Wednesday, 18 February 2026

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:25): (2324) My adjournment matter is for the Treasurer, and it concerns the budget impact of the $15 billion in corrupt Big Build payments identified by Geoffrey Watson SC. The Treasurer has stated this figure is not finalised, but Mr Watson has made it clear it is at the lowest end of the spectrum. As he says:

… the government had a duty to know … a duty to monitor … costs-blowouts. There is no doubt the government knew about the rising problem – but it is equally clear that the government did nothing.

In a way, Labor is lucky the figure is so ridiculously vast – so vast we can hardly comprehend what this corruption has actually cost us. Fifteen billion dollars – it is just three words, how bad can that be? Tonight I want to make this figure mean something real, and in this I am indebted to Warrnambool mayor Cr Ben Blain. Ben asked what south-west Victoria would look like if that money had been spent locally. The answer is ‘totally transformed’. On roads, he said:

Looking at road infrastructure … we know our roads are a challenge … they’re unsafe. Across the state, just under $1 billion is spent on these road blitzes –

$1 billion –

$2 billion into south-west Victoria’s roads would totally change our transport networks.

On health, he said:

… look at our hospital facilities and our $358 million project. You put another few hundred million towards that and we could really have a really amazing hospital.

He continued:

We could be looking at bigger trains to improve our services … these aren’t just pipe dreams, these are things we actually need and we haven’t gotten anywhere close to $15 billion.

…

This is money that would transform not just Warrnambool, but all of the region.

And I can add to his list. Fifteen billion dollars would fund 25,000 homes, 40 hospitals, 500 schools, 20,000 fire trucks. Imagine! It is ridiculous, but that is the scale of this corruption. We could fund a regional council’s annual budget for 250 years. We could bid for and then fail to deliver the Commonwealth Games 26 times over. The action I seek, Treasurer, is that you immediately and energetically do whatever it takes to get back every single cent of every single dollar. On top of that, we certainly could have delivered the Phillip Island MotoGP that has gone to South Australia. We will see what $15 billion can really do.