Tuesday, 31 March 2026

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:03): Pursuant to section 35 of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003, I table a report on the 2024–2025 financial and performance outcomes, including extracts of proceedings, from the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, and I present the transcripts of evidence. I move:

That the transcripts of evidence be tabled and the report be published.

Motion agreed to.

Michael GALEA: I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

It is a good opportunity to talk about this very important part of the PAEC’s function as it pertains to the slightly lesser attended to or slightly lesser observed hearings that we do but that are no doubt just as vitally important, which is when it comes to assessing the actual budgetary outcomes – the financial performance outcomes – of the Victorian state budget and indeed of the various elements and agencies of the overall general government sector, the public financial corporations, the public non-financial corporations and indeed the more than 260 various different entities which fall under their purviews. I would like to at the outset thank our secretariat, including in particular Igor Dosen and Charlotte Lever and their team, for the once again, as always, very attentive, very detailed and very considered piece of work that they have put into supporting the committee to undertake its work and come to its findings and conclusions.

Members will find in the report 94 findings in relation to the financial and performance outcome hearings this year, and they will find 22 recommendations for ways in which various agencies or government departments can update their reporting mechanism to improve that transparency as well, which is a very important part of what the PAEC provides for the Parliament and indeed for the Victorian community as a whole when it comes to the assessment of actual government spending and an overall economic look for the year as well. It was a good opportunity to see that, as members will know, the economy continued to grow in the 2024–25 financial year, with a 1.1 per cent increase in gross state product in that time. We also saw, for the first time since the pandemic, a real uplift in wages. I detour briefly to acknowledge the decision announced just a couple of hours ago by the Fair Work Commission that 18- and 19-year-olds, for the first time, will be paid as adults, as they rightly should be. That was a marvellous thing to see this morning in the federal space. We know that wages in Victoria grew for the first time in real terms since the pandemic, which, particularly as we come into the challenges that we are facing right now in the present financial year, will no doubt give families that little bit extra support.

We also saw that the net result from transactions led to the deficit reducing from $4.2 billion to $2.6 billion. Again as we have seen through the annual financial report of late last year, and there have been various comments in this chamber, the state budget position continues to improve, which is something that can happen when we have a strong and growing economy, which Victoria continues to enjoy.

We also looked at the important issue of workforce shortages.

David Davis interjected.

Michael GALEA: You may disagree, Mr Davis, but it is terrific to see those workforce shortages, in the space of education and teachers particularly, starting to improve and that problem being ameliorated. Indeed that was something that we saw just last week. In a different committee’s hearings into public school funding we saw that the workforce shortages are easing, but there is more work to do. It is the same story for nurses and for paramedics as well. There are still some challenges in the spaces of aged care, in alcohol and other drug services and indeed in Victoria Police, and I acknowledge the ongoing work to address those workforce shortages as they occur.

PAEC is known for its robust questioning –

Bev McArthur interjected.

Michael GALEA: Indeed, Mrs McArthur, we saw some robust questioning from your friend the member for South-West Coast – some very robust questioning, with a real zinger of a question asking the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions about the failed grand prix legislation and what sort of risk that would present to the state of Victoria. It was a real gotcha question. Unfortunately for the member for South-West Coast, the department answered that the upper house had actually passed that bill several weeks prior, so not so much of a zinger there, not so much of a gotcha – perhaps not the most robust of questions that the Liberal Party could have asked, Mrs McArthur. As a former member yourself though –

Bev McArthur: Do you miss me?

Michael GALEA: I do miss you. I am sure you would have made no such silly mistake as the member for South-West Coast did. Nevertheless, as we do have budget estimates again in just a few weeks, I do want to acknowledge the other members of the committee: the chair Sarah Connolly, the member for Laverton, who has always done an excellent job; other members from the Assembly and other members from this place, including Mr Welch and indeed Mr Puglielli, who I am very hopeful to soon hear a poem from on the hearings. With the depth and detail in this report, I can commend it for members to consider.

 Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:08): I also rise to speak briefly with respect to the tabling of this report. I would like from the outset to thank the other committee members and the secretariat Igor and the team for how hard they must work in pulling all of it together – a report that I hope lots of people read given how much work goes into it. It is always quite the process. The outcomes hearings do not get quite as much attention as estimates, but still we persist.

If I were to summarise the experiences of this year’s outcomes hearings in haiku form, I would say:

Answers dodge the light

Words bend into empty forms

Truth seeps through the cracks

Or:

Questions circle still

Answers blur in department words

Government guards the books

Or:

Mountains are our debt

Queries meet closed doors

Budgets tell wild tales

Motion agreed to.