Wednesday, 18 February 2026

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:17): My question is to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Minister, in November 2024 your own Wilson review, which you quoted yesterday, flagged that health and safety representative positions:

… have been misused and have enabled criminal and unlawful conduct …

Yet the government’s review into the powers of employee representatives only commenced in August 2025 and to date has only delivered an interim report. When is your government going to get serious about the loopholes that allow these criminals to work on and infiltrate Big Build sites, or under your definition of zero tolerance will you continue to insist that this just is not your problem?

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (12:18): Mr Welch, I take issue with the last part of your question, because you are accusing me of not wanting to take responsibility for what you quote as my job when you continue to put issues to me that are not in the remit of my portfolio. The question as you proposed it – actually, when you are referring to the review and the report that you are referring to – is a matter for the Minister for WorkSafe and the TAC, and that is the Deputy Premier. So the concern –

Richard Welch interjected.

Jaclyn SYMES: I am getting there as well, but it would be a much better use of your time and the chamber’s time if you confined your questions to the responsible minister, because you conflate issues and then are concerned about the answers that you get. In relation to the action in the remit of my portfolio, in relation to –

Richard Welch: ‘Not my responsibility’.

Jaclyn SYMES: Mr Welch, I will pick up that indigestion – interjection. It is giving people indigestion. In this place there are standing orders. I accept that you are a relatively new member of this place and it does take some time to get into the groove of things, but you cannot have interjections saying ‘You are not saying it’s your job’ when you are asking the wrong minister, repeatedly, the wrong question.

It has taken Mr Davis many years to master this. But this is the problem that I have, Mr Welch, with the questions that you pose. Perhaps in your supplementary question if you confine it to my portfolio I will do the very best to provide you with the information that you seek.

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:20): Of course you know you are losing an argument when you have to deflect it to insult the person with it. In terms of safety, it was reported that bikie Jonny ‘Two Guns’ Walker was given dispensation by the parole board to work with criminals on Big Build worksites for Labor Party donor CCL. He was appointed as a CFMEU health and safety representative despite serving time in jail for manslaughter and was given justice department permission to travel to Queensland when you were Attorney-General. Are there any people associated with organised crime still working as union OH&S representatives on Big Build sites?

The PRESIDENT: I am struggling to see how that is a supplementary question to the substantive, but I am also struggling to see how that falls within the responsibility of the industrial relations minister. I actually appreciate it for the chamber’s sake when ministers are prepared to take questions that I struggle with and maybe they should not. Yesterday I did do that and put the question to a minister, and then there was a motion to take note of that answer on the next day of business, so I felt like I had set a bad precedent by doing it. Mr Welch, if you want to try to reframe that so it is a supplementary question in any way, I will give you a go.

Georgie Crozier: On a point of order, President, I just draw you back to the substantive question where Mr Welch did reference occupational health and safety representative positions. His supplementary goes directly to that point, so it is within the remit of question time and how it is relevant.

The PRESIDENT: Ms Crozier, I 100 percent agree that any member has the absolute right to ask any minister any question they would like to, but then the minister has the right to respond that it does not fall within their remit under the general orders. That was her answer. I think I will just rule out the supplementary, and we will move on.