Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (14:02): I look to follow on from the debate that occurred before lunch and pick up on some of the commentary, including from Mrs McArthur, Dr Heath and Ms Bath. Just to pick up on some of Mrs McArthur’s commentaries about how people want hospitals, people want schools, people want services – absolutely they do. And that is what this Labor government has got on with delivering. Whether it is hospitals like Frankston, like Footscray, these hospitals are incredible. Whether it is maternity suites, whether it is mental health, whether it is operating suites, what these hospitals deliver, for not just the local communities but broad regions of Victorians, for patients and for staff, is absolutely world-class. The hundred new schools that have been delivered, alongside our public early learning centres, alongside our kindergartens, are in this pipeline of investment. There is our public aged care. It is all incredibly important, and they are investments that those opposite would never make. There are our level crossing removals, new road infrastructure and of course regional rail. For regional rail, whether it is moving people around our state or indeed moving our agricultural freight, there is that underpinning set of values, creating policies and then rolling out the investment to actually get those projects built.

It is very easy to sit and say, ‘Wow, look, the state has spent money.’ Yes, the state has spent money investing in infrastructure and in services that are incredibly important. And they are not just important now; they are important for generations of Victorians to come. Bolte had a net gross state product of 55 per cent. His government was a state builder, whether it was roads, dams or powerlines, building infrastructure that we have all benefited from. You will not hear those opposite acknowledging the incredible work that has gone in to deliver massive projects like Metro, which is unlocking capacity and moving people around our state. The regional rail networks are connecting to it. I will resist the urge to talk about Jeff Kennett and what the Liberals did in the 1990s to all that, but it is just an important point to make – the lack of investment from the Liberals, and not only that but the closures. I talked before about building and opening hospitals, schools, rail and roads. It was the opposite from the Liberals when they had their stint – it was closures, it was privatisation, it was removing services.

I touched on aged care before. I am incredibly proud to have in Orbost and in Maffra – Orbost is now open, Maffra is on the way – a $100 million spend that is keeping regional people in aged care in their communities, near loved ones, ensuring that staff have brand new topnotch facilities to care for our aging people. That is something we should be proud of. When I go out to our early learning centres, I see day care and kindergarten in regional communities where we might not see private investment go in. So I think it is very easy to say, ‘Look, you know, there’s investment, and that’s cost money.’ It is a lot harder to identify those values, get the policies, do the work and roll projects out, and I am really proud we have. And whether it is energy infrastructure – we know the Liberals were opposed to the SEC, now on its third project – if you do not build this infrastructure, if you do not build these projects, it catches you down the line. Dr Heath talked about not talking about TAFE. I am proud to talk about TAFE because –

Renee Heath: That’s not what I said. I said we should be proud of it.

Tom McINTOSH: I will not misquote you. But anyway, for me to talk about TAFE, TAFE is incredibly important. We are talking about rebuilding TAFE. We know that the Liberals closed TAFEs – I think it was 19 in regional Victoria or something like that – but we have built them back up; we have invested in the workforce, and the free TAFE pipeline enables us to have a generation of workers come through. We saw with the privatisation in the 1990s that there was not the pipeline of trainees and apprentices. I am proud that the government has committed to training pipelines of trainees and apprentices. We saw the recent announcement about apprentices through the SEC last week from the government. Mr Limbrick, I will pull you up on your comments. You said that the government should not get involved in the space, to just let it all go and let the free market decide. When that happens, homeowners turn around and say, ‘Why can’t I get a sparky? Why can’t I get a plumber? Why can’t I get a tradie in my home?’ – because we have not set the pipeline of workers. We want people who are going to do quality work. It is like the work on the Building and Plumbing Commission that went through here, the new legislation, in recent weeks. It is about ensuring that people that deliver work are appropriately trained, because it is easy to say, ‘Hands off the wheel. We’ll let the market figure it all out.’ And then you get some of the most difficult cases. I know – my aunty talks about it – being single and trying to work with trades, particularly if they are unregistered trades, it all gets so much more complicated. So when those trades are registered, when they are well trained, the system just works so much better, people can get quality builds and we do not have to worry about consumers spending all their time in courts and the billions of dollars lost there.

I just want to pick up on all that. Of course none of this –

A member interjected.

Tom McINTOSH: I am going to come to things in my electorate shortly, Ms Crozier. I am going to come to all that shortly. I was not going to comment, but I will talk about the star recruits that they have lost opposite. The deputy leader of your party, the member for Nepean, packed up and left. Three leaders in this house in this term sit opposite me. We have had one leader in this term. How can Victorians trust you to deliver infrastructure in this state? How can Victorians trust you to deliver infrastructure when you cannot sort your own party out, when you are in the courts, when you are rolling each other every six to 12 months? Victorians know that you do not have their best interests at heart. You only have your own self-interest at heart. That is the Victorian Liberal Party – completely self-interested.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Can we all hold the yelling down just a little bit, please?

Tom McINTOSH: Just to just to finish off, Dr Bach – an incredible talent – went to the other side of the world, as far as he could get away from you lot. But anyway, we will leave it there.

The investment that has been made is critically important. That is not to excuse any illegal activity, and this government has been clear about a zero tolerance of illegal activity. The Liberals opposed the Labour Hire Authority. You opposed it in its initial legislation. You opposed the additional regulatory powers that were brought in last year because you are fundamentally opposed to ensuring that pay and conditions and well-regulated trades are operating in this state. I have not even got to the comments I wanted to make about clearly having values and clearly having policies for things like getting women into workforces. You only have to look at the federal Liberal Party – who have got six out of 61 members of the Legislative Assembly federally and 33 per cent of the caucus – to see what a failure not identifying those values and not having policies to enact them is.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (14:12): I thank everybody for their contributions, but I must say Mr Batchelor’s and Mr McIntosh’s contributions left a lot to be desired. I mean, to give us a lecture about women – for a start, you cannot even confirm what a woman is over on that other side. That is your problem. Mr Batchelor spent a considerable amount of time telling the house that I was inaccurate, that I did not know what I was talking about and that my contribution was somehow riddled with errors. But what he did not do at any stage was provide an actual example. That is quite telling, because in the two matters he did attempt to raise, he was wrong. First, he suggested that I somehow made a call today for increased spending on integrity agencies. I did not. My only reference to integrity agency funding was that they starve, you starve, the integrity agencies of the budget and the powers they need and then undermine the people of standing – Geoffrey Watson, Robert Redlich, Deborah Glass – who dare to point it out.

Seriously, this was about corruption, about integrity, about covering up reports that the public have a right to see and about $15 billion of taxpayers money that you all are quite happy to see go to corrupt criminals, bikies and strippers, leaving the taxpayer totally bereft. You talked about all the things you could do or you have done. Think how much more could have been done with $15 billion and probably counting. This inquiry in Queensland is still going on. Who knows what else they will find about the corruption in the Big Build project here in Victoria and your association with the CFMEU? It is legendary. One of your members of Parliament seems to support a member of the CFMEU, Mr Setka. She stands alongside of him. She gives endorsements and references to people that are criminals. Seriously, when you talk about what is going on in this state you want to be careful, because it is you who are abusing the taxpayer, abusing every rightful person in this state who deserves better. And you are especially abusing women. You talk about putting women in the workforce. We absolutely support women in the workforce, but we do not support them being abused and used by corrupt criminals. That is what we do not support. And we do not support the fact that it is a union takeover on every worksite. Anybody should be free to either join or not join a union and also join another union.

Intimidation, graft and corruption: it is your modus operandi. It is your DNA. You cannot stop abusing taxpayer money. This motion is about integrity in government. It is about the corruption that has pervaded this state in projects. Every single one of them is billions of dollars over budget, over time. Nothing in this state gets done with good use of taxpayer money – it does not. We on this side of the house, with crossbench support, have called for a royal commission into this corruption. You objected to it. You would never do it because you have got too much to hide. You are absolutely embroiled in a level of corruption that is next level in this state. There has never been corruption on this scale identified in Victoria before. You should be standing with us to support this motion. I do expect the crossbench to do the right thing and support this motion, because this is on behalf of the taxpayers of Victoria. They have a right to be better treated. They have a right to know what has happened to every dollar of their hard-earned taxpayer money. $15 billion worth of it has gone down the gurgler –

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Bev McARTHUR: and counting, as Ms Crozier said. That inquiry in Queensland – and thank you to the LNP government in Queensland for conducting the inquiry. It could not have got underway here, but it is underway there and it is ongoing, and good for that. Please, all crossbench members, support this motion.

Motion agreed to.