Wednesday, 29 July 2026

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (14:32): I move:

That this house:

(1)   notes that after more than a decade of Labor government, Victorians now have their third Labor Premier in three years, the second in a row installed by factions of the Labor Party;

(2)   further notes that the new Premier, the Honourable Ben Carroll MP:

(a) served as Deputy Premier throughout a government mired in CFMEU corruption allegations, record debt approaching $200 billion and record crime;

(b) as Minister for Education, presided over botched VCE exams, the collapse of teacher pay negotiations, statewide strikes and lost learning for Victorian children;

(c) refused to support a royal commission into Big Build corruption, dismissing it as something that would take too long and cost too much;

(3)   observes that Mr Carroll’s sudden leadership challenge, after publicly looking Premier Allan in the eye, pledging loyalty only weeks earlier, exposes the division, dishonesty and desperation inside Victorian Labor;

(4)   further observes that elevating the Deputy Premier of a failing government is not ‘renewal’ but rewarding failure, and that swapping one architect of the mess for another is factional juggling, not real change;

(5)   declares that every crisis confronting Victoria today, in crime, health, education, housing, debt and integrity, was created by the cabinet in which Mr Carroll sat as Deputy Premier; and

(6)   concludes that the only leadership ballot that can fix Victoria is November’s election, when Victorians finally get the vote Labor’s factions have twice denied them and can throw this entire failed government out of office.

I move the motion on the order paper in my name just one day after Victoria acquired yet another Premier that not one Victorian has voted for. Yesterday, at half past 12 at Government House, Ben Carroll was sworn in as the 50th Premier of Victoria, 90 minutes after a caucus meeting that the Herald Sun this morning described as descending into ‘shouting, fake tears’ and manoeuvres one Labor MP called ‘straight out of Dan’s playbook’. Another MP told the paper:

There was more tension in the room than the season finale of Married At First Sight.

Michael Galea: Your favourite show!

Bev McARTHUR: I might never have watched Married at First Sight, Mr Galea, but I do understand the format. Strangers are paired off by a panel of experts, the arrangement has no legal standing and it usually ends in tears. I can see the resemblance.

So let us recap what Victorians witnessed yesterday: a government so divided, so desperate that its own ministers were yelling at each other behind closed doors four months out from an election. What happened? How did we get here? The factional convenors met on Sunday night and decided the Premier had lost the numbers. A delegation told her so on Monday. She demanded six ministers resign. They refused. On Tuesday morning she resigned, and then within the hour signed the nomination form of a rival candidate against the very man to whom she had pledged unqualified support. The whole thing collapsed only after a proxy vote on the deputy leadership, and a deal was struck at 11:56 am, 4 minutes before the bells, with a cabinet seat for the member for Mordialloc thrown in as part of the price. It does not sound much like renewal to me, more like a hostage negotiation with a lunchtime deadline.

Rather more than incidentally, who exactly was running Victoria while the Labor Party ripped itself apart and laid the foundation for years, if not decades, of future internal resentment? Not the outgoing Premier – she resigned at 9:30. Not the incoming Premier – he had not yet been chosen. For 2 hours this state made do with a caretaker, and every minute those members spent shouting at one another behind that door was a minute not spent on Victorians waiting for ambulances, families whose cars were stolen from their driveways or small business owners opening crippling new land tax bills. The fact is Victorians deserve a government focused on them, not a government focused on saving its seats through bad-tempered, last-minute factional deals.

Apparently the new Premier has been installed to save the furniture for the Labor Party. That tells you all you need to know about the contempt they have for the rest of Victoria. Backflip Ben is the third Labor Premier in three years and the second in a row installed by factional bosses rather than being elected by real people. What do we have to show for it? A new Premier who at half past 1 stood before the cameras and said, and I quote him directly:

Let me make one thing clear: I am not Daniel Andrews; I am not Jacinta Allan.

A sharp-lensed photographer even caught it on his notes – ‘I am not Daniel Andrews, not Jacinta Allan.’ I am sure we are all reassured Mr Carroll needed his notes to tell him that. Goodness. What an extraordinary thing to lead with in an opening pitch for the highest office in the state: listing the colleagues you are not. It sounds more like an excuse than an argument. What he means is that Labor’s 12-year record is indefensible. That is what it means: indefensible. If that record could be defended, he would have stood there and defended it, and goodness knows he has had enough practice at doing that. He spent years as Deputy Premier defending the very government he now promises will do differently. It is the same laughable nonsense we heard this morning from Mr Batchelor. He too parroted the line ‘Integrity is not optional.’ He talked about a new direction. What was wrong with the old direction, Mr Batchelor, the one you spent years in this place desperately defending?

In all this time neither Mr Batchelor nor Mr Carroll was once heard publicly demanding the royal commission that is now the Premier’s signature announcement. In fact the Premier twice as Deputy Premier said such an inquiry would take too long and cost too much. That is what Mr Carroll said: it would take too long and cost too much. Now he is a convert to our policy. Enough, it turns out, only became enough once the job was his.

Ben Carroll did not merely sit at the Andrews–Allen cabinet table; he voted for every budget, every tax rise and every debt blowout that has broken this state, every single one. What exactly is he asking Victorians to believe – that he was a hostage in the cabinet room, held there against his will for a decade, forced to vote for tax grab after tax grab, frogmarched into press conferences and made to grin, compelled – presumably under duress – to film all those cheerful social media videos praising the Big Build? I have heard of Stockholm syndrome, but that is just ridiculous, which brings us to the royal commission.

Geoffrey Watson SC estimates $15 billion has been lost to the CFMEU’s rackets on government construction sites, and for two years the response from our friends across the chamber here – I call you friends – was delay, denial and dismissal. That is what you did: delay, deny and dismiss. I note the Age’s Resolve polling, which shows seven in 10 Victorians, nearly two-thirds of Labor’s own voters among them, wanted this inquiry – seven in 10 – and this government fought them the whole way; now on day one we get a royal commission. Announcing this royal commission that will be like a Coate inquiry – ‘I do not recall’ – is not some breathtaking, praiseworthy act of courage or morality; it is a cynical political survival tactic, a desperate attempt by the new Premier to wash his hands of corruption he ignored for years as Deputy Premier. He ignored the corruption.

There is a complication: we have always had a proposal for a royal commission, a real royal commission – yours will be a fake royal commission. The Australian Financial Review reports that the new Premier may himself be called to give evidence at his own royal commission, with the same newspaper having reported in 2022 that he attended a private CFMEU function – with John Setka – as a guest of honour just weeks before the last election. The man who may end up in the witness box is now picking up the pen to write his own terms of reference. We often talk about this Labor government marking its own homework on integrity matters; in this case it is back to the future. There is no new direction at all. It is the same old Labor. As Jess Wilson said, it is a Temu royal commission: arriving late, looking nothing like the picture and falling apart the first time anyone tries to use it. Sadly, I doubt it will be as cheap as a Temu product.

In any case there is a kind of corruption, a Labor speciality, which no inquiry will reach. It is the grey kind: the jobs for mates, the appointment never advertised, the consultancy for the former staffer, the board seat for the faction. None of it is illegal, and that is precisely the problem. You do not clean up that culture by promoting a man who was mentored, staffed and installed by it. The basic, unavoidable truth for Labor is this: changing the leader does not wipe the slate clean. It does not cancel the debt nearing $200 billion, growing $1.2 million every hour and this year costing our state more in interest than we spend on Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria and every kindergarten in the state combined. It does not fix a single corrupt and blown-out infrastructure project. The east–west link – $1 billion paid to not build a road. The West Gate Tunnel – $5.5 billion becoming more than $10 billion, three years late. The North East Link – $16 billion, becoming $26 billion. There is the Commonwealth Games we begged for and then cancelled, with $200 million posted to Glasgow. The Suburban Rail Loop – announced on Facebook, now costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office at close to a quarter of a trillion dollars. Who was Minister for Roads and Road Safety while the blowouts rolled in? Who was Minister for Public Transport, changing policy, changing position? None of this matters; it is just too late.

Look at the problems our state faces. Ben Carroll is not the cure; he is the cause. A new name on the office door is not going to cut crime. There is a criminal offence in this state every 50 seconds; 735 Victorians become victims of crime every single day. There are 405 fewer sworn police than when the last Premier took office, 1500 vacancies on the roster and 41 police stations closed or on reduced hours. A new name on the door does not treat a single patient. 68,116 Victorians are waiting for elective surgery.

Michael Galea interjected.

Bev McARTHUR: This is not funny, Mr Galea, this is serious. People are dying, people are waiting for surgery, and you treat it with contempt. You are a disgrace. Fewer than two in three code 1 ambulance call-outs arrived within 15 minutes. The median wait for general dental care is 151 days; in New South Wales it is eight. A new name on a door does not build a single home. 55,000 homes were built in the year to March, the fewest since 2016, all while 56,000 Victorians sit on the social housing waiting list. And notably, a new captain for Labor’s sinking ship will not fix the schools. In the new Premier’s own portfolio until the day before yesterday, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority board was sacked over the exam scandal and the teachers walked off the job after rejecting his pay offer. The Premier’s most urgent task now is to land the very deal he spent months failing to land as minister.

Labor has changed its leader because it cannot change its record. The debt, the crime, the corruption and the failing services remain exactly where they were yesterday. All that has changed is a rearrangement of the nodding dogs at the media conference. So why did they bother? We know the answer, really. It is electoral arithmetic rather than some sudden moral conversion on corruption. Labor MPs have spent months having doors slammed in their faces in streets that used to be safe Labor territory.

Harriet Shing: On a point of order, Acting President, Mrs McArthur has referred to members of Parliament standing at media conferences with the Premier as dogs. Can I ask that she unequivocally withdraw that, because that is just an extraordinarily offensive thing to have said.

Bev McARTHUR: If you are offended, Minister, I will withdraw.

Harriet Shing: No, no.

Bev McARTHUR: I withdraw. Satisfied?

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): As Mrs McArthur has actually unequivocally withdrawn –

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Let us move on from here. It has been withdrawn. Mrs McArthur to continue.

Bev McARTHUR: So why did they bother? Well, we know, really. It is electoral arithmetic rather than some sudden moral conversion on corruption. Labor MPs have spent months having doors slammed in their faces in streets that used to be safe Labor territory. Even RedBridge’s June survey put the former Premier at 17 per cent favourable and 59 per cent unfavourable – minus 42. The final Newspoll of her premiership was worse again: 25 per cent approval, 71 per cent disapproval, the worst net rating for any state Premier in the entire history of Newspoll. That means that Jacinta Allan left office less liked by Victorians than Donald Trump is by Americans. That is some record. And it was not remotely close. She left that particular achievement out of her resignation speech yesterday.

It seems the Premier’s chief electoral asset, as Chip Le Grand noted, is that only about one voter in five knows enough about him to hold any view at all. That is the entire Labor strategy. Pick some random on the basis they will, by definition, automatically be more popular than Jacinta Allan. Even the details of Mr Carroll’s rise do Labor no credit. We know about how much his promise to his daughter is worth. On the same day we saw the former Premier pledging him her ‘unqualified support’ and then promptly signing his rival’s nomination form. If that is the loyalty Labor MPs show their families and one another, Victorians can well imagine what loyalty they show this state.

But I want to end on a more positive note. While Labor spent its winter counting factional numbers inside Parliament, Jess Wilson travelled to all 88 electorates listening to Victorians outside it – 36 days, 137 towns and suburbs, 6000 kilometres. I was with her on some of these visits, supporting our outstanding candidates in Western Victoria Region and recognising the genuine connection Jess is making with Victorian voters desperate for change. One side of politics was counting its own numbers, the other counting the things that matter: the police not there, the ambulances not arriving, the homes not built.

Four months from an election, recognise yesterday’s events for what they are. Labor has not renewed itself. It has simply repackaged itself – the same product, the same factory, the same defects, just a new label. The Premier might steal our policies, but he cannot steal our integrity. He cannot ditch his record. He cannot hide his history. The fundamental choice on 28 November is not between Jacinta Allan’s Labor and Ben Carroll’s Labor; it is between four more years of the same tired, divided, debt-ridden Labor government and a fresh Liberal government with the energy and ideas to fix this state. I commend the motion to the house.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:53): Well, they are worried. They are rattled. You can tell from the contribution that Mrs McArthur has made that the Liberal Party, having sent their leader on a coronation tour of the state – and I do not know whether Mrs McArthur had some commemorative teaspoons minted up for that tour, but it is possible –

Harriet Shing interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Ten minutes in each electorate, that is right. As the Premier described it, the Leader of the Opposition went on her ‘false start tour’ over the last few weeks, and what we have seen today is just how worried the Liberal Party now are about the new direction that Labor is on under Ben Carroll and Gabrielle Williams. What they are soon going to be talking about inside their rooms is what is happening to their primary vote. What does it mean for them now that they have spent the last couple of weeks on a coronation tour and the rest of the time measuring for drapes in the Premier’s office? That is what they have been doing. Have a look at the latest Resolve poll and compare it to the poll that was published in December last year, just after the Leader of the Opposition took over. Since the latest – the sixth in seven years – Leader of the Opposition took over leading the Liberal Party, where they have come up with an idea for some fresh starts, the false dawn that is coming for them shows that their primary vote in the Resolve poll has dropped by 12 points in six months. In December the Resolve poll had the Liberal Party on 39 per cent of the primary vote, and in July it was 27. That seems like a catastrophic fall in the Liberal Party’s primary vote. If you are going to come into this chamber and bring forward a motion about leadership, at least have the guts to admit the terminal state of the leadership of the Liberal Party when its primary vote has declined by 30 per cent in six months. The polls do not lie.

They are desperate to come up with something. They are now scrambling with the new Premier and new Deputy Premier, the new direction that they are setting for this government and the laser-sharp focus that the new Premier and new Deputy Premier have on the issues that absolutely concern Victorians. The first act of our new Premier was to say that there will be a royal commission into the Big Build and the construction sector. What do we see a day later from the Liberal Party? They are already backing away from their support for a royal commission. What we have seen today from the Leader of the Liberal Party is her now trying to discredit the notion of a royal commission, saying ‘When we said we wanted a royal commission, we really didn’t mean we wanted a royal commission.’ We had Mrs McArthur come in here and give us some description, trying to compare the royal commission to some online shopping forum. I do not think anyone in the chamber quite understood what she was getting at quite clearly.

The Liberal Party are now running away from their support for a royal commission into the construction sector in this state. If that is wrong, then they should come out and back what the Premier is doing right now unequivocally. That is what they have got to do if they are to be taken seriously on the issue of who is best placed to tackle corruption, because the new Premier in this state has been absolutely clear about what he has said is a priority for him on tackling corruption and a priority for the government: royal commission – coming; special prosecutor – coming; standalone legislation to implement the follow-the-dollar powers for IBAC – coming.

While I am on the topic of IBAC powers, one of the things that we do know, if you want to get into the question of leadership and integrity, is that when the government announced that it was going to implement the recommendations of the Integrity and Oversight Committee’s inquiry into the legislative framework for the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, the first substantive, and I think the most far-reaching, recommendation that the IOC made and that the government accepted was amending the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’ so that conduct did not have to constitute a criminal offence to be investigated by IBAC. What did the Leader of the Liberal Party have to say about that change? The Leader of the Liberal Party Jess Wilson went on radio and said she did not support the change. She thinks that IBAC should not have the power to investigate corrupt conduct unless it constitutes a criminal offence, a threshold that even her own members on the Integrity and Oversight Committee, by supporting the report, think is unacceptable in Victoria today. The Liberal Party claim a moral high ground on integrity, but when it comes to the crunch, they do not support real action on it. They do not support changing the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’ here in the state of Victoria to remove the requirement that conduct must constitute a criminal offence before it can be investigated by IBAC.

Harriet Shing: They voted against it already in this house: serious misconduct in public office, they opposed.

Ryan BATCHELOR: That is right. The Liberal Party have got form on voting against measures to strengthen Victoria’s integrity framework, to strengthen Victoria’s corruption framework, because in 2018, when the government brought forward proposals to introduce and strengthen the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’ that IBAC could investigate to include serious misconduct in public office as one of the elements, the Liberal Party voted against it. I have got a pretty sneaking suspicion that if we bring a piece of legislation to the Parliament to expand the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’, they will vote against it again, because that is what they do. What we have seen today, as I said before, is the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Party, already backing away from their support of a royal commission into the construction sector here in the state of Victoria, refusing to support what the Premier is doing. They say one thing at one time and they change their mind a moment later.

No wonder the people of Victoria are sceptical of the Leader of the Opposition and what her plans are for Victoria. We actually know what her plans are for Victoria. Her plans for Victoria – the Liberal Party’s plans for Victoria – are to cut services. That is what they have said they are going to do. They have made a whole lot of promises, and the only way to keep their promises, particularly those that are cutting taxes, is to cut services, because that is what Liberals do. They did it last time. They cut funding out of our health system. They cut funding from our paramedics. They have got a long track record of closing schools, and the last time they were in government they even cut funding to the CFA. We know that a Liberal and One Nation government are going to be sharpening the axe for services that Victorians rely on and that what is going to be in their sights are the health and education services that the state provides, that Victorians rely on. What is going to be on the chopping block is the cost-of-living support that we give when we can. What is going to be on the chopping block are the investments in local communities that make our state a great place to live. We know the Liberal Party is sharpening the axe. We know the Liberals have cuts on their agenda. What they have revealed today is that they are not serious about integrity either. They have refused to back the Premier’s moves on a royal commission. They have refused to back our changes to the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’. If you want to have a debate about leadership, they are failing.

 Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (15:03): I have got to say that was an Oscar-winning performance. It really was. I think actually you missed your calling, Mr Batchelor, because you could have been in the movie which won the Best Picture Oscar this year, called One Battle After Another. I think you would have had a starring role in that, because we have seen battle after battle after battle. In fact we even heard it around the chamber yesterday, particularly up a storey or so. There was a lot of shouting going on up there. Who knows what was happening there. But yes, One Battle After Another. We see this tired old Labor government battle and battle and battle on, limping on. It will end in four months time.

I am very, very pleased to be here supporting Mrs McArthur’s motion 1527 on the notice paper, which talks about the failed leadership of the Australian Labor Party and in particular Ben Carroll. It is true that Ben Carroll was sitting at the table when key decisions were made. It is true that Ben Carroll publicly supported these decisions of government at every single turn. And in recent weeks on the public record on multiple occasions he has backed in Jacinta Allan and her leadership, saying that he was proud to support her and that he has the job that he wants. This is the same person who bungled VCE exams not once but twice. This is the same person who cannot land a deal with public school teachers and support staff despite the rhetoric of the Australian Labor Party that they are the only ones that deliver an Education State. I mean, the only state that has been delivered this week is a state of paralysis. He also sat by idly, and we have seen it in the crime statistics as they have continued to escalate, which has caused widespread fear in the Victorian community. He supported machete bins. He supported the machete bans, and that was their answer to knife crime. He sat there and supported them. We cannot forget that Mr Carroll also publicly backed Ms Allan as Premier when she refused to call a royal commission into corruption on Big Build sites. After Mr Carroll’s ascension yesterday, all of a sudden it has become this unbelievable road-to-Damascus moment, and the Victorian community are rightly asking what has changed.

Victorians know that there are serious problems with the Victorian government, but I do not think anyone could put it better than the new Premier himself. I would like to quote the media release that he put out yesterday. He started off by saying he was humbled to be elected unanimously in the party room that we heard from yesterday. He said that:

Yesterday, a group of my colleagues approached me and informed me Jacinta Allan no longer had the support of our caucus.

I do not know who it was across there. If you want to put your hand up, please tell us, but I am sure we will hear it in the media. He said the decision was not an easy one but the stakes of this election remain high. He went on about some fake coalition that he thinks has been formed, but has not, and then he said:

But it is clear that on key issues that matter to Victorians, our government needs to go in a new direction.

It needs to go in a new direction – what does that say for the direction that it has been going in for the last 11½ years? You have just had a Premier of the governing party here in Victoria say that the last 11 years were the wrong direction. Really? That is what the new Premier is saying – the last 11½ years have been the wrong direction because a new one is needed right now and as Premier he is somehow going to deliver that new direction.

He continued:

That’s why today we are saying enough is enough.

In my Government, integrity will not be optional.

Whether in business, politics or the union movement –

there is a lot to see there –

there will be zero tolerance for those who misuse their positions.

Is this the Premier talking, or is it the Leader of the Opposition? Because these do not sound like the words of a Premier. They sound like the words of a Leader of the Opposition. We have said this as well, that we want to bring about change. Hello? This is coming from a man that has been at the table and has been at the heart of the government. You cannot just say, ‘Oh, I want to bring about change’ when you have been part of it. He went on:

… we will strengthen IBAC by giving them follow the money powers this term. Not in 2027, now.

It was not that long ago that people in this place were saying, ‘No, no, no. We can’t do it now. We need to get it right. We need to take the time to get it right. We need to work through all the detail.’ But it can be done now, because your new Premier says so. How does that marry up at all? It does not. He continued:

I will do things differently, because different times require a new approach …

or maybe it is just different polling figures. He went on to talk about how he was raised in the western suburbs, his first job was at Kmart, he grew up in Airport West, and this is a great one:

I still remember the feeling of receiving my first pay cheque.

It taught me, from a young age, the value of a dollar.

That’s why I understand why Victorians are concerned about government spending.

Let me repeat that: ‘That’s why I understand why Victorians are concerned about government spending.’ For the last 11½ years this person has sat around the cabinet table looking at all the budgets, ticking them off, ticking his departmental budgets off, and he comes out and says, ‘Oh, but I know the Victorian people are concerned about government spending.’ How disingenuous can you be? He went on to talk about basic services that he is allegedly going to fund:

And under my Victorian Government, when crimes are committed they will be dealt with as communities expect.

So they were not being dealt with before? Clearly not. I cannot believe that the new Premier has completely and utterly thrown 11½ years of Labor government under the bus – thump, thump, thump, thump, thump under every single tyre. He said:

Labor will always be the party of working people, but Victoria’s economy is a partnership between working people, government and business.

He went on to say:

A government I lead will respect that partnership – by making sure that Victoria is the best place for business to invest, and a place that Victorians want to start a business in.

But there was zero mention of reducing any taxes that he had been a part of introducing – the GP tax, the schools tax, the windfall gains tax, even the immensely unpopular emergency services tax. There was no mention of reform whatsoever. He said:

Together, we will start a new chapter for Victoria …

a new chapter. He said:

It is clear that Victorians want change.

Well, yes, that is pretty clear.

That change starts today.

You have basically got a Premier that says that the last 11½ years of his Labor government have been hopeless – absolutely hopeless. One of the final comments is that:

My focus will always be on you.

•   On the family working hard to build a better future.

•   On the nurse caring for the sick.

•   On the teacher inspiring the next generation.

Jeez, this is coming from the bloke that could not land a pay deal, not once but twice. He has had two pay deals rejected by the teachers union – not one, two. He has bungled exams not once but twice. How on earth can we expect anyone that has that track record to run Victoria when they cannot even run their own department?

There are plenty more articles circulating around which go into great detail about comments that were made yesterday by anonymous Labor MPs. Yesterday’s meeting was described by Labor MPs who spoke on the condition of anonymity as ‘a debacle’, ‘unhinged’ and ‘sad and chaotic’. That is what defines this Premier.

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:13): I rise to make a contribution on this motion in Mrs McArthur’s name in regard to the Labor leadership. I had the benefit of listening to some of the contribution that Mr McCracken made and others in the chamber, and it just seems that this motion is founded on business as usual for those opposite, which is to launch into personal attacks and Olympic-level complaining about everything that this government has ever done or that any other iteration of any other Labor government has ever done.

I think what has happened in opposition is that those opposite have become experts at complaining and Olympic-level whingeing, but I am yet to hear one policy idea or anything from those opposite other than to slash $40 billion from the budget, and there is the very strong likelihood that if they ever had the privilege of being elected to govern this state they would not be able to do it in their own right. They will be forming a coalition with One Nation, and the problem for them will be that they will not be doing anything other than what Pauline is telling them she wants to be done. So for them to talk about leadership is the most hypocritical thing I have heard. I hear a lot of hypocrisy in this place from those opposite actually, but this one has to take the cake.

When we talk about leadership, oh my goodness, for those opposite there have been six leaders in seven years. Six leaders in seven years, and you want to point the finger at Labor over here and talk about us. I could go on and on and on, but I will not, because when we talk about leadership we also get to talk about legacy and we get to talk about the things that we have actually delivered on, why people voted for our government three times in a row and why they are asking for a fourth. Our record, under the leadership of Labor premiers, particularly in health, for example, is that we have invested in 11 new hospitals and upgraded 40, including the new Footscray and Frankston hospitals. There are 17,000 more nurses and midwives and improved nurse-to-patient ratios, and we have given a 28.4 per cent pay rise to nurses and midwives.

I am going to stop there and just inject a little bit of information for those opposite, because clearly they are not the party of the workers. They went to war with so many workers when they were last in government some time ago. Mr McCracken in his contribution went to, ‘Oh, this is a failed Premier because he can’t even fix the teachers dispute. An offer has been rejected twice.’ Actually, that is called normal enterprise bargaining. Offers are made and rejected. That happens all the time. As a former union official who has probably done more enterprise agreement negotiations than I have had hot dinners, I can tell you that that is nothing unusual; offers are made. Striking is not unusual either. That is an international human right that workers have under International Labour Organization conventions. It is not unusual for workers to strike. In fact that is what they do to actually advance their pay negotiations. I can say I have attended many rallies and stoppages with workers because they actually help facilitate changes in position for bargaining. It is all completely normal. It is nothing unusual. In fact I encourage workers to strike. It is exercising their international political rights under international labour conventions. Again I had to go into a bit of a history lesson and a bit of a union bargaining lesson. I know there are not many union members over there on the opposition benches; I can say that with some certainty.

We struck a deal with the nurses union: 28.4 per cent pay rises. We have also –

Georgie Crozier: What about the teachers?

Sonja TERPSTRA: Well, you were not here, Ms Crozier. If you had been here, you would have understood what I was just talking about. Fifty thousand more surgeries, specialist appointments for kids, a free virtual emergency department, Chemist Care Now, 212,000 planned surgeries – the Liberals’ record on health is closing hospitals and cutting nurses. Last time they were in government they cut $1 billion from health and closed hospitals in 12 regional towns – that is just on health. When we talk about leadership – leading on health – that is one of our core-and-grid issues. We talk about investment in public health and public education. You can see where our investments lie, but what we know from those opposite is very little policy. All they have announced is $40 billion in cuts, and the One Nation–Liberal coalition will make sure they land that. What this means – and if you want to talk about leadership, you can see the negative leadership – is that our approach is to have positivity and optimism because we know what people want. That is why they keep voting for Labor governments. They know that they can trust us to deliver on public health and public education. That is why they keep voting for us.

I will talk about public education for a minute. I am going to look at free TAFE. That is one of our signature policies. Let us just look at TAFE when those opposite were last in government. The TAFE system was on its knees. They cut and closed and sold off campuses. I mean, the Lilydale campus, I remember, was a signature campaign when Labor was in opposition. It was a successful campaign, because when we came back into government that campus was saved. Again, at every opportunity, when we talk about leadership, those opposite, should they ever get the opportunity to lead, will cut and close and sell. Privatisation is in their DNA. Cuts and closures are in their DNA. What we do is actually invest in people having social mobility. That is what those opposite do not understand: if you invest in education and you invest in health, you actually lift people and give them the opportunity to contribute to the economy as well. But they do not get that. They do not understand that. That is why we grow jobs. For example, our economy has grown faster than any other state over the last decade, with 500,000 jobs created since 2020. Victoria has the only budget surplus on the east coast. When we talk about leadership, you can see what our plans demonstrate through the leadership of our Premiers.

I will talk again about those opposite: six leaders in seven years. Jess is the leader now, but who would be the leader if a Liberal–One Nation coalition were to win government? Who would be the leader? Would we have a One Nation deputy? This is what people say to me when I am out in my electorate and talking to people at festivals. They say to me, ‘Sonja, I am actually terrified about the prospect of a Liberal–One Nation coalition government.’ That is seriously what people say to me. And I know those opposite will not acquiesce to that, but the bottom line is they would absolutely, if they are ever given the privilege of governing this state, form a coalition with One Nation, and goodness knows what would happen.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Absolutely, Mr McIntosh. I will take up that interjection. They would absolutely be led by One Nation, because they have got no ideas of their own over there. It is like 17 weeks out to an election, and I am still yet to hear any cogent, detailed policies or plans from those opposite other than to cut $40 billion from the budget, which equates to sacking one in seven public servants. I would really like to know what they might do with the Labour Hire Authority. We have all heard all this week about corruption and all of this. But the Labour Hire Authority is doing good work, cancelling the licences of businesses because they do not meet the fit and proper person test and they should not have a licence. I guarantee you that one of the first orders of business of those opposite, should they ever have the privilege of getting elected, would be to cut that authority and axe it – because they would go, ‘Oh, business doesn’t want red tape.’ But there is a very important example of why we need to have regulatory bodies to enforce licences and the like – because what the Labour Hire Authority is doing is ensuring that labour hire businesses that are operating are fit for purpose and operating effectively and properly under the act. So I want those opposite – and I have not heard them – to commit to not axing that agency.

Richard Welch interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Go on. I look forward to it – through you, Acting President. Mr Welch, as the Shadow Minister for Industry, should commit to not axing the Labour Hire Authority. In fact let us look at other states on the eastern seaboard. I think Queensland have kept their labour hire authority. I know we have a Labor government in New South Wales. But, you know, the Labour Hire Authority here does critically important work. I reckon – I feel it in my bones, I feel it in my waters – that should those opposite be given the chance, their first order of business would be to cut and close the Labour Hire Authority and sack all those public servants. Like I said earlier, there will be $40 billion in cuts. That equates to sacking one in seven public servants. They cannot do that without cutting into services.

Again, our budget goes to health and education. We develop people; we invest in people so they can have social mobility, build capital, contribute to the economy and have an economy that services them. Goodness only knows what would happen with them over there, should those opposite ever be elected. But I know, as I said earlier, it would be a Liberal–One Nation coalition, and it would just be utter chaos for Victoria. I will leave my remarks there. Needless to say, the government will be opposing this motion.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:23): I rise to speak to Mrs McArthur’s motion 1527, which outlines that:

… after more than a decade of Labor government, Victorians now have their third Labor Premier in three years, the second in a row installed by factions of the Labor Party …

I think that is a very important point, and I want to speak to that. The motion goes on to state that:

… the new Premier, the Honourable Ben Carroll MP:

served as Deputy Premier throughout a government mired in CFMEU corruption allegations, record debt approaching $200 billion and record crime …

and importantly –

as Minister for Education, presided over botched VCE exams, the collapse of teacher pay negotiations, statewide strikes and lost learning for Victorian children;

refused to support a royal commission into Big Build corruption, dismissing it as something that would take too long and cost too much …

The sudden leadership challenge that he undertook was done after he publicly looked former Premier Allan in the eye and pledged loyalty. That just exposes the depth of division within this government and the chaos it is overseeing. If you look at Victoria today, the motion goes on to speak about the crisis that we are seeing in very important areas like crime, health, education, housing, debt and integrity. It was the cabinet that Mr Carroll has sat in for many years that presided over this entire mess.

I agree with the final point of Mrs McArthur’s motion, which says – and I will read it word for word:

concludes that the only leadership ballot that can fix Victoria is November’s election, when Victorians finally get the vote Labor’s factions have twice denied them and can throw this entire failed government out of office.

I could not agree more with that sentiment of Mrs McArthur, because as we have seen, we have got virtually a failed state. We have a state that is so dysfunctional, and what happened yesterday was extraordinary. We had members of the caucus yelling at one another, and with just moments before coming into this chamber, who knew who the Premier of this state was? We have this ongoing factional division. The power plays of Labor are just incredible. We have a Premier now installed who was Deputy Premier to former Premier Allan, who oversaw so many issues.

I want to go to the issue of corruption. This is an extraordinary state that we are in. We have the power plays of Labor factional infighting because the polling was so bad, because Victorians have woken up to what is happening to our great state under the administration of Labor. It does not matter who is leading them. We saw what happened with Daniel Andrews. I mean, look at that legacy: the COVID legacy, the lies, the deception, the cover-ups and what he did to this state. He set it up with Jacinta Allan and then Ben Carroll. He sat around that cabinet table and made decisions that have not been in the best interests of all Victorians: the debt that is reaching $200 billion, the interest repayments of $24 million a day. I have got stakeholders that come to me saying, ‘We need support and assistance, Georgie, because if we don’t get that, if we don’t get the support of government, we’re going to collapse. Our industry sector is going to collapse.’ That is the legacy of Labor. I explain to them, ‘You’re asking for four days of interest-free payments that you need. You’re asking for that, but there’s no money. The government can’t provide you that money despite the advocacy and despite the need.’

That is what I am so concerned about. Labor do not care. They care about their own seats, and we saw that play out in their party room yesterday. The polling shows that they are going to lose in November, after 12 years of administration, where corruption is rife, where firebombings are commonplace, where aggravated burglaries by machete-wielding thugs are commonplace, where unemployment is the highest in the country, where our health system is absolutely dysfunctional because of the ineptitude of this current administration and the previous ones. And I go back to Daniel Andrews, with his red shirts rorts, the corruption, the cover-ups and the deception of the Victorian people. Jacinta Allan was his deputy and oversaw all of this. Then we have got the corruption, as has so beautifully been played out in the public domain through the media. There was Jacinta Allan, the Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery responsible for that debacle and the embarrassment. Our athletes are over there now. These MPs disregard anything, disregard what it means. They should all hang their heads in shame.

Most importantly, they should hang their heads in shame and ask what is in the best interests of the state. It is to clean up the corruption. It is to stop the crime. It is to bring down the debt. It is to give hope to Victorian businesses and families and not be corrupted and have the ongoing cover-up of this dreadful government that has overseen so much mess. I am so pleased. Jacinta Allan and her MPs could not go and knock on doors. It is reported that they could not knock on doors. People were slamming doors in their faces and saying ‘You’re toxic. Go away. We want change.’ That is all we hear when we are out. And let me tell you, everywhere we go people are saying they we want change: ‘Enough, we want this government to be gone.’

What does this Premier that we now have do? He has sat around the cabinet table. It is the same government; it just has a different head. That is all it is. It is the same government that has overseen the same level of corruption, the same level of mismanagement, the same level of deception, the same level of destruction and policymaking that is destroying the state. I want to say that Ben Carroll has come out and taken the policies from us. We have a plan. He said, ‘We’re going to do a royal commission,’ after saying he would not do a royal commission and that it was going to cost too much. He is going to open police stations that Labor has closed. He is going to put a pause on the Suburban Rail Loop, which has all been just marvellous and an absolutely must-do project that he as Deputy Premier stood by the former Premier and said had to be. I cannot believe what is going on. And the tough-on-crime approach – give me a break. Victorians can see through the spin. They can see through the deception. They are sick of it. They know this is a tired, desperate government that needs to go. We need to sweep them from power so we can clean up the corruption, clean up the mess, clean up the crime, clean up the cover-ups. The royal commission, goodness me – as Nick McKenzie quite eloquently says:

More than anything, Carroll’s royal commission must exhaustively probe the political decision-making that enabled the CFMEU’s Big Build operation and overlapping corruption and wrongdoing that flowed from it.

It must grill both Allan and Daniel Andrews, and examine whether Victoria’s public servants acted without fear or favour overseeing the Big Build and reporting to ministers.

We do not want another COVID inquiry. That was just a sham, a farce. If you look at those terms of reference, they sounded all right, but it was a farce. It did not get to what it needed to get to. This Labor government will do anything, just like they did with the red shirts, just like they have done with every decision around the SRL. Let us look at it: ‘to be confirmed’. We cannot even get the true figure. It is in the budget papers: ‘to be confirmed’. What does that mean to the Victorian taxpayer? We do not know the extent of that cost, let alone what we discovered this week, which is that there are more costs added to it, with another $6 billion that has been discovered. You will not get the truth out of this government. They cover up, they lie, they are deceptive and they are desperate. The only thing that Victorians want and need is, in the words of Malinauskas this morning, a fresh start. That is not with Ben Carroll, that is with Jess Wilson and the Liberal and Nationals team. I urge all members to support this motion.

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:32): Once again we see the Victorian Liberal Party using Parliament not to debate legislation, not to put forward ideas, not to improve the lives of Victorians but to stage yet another political stunt in this chamber. This motion essentially asks us to pass judgement on leadership. On leadership I would first like to say and point out that our new Labor government, led by Ben Carroll and Gabrielle Williams, is determined to take Victoria in a new direction. Our new government will return the focus to the issues that matter most to Victorians: health, education, cost of living and community safety.

There is too much at risk at this election. The polling says that Victoria is on a path to elect the first-ever Liberal–One Nation government. This Liberal–One Nation government would cut frontline workers, hospitals and schools. If that is the debate the opposition wants to have about leadership, then let us have it honestly, because no political party in modern Victorian politics has been more consumed by leadership turmoil, factional warfare, internal instability and litigation than the Victorian Liberal Party. The motion completely ignores –

Tom McIntosh: Talk straight.

Jacinta ERMACORA: Thank you, Mr McIntosh. I will do that. The motion completely ignores that those opposite, the Liberal Party of Victoria, have spent more than a decade changing leaders because they cannot stop fighting themselves. Let us look at the record. After 11 years in opposition, Ted Baillieu became Premier in 2010. After serving only two years as Premier he was replaced by Denis Napthine. Denis Napthine went on to oversee the Liberal government’s defeat in 2014, with instability continuing. Matthew Guy became opposition leader. After he led the coalition to defeat in 2018, Matthew Guy resigned. That campaign had been overshadowed by what became the lobster with a mobster dinner, a meeting with alleged underworld figures that defined Liberal integrity in the worst possible way. And the Liberals have not learned, because in May this year Ms Wilson, the current leader, appeared at a news conference alongside Elsternwick restaurateur Perry Le Greco, presenting him as a small business voice. Mr Le Greco was previously convicted and jailed for dishonesty offences, including siphoning more than $224,000 from a kindergarten’s accounts in 2012.

Back to 2018: Michael O’Brien replaces Mr Guy. But here is where it gets particularly remarkable. In 2021 there were two spill motions against Mr O’Brien, one in March and one in September. The September spill was successful, and Matthew Guy was returned to the role, the same Matthew Guy who had already lost one election and resigned – recycling. He then failed to win the 2022 election and resigned again. John Pesutto then became opposition leader, and the leadership instability did not stop there. Victorians then watched as the Liberal Party descended into months of bitter conflict over the Moira Deeming affair. Members publicly attacked each other. Former leaders intervened. Liberals were distrustfully recording each other in private meetings, and as we all know, the dispute spilled into the courts. The Federal Court found in favour of Moira Deeming in her defamation case against John Pesutto, resulting in significant political and financial consequences for the Liberal Party, and indeed personally for John Pesutto. The fallout ultimately contributed to the end of Mr Pesutto’s leadership. So then we had Brad Battin, from December 2024 until November 2025.

By any measure this is extraordinary. This is not the history of a stable leadership or a stable political party – any wonder the polling has dived in recent years. That is the history of a party permanently and structurally at war with itself. Instead of developing policies and focusing on housing or health or education or cost-of-living relief, the Liberal Party spent years consumed by internal warfare. And where has all the instability left them today? After cycling through seven different leadership changes in little more than a decade, with numerous court hearings costing them millions of dollars, the Liberal Party now ask Victorians to place their confidence in yet another leader. After more than a decade of internal coups, leadership spills, factional conflict and Liberal Party –

Members interjecting.

Tom McIntosh: On a point of order, Acting President, I am sitting about three chairs down from Ms Ermacora and I can barely hear her. Could you ask those opposite to please tone it down a bit?

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): I will ask Ms Ermacora to continue, and if we can bring the volume down a bit in the chamber, that would be appreciated.

Jacinta ERMACORA: The current leader Jess Wilson is desperately trying to hold together a party room that includes deeply conservative MPs, who are anti abortion, who hold extremely concerning values about multicultural communities, as well as MPs who are small-l liberals and socially more progressive. We saw the abstentions when you shamefully voted against treaty. We saw it when Mrs Hermans was the only Liberal to vote for the petition on Guru Nanak Lake. We have seen it when you have been unable to talk to each other sometimes and even occasionally scowling at each other. After all of this instability, after years of leadership spills and internal warfare, the Victorian Liberal Party now asks Victorians to place their confidence in a team that can only form government in partnership with a third party. If Ms Wilson is serious about asking Victorians to trust her with government, she owes Victorians an honest answer: how does she intend to form government, based on the current numbers? The question before Victorians is not simply who leads the Liberal Party, it is about their culture and their default position on many issues. Not only do we want to know how they are prioritising the community –

David Davis: On a point of order, Acting President, I notice motion 1527 does not mention the Liberal Party. It mentions and talks about the Victorian Labor Party. As far as I can see, Ms Ermacora has devoted her entire contribution to a discussion of the Liberal Party. Actually this is about the governing party at the moment, which is the Labor Party in case you have lost track of it.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Thank you, Mr Davis, but it has been a very wideranging debate and I have been here for the duration of it. I ask Ms Ermacora to continue.

Jacinta ERMACORA: I come back to who is the third party that they might partner with. Pauline Hanson believes that workers are lazy and should be easier to sack and that childcare funding is out of control. What we can be sure of is that the state of Victoria under a Liberal government with One Nation will be meaner and less safe for women. Child care will be more expensive and families will struggle to pay for ordinary things. Pauline Hanson also believes that family violence is a two-way street, completely diminishing the power dynamic that research has shown causes violence against women. The Liberals have not spoken out against violent language against women. What we do know from all of this is that Victoria under the Liberals, Nats and One Nation will be a state where it will be okay to attack women with violent language, a state where workers will feel unsafe against being sacked. Victorians deserve to know –

Bev McArthur interjected.

Jacinta ERMACORA: I appreciate that you are trying to stop me because I have made a good point. Victorians deserve to know what deals might be struck, what compromises might be made and what price would be paid to secure the numbers to govern. It is breathtakingly hypocritical for the Liberal Party to raise this issue about leadership when their own is an absolute failure.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:43): There is a Neil Sedaka song that goes, ‘Oh! Carol, I am but a fool.’ Let me change it to ‘Oh! Carroll, Victoria you are making of fools.’ It goes on, and I am not going to wax lyrical because clearly I have thought about this for a long time, but it is just repeating in my head. There is another line that says, ‘You treat me cruel.’ I think what this government has done to the Victorian population for the last decade is absolutely cruel.

I want to start off with some commentary about my electorate, my dear electorate, the one that I love and live in. That is a novel thought for some on the other side of the chamber. When I first came in the government was hell-bent on closing down a coal-fired power station, the Hazelwood power station. There were recommendations to do a slow close, but the government came in and trebled the coal royalties and shut that power station down. Lo and behold, what happened at that time was they decided to sprinkle some money around and they started up the Latrobe Valley Authority. That was a huge and utter waste of time other than the initial funding for transferring some workers into Loy Yang A and B and Yallourn. I say this because at the time, 30 October 2018, the then Minister for Industry and Employment Mr Carroll and the Premier stood side by side in Morwell flagging the solution, flagging a great white hope down there in terms of an electric vehicle manufacturing plant.

They came down and they stood with hand on heart, ‘We care about the valley’ apparently. It was going to be a massive electric vehicle manufacturing plant in the Latrobe Valley, promising 500 local jobs and up to around 2000 electric vehicles annually; that is the bill we were sold. It was on the eve of the election, and Minister Carroll at the time promised us 5000 jobs. With the closure of Hazelwood power station, we had just lost straight, direct, full-time jobs, around 750 to 1000, and then you have to look at all those other complementary services. We lost those. He stood down there with hand on heart telling the people of the Latrobe Valley, ‘We’re going to create another 500 jobs.’ Let me find some quotes for you. This was in the Age, and there were other ones that were in the Latrobe Valley Express, our local paper. He said:

The auto sector is going to change more in the next five years than it has in the past 50, and this investment in 500 jobs building these SEA Electric vehicles, proven and tested already in Dandenong, are now going to be distributed and built right here in the Valley is wonderful news for the Valley.

He went on to say the Latrobe Valley and the state were:

… on the path to being the national leader in electrical vehicles.

On and on it goes. Well, guess what happened to electric vehicles in the Latrobe Valley, something that Mr Carroll had promised our region. Zip, nada, nothing – no jobs.

Let me go on. Steelvision was another one that he announced down in the valley, again as a placating measure and as hope during the closure for our wonderful power workers that we saw over many years. He promised Steelvision 55 new jobs, diversifying, and this left a trail of debt right across not only the valley for small businesses that had connected with Steelvision, potentially under this tag, under this investment potentially from the government under Mr Carroll. So when I hear in my head, ‘Oh! Carol, I have been but a fool’ – that is the commentary – well, Mr Carroll has been very cruel to the people in the Latrobe Valley by pushing that barrow and selling us a bill of goods that never came to fruition.

I wanted to put that on record because it seems there is such a lot of discussion about members of Parliament et cetera. But what this government has done in the last decade is not only impacting Victorians now, in this era, but will impact our children and our children’s children. Mr Carroll has been part of the architecture, part of the inner circle and part of the inner wheel that has seen a debt of $200 billion in the next forward estimates.

Bev McArthur interjected.

Melina BATH: It is eye-watering and difficult to get your head around. Well, let us see what it could have built in our region. It could have built the Wonthaggi Hospital. The Liberals and Nationals have promised stage 2 of the Wonthaggi Hospital. I was very much aware in the last election, in 2022, that we heard the good news from Labor that they were going to produce stages 2 and 3. Then what is there? They are so adept at it: ‘Oh, there’s planning.’ Then there is, ‘Oh, we’re looking into the dirt, the grass’ or whatever it is. And then there is just this elongated trail-off into the never-never land, the fantasy land of ‘We’re not getting it done.’ Then there is the West Gippsland Hospital. We promised in 2018, we promised in 2022 and we promised again only last week with Wayne Farnham, Jess Wilson and Danny O’Brien the West Gippsland Hospital. We have been sold a dud bill by this government. That is what some of the corrupt money on the Big Build project could have funded. Fifteen billion dollars – that is the one thing my Liberal colleagues and the Acting President, who is my National Party colleague, say when they go out into the regions, when they go out into their communities and into their local town halls. What do they say above everything? The number that is on everybody’s lips is the $15 billion that is gone and that was wasted on thugs, on criminals, on bikies and whatever else.

Richard Welch interjected.

Melina BATH: That was the one I missed: strippers. It was not an issue for the now Premier while he stood beside and behind the former Premier. Where was his punch? Where was his soul? Where was he saying he wants to actually fund these things in Gippsland or Eastern Victoria Region and he wants to do that work? No, he was just staying schtum because he was either controlled by the Premier or he did not have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and punch and say, ‘We need a royal commission.’ The Liberals and Nationals have called for that for months, and we would deliver that in November. Indeed it might be worth having a look at the terms of reference now that we see this potential royal commission to see if they are going to go soft in terms of the royal commission.

I just want to go to some other things that I think are important to put on record. It is no great sleight that, under the minister’s portfolio, he moved from not delivering jobs in the valley and into the education sphere. I spoke yesterday on this – to bungle VCE exams is abominable.

A member: Twice.

Melina BATH: To bungle it in consecutive years is shocking. There are families, children and schools who work so hard to do that, who work toward achieving their outcomes. But to bungle that – if you cannot get these sorts of things right. There are such a lot of people in the education sphere, so many of them are working hard. Why couldn’t he put processes in place? Whether it was lack of staff, whether it was pressure, whatever it was, it is the minister’s responsibility to get that right.

The other things he has not got right in my electorate, in Eastern Victoria Region: 19 of the state school buildings are rated as poor at last count, and there could be more because we are still yet to see the new condition report. Nineteen of them, and 26 are average. If you want to wonder where money from this $15 billion of corrupt money should go, then take a look at some of the schools in my electorate that could have their roofs fixed, their gutters cleaned and renewed and their carpets replaced. It does matter how you operate. It does matter the integrity. This Premier has been in the driver’s seat, in the car, in the bus for all that has existed in this state in the last decade, except in my electorate, where those electric vehicles did not exist and never will, because people promised things, like this Premier, and failed to deliver.

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:53): It is interesting the member from the Nationals talks about ‘her’ electorate. It is interesting that she probably has not visited 60 per cent of her electorate in her time, which is probably a grave mistake, given that the One Nation political party will be running candidates across the entire election. So yes, members of the Nationals would probably be wise to get out of their comfort zone and talk to voters across their entire electorate and would probably do well, when they talk about jobs, to get out of the way of jobs being delivered in the valley – the Delburn wind farm has 300 jobs and is under construction right now – rather than coming into this place with petitions. Although we know that is what they are good at, the LNP – petitions about what they are against, petitions about stopping a project under construction with line of sight to Hazelwood pit mine, line of sight to the transmission lines, line of sight to 200 megawatts of generation that will keep power prices down for this whole state. We know what the LNP are against, but we will never hear what they will do. We look at Marinus Link, we look at offshore wind, we look at these various projects. There was the announcement by the SEC two weeks ago with the long duration storage. These are real projects delivering power and delivering jobs, but of course it is beneath the Nationals and the Liberals to acknowledge them. In fact they oppose them.

It is very interesting we have this motion. Some of my colleagues here and I were actually trying to – I refrained from going to Google to try and remember all the leaders that the Liberals have had. By memory, we had Baillieu, we had Napthine, we had lobster with the mobster Guy, we had O’Brien, we had Guy, we had Pesutto – I actually forgot about Pesutto – we had Battin, and we have Wilson. So it is Baillieu, Napthine, Guy, O’Brien, Guy, Pesutto, Battin, Wilson, and not to mention Sam Groth, who is no longer there – the deputy leader decided to pack up and leave. And of course we had this chamber’s favourite. I have forgotten his name. Someone help me out here, who went to England?

Ingrid Stitt: Mr Bath.

Tom McINTOSH: Mr Bath. I have got Bath here, but I thought it did not sound right – Dr Bath. I said ‘mister’, not ‘doctor’. Dr Bath was in the leadership group, but he decided halfway through the term to pack up and go –

Melina Bath: I am Bath. It is not Bath.

Evan Mulholland: It is Bach.

Tom McINTOSH: Bach. Sorry. I knew something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He decided to pack up and go to the other side of the world.

The problem underpinning the Liberals and the Nationals is that there are no shared values. You do not know what you believe in. You have your leadership challenges, and each of you make 31 phone calls saying how toxic and how wrong everyone else in your party is. You drag each other down, and you are not focusing on improving the lives of Victorians. We are seeing this play out as a slow-motion car wreck with the federal Liberal–National parties. We are down to the famous electric Kombi van worth of federal Liberal members in Victoria. We are seeing it continue that Liberals are changing their leadership federally. I am terrible with names today. You had your leader that took over after the election. You had Dutton.

Richard Welch: On a point of order, Acting President, I appreciate it has been a wideranging debate, but we are now introducing the novel element of the federal Liberal government rather than the actual contents of the motion. I ask that the member be brought back to the motion.

Tom McINTOSH: You are absolutely right. I will come back to state politics.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Thank you, Mr Mcintosh, if you can.

Tom McINTOSH: Mrs Deeming is a great example of state politics, of Liberals unable to stay inside whatever on earth is going on over there. It is a great example of it. We know that this rabble of valueless Liberals will be led by One Nation. They have been drawn around by the nose this year. After years of dog whistling, after years of attacking minorities, after years of low, despicable politics you have now been caught out trying to chase the ground, and it is One Nation who are going to come in here and drag you by the nose to your policies. That is a real risk and a real threat to Victoria, and it cannot happen. That is the reality of the situation.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (15:58): I have got to first go back to Mr Batchelor, who kept quoting a Resolve poll, which actually, Mr Batchelor, showed that 30 per cent of respondents believed that the Labor government deserved re-election – only 30 per cent. You are in real trouble. Sonja Terpstra – that superstar – said we were an opposition of experts in complaining. Let me suggest that the government are experts in corruption – $15 billion worth. Backflip Ben stood side by side with the Premier absolutely defending everything that was going on. How can you possibly turn around and say this is a whole new start, a whole new era? It is anything but, because Backflip Ben was there at the kitchen table throughout the whole meal of disaster that this Labor government has put upon the whole of Victoria.

What did Ms Terpstra say? Something about that the Liberals will close hospitals and cut nurses. Let me tell you, as Ms Crozier said, it is the Liberals who have a plan to invest in health care and build new hospitals in Mildura, West Gippsland, Wonthaggi and Hamilton, not the Labor Party; it is the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party proposed the royal commission. You are now agreeing to it – thank you. We will devise policy for you. It is the Liberal Party who proposed extra resources to IBAC to follow the money. You are now agreeing to that too. There is nothing original about Backflip Ben. He is just totally adopting our very worthwhile policies. They are fabulous, and good on him for agreeing to them – that is all good. We know that Backflip Ben’s royal commission will be nothing better than the Coate inquiry: ‘I do not recall,’ ‘I don’t do emails’ –

Melina Bath interjected.

Bev McARTHUR: ‘Nothing to see here.’ That is what Backflip Ben’s royal commission will be like. Are they all prepared to face the music at Backflip Ben’s royal commission? I wonder.

Mr McIntosh just said the problem underpinning the Liberals and Nationals is that we have no values. There is absolutely no value-driven arrangement over there. All they want to do is kill the incentive of anybody that wants to get ahead in this state. There are 65 and counting new or increased taxes. This is the highest taxed state in the country, the state with the greatest debt in the country and the state with the greatest unemployment figures in the country. We have run up about $3 million in interest payments just while this debate has been going on, and they have the temerity to start criticising us. They have been in government for this entire period, and they have presided over total disaster. Now they have got rid of a woman. I do not know that even half of them know what a woman is; they can never define one. ‘We got rid of a woman. We’ve replaced her with the Deputy Premier who stood at her side.’ ‘I will not challenge you,’ he said, looking her in the eye, and he did, totally. He forced her to resign. Good on you, Backflip Ben. But the Victorian –

Lee Tarlamis: On a point of order, Acting President, Mrs McArthur should know by now to refer to members by their appropriate titles, so I would ask her to.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Mrs McArthur –

Bev McARTHUR: Thank you, Mr Tarlamis. I will make sure that Premier Carroll, Ben, does have a proper title. It will not be for long, though. After 28 November he will not have that title. The voter community will realise – they do already. They have had enough of you. That is why you have changed the leader all of a sudden, because you are hoping to change some of the deckchairs on the Titanic. You are going down with the ship. But look, we will do the right thing by the Victorian community. We have a plan, and there will be a fresh start for Victoria on 28 November.

Council divided on motion: