Tuesday, 2 June 2026

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:13): (1327) My question is to the Special Minister of State. Minister, will you explain to the house what substantial differences exist between the follow-the-money powers your government voted to block in March and the powers you announced yesterday?

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Government Services, Special Minister of State, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Multicultural and Multifaith Victoria) (14:13): Thank you, Mr Mulholland, for your question. I guess the simplest way to explain this to you is: read the government response, because it is a comprehensive response to a significant piece of work by the Integrity and Oversight Committee. The committee’s own report highlights the interdependencies across our integrity system, so there are complexities when it comes to coming up with the right legislation –

Members interjecting.

Lizzie Blandthorn: On a point of order, President, I am sitting right next to the minister and I cannot hear her answer. I would ask that if people are interested in the answer, they afford her the courtesy of listening.

Nick McGowan: On the point of order, President, it might assist the minister if the member behind her also refrains from making interjections from the beginning of the answer.

The PRESIDENT: I do not know if time matters. I will actually uphold both points of order in that it would be fantastic if the whole chamber listens to the minister’s answer in silence. So I am on board with everyone.

Ingrid STITT: As I was in the process of explaining to those opposite, it is a complex integrity system that has interconnected legislation, and we need to get these reforms right. I take you to the report itself and quote IBAC’s own submission to the report:

IBAC is one part of Victoria’s integrity system and changes to one part of the framework can have implications across the entire system. Any amendments to the legislative framework need to be considered in the context of this system …

So you do not need to just take it from me, Mr Mulholland. That is a quote directly from IBAC’s submission to the committee inquiry. Since coming to this portfolio I have prioritised sitting down with the integrity agency heads and hearing directly from them about what their priorities are and how we can work together to ensure that IBAC and the other integrity agencies have the powers and the resources they need to continue their important work. The community deserves nothing less.

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:16): On a supplementary, Minister, what has changed since March to lead to this IBAC flip, apart from the Premier’s diabolical polling figures?

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Government Services, Special Minister of State, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Multicultural and Multifaith Victoria) (14:16): I am not going to thank the member for his supplementary, because the way in which it is framed is a little bit more like a Young Liberals conference than question time in the Victorian Parliament. But what I will say is that we have just responded and we will be tabling the government –

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: The minister to continue without any interjections.

Ingrid STITT: I was in the process of explaining again that the government response, which will be formally tabled in the Parliament today, goes to the complexities of these issues and the fact that we are responding to a significant report from a parliamentary committee. We are doing absolutely the right thing here. Further to that, we have explicitly said that we will do this work with the expert reference group, which will have each of the key integrity agencies represented on it.