Wednesday, 29 July 2026

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (16:09): I move:

That this house does not possess confidence in the Victorian Labor Party to govern Victoria.

I have eagerly awaited this motion that this house does not possess confidence in the Victorian Labor Party to govern Victoria. What an absolutely shambolic week it has been. I look forward to yelling in this contribution as loudly as those opposite did upstairs yesterday, because we know the Victorian people have lost confidence in this government. The fact that they have lost confidence in this government is why the Labor Party went running scared, through delegations and briefings, to convince Ben Carroll to run for Premier – even though we know he had been planning it for some time, as mentioned by former Premier Steve Bracks today. It has been a shambolic week in state politics. I think we know that this government did not change leader because they wanted a new direction, they thought this government was too left wing or they had any sincere regrets about $200 billion of debt accumulating under this government. They did not have any sincere regrets about ploughing on with an unaffordable Suburban Rail Loop that is not going to cost under $34.5 billion, I hate to say. They did not change leaders because they genuinely believe there is criminal conduct on construction sites or they genuinely want to pursue the $15 billion that has been fleeced by the criminal underworld. They did it because they want to save their own seats. That is the only reason they changed leader. So they had to pick a leader to make sure that they had the image of a new government while getting up and spruiking all the same policies of the old government. Let us not forget, the Deputy Premier under Jacinta Allan was Ben Carroll. It indeed was the Allan–Carroll government. Ben Carroll was Jacinta Allan’s partner in crime, and if he had a different view, either he did not have the ticker to stand up to Jacinta Allan or he supported her positions 100 per cent all the way. Which one is it?

The new Premier, Ben Carroll, has also said integrity is not optional. What are we meant to believe after Ben Carroll’s comments? We are meant to believe that integrity was optional for the previous decade in which this Premier served as a cabinet minister and Deputy Premier. A government, which was propped up by all of those opposite, had integrity as an optionality – something that was optional, something that they did not really need to tackle. I have stood here in this chamber when we had the entire chamber’s support for IBAC follow-the-money bills, except those opposite, who argued against them. Mr Davis successfully moved a motion calling for a royal commission into Big Build corruption. Those opposite voted against it. They did. They all argued against it. Now, all of a sudden, not because of polling, we are meant to believe that this Premier is serious about tackling Big Build corruption – the same person that was spotted at and hosted a fundraiser with the CFMEU and Tim Pallas a week before the 2022 election. That same Premier, that same Ben Carroll, is all of a sudden serious about tackling union corruption. I mean, seriously!

This is a divided, dishonest and distracted government. Victorians do not want Jacinta Allan’s partner in crime as their Premier. They want a fresh start, and they will get a fresh start on 28 November with Jess Wilson and the Liberals and Nationals team. Real change requires a plan, and only the Liberals and Nationals have the plan to turn our state around to make Victoria the place that it used to be, the place that attracts investment into the state, where we can lower payroll tax and land tax and where we can make disciplined decisions to turn our state around. We can have a 25 per cent regional infrastructure guarantee to make sure we are spending a minimum 25 per cent on infrastructure in our regions, which have been starved of infrastructure by a government that is spending one-fifth of the entire infrastructure budget, including schools and hospitals, over the next four years on the Suburban Rail Loop East, the Cheltenham-to-Box Hill line. I mean, seriously, almost $16 billion over the next four years will be spent by this government on the Suburban Rail Loop East. It is an insane amount of money.

Maybe the new Premier will finally proceed with Labor preselections on that side. He might actually conclude the Southern Metro preselection. He might actually handball people to Mill Park. He might handball Mr Batchelor to Mill Park. He will have to get up Google Maps – ‘Where is Mill Park? What are the stables called? Is that a regional area? I don’t know.’ And he might actually conclude the Northern Metro preselection, because I hear Mr Erdogan, having undermined Jacinta Allan for quite a while, is on his way to number one. He might have to conclude that preselection as well and apparently have two fresh candidates in the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region on the Labor side too.

You can see that this is a divided, dishonest and distracted government. We only saw six weeks ago the then Deputy Premier look the Premier in the eye and rule out challenging her for the leadership. He said:

I’ve got a young daughter at home, and I couldn’t be more proud to make sure she grows up knowing that I supported Jacinta Allan …

Then he said the circumstances had changed. And then former Premier Steve Bracks belled the cat this morning on ABC News and said Ben Carroll has been preparing for this ‘for some time’. So when he looked the Premier in the eye and when he looked down the barrel of the camera and made a promise to his daughter, he was lying. He was in fact preparing for it for some time. If you cannot trust this Premier to keep a promise to his own daughter, how on earth is he going to stand up for Victorians? How on earth is he going to solve the issues in terms of roads, in terms of land tax, in terms of ambulance ramping and in terms of our hospital failures, our elective surgery waitlist, infrastructure being starved in our growth areas of Melbourne, a cost-of-living crisis and a crime crisis when he cannot be trusted to look the former Premier in the eye, to keep that commitment, and keep a commitment he made to his daughter?

I mean, seriously, this is the guy that was the Deputy Premier to Jacinta Allan and over and over again refused to call a royal commission or even advocate for one. He said, in that chamber over there, it would take too much time and it would cost too much. That was his line over and over again. And now we are suddenly meant to believe that he has always believed in a royal commission. He only believes in one because it is politically convenient. That is the only reason he has now got a sudden interest in integrity, because Labor members – the ones that were being called out doorknocking – were being called corrupt. Well, I think that is fair enough, because the punters know what we know, which is that in both chambers you have all voted against action on corruption on construction sites here in this state. I think that is a pretty reasonable comment by the punters answering doors to their Labor MPs, to be honest. And the evidence backs it up: you consistently had all of those members opposite refuse to call a royal commission. We had, on 17 June this year, Ms Ermacora get up and say:

Australia already had a royal commission – two years, $46 million, one conviction. Ours is the approach that is actually working.

Does Ms Ermacora think that the approach is still working or that a royal commission is not needed? Is that still the view of Ms Ermacora? Would she still get up and repeat the same talking points from Jacinta Allan’s office? That was her comment in Hansard. Mr Batchelor said a similar thing on 18 March this year:

The appropriate body to deal with allegations of criminal activity in the state of Victoria is Victoria Police.

He consistently argued against the need for a royal commission. And of course we had the absurd claim by Ms Symes today that this complements all the work they are doing, despite the fact that she consistently opposed one. Mr Welch would remember earlier this year in response to a question that he asked, she said:

Mr Welch, there are many reasons that you might want to have a royal commission, and this government have demonstrated our commitment into matters such as family violence, matters such as mental health. In relation to these matters, we take them very seriously, and that is why we have acted …

and that we do not need one into union corruption. $15 billion has been fleeced by criminals and the underworld via the CFMEU, but do not worry, Mr Welch, we do not need one. We do not need one, according to Ms Symes – the absurdity of the soon-to-be-former Treasurer to say that it complements the existing action that we are taking. We know from Labor government sources in the Age that every single step that she took was to avoid a royal commission, including a so-called police taskforce that had passed through cabinet that she released a statement about the other day because she did not want to actually hold a press conference, understandably. But we saw consistent government members, including Minister Stitt on 2 June this year, reject the need for a royal commission and say that the police were the appropriate authorities – all the action they were taking. The Wilson review, remember that, the wet lettuce review? They had to go back to the drawing board and ask John Merritt to do another review because the Wilson review was set up in a way by Jacinta Allan to not look into anything – to look completely into the future about what we might need to do, not at the reasons why $15 billion has been fleeced from taxpayers.

Seriously, this state is in a state of absolute despair, and it is only Jess Wilson and the Liberals and Nationals that can turn this state around. I have no confidence in a Premier who as minister stuffed up VCE exams not once but twice. If he cannot get VCE exams right, there is no way he can run this state. We have those opposite talking about different parties, talking about One Nation, when it was actually one of their friend’s polling companies, Redbridge, whose multilevel regression with poststratification that was commissioned by Trades Hall showed that Labor is projected to lose more seats to One Nation than the Liberal Party or the National Party will lose to One Nation. Isn’t that funny? They yell across the chamber at us about how we are going to lose – Ms Terpstra in particular, oh my goodness – all these seats to One Nation when in fact the data shows it is the Labor Party that are going to lose more seats to One Nation than anyone else. I will tell you what, some of those members, like Minister Suleyman and others in the western suburbs that are under threat from One Nation, will not be missed. They will not be missed, because they have absolutely neglected their communities. Again, it is the Labor Party that are likely to lose the most seats.

What I am really looking forward to is Victorians telling this government that a new coat of paint is not going to fix the problems. What Victorians want is our plan to deliver for all Victorians. They want a fresh start. I was privileged, and so were all of my colleagues, to join the Leader of the Opposition Jess Wilson on a 36-day tour of all 88 electorates. I can tell you, you will not see Jacinta Allan or Ben Carroll walk down a main street of a local town. You will see Jess Wilson do it. Do you know why? Because she can do it. She had people running across the street, not waiting for pedestrian signals, to walk up to her, shake her hand, tell her what they thought and tell her their issues. Our plan to turn this state around is informed by each and every Victorian. They want a plan, a 10-year economic plan, to turn this state around, because whether it is $200 billion of debt, which is more debt than Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania combined; whether it is $15 billion worth of corruption and all the corruption we have seen on the Big Build; whether it is elective surgery waitlists at record levels and people not being able to get the health care that they deserve; whether it is fixing our roads and the state of our roads, Victorians know they can only fix those issues with a fresh start, with Jess Wilson at the helm and Danny O’Brien at the helm to actually deliver for Victorians, because we know this government will not.

As much as this government are now trying to say they are not Jacinta Allan and they are not Daniel Andrews, who propped up Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews? All those opposite and all those opposite in the Legislative Assembly. They supported them. They were part of their governments. They were ministers in their governments. He was the Deputy Premier of the Allan government that supposedly caused all the issues, where supposedly integrity was optional. What the Premier is saying is that under their government, up until yesterday apparently, integrity was optional. You have got to be kidding me. And supposedly, according to the briefing in the paper, they say that Mr Carroll will save the furniture. Well, you might be seeing a lot of them down at the op shop after the election looking for new furniture, because this is not a change of government; a real change of government comes on 28 November. This is an opportunity to say – and I implore my crossbench colleagues to say, because it is a very simple motion:

That this house does not possess confidence in the Victorian Labor Party to govern Victoria.

I know Mr Ettershank and I have shared a lot of views about how neglectful the government is, particularly in the western suburbs of Melbourne. I think a lot of people in the western suburbs of Melbourne, from Sunbury to Kororoit to Mount Atkinson to Werribee, would agree that they have no confidence in this government. In fact I was out with Nathalie Moussi, our fantastic Liberal candidate for Sydenham, and speaking to local constituents, who also said they have no confidence in this government. Indeed we spoke to people that had voted for the Labor Party for 50 years who said they were going to vote for the Liberal Party because they needed to see the end of this government, because their land tax bills had increased or they spent so much time in traffic every day that it was becoming too hard and actually becoming a huge cost-of-living issue as well.

This is a motion that can be supported by, I think, all of my crossbench colleagues, because it really is a simple motion that we do have no confidence in the Victorian Labor Party to govern Victoria. They clearly cannot govern themselves. And the way we have seen them act in the past few days has been absolutely deplorable. Many of them should be ashamed of their actions, and none more ashamed than the new Premier Ben Carroll, who only six weeks ago looked the former Premier Jacinta Allan in the eye and ruled out challenging her for the leadership and then made a promise to his own daughter that he would not challenge, only for the circumstances to have changed and only for former Premier Steve Bracks to bell the cat this morning and say that he had been planning for this for some time. What an absolute disgrace, an absolute shame on this Premier to have lied and broken a promise, and so therefore he cannot stand up for Victorians.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:29): I feel that the Liberal Party is having a bad day today. They are having a bad day, because the contribution from Mr Mulholland just now reminded me – and I apologise if this shows my age – of watching Looney Tunes cartoons when I was a kid. You would see Foghorn Leghorn strolling through the farm, you know, very confident, chest puffed up, and then he would walk across a rake – he would step on it – and it would whack him in the face. I felt that Mr Mulholland, time and time again in that contribution, just kept stepping on rakes, and they kept whacking him in the face and making him look a little silly. I will not go through all of them again now, because I think that is a little cruel, but I think it shows that the Liberal Party are concerned about what is going on, because they know that under Ben Carroll and Gabrielle Williams, the new Premier and Deputy Premier, Labor has set a new direction, and they are scared. They do not know what to do.

They have just come from their fresh dawn, was it? ‘False dawn’, ‘fresh start’ – I do not know what the tour was called. They had Jess Wilson, the Leader of the Opposition, parading around the countryside, spending 10 minutes in an electorate grabbing a cup of coffee and saying that that is somehow evidence that she is on a grand coronation tour. What they have done, both in this motion and in the motion that precedes it, is demonstrate that they do not actually have any ideas and plans for Victoria’s future other than to sneak into government on the back of a deal with One Nation and have the Liberal and One Nation government cut services right across the state, because that is what is coming. We know that the Liberal Party’s primary vote has dropped by 12 points in six months and that the only hope that they have got of falling over the line to form government after 28 November is to say they are going to do it in partnership with One Nation.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Mr Mulholland mentions Newspoll. Mate, your numbers are down in Newspoll too. I am not going to listen to lectures from the opposition about a direction for this state, when the only direction they seem to be going in is down, and when they get there they are going to be trying to scramble back up again with the support of One Nation. We know that what that means for Victorians is cuts to health services, cuts to ambulances, cuts to the fire services – again – closing more schools and cuts to transport. That is the future that awaits under a Liberal–One Nation government.

Instead, what you are seeing from Labor, with the new direction from Labor under Ben Carroll and Gabrielle Williams, is a government that is absolutely focused on the needs of Victorians and making sure that the education and health services that they rely on are being delivered and that there is cost-of-living support where we can provide it – and that is very clear because it is cheaper to use the train this year than it was last year. And our 20 per cent off rego – get in before the end of the week. That is Labor providing cost-of-living support, and we are also doing what we need to do to tackle crime and ensure community safety. That is what you are seeing from Labor. And we have said, absolutely, that integrity is not optional. That is why the new Premier, in his first act, is going to set up a royal commission into the construction sector, appoint a special prosecutor and make sure that the legislation that is required to give IBAC follow-the-money powers is brought properly before the Parliament.

I just want to spend a couple of minutes – just in case. This motion talks about this house not possessing confidence in the government, and I think this has been deliberately worded because I think they thought that, if it passed here, they might be able to go out on social media – and I say ‘if it passed’, and I will come to the concerns we have got with that in a minute – and somehow misrepresent, claim, that the Parliament had suddenly passed a motion of no confidence in the government. It is disingenuous, misleading and wrong, because we know that upper houses cannot pass motions of no confidence in governments in the Westminster system. That is a matter that is solely reserved for lower houses, where confidence in governments is made and lost. They tried this stunt in the lower house – their one shot in the lower house, the house where confidence matters. The lower house showed it had confidence in the Victorian Labor government. That has been the tradition of the Westminster system since the House of Commons was created. If the Liberal Party are trying some kind of stunt here to undermine Westminster conventions and undermine our parliamentary democracy, then I think they should take a good, hard look at themselves, because we know that confidence motions in their proper sense, in their technical sense and where they matter solely reside in the lower house. This motion could say anything and it would have the same effect.

What we are seeing, I think, from the Liberal Party today is a real concern. They thought they were going to cruise from here. They thought that, having a Labor government that has won three terms, all they needed to do was turn up and print a glossy brochure and they would be home and hosed – wave it around a bit, even. They thought that was their solution – that that was all they needed to do.

Michael Galea interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: At least they have got a glossy brochure; that is right. They have got a glossy brochure. The sum total of their crowning achievement is that they have managed to find a printer with high-GSM paper stock and get it printed really well. Well, it needs a bit more than that to convince the Victorian people you are ready to govern and to convince the Victorian people that you have got the plan that they need for the future, because this election is about a choice. It is about a choice between a Labor government that is delivering and has been delivering the services that Victorians need and rely on – and it will continue to do so – or a Liberal and One Nation government that is going to cut those services right back, because that is at the core of the glossy brochure that they are floating around, the core of the glossy brochure that they like to cling to like a life raft from the Titanic. They are clinging to a glossy brochure that at its very core has a commitment to cut services in Victoria, because their economic plan is based on $40 billion worth of cuts.

When they talk about getting the cash surplus that they are claiming they are aiming for, the only way to achieve that is with cuts to services – cuts to education services, cuts to health services, cuts to community safety programs. We know they are going to make them because they promised to make those cuts. They have promised to swing the axe. They have promised to take the knife. Victorians believe them because they have done it before. The Liberals are the party that closes schools. The Liberals are the party that closes hospitals. The Liberals are the party that shuts down rail lines. The Liberals are the party that cuts funding to the CFA again and again and again. That is exactly what they do. The glossy brochure they are waving around is the same playbook they used last time and the same playbook they used the time before that. Liberals and One Nation are going to cut services here in Victoria.

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (16:40): It does not actually give me much pleasure to rise to speak on this motion today. Of all the issues we could be debating in this place, this is what we choose – not the issues that actually matter to everyday Victorians, just another day of politicians talking about themselves. We have had a whole week so far of navel-gazing and battles for internal power within the Labor Party, and the Liberals in their wisdom, instead of using this opportunity to propose an alternative positive vision, have just joined in the pile-on. No wonder people are losing faith in governments. They have had enough of this garbage. I have sat in here all day, and all there has been is yelling at each other, pot shots, polling this, polling that. Honestly, what have we been elected to do in this place? Get things done, not have petty political fights. People are out there working harder and harder, yet it is only getting harder for them to get by. People cannot afford a roof over their heads. They are struggling to pay rent, let alone buy a home. Thousands upon thousands of people are homeless, and the number of people experiencing homelessness is only growing. People cannot afford to put food on the table. They are choosing between paying for medication and paying their bills. Parents are going without dinner so their kids can eat. Public schools are being held together by gaffer tape and goodwill. Our climate and our ecosystems are collapsing.

Meanwhile the people elected to this place, who could actually be making changes to improve Victorians lives, are instead trading political blows to see who can get the best sound bite. This motion will not do anything for them. It will not fix the broken housing system. It will not make health care more affordable. It will not help people with their grocery bills. It will not address corruption or strengthen our integrity systems. It will not restore nature. It will not protect us from the worst of climate change. It will not change the government. This self-indulgent game is exactly why people have lost faith in the major parties and politics more broadly. It is the people who have lost confidence, because they have stopped believing it can deliver anything for them anymore. I can understand that. Every time Labor say they cannot afford something, look no further than their priorities. They are more interested in protecting corporate and industry mates and their own power than the community. People see their taxpayer funds funnelled into propping up vested interests or allegedly going into organised crime without anyone raising an eyebrow but then are told there is not a cent to spare to make sure that they can take their kids to maternal and child health appointments and actually be seen, have air conditioning in their schools or have functioning bus and train services to get them to their jobs. It is a pretty hard pill for people to swallow.

The government’s failure to deal with corruption allegations has rightly infuriated people, with allegedly $15 billion of public money lost, while people cannot afford to put a roof over their heads and are languishing on public dental waiting lists for years and Labor deny, deny, deny, try to discredit anyone who questions them and lash out and blame everyone but themselves. People are actually very willing to forgive a mistake, but the failure to take responsibility for this for so long or countless other problems over the years has left a stench of corruption and incompetence on the government themselves. People expect more from a Labor government, one supposed to be on the side of workers and public services. Instead what do they see? Privatisation, corporate handouts, tax concessions for the wealthy, housing being made a commodity instead of a human right and public services framed as a cost rather than an investment. Whether it is Jacinta Allan or Ben Carroll makes very little difference. Let us not forget Mr Carroll has been right there by the former Premier’s side for years. This is a mess of their collective making. People just see a tired Labor government that will do and say anything to stay in power. After being in government for 20 of the past 24 years, people have had enough. They are angry, and rightly so.

The Liberal Party are just as much to blame for this anger. They are part of the same system and would only double down on many of the things that have led people to be so disillusioned. A Liberal government – and based on current polling it would need to be a Liberal–One Nation government – would take this state even further down the path of ruin, with more cuts to public services, cuts to workers wages, more privatisation, more corporate handouts, more culture wars, more racism, worsening of the climate crisis, trashing of our environment and a further expansion of the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The problems that are crushing people right now would only get worse. The fact that they have decided to use one of their handful of remaining debate spots this year on this motion says it all really – no solutions, just pointless pot shots.

Why aren’t you all in here asking what we can do to make people’s lives better? Surely that is what our job is. As my colleague in the other place Ellen Sandell noted, the most disappointing thing about this whole situation is that this term this Labor government had so much political capital, so much potential to enact significant progressive reform. They had a huge majority in the Assembly and a progressive majority in this place. The Greens have stood ready and willing to make big changes, like making housing a human right and genuinely tackling the housing crisis with rent caps and a massive public housing program; like ending fossil fuel projects and radically reforming our protection of forests and nature; like making our public schools and teachers the best funded in the country; like tackling gambling harm – genuinely tackling gambling harm; like investing in young people and supporting families to prevent kids ending up in the justice system; like drug law reform that promotes harm reduction instead of punishment; like making sure the banks, the gambling industry, the fossil fuel corporations and the property developers pay their fair share.

They did not even use the opportunity they so clearly had to meaningfully respond to mounting corruption allegations by strengthening our integrity agencies, including IBAC. I sat last year in discussions with the government, who were unsuccessfully trying to talk us out of supporting a royal commission motion. We explained that their way out of this was to reform IBAC to give it the powers it needs to meaningfully investigate corruption immediately. That was the suggestion we made: do this. We would not need a royal commission if they went out and did that. But it was not just us; this whole Parliament stood ready to pass legislation to do that. This was a long time ago, not right now. It was a long time ago, but we stood ready to do that. I do not think there is a single issue that has unified us across party lines as much as this one. But they could not even do that. They were too focused inwards, so focused on their personal power that they were not listening to the community. They were not prepared to take responsibility as Victorians rightly expected them to do. And the cost? The cost of this inaction, the cost of not listening, has not been just the taxpayer money – I know we have talked a lot about the $15 billion – but it is something far more insidious. It is a further erosion of people’s faith in government and democracy. What a legacy.

The historic treaty that passed this Parliament showed what is possible when we work together. But so much potential for transformational change for Victorians has been wasted this term. It is like Labor have spent so long trying to stay in power that they have forgotten what power is actually for. People deserve better. They deserve to have the things you need to live a decent life: safe and secure housing, food on the table, access to health and dental care, protection from discrimination, a proper public transport system, quality public schools, a job that pays a decent wage, clean air and water, a thriving natural environment, public funding going towards public goods and a future to look forward to. They deserve governments that can be trusted to put the interests of everyday people and the planet at the heart of their decisions. That is what the Greens are fighting for, and it is what the major parties should be fighting for too.

We will deliberately be sitting out this vote today, not because we have confidence – we do not. Like the people of Victoria, we have lost confidence, but we have lost confidence in both major parties to do anything to fix the problems that they are facing, and this motion does not do a thing to help them. Victorians expect better, and they deserve better.

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:49): I also rise this afternoon to speak on my colleague Mr Mulholland’s motion:

That this house does not possess confidence in the Victorian Labor Party to govern Victoria.

If we could go to the polls today, it would allow Victorians to make a change. I think it is incredibly important that Victorians remember that it does not matter whether they do a swap over in their leadership. We are not talking about a swap over of somebody in opposition, we are talking about the Premier – this is the third Premier that we have had in 3½ years of this government. This is a government that is in total chaos. It cannot govern Victoria. The reality is that they are all over the shop, because we all know there is at least $15 billion of corruption that they do not want to have investigated, that they are not prepared to be transparent about. We constantly see that there are issues here.

We are talking about this new leader Ben Carroll. He was all about integrity and talked about integrity, but let us have a look at his record so far after just over 24 hours in office. I will just take 2 hours of his time and look at it. At 8 o’clock in the morning the Premier announced support for workplace protection orders, but by 10:11 am this same new Premier voted against laws to introduce workplace protection orders in Parliament. Within 2 hours and 11 minutes he had changed his position. This is not a person with integrity. This is not a person who is consistent. This is not a person who we can trust to govern Victoria.

Let us have a look at his most recent portfolio of education. We have had the biggest strike in Victorian history – 35,000 educational teachers through the union in Victoria. He has not been able to nail down a fair deal. We have the worst paid teachers in the nation. We have schools that have not received their funding – constantly promising and not delivering, pushing out the date when you are going to actually do something. All these big election promises, all this big talk in the budget, and yet you do not deliver. This is the guy who is now leading the state. He cannot even sort out a fair deal for the teachers, and he is now thinking he is going to lead the state.

Let us have a look at how he has spent the money. The Metro Tunnel – the original estimate was approximately $11 billion, then it went to $13.5 billion. That is an increase of $2.5 billion. That is pathetic. West Gate Tunnel – $5.5 billion original estimate. The current estimate turned out to be $10 billion, an approximately $4 billion to $5 billion increase. Suburban Rail Loop – approximately $26 billion in the east, and it is now currently estimated at $34.5 billion. That is an increase of $8 billion. The list goes on and on and on. This is a government that is failing Victorians. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. You can change the face of your leader, but it does not change the type of government you are. This is a man that stood by the Premier as the deputy and did nothing, with $15 billion of corruption from the CFMEU and the criminal money that they are not even prepared to have a royal commission on, because they do not want to see what will be uncovered with that.

Michael Galea interjected.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: Well, it will be a controlled one. It will not be the sort of commission that the Liberal Party would have.

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, Mrs Hermans is perfectly entitled to read whatever drivel she wants into the chamber, but she is not entitled to misrepresent the facts and speak untruths.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): There is no point of order.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: Let us take state debt. Victoria’s net debt has risen significantly over the past decade under this Labor government. We know that we have record borrowing, we have growing interest repayments and we have less money available for hospitals, for schools, for police. We know that in Victoria, in terms of our school funding, it promised a 75 per cent of school resource standard funding and it has delayed reaching that. It delays billions of dollars in government funding for government schools, and it is affecting how teachers teach in the classroom and how learning support supports students. It is affecting the ability of students to learn.

Let us take health. Emergency department waiting times are ridiculously off the charts. Ms Crozier, my colleague, was only just today in question time asking about why it is happening, with no response, no integrity from this government, no transparency and no answers, with an elderly lady lying on a concrete floor for 2½ hours waiting for an ambulance. What is wrong with this state? We still have ambulance ramping, and they have known about it for a long time. We still have elective surgery delays. We still have workforce shortages. We still have in fact an increasing cost-of-living crisis, higher taxes under a Labor government, more taxes under a Labor government. It is all about taxing people. They cannot help but want to grab hold of every Victorian’s money and make every Victorian poorer by the minute. It needs to stop – rising electricity prices, increasing insurance costs, payroll tax increases, property tax increases, crime soaring through the roof, repeat offending. I thought 52 was a lot of times to be on bail and go out and keep doing criminal activity, but I now have heard of over 400 times of being on bail and going out and reoffending – over 400 times from one offender. That is outrageous. This government is out of control, and it does not matter who leads it. They just need to go, and Victorians need to not vote for them in November, because I can say that we have a plan and we know how to get Victorians back on track. Let me just give some –

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, I am going to assume from the fact that she glanced across at me that Mrs Hermans knows full well that she is using a prop, and I would ask her to desist.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): Mr Galea, I will make a ruling on the point of order. There is no point of order, and I ask Mrs Hermans to continue on but not to wave that document around any further.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: I am using it for notes. We have a plan to keep Victorians safe, to reduce the crime. We will deliver and pursue that $15 billion without keeping tight regulations on it or having people watch over it to make sure the truth is not completely transparent with the public. We will make sure that we stop that $1 billion that is going into a divisive treaty. We will end wasteful spending, like the $13 million that you spent on machete bins that did not do a single thing or $600 million to not host a Commonwealth Games. We will make sure that we save $22 billion by stopping the hiring of more and more back-office bureaucrats, and we will identify and fix infrastructure cost blowouts. These are just some of the things that we are going to do, because we have a plan and we want a fresh start, and we know every Victorian out there does too.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:58): I am not sure if we can be filled with much great confidence following that incoherent ramble. I am not quite sure what the phrase ‘truth is not completely transparent with the public’ means, but I am sure we can clarify further in debate. I do not agree with everything Dr Mansfield said, but I do agree with the first thing that she said. This is a ridiculous use of the Parliament’s time. Earlier today, in the first version of the two volumes of these silly motions that we have been debating, Mrs McArthur commented on Labor MPs spending – not the parliamentary time, to be fair; caucus time, separate time – 2 hours with each other, talking to each other, negotiating, resolving and coming to finally unanimously endorse the new leader and the new Premier.

Lee Tarlamis interjected.

Michael GALEA: That is probably every caucus meeting for them, I am sure, Mr Tarlamis, every week. Two hours – we have now spent more than 2 hours on these motions brought by the Liberal Party that achieve absolutely nothing for the Victorian people. They are not coming in here talking about hospitals or about schools.

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Michael GALEA: Well, it is not in your motion, so I do not know if you are reading the right motion, Mrs Hermans. But they have come in here talking about themselves and the Labor Party. They are blatantly political motions, which they are entitled to do, but they are taking up 3 hours of this chamber’s time, of this Parliament’s time, talking not about cost-of-living relief or what the Labor government has done and maybe coming up with their own ideas or solutions or challenging us on what we can do better, not about schools, not about education, not about transport, not about any of the things that matter to Victorians. That is 3-plus hours of navel-gazing and talking about politics, and that is exactly what Victorians have come to expect from the Victorian Liberal Party.

They also quite clearly, from their own chaotic past few years – six leaders in seven years, and they are probably a few months overdue now for their next leadership spill over there – cannot comprehend 69 members of our party walking into a party room, having a conversation, a robust conversation, and 69 party members walking out united, having unanimously backed our new leader, being united and returning to focus on what truly matters, and that is the Victorian people. They could not even achieve that themselves yesterday. On a day when all the attention was on our side, they could not even go through their own partyroom meeting without losing one of their own members. You are missing a member from this place. You have 13 members here today; you had 14 last sitting week – how many more are left to go?

Mrs Hermans, I know you are very excited about the prospect of joining a Liberal–One Nation coalition government. I am not quite sure if you intend to join that on the side of the Liberal Party or on the One Nation side, but maybe we will see. Maybe you wish to –

Ann-Marie Hermans: On a point of order, Acting President, I take great offence at the member having a personal attack on me. I did not deserve any of that, and it certainly is not appropriate for him to be speculating or to be putting words into my situation. It is completely inappropriate and offensive, and I would actually ask for an apology.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (John Berger): There is no point of order.

Michael GALEA: I appreciate your ruling, but in the spirit of goodwill, I do apologise to Mrs Hermans. This should not be personal, because this should not be about us. This should not be about us in this place – about us, about you guys; it should be about the Victorian people, and that is exactly the point. Mrs McArthur complaining about 2 hours that Labor MPs spent of their own time in a Labor caucus meeting, when we have spent already that much time in this chamber talking about these ridiculous motions, is underscoring why Victorians see the Liberal Party as completely irrelevant. Yes, you can try and go for the coronation tour. You can take your leader on His Majesty’s most loyal opposition’s coronation tour, handing out doilies and teaspoons to all Victorians in all corners of the state. With previous speakers – I do not typically talk about polls in this place, but members opposite have been gloating about polling results. Well, they have suffered a 12-point primary drop in the last six months. You are completely tone deaf.

We will contest this election. We will have many of these debates out on the hustings. But when you have had the opportunity to come into this place to seek to make change, you have just come in with the same old motions that you have been doing for years. Clearly you are deflated as anything, because it seems from half of your speeches that you wrote them several weeks ago, because you have not even factored in – someone even said before, ‘We’re not in support of a royal commission.’ I refer them to the announcement made by Premier Ben Carroll just yesterday that we will be bringing in a royal commission. They have gone on now to change their tune. They have gone on to attack the royal commission that we have announced, because they said, ‘Oh, it’s not good. It’s not going to be good enough.’ You have not even read the terms of reference. You have given the game away now, so no-one can take your word on this seriously, but had you actually waited to see the terms of reference come into this place and said, ‘This is a problem because you’re not addressing this, this and this,’ that would be fair enough. That is a legitimate point. But you have said, ‘This is not good enough,’ without even seeing it. It is blatantly cheap politics, and you know it. You know it, but you have jumped the gun. You are discombobulated. You thought you had a clear campaign strategy; that has been taken away from you, and you are deflated as anything. You are deflated as anything, and you come into this place and now, having called for a royal commission for months, say, ‘Oh no, no, no, no, not like this.’ It goes to, again, unprepared, unprofessional and not ready for government. I am sorry to say that no number of glossy brochures you bring into this place is going to change that.

John Berger interjected.

Michael GALEA: No amount of comics, no glossy brochures. We could have been talking about education. We could have been talking indeed about how Victoria now has the strongest NAPLAN results both in our state’s history and anywhere across the nation. We could be talking about the hundreds of new schools that we are building and upgrading across Victoria, with more than 100 new schools already built. We could be talking about the teachers’ pay deal. We could be talking about how we are trying to offer our teachers in this state the best pay and conditions in the country, which they rightly deserve. Or we could be talking about health. We could be talking about ambulances. We could be talking about the virtual ED or about new hospitals and upgraded hospitals. We could be talking about upgraded bus services such as the ones recently announced by the now Deputy Premier Minister Williams in the south-east suburbs, including around Casey, around Dandenong, around Kingston and around Carrum Downs. We could be talking about the issue that we know is troubling Victorians the most, and that is the cost of living. That includes initiatives that we have already done, such as the period of free public transport and half-price fares till the end of the year, 20 per cent off regos for all Victorian households and all the other measures that we are doing, including the midday power saver. These are the things that we could be talking about; instead we have a motion, a one-line motion that this house does not possess confidence. Again, to Mr Batchelor’s points, this is not the Legislative Assembly. I would expect those who proclaim to hold Westminster traditions so dear to know that the upper house is not the place where you debate motions of confidence. I am sure they do, and I am sure that if by some miracle for them they do happen to succeed in this motion they will go out and say, ‘The Parliament has passed a no-confidence motion,’ and then they may even get some members of the public to think, ‘Oh, okay. What does that mean?’ And then what will they say? Nothing? Clearly nothing. They are not interested.

John Berger interjected.

Michael GALEA: Where is everyone? Because this is a motion that achieves nothing. It is a motion that even if it is successful will achieve nothing and is frankly irrelevant. That is sadly the state of the Victorian Liberal Party today. But at least they have got a glossy brochure.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:08): I do not want my comments on this motion to be seen as in any way endorsing the Liberal Party – the opposition – or as having confidence in them to govern. Nonetheless, and I will get to why in a moment, I am very concerned about the Labor Party also. Victorians have been presented with a choice: we have the fresh start and the new direction. I mean, it sounds like a choice between a produce section in a supermarket and a 1980s T and A film. But anyway, let me get started on why I do not have confidence in Labor. I will start by talking about something that no-one is talking about, and that is: why aren’t we watching the Commonwealth Games at the moment? Why doesn’t Federation Square celebrate our athletes that are competing at the moment? Sam Williamson from Mount Waverley just won three gold medals in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke, the men’s 50-metre breaststroke and the mixed four-by-100-metres relay. In athletics, Eleanor Patterson from Leongatha won the women’s high jump – a gold. In gymnastics, Breanna Scott won two golds in the women’s artistic gymnastics and women’s balance beam finals and silver in the women’s all-around final. In my own electorate of South-East Metro – actually, this man’s family contacted my office – Danny Vojnikovic, and I apologise if I mispronounced that, is going to compete this Saturday in the men’s under 90-kilogram division of judo. I have got a picture of him here. I am not allowed to show it because it would be a prop, but he is a big guy, and I am really hoping that he does well on Saturday. I will be barracking for him, and I hope he gets a gold for South-East Metro.

Labor, the government, are not talking about the Commonwealth Games at all because they are ashamed of what they did. They set up a scam at the last election. They went into the last election promising that we would have a Commonwealth Games all over regional Victoria – that they would do this thing that has never been done before and will probably never actually happen, where we would need five times the amount of logistics, five times the amount of security, five times the amount of everything in order to host it, which of course meant it was never going to happen. They based the business case on the Gold Coast games, which was set in a single location – a totally inappropriate base for the business case. The consultants that did it were smart enough to mention that in their business case, which took us a long time to get our hands on, but we did eventually. The business case was never actually appropriate, but they went to the election with that. Then after the election, it was like, ‘Oops, sorry, that was never going to actually happen. Sorry guys.’ They knocked it on the head. I supported knocking it on the head because it was going to be an enormous cost in the end. They wasted $589 million of Victorians’ money. A few hundred million of that ended up going to Glasgow through a roundabout route and is funding the Glasgow games at the moment. I do not think Victorian taxpayers even got a free ticket, did they? I do not know. They could have given us a few free tickets at least, but we did not even get that. We did not get any free tickets, and so we had this situation where Victorians got scammed – the absolute shame of doing that. This is why no-one is celebrating what is happening in the Commonwealth Games at the moment, even though Victoria is doing very well. I really hope that Danny from South-East Metro wins the judo on Saturday. I wish him well.

But they are doing it again. This is the reason why we should not trust the Liberal Party either, because they are doing it again with working from home. This is a scam – this is Commonwealth Games 2.0. What they are doing with working from home is proposing something that is only going to come into effect just before the election, because they know that it is susceptible to a High Court challenge. There have been articles in the newspaper by experts, and I have spoken to experts about this. They all think it will not stand a chance of withstanding a High Court challenge. The government has form on this sort of stuff. The EV tax, which I did not vote for, got shot down in the High Court. The Electoral Act 2002 got shot down in the High Court. This will probably get shot down in the High Court as well. But the way that the government has structured it, it comes in in September. The small business component will not come in until the next year – after the election, of course. They know that the small business component is going to be an absolute shemozzle and that it will never actually happen because it will just be such a mess. But there is such a short time period between the introduction of working from home, the time it comes into effect and the election, that there will not be time for a High Court challenge. And they know it. The opposition has been scared once again – I have seen this so many times in this place. The previous Premier, Dan, used to do it. They would threaten to call the Liberal Party names, and then the Liberal Party would just fold. They have done it again on the Equal Opportunity Amendment (Work from Home) Bill 2026, even though I think they know it is a mess. They know it is wrong. So many times they have been threatened.

I am reluctant to bring this up, but earlier in their contributions one of the Labor Party members brought up how the Liberal Party is down a member at the moment, Mrs Deeming. What happened in 2023 – I was there on that day actually – was another case of the government threatening to call the opposition names, and they folded on that as well, like they fold on everything. They are folding on this working from home stuff. How can Victorians trust the opposition either, when they just fold like this? They know it is wrong. The entire business community knows what is wrong with this working from home stuff. Look, we will be debating that soon enough, but I think that it is just wrong. I do not know. I am willing to give the new Premier a chance and to listen. I want to wait and see what the terms of reference are, to Mr Galea’s point. I am not going to bag it just yet; I want to see where it goes. I hope it is expansive, and I hope it does incorporate many of the things that people have been concerned about. I hope it goes back in time as well, because a lot of this started, as was mentioned earlier today, with the desalination plant. We know that a lot of this stuff started back then, and I think we need to look at the roots of this current corruption.

I take issue with something Mr Galea said. He said that cost of living is the biggest problem at the moment. It is a big problem, but one problem that people are bringing up with me and I think is a huge issue is that organised crime has taken over this state. They have taken over entire industries for goodness sake. The tobacco industry – estimates are about 80 per cent of the market is controlled by organised crime at the moment. Within two years it will be 100 per cent of the market. In the vaping market, due to this government’s and the federal government’s stupid policies on vaping, organised crime controls 100 per cent of the market. We have spoken about cannabis. It is already controlled, except for the medical market – that is 100 per cent of the market. Only today I brought up, and you will be seeing more about this on the television soon enough, waste disposal and waste management. There is so much organised crime taking over and illegally dumping waste. A lot of that is again incentivised by government policy. It is incentivised by the waste levy, by the landfill levy. It is incentivised by government policy. They do not ever acknowledge the incentives that their own policies set up. It is wrong, it needs to be called out, and people are worried about it.

I hope that the royal commission does what people hope it does. I hope that the new Premier is serious about undermining organised crime in this state because, especially with what we have seen on these government projects, we cannot go into this Suburban Rail Loop project, which is one of the biggest projects in our state’s history, without getting organised crime under control. We simply cannot go ahead with it. We know it will cost money to break contracts, but I do not think that anyone in any responsible manner can go forward with any major projects at the moment without organised crime being under control. I hope that the royal commission does what it is meant to do, but we will have to wait and see. I do not have much faith in anyone in Victoria at the moment, either the government or the opposition, and I hope that there are better days ahead for Victoria.

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:18): I rise to speak on motion 1529 brought forward by Mr Mulholland. For months, if not years, Ben Carroll looked the Victorian community in the eye and said that a royal commission was not necessary. He has never truly acknowledged organised crime, at least he never did until it gave him the opportunity to become Premier. Last year he looked parents and students in the eye and said we could not possibly get VCE exams wrong a second year in a row because he was all over it, but they did. This year he has stood up more than once and said what a good pay offer he had made to Victorian teachers and that the teachers dispute would be settled shortly. But he has left that job and left the work undone because there was something better going. This is a Premier who just a few weeks ago looked in the eyes of the public and said he would not betray Jacinta Allan. He even invoked his family to add emotional weight to that statement. This is a former Deputy Premier who said, ‘I only stepped in because my colleagues said the position was vacant.’ But according to Steve Bracks, he has been preparing for months. What do all these things have in common? With Labor, the pretence is always first, the reality is always hidden. And not just hidden, in many cases the reality is the exact opposite of what they say. Ben Carroll has proven that he is that culture personified.

We were asked ‘What does this debate achieve?’ I think what it has achieved today is to show that there is no new direction. The level of cognitive dissonance, denial, minimisation and deflection that we have heard today tells you that it is business as usual in Victoria. There is no introspection. There is no reflection. It is aggressive assertion, deflection and attack. It says that this government’s motives are always themselves, not the work that needs to be done for Victorians. Under Labor, government is not here to help; it has become something that is done to you. The window-dressing is to tell Victorians to not just accept the unacceptable but be grateful for it. There can be no confidence in a government that does not mean what it says and does not say what it means – none – a government that has been found to be a serial liar to the Victorian people, not just in leadership but across the whole ministry. The government has a debt stabilisation plan that continues to see Victorian debt rise by tens of billions of dollars across the years. It acts as if an artificially engineered operating surplus is the same as a cash surplus, while in the background borrowing a further $7 billion and while the single fastest growing line item on our budgets is interest on our debt, which is growing faster than revenue and growing to the point where we will pay $10 billion in interest alone every year, which is more than we spend on police, ambulances and kindergartens combined – and there is still another billion dollars of interest to pay on top of that.

It claims that it has moved quickly, swiftly, on CFMEU corruption, when leaked reports show that the government was repeatedly advised and knew as far back as 2023 and not only did nothing but actually, there is evidence, actively intervened to ensure the CFMEU controlled state worksites. No-one in Victoria trusts this government on corruption, and the government knows it, so much so that it sacked its leader over it. Of course there is no confidence in the Victorian community about Labor and corruption – none – because it is one and the same thing. If the community have no confidence in the government on corruption, why should this Parliament?

The hospital system is in crisis, with record waiting lists for people needing urgent, life-changing surgery, and ambulance services are not meeting anything close to their response targets. Those who work in and rely on the Victorian health system, those who put their blood, sweat and expertise into the health of their fellow Victorians, have no confidence in this government or its leadership – none – so how can this Parliament?

In the extraordinary situation where a modern First World country has closed police stations and we have less police than we did three years ago, we have a Minister for Police who has not just sat on his hands but been completely absent from the debate. Victims of crime have no champion to fight for them. Every day we see unspeakably horrible machete and knife crime, firebombings, home invasions, out-of-control youth crime, with a significant proportion committed by criminals out on bail under Labor’s laws, adding further trauma and tragedy to our streets and the wider community becoming resigned that this lower standard of life is now normalised. Victims of crime have no confidence in this government or its leadership. People living in fear in their own homes have no confidence in this government or its leadership – none – so how can this Parliament?

While we have the highest tax in the nation, paradoxically we have the highest debt in the nation and the nation’s worst roads, worst health system, worst crime crisis and cuts to essential services. Anyone with eyes to see will see that this is unsustainable, that this is catastrophic for Victoria. It is driving people to leave, driving businesses and capital across borders to anywhere but Victoria, anywhere but Melbourne. I have met with countless business owners, business leaders, investors and developers, and they have no confidence in this government and its leadership – none. If they do not have confidence, how can this Parliament?

I have met with researchers, innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs – those attempting to build the world of tomorrow, with a vision that Victoria can be a place of technological leadership and research excellence, even while their funding is slashed, programs are not renewed and promises are not kept. They have no confidence in the government and its leadership – none. If they do not have confidence, then how can this Parliament? I have met with schools, principals, teachers and parents of students who have seen the hollowing out of their infrastructure budgets, the debasement of curriculum with total nonsense that prepares no-one for the future that their children will walk into on leaving school, and teachers and support staff who have to fight and fight to be respected for what they do, the lowest paid teachers in Australia under this government. They have no confidence in this government and its leadership, none, so how can this Parliament?

It is a conveyor belt of failure that rolls on every day, and yesterday the last Premier stepped down. Listening to her incredibly ungracious resignation speech, you would have thought it was an exit of triumph. It was completely absent of any apology to the Victorian people for what she oversaw and what she did to this state, talking about the Big Build but not the corruption, about health but not the waiting lists – no mention of $15 billion. Can the new leadership deny it? If the last Premier was so good, why did you force her out? Why did they have no confidence in her leadership of their government, which is to say your government? There has been no change of personnel: it is the same people. Is this a new direction? No. The roads in Victoria are embarrassing, incredibly bad. But it is classic Labor, gaslighting us about storms. There are press release solutions: on day one of the new start we are told by those opposite that not everyone is into the pothole thing. No user of roads in Victoria has confidence in your desire to fix the roads, none, so how can this Parliament?

The Premier was the minister for transport, was personally at the cabinet table that oversaw $15 billion of corruption and has at length repudiated the need for a royal commission and voted against a royal commission, but now, because the polls suddenly are going to present themselves as different, he says, ‘Don’t blame me, blame Jacinta.’ He is suddenly saying that he was there at the table but somehow he was not there in the room. He is saying it is everyone else’s fault, or perhaps he is saying he was too timid to speak up. We have a velvet blancmange in the erstwhile Premier, the leader of last resort for Labor. Even he has no confidence in his own leadership or the government. If he had, he would have challenged when it would have made a difference, but he is happy to do it four months out from an election, when he can push the hardest decisions down the road.

For the sake of Victoria, we need a change of government even more than we needed a change of their leader, because Labor will not stop being Labor just because Jacinta Allan’s deputy became the Premier in her stead. We should have had an early election. But if we cannot have that, let this chamber make clear we have no confidence in Ben Carroll, the leader of last resort. We have no confidence in the worst, most corrupt government in Australia, and I call on the government to resign, stand down and call an early election.

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (17:28): What we have heard in here today from the Liberals is true to form. They believe in nothing. They have no shared values that enable them to be able to come together and offer something to the Victorian people. I spoke in my earlier contribution about the rotating door of leadership the Liberals have had in the last decade, and they sit here and they talk about Labor, but they do not bring forward what they would deliver for Victorians.

I am incredibly proud to be a member of the Labor Party. I am incredibly proud to be a representative of the Labor Party. We have a 125-year history as the Labor Party, and while conservative parties have come and gone throughout Australian history, the constant has been the Australian Labor Party, and we have tens of thousands of members across the country that turn up day in and day out to make this country a better place. Born from the union movement to improve the lot of workers, with fair pay and good conditions, year after year in that 125-year history local volunteers, local members have turned up to their local branches, to policy committees and put in hours and hours – hundreds of hours, thousands of hours – of unpaid time to work up the policies that will improve people’s quality of life.

We had the Labor national conference in Adelaide last weekend, and it was a great example of openness and transparency. Media are welcome, rank-and-file union members are welcome on the floor. This motion just shows the lack of any shared values, imagination or offerings for the Victorian public the opposition have.

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (17:30): I think this motion speaks for itself:

That this house does not possess confidence in the Victorian Labor Party to govern Victoria.

We have seen pretty laughable contributions from people like Mr McIntosh, people like Mr Batchelor and people like Mr Galea, all of whom – what was it, six weeks ago or five weeks ago? – got up on a similar motion and defended how good the Allan government was.

Members interjecting.

Evan MULHOLLAND: They got up and defended how good the Allan government was. Even people like Mr Berger were reading Premier’s private office talking points about how good the Allan Labor government was, only to have this new Premier come out and say that under his government integrity is not optional, admitting that under the Allan Labor government – those opposite so keenly boasted about how good it was – integrity was optional. Corruption was running rife. They did not do anything about it. Now that they have changed leader, they want to pretend like they are a new government. Well, they are not a new government, because under Jacinta Allan’s government, who was the Deputy Premier? It was Ben Carroll, because it was the Allan–Carroll government. New leader, same corrupt government. The punters have worked these people out, and the voters on 28 November will work those opposite out as well. They should be absolutely ashamed.

I would like to thank all of my colleagues for their contributions to this debate. This is a shameful government. It is a divided, dishonest and distracted government that people have worked out, and what they have worked out is that they want a real fresh start, and that fresh start begins with Jess Wilson and the Liberals and Nationals this November, not faceless men in the Labor Party who brief to the papers and run campaigns against their sitting premiers. This is the second unelected Premier in three years.

Members interjecting.

Evan MULHOLLAND: Minister Erdogan laughs. I guess he is going to be rewarded with the number one spot in the northern suburbs, pushing an Indigenous MP to the second position. But at the end of the day, it is the voters, the people of Victoria, not the Labor Party yelling in the caucus room, who will decide who the next Premier will be, and that will be Jess Wilson.

Council divided on motion: