community on climate science and the energy transition. So like all new Liberal leaders, Jess Wilson has had to change her position on climate policy. This morning Ms Wilson refused to distance herself from her federal counterparts, who have dumped their commitment to net zero.

Mr Davis, it is any wonder that you have resorted to running down the economy and community of this state? It is the only safe thing to do, given the fluidity and contrariness of policy coming from your party. I do not know how those opposite keep up with the continual flip-flop on policy. It even looks like the Liberal policy is different in the LA to what it is in the LC. Is it any wonder that you stick to the Henny Penny approach to policy, which is that the economic sky is falling in? Melbourne is a thriving city with a brand new Metro Tunnel opening in less than two weeks, a new Suburban Rail Loop underway, the new West Gate Tunnel about to open and historically low unemployment levels; it is the most livable city in Australia and the fourth most livable city in the world. If those opposite had their way, none of this would be true. If they had their way, there would be cuts to services, closures to schools and hospitals and cancellation of projects like the SRL with its 4000 jobs, mentioned so aptly by Minister Shing earlier today.

Let us have a look at the economy of Victoria and the business-friendly settings the Allan Labor government have in place to make Victoria such a business-friendly place. Over the last 10 years business investment has increased by 53.4 per cent. That is the strongest growth of all the states. This brought business investment per worker to its highest share on record. Victoria has also added more than 123,000 businesses since June 2020, in net terms an increase of 19.6 per cent, the largest percentage growth of any state. It seems like every second week we have to provide a little minilesson on economics and finance for those opposite, but I am happy that Mr Davis keeps giving me the opportunity to share the real performance of the Victorian economy. The Victorian economy is 31 per cent larger than when we came to government. Last financial year we delivered an operating cash surplus of $3.2 billion, our third consecutive operating surplus. That is why net debt was $4.7 billion less than forecast. State final demand, a key indicator of economic activity, increased by 1.8 per cent in real terms in 2024–25.

But I know that, according to the opposition, we are not facilitating economic growth, so let us have a look at business confidence. The economy is running pretty strong. The most recent NAB business survey shows business confidence in Victoria is in positive territory– there is an independent arbiter. This makes sense when you realise that business investment in Victoria grew by 1.2 per cent in 2024–25 and increased 53 per cent in 10 years – that is the strongest performance of all the states, as I said. Another data point, new capital expenditure by businesses, grew by 7 per cent to the June quarter, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, another independent arbiter. I bet you do not want to hear that, Mr Davis. It is truly independent. That means businesses spent 7 per cent more in Victoria on new tangible assets, major improvements, alterations and additions. That is the highest by far of all the states. Businesses are feeling confident about their future in Victoria and they are investing in that future. The reason for that – let us have a look at business conditions – is that conditions for business in Victoria continue to improve. The NAB survey found that improved trading conditions and profitability have brought Victorian business conditions into positive territory again. Victoria has consistently had the strongest business investment in the country, and we have cut or abolished taxes 65 times – you do not want to talk about that, do you? – including slashing payroll tax for small businesses and abolishing business insurance duty.

We know there is more to do, which is why our economic growth statement is slashing unnecessary red tape by halving the number of business regulators. From 1 July the payroll tax threshold has been lifted to $1 million – the lowest in the nation. This change means that 6000 more businesses are payroll tax free today. A further 22,500 businesses have received a tax cut of up to $14,550. Importantly, Victoria also has the lowest regional tax rate in the nation as Mr Galea perhaps –

David Davis interjected.

Jacinta ERMACORA: Galea is the way you pronounce it, Mr Davis. Importantly, we have the lowest regional tax rate in the nation at 1.2 per cent. The Victorian government is abolishing business insurance duty by 10 per cent per year over a 10- year period up to 30 June 2034. This will save businesses around $830 million over the next five years. The Allan Labor government is delivering the biggest overhaul of Victoria’s planning laws in decades, including fast-tracking good developments, making it easier to build townhouses and slashing stamp duty for off-the-plan apartments. Instead of supporting our efforts, you have been objecting to new developments and the provision of homes for Victorians in suburbs that are well serviced. If we just take a very quick look at unemployment, the key driver is living standards, and that is employment. Employment growth was strong in 2024–25 and the unemployment rate remained low by historical standards, with unemployment averaging 4.4 per cent. That is below the 20- year pandemic average of 5.5 per cent. Unemployment remains below pre-pandemic levels, labour supply continues to grow and female participation in the workforce is at a record high. In conclusion, I would like to say that I can understand why Mr Davis and the Liberals want to run down the economy and the progress of the state of Victoria because they have got so much policy contrariness going on between all of them that you would not really know what they actually believe based on the way they vote.

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:32): I rise to speak on Mr Davis’s motion. I speak to a lot of businesses. I have run businesses, and it is a passion of mine, actually. While there has been a bit of tennis back and forth across this chamber, I think if you were actually a business owner in Victoria, you would be really disappointed with the quality of the debate, frankly. When we talk about these rankings – eighth in Australia – that is the worst place in Australia to do business. It is a bit of a headline; it is a bit of a punchline. It is a bit of a thing we can debate in here, but in practice it is someone stressing over their accounts late, late into the night, worrying about their employees, worrying about their family’s income and worrying about how they are going to meet their obligations. It is not a trivial thing. When we go through the list of where we are not competing in Australia – on costs and regulation, payroll tax, property taxes, licencing requirements, insurance rebates, on workers comp we are doing reasonably, and overall planning – these are not trivial things. They have really practical, tangible manifestations in the lives of people, probably the majority of people, because everyone is either doing this as their business or they are employed by someone who is employing them in this way and equally care about the health of their business.

One thing that I want to get very clear is that there has been a bit of talk of, ‘Well, we have created 120,000 new businesses in the last year,’ but we have also lost 108,000 businesses. There are two things to consider about that: one is that obviously we have a lot of churn in businesses going in and out of business. We have massive churn in businesses – they are not surviving. More than half are gone within four years.

The other really important thing about this is that purely relying on the number of businesses and not talking about what the capitalisation of those businesses is misses the point, because if you are losing businesses that entered the market at a high capital rate and they are re-entering or alternates are entering at a lower capital rate, you are worse off. The pure number of businesses themselves does not tell the whole story; it is the capitalisation. We are not attracting high capitalisation – in fact we are skewing to smaller businesses. We are skewing in the number of businesses that actually do not have any employees. We actually have a significant number of businesses that have no employees, and there are actually more than before. The capitalisation is skewing. We are not attracting capital-dense, high-capital, high-employing businesses. We are getting low-margin sectors, and we are getting a lot of micro and small firms. They are fine in themselves, but they are not of the nature that will develop wealth for the country or for the state, and just by their pure macro number, they do not represent in and of themselves progress in the economy, so we have a composition problem in effect.

Right up until now, we have had a net migration of businesses out of Victoria. If we are going to rely on those kinds of numbers, we have lost 360 businesses in the last year, as opposed to somewhere like Queensland, which gained 1350 in cross-border changes to businesses. We have had a 71 per cent increase in insolvency appointments, so it is clearly tough to do business in Victoria. If we have had around 100,000 businesses going out of business in a year, over five years that is half a million businesses that have gone out of business at that rate.

But a lot of these figures also are backward-looking. Okay, well, that is the legacy of previous years. There is always a latency effect in terms of your settings and what impact that has on industry and business. Looking forward, the really key question above all else is: all else being equal, would you invest in Victoria now if you had a choice of other jurisdictions? You would have to look at a number of considerations around that. What we are seeing is that other states are going ahead because they are far more deal-orientated, far more business friendly and far more geared to attracting investment and willing to do so. We have churn – ‘maladapted investment’ is how I would put it – because our business settings and our energy settings are misstructured. The government’s objective and strategy here really is to maximise its revenue accumulation rather than foster and develop revenue growth, and it is probably quite that simple.

What do businesses need? There are a range of things they need. First of all, through regulation and operation, they need simplicity in what they are doing, and they need to know that it is not overcomplex. Other states have done better than us. They need clarity; they need to be clear that the laws are clear and not ambiguous, that the criteria are plain and achievable. You need certainty; you need to know that there are not going to be surprise taxes and that there are not going to be surprise changes or retrospective changes to laws. You need reasonableness; you need the thresholds to get up and running and approvals to be sensible, so that you are not going to be overregulated. In Victoria there are many, many instances where a singular business – I was speaking to one the other day – had to meet international, federal, state and even local government regulations on exactly the same criteria. They had to enter it four times – submit it separately four times, in vaguely separate language, in separate forms, on the same set of criteria – just to open their doors. They also need a sense of non-interference, that they will be allowed to get on with their job.

The other thing they need of course, called the life flow of business, is cash flow. We attack businesses’ cash flow because we have high payroll taxes, we have long service leave portability, we have fees and levies, we have very high WorkCover premiums and we have that other hidden tax called inflation. We have the highest inflation in the nation. We have expensive rents and expensive energy. It is very hard to manage your cash flow when you are battling against that. The other thing a business needs is capital, particularly working capital. If you are in an era of high, rapid technological change, as we are, you need liquid working capital that you can move to face the new technologies, to invest in them and to innovate.

This government has done its absolute best through commercial and industrial land tax to starve our businesses of working capital. I think there is no coincidence that the productivity of Victoria started to fall away from the national averages at the same time – and at about the same proportional rate – as commercial industrial land tax ramped up, so we are now a solid 10 per cent behind the rest of the nation in innovation and productivity. You also need an ecosystem. Something that is really important for businesses to thrive is that they have an ecosystem of a supply chain or complementary businesses and technologies around them. That is about creating economic centres of gravity and also centres of IP gravity, if you like. We have not achieved that. Other states, particularly New South Wales and South Australia, have created precincts. They have already got an office for AI. They are years ahead of us, actually, in a number of areas that create those economic centres of gravity and IP centres as well that draw talent and draw capital.

At the end of the day, what this report is telling us actually is there is a premium for doing business in Victoria that does not exist in other states. It is the Victorian premium. We have to consider that the regulations are not consistent with the rest of Australia. The taxes are not consistent with the rest of Australia. The rules around doing your work here, your access to your own working capital, will be restricted if you do business in Victoria. We are eighth out of eight in many categories, seventh out of eight in many others. We are a big state with really good fundamentals, but we are being completely hamstrung by a government that does not understand business, does not take it seriously and will cherrypick figures. You watch – the rest of this debate will be a travesty of mocking the opposition as opposed to getting under the hood and understanding the realities of economics.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:42): I am very pleased to rise to speak on Mr Davis’s motion on the Business Council of Australia’s Regulation Rumble 2025, which is almost as good as the Royal Rumble. Whether it is as orchestrated as the Royal Rumble, I do not know. I do not know whether the outcome of the regulation rumble is as predetermined as the outcome of the Royal Rumble, but we will see.

Certainly I would take umbrage, as my colleague did, with the characterisation that Mr Davis used in his contribution – that this report is from an independent arbiter. It is just not. I mean, it is from a vested interest group. It is from the Business Council of Australia, which represents, as it should, the interests of large businesses. But to say that it is an independent arbiter of these issues is both over-egging it somewhat, to be kind – I think that is the way I would characterise it – and a gross misrepresentation and overinflation of their position. I would be curious to see what Mr Davis thought of their analysis of the need for reform in the planning sector, which forms quite a large part of the report.

David Davis interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: It is not one bit; a large part of the report is about planning and the need for us to make planning reforms, a matter on which Mr Davis, if he had his way, and the Liberal Party, if they had their way, would not only stop in Victoria in its tracks but drag us backwards. That is what Mr Davis and the Liberal Party are seeking to do on a very, very significant section of this report that they hold up as being an example of the path that Victoria needs to take.

I will get to that in a minute. I want to start though with looking at some of the framing that has been used in this debate. The other thing I should say about the report – and not to criticise it merely because of it coming from the place that the Leader of the Opposition used to work, but Mr Welch acknowledged in his contribution that it is a backwards-looking report, that it does not actually account for the reform agenda that this government is a part of. It looks at a snapshot in time in mid-2025. It does not take into account, particularly in a number of key areas, where the government is, following both the release of our Economic Growth Statement in December last year but also, particularly and importantly, the series of significant planning and building reforms that this government is championing, not all of which have come into effect yet. Therefore a backwards-looking point in time cannot encapsulate this.

David Davis interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Through to the keeper, yes. I could not quite decipher the mumblings from over there. But what the report does is look backwards at certain elements of what is happening in Victoria. It does not take account of the reform directions of the government. I think that that is important to do in this debate. But it is also important to not just look at what business critiques but at what business does, because it is one thing to look at what business says in reports like this, it is another thing to look at the actual statistics about business investment, for example. I think the best way to appreciate what business thinks about the state of Victoria and the Victorian economy is to look at whether or not they are investing here. If we wanted to do a like-for-like comparison, which is a backwards-looking comparison, we would look at what has been actual business investment in Victoria over the last 10 years, and business investment in Victoria in the last 10 years has increased by 53.4 per cent.

Harriet Shing: Oh, do you want to say that again, sorry?

Ryan BATCHELOR: Business investment in Victoria in the last 10 years has increased by 53.4 per cent, which is the strongest growth of any state. So even if we want to do a backwards look, which this report does, we should look at a backwards look based on facts, based on statistics, not opinions –

Harriet Shing: Not feelpinions.

Ryan BATCHELOR: not feelpinions, when business investment in Victoria increased 53.4 per cent over the last 10 years, the strongest of every state – and I think this is the other part that is also remarkable – which has brought business investment per worker to its highest share on record. So when you account for the size of the workforce here in Victoria and look at business investment as a proportion of the workers in that workforce, you see that it is its highest on record.

So we can read what businesses say in reports like this, or we can look at facts reported by independent agencies. What those facts show us is that business investment in Victoria is the strongest of any state, and we are seeing it ongoing, we are seeing it continuing. We have had recent announcements about significant pieces of business investment. Just last week, the Premier announced the state’s first major subsea fibre-optic cable. I do not know if people appreciate the significance of a subsea fibre-optic cable and its role in connecting Victoria to the world digitally – because the future is digital.

Future growth in our knowledge economy is going to be driven by the investments that we make in enabling technologies like data centres, like cloud computing processing, like quantum computing processing, like the big infrastructure that is required to make it work and like fibre-optic cable. That is just part of the billions and billions of dollars of investment that is flowing into Victoria, so I do not think we should rate the success of business investment in Victoria based on a 30-page report. I think we should base it on a decade’s worth of actual business investment.

In my last couple of minutes I might just spend some time talking about planning. What the report does is go through a number of areas and articulate why planning reform is critical to making sure we are best using our land and ensuring that the planning system itself is delivering good outcomes and that its permitting and approval process is efficient. It says here:

Efficiency in planning decisions is important because longer assessment and decision-making periods mean capital and resources are locked up as the process is worked through. Outcomes such as new homes, offices, warehouses or other developments are frozen until permits are received.

There is a real financial and economic burden borne by project applicants in the time taken to make decisions.

I think that sums up precisely why this government, through programs like the activity centre program, like the development facilitation pathway and like the amendments that are being delivered as part of the Planning and Environment Act 1987, is getting to this core point about making our planning system more efficient and reducing the amount of time that it takes to bring projects on to development, which in the end is going to lower the eventual cost of those developments to end purchasers for things such as dwellings.

But more critically, a large chunk of this report is devoted to the need to reform our planning system, and the Liberal Party is opposed to every single one of those reforms. Every single one of the reforms that the Labor government is making to our planning system the Liberal Party is opposed to. They are leading marches in the street against us because we are trying to improve the planning system. Mr Davis and Ms Crozier were at a march about that on the weekend. We will not take them seriously on questions of the economic performance of this state.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (16:53): It goes without saying that I am very happy to support Mr Davis’s motion. It is no surprise that the Business Council of Australia (BCA), in their recent Regulation Rumble report, marked Victoria as worst of all state jurisdictions in providing a pro-business, low-regulation and low-tax environment – no surprise at all. For the second consecutive year the audit has confirmed what every small business owner in Victoria already knows – that is, that this state is the hardest place in Australia to do business. It is not middle of the road or even the second hardest but dead last – the absolute worst.

The BCA ranked Victoria last for overall cost and regulation, worst for property taxes and charges, worst for licensing and requirements to do business and second worst for payroll tax. What more of a terrible rap sheet could you possibly want? This, we should remember, is the independent assessment of Australia’s peak business organisation. The NAB regulatory impact analysis confirms life is harder for Victorian businesses than anywhere else in the country. The ratings agencies S & P and Moody’s are sounding alarm bells about our economic trajectory, except when the Treasurer is cherrypicking their verdict and rearranging the words into phrases which do not appear in their report.

Even the Reserve Bank warns that excessive government regulation crowds out private investment and destroys productivity. Everyone who matters is saying the same thing – everyone except this government.

A few weeks before this report I spoke here about what this means for business in regional Victoria. The Victorian Regional Chamber Alliance recently released their business health survey. The findings are devastating. Just under 40 per cent of respondents said their performance in the last six months was the worst in history. Listen to their words:

We are planning to close and sell the land within 12 months and leave Victoria.

…

Some weeks a wage is taken, other weeks a wage simply can’t be taken…

Drawing on savings to make it through.

…

Having to deal with owing money and stress is at an all time high.

These are the words of suffering businesses in regional Victoria. Why is this happening? Because the cost of doing business has become intolerable. Victoria maintains the lowest payroll tax threshold in the entire country, hitting businesses at just $650,000 in combined wages. Every other jurisdiction offers thresholds between $850,000 and $2 million. We actively punish small businesses for daring to grow, for daring to employ people. Red tape is crushing them, compliance is overwhelming, permits are delayed, insurance premiums are soaring, WorkCover costs are exploding, energy prices have doubled and, on top of all of this, these businesses are now being robbed blind by criminals as well as the government. Retail theft has surged 47 per cent. In Geelong theft has jumped from 5530 cases to 7281 in a single year. I recently spent a day there with our Shadow Minister for Police and Corrections. Retailers told us they do not even bother reporting theft anymore – there is just no point.

Having outlined the problem, I do want to ask just why it is so bad. Why is it that the government allows strangulation by regulation, legislation, taxation, employment law, energy price rises, rising crime et cetera? The answer is pretty simple: it is because, by and large, Labor have never run a business, do not understand business and fundamentally do not trust business. Business owners are not a class apart, some strange creatures with different morals who seek to enrich themselves and do not give a damn about their employees. They are real people who work long hours and take risks with their own security – sometimes successfully, often not. These are the people whose drive creates jobs and provides livelihoods to other families.

But there is a profound misunderstanding about business that exists on the left – first, because too many politicians, political advisers and bureaucrats simply have no experience of business. They have not run a business. They do not mix with business owners. They do not appreciate the day-to-day stresses. They do not see the failures. Second, they wrongly imagine that national and international corporations are typical of all business. They do not appreciate the reality of the numbers. Seventy per cent of businesses in Australia which employ any staff employ fewer than five people. In Western Victoria, according to figures from some years ago, 95 per cent employ fewer than 20, and of the 27,574 businesses in the entire Western Victoria Region, just 38 employ more than 200 people.

That is 0.14 per cent. These figures will have changed in the last couple of years but surely not significantly. Despite this extraordinary reality, so much legislation treats all employers alike. Those formulating policy are often ignorant about the fact that multinational corporations are treated in the same way as mum-and-dad family-owned businesses. Small businesses employ family, friends and close neighbours; they recognise that often their most valuable asset is their staff. There is no revolving door, no flexible labour market for rural and regional businesses. It is just not how small firms or regional towns work. You cannot just mistreat your staff and expect never to see them again. No-one would want to of course, and even if they did they would not get away with it. This anti-business ideology based on ignorance and prejudice is actually quite dangerous. It is the reason we see legislation time and again which seeks to redress the balance in favour of the workforce but in so doing makes it harder and harder for businesses to operate and employ people. Industrial manslaughter legislation, wage theft laws, class action legislation, labour hire licensing, the extension of portable long service leave, diversity weighting in procurement rules – why would anyone take the risk when the hoops they have to jump through get ever higher?

The irony is that this government claims to care about workers, yet every business that closes, every business that moves interstate, every business that decides Victoria is too hard equals jobs lost and families without income. You cannot have workers rights without workers; you cannot protect employees if there are no employers willing to take the risk. And it gets worse: not content with making Victoria uncompetitive, Labor is actively creating a patchwork regulatory nightmare – Victorian-specific wage theft laws, industrial manslaughter provisions unique to this state, different long service leave schemes. There is a widespread Victorian usurpation of Commonwealth responsibility for industrial relations. Driven by this, Labor governments need to pay back their union and activist stakeholders. The BCA’s ranking is a warning; it is a signal to every business owner or investor: Victoria is too hard. And until this government understand why, until they understand that business owners are not the enemy, that small businesses are not multinational corporations and that regulation has real human costs, we will continue to slide businesses and more importantly the real people behind them. The people who run them and the people whose jobs are at risk deserve better. I urge the house to support Mr Davis’s motion.

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:03): I rise to make a contribution on the motion put forward by members opposite on the business council, particularly this motion’s reference to the rating from the Business Council of Australia. This short one-sentence motion touches on the BCA’s view on Victoria from the perspective of a pro-business, low-regulation and low-tax environment. I want to say that I completely reject the assertion and insinuation, directly or otherwise, that Victoria is anything of the sort. This data just does not match the rhetoric.

Business confidence in Victoria is up, showing that on the whole more businesses are confident about this state’s future than pessimistic. They see the strength of the Victorian economy and they know there is a stronger future here. In the Allan Labor government’s budget for 2025–26 we brought our finances back into the operational surplus. It showed a very positive image for business investment. Over the past five years business investment in Victoria has grown well over 40 per cent compared to under 30 per cent in the rest of the country.

Employment has grown over 20 per cent in the time compared with under 16 per cent in the rest of Australia. If we look at the ABS data, we can see it more clearly. Five years ago 3.2 million Victorians were employed, and now it is over 3.8 million. Those opposite will cross their arms and say it was all because of COVID, but that is not true. Even a year prior to that, at 3.6 million employed persons, we see how today we have clearly grown. To put it more simply, there are more Victorians employed now than ever before. In the past five years the growth in the number of employed persons, which is a growth of over 600,000 people in employment, is equivalent to the increase between the start of 2008 and COVID. That is how strong Victoria’s labour market is under the Allan Labor government, despite what those opposite will say. The data speaks for itself, and it shows more Victorians in employment than ever before, and it shows business investment flowing into Victoria and outpacing the rest of the country.

Melbourne’s quarterly inflation – sitting at 1.2 per cent – is the second lowest behind Adelaide, and capital expenditure is stronger in Victoria than in any other state, as per the ABS. In its latest set of data we can see quarterly changes to the volume of capital expenditure between states, and we see that Victoria’s capital expenditure has grown around 7 per cent. Compare that to New South Wales at 2.4 per cent and Queensland which tumbled down to shrink by 4.8 per cent. Victoria is performing well and surpassing our state counterparts. The opposition has moved a motion labelling Victoria in last place in terms of fostering a pro-business environment, but I have to say that the reality is very different. The argument that we are deterring economic growth is not in line with the reality spelt out by the data. Victoria’s gross state product (GSP) is around 1.5 per cent, ahead of New South Wales which sits at 1.2 per cent. The year before that we had 3.4 per cent growth. This bill spells out the reality that Victoria is on the move and the economy is growing.

We are helping to grow Victoria and prepare it to accommodate a larger population. Over the past decade this Labor government has taken the necessary steps to get the economy moving to accommodate what will soon be 9 million people calling Victoria home. With a task as steep as that, complacency is not the way forward. It is not enough to keep the status quo; a challenge like this requires proactive government which will make the decisions necessary to steer the economy forward. That is why over the past several years we have made the necessary amendments to our tax arrangements to encourage and incentivise investment in our state and make it easier for Victorians to own a home. The opposition’s motion here is trying to set up a false spectrum in the service of a narrative that Victoria’s economy is broken. The Allan Labor government has adjusted its tax settings appropriately, cutting or abolishing taxes 77 times since coming into government to ensure that we are incentivising growth. That data shows that our plan is working.

The Allan Labor government has delivered a surplus budget while growing the economy, boosting employment and real wages. Debt to GSP is also declining. We are fiscally responsible and investing in Victoria’s future. The future we are building is one that encourages and invites business investment in this state and supports the rights and conditions of workers. It is why we continue to put in new protections which guarantee the pay, conditions and safety of workers on site doing their job. When our workforce benefits, everyone benefits, and that includes businesses, who over the past few years have seen more people join the workforce and enter jobs, and more customers. The insinuation that Victoria is in some way trailing behind the rest of the country on these matters just does not stack up. We have a free and fair business environment that encourages competition and fair pricing and upholds the rights of workers. In the last financial year there was an increase of over 16,000 businesses operating in Victoria. This shows that businesses continue to thrive here and that there is a strong economic future ahead; a reality borne out of this business sentiment, which shows a positive trend in business confidence.

What can be illustrated by the growth in the number of businesses, capital expenditure, business investment and the number of Victorians entering jobs is that we have a strong economy that is friendly to both business and workers. This new assessment from the Business Council of Australia might be appealing to those opposite, but I would have read the economic and business data first before I made the assertion that Victoria was the least inviting place to do business. Economic growth is up and the standard of living is up with the Allan Labor government’s nation-leading reforms around renters’ rights and worker safety and protections.

This motion from those opposite is an attempt to divert attention away from the real facts. Rather than engaging in the economic reality around businesses, taxation and investment, those opposite want to focus on sounding the ideology alarms about regulations based off a BCA report. That too is not in line with the reality of how this Labor government has cut or abolished taxes 77 times since coming into office, and it is contradicted by the strength of the business activity in this state. In those 10 years business investment has grown 53 per cent, stronger than any other state. Year on year it is up by 1.2 per cent compared to 0.7 per cent nationally.

We are continuing to work with the changes to payroll tax, which is directly mentioned in this report. But that report conveniently leaves out the Allan Labor government’s new tax-free threshold for payroll taxes on businesses which exempts businesses which earn less than $1 million, complemented by the fact that over 22,000 businesses received a tax cut of up to $14,550 with the lowest regional tax rate possible.

While this motion would like to point to this report from the business council that touts Victoria’s payroll tax arrangements, just as is the case with the economic data, this just does not stack up with the reality – the reality where more businesses are being exempt from these payroll taxes based on their income, ensuring small businesses are able to get ahead.

I am proud of the work the Allan Labor government has put into ensuring Victoria’s economy remains strong and Victoria remains a fantastic place to live, work and invest. It is the direct result of the government’s policies, which have led to Victoria retaining one of the strongest credit ratings in the world and some of the strongest economic data anywhere in the country. No matter what those opposite say, Victoria is a good place to invest and it is a good place to do business. It is just as good a place to come to work and a great place to settle down.

As Victoria’s population continues to grow, I am excited to see what future opportunities lie ahead, fuelled by this growth in both the number of people living here but also the number of people finding work and the number of businesses calling Victoria home. Businesses are continuing to invest in this state at a rate stronger than the rest of the country. We are seeing more and more businesses set up shop in Victoria. We are seeing Victoria’s economy grow even stronger, and the living standards of Victorian workers are being protected by legislation, keeping them safe. This motion is attempting to build a narrative that is in direct contradiction to these facts, and for that reason I will not be supporting this motion from those opposite.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (17:11): What a delight to get the call and speak this afternoon on Mr Davis’s motion regarding the Business Council of Australia’s Regulation Rumble 2025 report, and whilst being surprised to get the call, I am entirely thrilled to get up here and make some points on what, well, is a very difficult report for me to get behind, I must confess. This is a motion that tries to paint Victoria as a difficult place to do business. Anyone who spends time speaking with employers, with startups and with manufacturers or our tech sector knows that it is simply not reflected in their experience. The story on the ground is not one that is told in the pages of this report. Victoria has built a reputation both nationally and internationally as a place where ideas can grow. We have some of the best universities in the world, and they feed talent into the industries that need it most. We have modern public infrastructure that keeps goods and people moving. We are investing in homes for workers and applying real pressure to the cost of industrial land. These are the fundamentals that matter to investors. They are the things employers look to when they are deciding about where to go for their next job.

Let me point to some facts if I may. Over the last decade business investment in Victoria has risen by more than 50 per cent. It is the strongest growth of any state. Even in the past year to June 2025, Victorian business investment grew at more than – here is a shocking number – twice the national rate. I had to read that over more than once because I was so shocked at the number – more than twice the national rate. Since 2020 more than 123,000 new businesses have been created here. This is a 19 per cent increase; it is the largest percentage growth in the country. This is not luck or coincidence. It is the reflection of a decade of policy choices designed to drive business confidence. It reflects the work this government have done on skills, the long-term commitments we have made to infrastructure and the stability we provide in government. It also reflects some things Victorians should be enormously proud of: entrepreneurs – they have backed themselves; migrant communities – they have built new enterprise; family businesses have expanded and stepped into new markets.

When we talk about business creation, we are talking about people who took a risk because they saw the promises in this state. Only last week we saw announcements that confirm this confidence. Victoria will be home to the first major subsea fibre-optic cable, a project that strengthens our digital connections. International flights are returning to Avalon, which I know our folks over in the west and out in Geelong are incredibly excited about because it will open new opportunities for tourism and, importantly, jobs. The world-first quantum diamond fabrication facility is being established here by Quantum Brilliance; a $300 million manufacturing base is coming to Dooen from the Asia-Pacific – there you go; and Mondelēz International’s new national distribution centre will be located in Truganina. These are real projects backed by real capital coming to Victoria because investors see strength and they see opportunity.

In regard to the report that actually is the substance of the motion brought to us by Mr Davis, presented by the Business Council of Australia – which, I think it is important to reflect, the new Leader of the Opposition used to work for – it ranks Victoria last. For me it clearly shows that it knows nothing about our state. It does so by using a really narrow methodology that ignores major policy settings without considering the practical experience of businesses right here. When a report omits the day-to-day measures that shape the costs of a business, we should be cautious about the conclusions that it draws. For me, I am particularly reflecting on payroll tax as an example, and the report focuses on the top rate; it ignores the steps we have taken to support small businesses by lifting the payroll tax free threshold to $1 million, up from a $700,000 threshold a couple of years ago. 32,000 small businesses will now pay less or none at all. That is a significant change. It puts money back into the hands of employers and helps them hire and invest, yet it is missing entirely from this ranking.

The report also fails to take into account the lowest regional payroll tax anywhere in the country. This is not a hidden policy. The report also states that it does not account for regional payroll tax rates. Those regions are home to thousands of employers. When a report overlooks that, the results become distorted. Insurance duties are another example, one that I know many in this place have spoken to, and we are committed to abolishing business insurance duty over the decade. In the first five years alone, businesses will save more than $800 million. That is money that can be spent on wages, equipment, expansion, research and development, yet the report ranks us near the bottom without properly recognising the commitment that is in fact already in place. When you remove these omissions, the report looks very different from the one presented by the business council.

We have one of the highest business participation rates in the country. Regional unemployment is lower here than anywhere else in Australia. Consumer sentiment is moving in the right direction. Since the pandemic, Victoria’s business investment has risen by 41 per cent, compared with 32 per cent for the rest of Australia up to the June 2025 deadline. We also know that the work is not finished, and that is why this government has delivered the fully funded Economic Growth Statement. It is a practical plan to make it easier to do business. It halves the number of regulators and updates outdated licensing systems, and it moves some paper-based processes, frankly, into the modern world. It identifies the pressure points businesses have raised with us and addresses them directly. At the heart of the statement is the goal to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses by half a billion dollars. That is the kind of reform that makes a real difference. It helps small and medium enterprises; it supports family-run companies, who need straightforward systems so that they can get back to serving their customers; and it clears the path for new industries, including advanced manufacturing, quantum technology and clean energy.

When those opposite are talking about the economy, they often speak as if none of this is happening. Those opposite are more than willing to trash their own colleagues and trash the Victorian economy. They overlook the thousands and thousands of new businesses created over the last five years, they ignore the steady growth and investment, they leave out the commitments that we have made to long-term economic planning and instead they rely on selective readings of external reports that do not reflect the full picture and, as I said, are based in some methodology that I have rightly questioned.

There are business owners across Victoria who are working hard every day. They are hiring apprentices, and I thank them for that. They are training new staff and taking full advantage of free TAFE right around the state. They are navigating complex supply chains and inflationary pressures. They need stability, constructive policy and partners in government who understand their challenges and respond to them. This government has delivered tax relief through 77 separate tax reductions since coming into office. We have expanded the off-the-plan stamp duty concession and abolished stamp duty on commercial industrial property and replaced it with a more efficient annual tax based on unimproved land value, and I recall making a contribution on that. We have supported exporters who are breaking into new markets.

We have invested in industrial land development. We are replacing outdated systems with modern digital processes. These choices all point to the same aim: making it easier to start, run and grow a business in Victoria. When it is suggested by the motion before us that Victoria is the worst place in the country to do business – the claim made by Mr Davis in the motion brought before us – it sits at odds with what businesses themselves are choosing to do. They are choosing to come here. They are choosing to expand here. They are choosing to employ here, invest in the next generation, invest in research and development and of course invest in the future of their businesses.

A credible assessment of our business environment must not only include the parts that really suit a predetermined argument. The business council report fails because it omits major tax reforms that are already underway. It disregards regional tax settings. It overlooks the evidence that Victoria continues to lead the nation in business creation and sustained investment. It does not reflect the confidence investors continue to show in our state, evidenced by so much of the facts that are brought before us in this contribution and the contributions made by my colleagues earlier today. Victoria’s economy is strong, and our plan for growth is clear. It is based on real investment, real reform and a commitment to making this state the best possible place to do business in. With that, I will conclude my remarks.

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:21): I just want to make a few remarks on some of the things that have been said today. First of all, the motion before us was put here by Mr Davis, and it is speaking about the Business Council of Australia’s Regulation Rumble 2025, which clearly points out that Victoria is last of all state jurisdictions in providing pro-business, low-regulation and low-tax environments to facilitate economic growth. That is not a statement that has been made up by Mr Davis; that is the reality that Victorians are living in. I have been, quite frankly, quite disgusted to see that, rather than looking at the reality of this and rather than accepting the truth that in Victoria roughly 400 businesses shut down per day – 400 businesses per day – and about 152,000 businesses shut down every year, rather than addressing and facing up to and acknowledging the truth of that statement, they have been making cheap shots and jokes somehow about the opposition. I just think, like, come on guys, go and have a chat to a constituent every now and then, because there are businesses in every one of these regions that are shutting down. There are families that are having their dreams absolutely crushed. There are families that have to pull their kids out of sport, out of ballet, because the tax regulations are crushing in this state.

I want to talk about a few things that this government has completely failed to acknowledge. The first one is: in this state, like I have said, 400 businesses close per day – not per week, not per month, not per year, per day. If you go out and walk some of your main streets, you will see that small business after small business has shut down. They are not shutting down because the regulations and because the Labor government have created an environment for them to flourish. No, they are shutting down and going and getting other jobs or struggling or doing what they need to get by, or they are leaving the state because it costs more to grow a tomato in the state of Victoria than it does in any other state or jurisdiction in the whole country. That is not because of Labor’s responsible management. It is actually offensive the way you have treated this.

The second thing is Victoria has the highest exit rate of businesses just about every day. I do not know the numbers on this, but just in my own electorate three major businesses have shut down and gone interstate because it is easier to comply with regulations, it is easier to keep up with the tax burdens, in any other state than it is in the state of Victoria. That is not because of your success. The spruiking that those guys have spoken about, I think, just shows the disconnection between people that sit on the government benches and people that are doing it tough and contributing to society and contributing to the economy out in the real world.

The third thing is that this Labor government, since coming into government, has introduced 62 new or increased taxes. Actually it is more than that, because even though they have had to increase and add more taxes over 60 times, they still had to add the emergency services levy – regardless of the fact that funding to the CFA is being cut. If you are taking in extra funds to apparently fund emergency services and volunteers and all these sorts of things, when the price of that levy is going up times 100 per cent essentially, how is it that you cannot afford to do anything but cut the funding to the CFA and cut the funding to these things?

The reality is that this government cannot manage money, and because of that inability to manage money, they have to just keep taxing more and more to just plug these holes. It is a bucketful of holes, this state. And regardless of the fact that there have been well over 60 new or increased taxes, there is still a health crisis, there is still a crime crisis and there are still cars that cannot drive on the roads safely because they are full of potholes or there are no traffic lights and these different things. That is not because of Labor’s incredible economic ability and its incredible business environment. That is not what it says. The statistics and the truth are – I will read it again:

… Victoria last of all the state jurisdictions providing a pro-business, low-regulation and low-tax environment …

It is eight of eight. It is dead last. And that is not a good thing, no matter how you guys try to spin it. That is the truth and that is the reality of the matter.

What I would encourage some government members to do is come down to my region in Pakenham. Maybe walk down and see that businesses are absolutely suffering because they are getting ramraided, because they are getting robbed and because they are getting their windows smashed in just about every night and they have to bear the brunt of that cost. Maybe you should come and see them and see if you could still stand there and give the speeches that you just gave, because quite frankly you are out of touch and completely disconnected with reality.

I just want to say in closing that the Liberal and National parties will always stand for small business, because small business is the lifeblood of our economy. Money does not grow on trees. It is created from the hard work of everyday Victorians that come into this state or are born in this state, who contribute, do their very best and pay their taxes. What then should happen is they should at least have good roads to drive on, their kids should be able to go to a good school, there should be police and not the 2000 police vacancies we have in the state of Victoria at the moment. They should have police that turn up when they need them. They should have ambulances that can take them into a hospital without ramping. And if you think that all of this is not connected, I think you really should think again. I absolutely thank Mr Davis for bringing this motion to the house, and I hope that you all vote for it. I commend this motion to the house.

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (17:28): I am honoured to move this motion because I think it is a very important motion. It drags the central problem that Victoria is facing – our economy has been ruined by this government, our debt has grown massively and we have targeted and made it very difficult for businesses across our state. The Business Council of Australia, to their credit, have blown the whistle on this. They have done a systematic examination. There are a lot of things in here that I think the BCA could add. They could look at energy costs – they could look at the growth in energy costs and what that is doing. They could look at the availability of gas and the number of businesses that we are losing because our gas prices have gone up and gas supplies are now inherently less secure under this government than they were previously. All sorts of things could be added, but it is a fair attempt to try to rate the states and to say which jurisdiction is providing the best pro-business environment, the lowest regulation, the best tax environment and an environment that enables businesses to grow and thrive and allow investment to happen to the best effect.

Well, let me be clear: the results are in. Victoria came last – last out of eight. I think the state should be very worried about that, because it is a pointer to the failure of this state government.

This is a major area for reform. VCCI has done at similar work and looked at regulation, taxation and the problems that our state is facing. It came to similar conclusions because those are the facts of the matter. It is more complex here to run businesses, the regulations are worse and the taxes are heavier, with more than 60 new taxes under this government and massive increases in the tax take. The tiny areas where the state government has tweaked tax and maybe reduced a tiny tax here or there are overwhelmed by the huge increases in taxes. If people doubt that, go and look at the tables on my own website. You can see the taxes tracked year by year back to 2013, and you can see the growth in every category of tax and aggregate state taxes. It is really cutting in big time, and it is making us less competitive. I say the BCA has blown the whistle on this government’s performance, and that is why I brought this motion.

Council divided on motion: