Wednesday, 29 July 2026

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (17:40): I move:

That the petition be taken into consideration.

At the outset I want to acknowledge my colleague Dr Tim Read. It is fitting that this debate is occurring tonight when he will be giving his valedictory speech shortly in the other place, and I hope the house will forgive me for departing prior to the end of this debate, if it has not concluded, so I can be there. Tim has spent his life championing health promotion and prevention, including on VicHealth’s board. It is the mark of his character that upon learning of his diagnosis of metastatic melanoma last year he made it his mission in his remaining time in Parliament to save VicHealth. His passion for this cause is echoed by the thousands of petitioners who are calling on Labor to reverse their decision to abolish this critical public health entity.

The foundational story of VicHealth is ultimately the story of a brave and visionary government and bipartisanship. Inspired by the personal tragedy of his father’s death to emphysema and the work of many passionate public health advocates like Dr Nigel Grey, Victorian Minister for Health in the Cain government David White introduced a landmark piece of legislation on the final sitting day of 1987. Tobacco was and still is the single biggest cause of preventable deaths in Victoria, but White and others decided it was time to take on this predatory industry and invest in health prevention and promotion, which at the time had virtually no funding. This was no small task. The tobacco industry had deeply embedded itself within Australian society through political donations, aggressive and widespread sponsorship of the arts and sports and prolific advertising. White’s historic Tobacco Act 1987 increased the tax on tobacco and placed advertising bans on cigarette advertising. Incredibly, it also created the world’s first health promotion agency, the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, or VicHealth. The legislation ensured that funding from the tobacco tax went to support VicHealth and buy out tobacco sports and arts sponsorships.

Since that time the work of VicHealth has been extraordinary. Guided by research, much of which they fund, their work has broadened into food, economic and environmental systems that make us sick and how best to protect us from them. They embolden Victorians to take charge of their health through evidence-based health promotion, narrowing inequity in vulnerable communities. They initiated the SunSmart skin cancer program and early breast screening promotion and run numerous initiatives to support food security and nutrition, including Food for All. They do family- and gender-based violence prevention, anti-racism and youth mental health. They have become key partners for local governments across the state. Thirty per cent of VicHealth’s funding is hypothecated for community sports, in particular supporting inclusion of women and girls, culturally and linguistically diverse communities and people with disabilities. These are people who would otherwise face barriers to participation and would miss out on the health and social benefits of exercise. Furthermore, many of Australia’s most prolific researchers got their start at VicHealth.

Victoria spends billions of dollars treating preventable diseases. VicHealth’s budget is just 0.15 per cent of our state’s health budget, but their work has spared Victorians from the pain and cost of preventable diseases and keeps them out of hospital. Every dollar spent on health promotion and prevention delivers a return on investment of up to $14.30. VicHealth saves us a lot of money. The legislative framework has been critical to VicHealth’s evolution and undeniable success as a health promotion entity. Having legislated ongoing funding and multiparty representation on the board has protected it from the whims of the government of the day until now.

Last year the Allan Labor government, at the time, announced plans to absorb VicHealth into the Department of Health – no more guaranteed funding for health promotion, and it spells the death of its independence. VicHealth has always been willing to take on the big corporate interests that harm Victoria’s health like the junk food industry, big tobacco, alcohol and gambling – something governments are often too afraid to do. This Labor government’s decision to abolish VicHealth stands in stark contrast to the Labor government in 1987 that established VicHealth as an act that was bold and visionary. It showed real leadership – the sort of bold and visionary leadership we have perhaps been too short of in recent times. There is still time for this government to show some humility and sense, and perhaps the change of leadership in recent days provides the perfect cover to change course and reverse the appalling decision to abolish VicHealth. I commend this petition to the house.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (17:45): I want to begin my remarks this afternoon by acknowledging Dr Tim Read for his incredible advocacy that has brought this before us. I stand before you as somebody acknowledging the thousands of Victorians who also put their names, their voices and their fierce advocacy to this petition. It is an extraordinary level of community engagement, grassroots support and shared concern that we are seeing right across the state and even more so, I must say, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. It is a profound testament to what matters most to everyday people, because the Victorians that I know are deeply, passionately and unshakeably committed to health promotion, community wellbeing and keeping people well before they ever need to step foot inside a hospital emergency department. And people care, they really do care, about preventative health care. They care about tackling the crushing generational burden of chronic illness and about ensuring that every single member of our community can live a healthy, active and vibrant life. I empathise with that passion, and I validate it entirely. It is not just a community goal, it is a shared vision. You see, keeping people healthy, resilient and out of our acute hospital settings is a goal that this Labor government shares just as deeply, just as fiercely and just as uncompromisingly.

I know the incredible life-changing value of our public health interventions intimately, because I have lived it and I have worked within it. Before coming to this place I was a member of the board of VicHealth, elected to represent the Victorian community in driving forward the future of an organisation so beloved in our community. In that time I had the good fortune to understand just how deeply their impact is felt right across the state. This Girl Can is a campaign that will always sit deeply in my heart, because it is a campaign that was lifted up from the voices of women – women that had been excluded from physical activity, excluded from community sport and excluded from thinking that they were worthy enough to take a little bit of time out for their own health and their own wellbeing. It is a campaign that I proudly supported here in this Parliament. In fact it was, I will be honest, one of only two times that I had been in this place before I got elected. What I saw with that role there at VicHealth and what I witnessed was the work that they did to tackle the systemic barriers that far too many vulnerable people face every single day. I saw how our health system can frequently fail marginalised people when services are fragmented, when they are disconnected and when they are frustratingly hard to navigate. That experience was not just professional, it was deeply formative, and it reinforced my absolute, unwavering belief that a strong public health system cannot operate in isolated silos. It must be accountable, it must be integrated and above all it must be there for people exactly when and where they need it most.

I understand that change can inevitably bring uncertainty. I hear the genuine, heartfelt concern raised by the community in this petition about what the future holds for preventative health in Victoria. I want to stand here today and offer my absolute assurance: health promotion is not being abandoned, sidelined or forgotten. The vital life-saving work of preventing chronic disease, tackling the root causes of illness and addressing the symptoms of health conditions is continuing with absolute vigour, absolute focus and absolute government backing, and our government is taking a bold, purposeful step forward by accepting the recommendations of the review. I could talk a little bit about it, but I really do not want to talk about the review. I want to talk about the people that make VicHealth so very special and to say to each of you again that I stand here to offer you my assurances that health promotion is at the very heart of what we are to do as a government. It is not being forgotten, it is not being sidelined, and there is absolutely a champion for preventative health right here on this side. It is not being abolished, it will still exist and thrive, and I say that in honour of Dorothy Reading.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:50): I rise to speak to Dr Mansfield’s petition in relation to VicHealth. Can I also echo the sentiments in the opening remarks that you made around Dr Tim Read. I want to acknowledge Tim as well and the discussions that we have had over a number of years in this place around health. I have valued those very much, and in particular our discussions around VicHealth.

As has been said, the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation was established in 1987 under the Tobacco Act 1987, making it the world’s first health promotion foundation funded through a dedicated tax on tobacco products. And it was formed with bipartisan support. The Honourable Mark Birrell was very much in favour of that and worked with the government of the day to see this, and we have seen VicHealth representation from members of Parliament sitting on the board over many decades. If you look at the work that VicHealth has been responsible for and those major achievements that it has seen, it has been very much around prevention, education, awareness and research. When I first came into this place I spoke about my previous roles working in the area of diabetes and my concern around the rates of diabetes rising within the community and what we needed to do further to abate the rates in those very significant areas, and it is one area that VicHealth has looked at. But before I get to that I just want to look at those other major achievements. Tobacco control – it contributed to Victoria becoming a global leader in tobacco control. Physical activity – it invested heavily in community sport and active recreation. I think it is tremendous to know of the efforts there, with engagement and prevention working. Mental health and wellbeing, research and innovation, health equity and healthy eating – it led the campaigns promoting healthier food choices.

I did discuss this with former CEO Sandro Demaio when he was there before he went off to South Korea; I think he went to another lead role. The Healthy Together Victoria campaign that we did when we were in government, under the leadership of David Davis when he was Minister for Health, was really partly a lot of the model that VicHealth undertook to understand that and work with communities. They were tremendous partnerships that we had under Healthy Together Victoria. Unfortunately, the Labor government scrapped that initiative and took us back, and there is more work to be done.

In the last few minutes that I have got to talk about this, I want to say that the only reason we are having this debate tonight is because the government is scrapping VicHealth. The only reason we are having this debate is because of the dire situation of the budget. When they have got $200 billion of debt and they are paying $24 million of interest payments each day, the government have made the decision that they are scrapping this agency. That is what they are doing. They have to do it through the legislation, through the Tobacco Act. But the only reason we are having this debate is because of the dire state of Victoria’s budget. When you mismanage the budget, it has consequences. And the consequences include things like this agency, which is set for the chop under the government. That is what they have said, so I was a bit perplexed when the member was talking about it being still there. No, it is going to be swamped and swallowed up into the department.

These are decisions government has to make, and I think we can look at all of this. But I do want to make the point that VicHealth has had those achievements over many years. And being a world leader, it has been a pioneer of health promotion. It has been a very, very significant agency in that regard and has been well regarded right around the world. It is important that we continue to put those initiatives into the community, because without preventative health, you are going to have greater strains on the acute health system. You can argue that there are too many agencies or the like. But I say again: the only reason we are having this debate is because of the dire situation of the Victorian budget, under the direction of the Carroll government now, but previously the Andrews government and Allan governments, which have set this state up with this extraordinary debt.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:55): Every morning I read the newspaper, and every morning there is another firebombing and every morning there is more evidence of organised crime and the way that organised crime has overrun this state. If we look at the industry of tobacco, for example, it is estimated that about 80 per cent of the market now is controlled by organised crime – very soon 100 per cent will be controlled by organised crime. Other nicotine harm reduction products, like vaping, are already 100 per cent controlled by organised crime. Organised crime has corrupted this state to a level that we have never seen. I do not know what planet people are living on to think Victoria is a world leader on tobacco policy; we are a global laughing-stock. The world looks at us, literally, in case studies of what not to do, and a large part of that – the people that were cheering on this policy, that promoted this policy for years, for decades – is VicHealth. They have not been held responsible for the harm that they have caused this state. If you want to talk about evidence-based policy, you only need to look at the firebombing attacks every morning. The government has made the right decision to shut down VicHealth. They should have shut it down earlier, and they should be holding responsible those who have held up and promoted the disastrous policies that have led to an explosion of organised crime in this state. I hope that the government is not cowed by this and proceeds with shutting down VicHealth as it intended to do.

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:56): I rise as a former board member of VicHealth to talk about the important work that is done in health prevention by VicHealth. We cannot just treat chronic health illnesses; we have to educate the community on how we can prevent illnesses developing and how they can better equip themselves to be healthy in this state. VicHealth carries out really important work, and it carries it out independently of government for a reason. VicHealth was set up by Mark Birrell back in the Kennett government era to be an independent body that does look at the need for education on health issues in the community but also to administer grants to communities for sporting groups et cetera that encourage young people particularly, but also older people, to be more active and to look after their health. I would hate to think of those grants being administered by a government department, where there can be influence on where those grants go. They must go to the best applicants, and they must go right across our state to ensure that all communities benefit from those grants.

But I can speak from experience of this government’s history in wanting to shut down VicHealth. When I was on the board, there was a real push by the then health minister to grab the money that was going to VicHealth to use it to fund their domestic violence programs. The domestic violence programs needed to be funded, but they needed to be funded in addition to health prevention funding that was going to VicHealth. The chair of the board at that time was actually a former CEO of Domestic Violence Victoria, and Fiona was against that proposal by the government. She wanted domestic violence services to be funded adequately but she also wanted to see investment in preventative health measures in this state, and VicHealth is an important body that does contribute towards the education of people and to the prevention of illnesses actually becoming chronic in Victoria. This government have had a long-term agenda to shut down VicHealth, and this latest move is just extending that agenda.

Everyone is against this – everyone. Doctors are against the closure of VicHealth and it being consumed into the department, where the funding will just disappear on other things. The community is against this. The opposition is against this. The Greens are against this. Most of the crossbenchers are against this. It is only the government that want to close down VicHealth, that want to close down programs that prevent chronic illnesses in this state. This government should take a good hard look at themselves. They are just desperate to find funds from anywhere. They will take funds away from little kids and their sporting organisations. They will take funds away from people who are developing illnesses just to prop up their bottom line because they have mismanaged the finances in this state, because they have allowed all of their major projects to have massive blowouts in their budgets and because they have allowed $15 billion of taxpayers funds to be rorted through the Big Build and diverted to unions and to strippers et cetera on the Big Build sites. This government do not know how to manage money, they do not know how to manage the health system in this state and they do not know how to manage the education system in this state. Everything has decayed under the 12 years of Labor, and this government will find that the people of Victoria will pass their judgement in November when they finally get the opportunity to vote them out. The government denied them the opportunity of voting Jacinta Allan out, but believe me, the people do not forget. They know that this is the same old Labor. They know that Ben Carroll was her deputy. They know that he voted for all of the corruption, and they will vote you out.

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:02): I am delighted to be able to join this debate to give my full support to the petition before us to save VicHealth. When the government first announced that they would be dissolving VicHealth, the response from the community was an emphatic no. We saw the Community and Public Sector Union, health and medical organisations, local councils from across the state, former state government ministers from both political parties, five former VicHealth chairs and some of Australia’s most eminent healthcare professionals all say exactly the same thing: that abolishing VicHealth would severely reduce the effectiveness of public health in this state. In fact I should congratulate this government. They have managed to do the seemingly impossible task of uniting the entire rest of the Parliament on something. Truly everyone except for this government seems to understand just how reckless and just how misguided this decision is.

The reason behind this dangerous move? So-called budget savings. This too is misguided. Across public policy spheres it is well understood that investment in prevention, in the fence at the top of the hill, saves both lives and money in the long term. Chronic disease costs Australia around $140 billion each year, and it is estimated that every dollar spent on health prevention results in $14.30 in future health cost savings.

Through VicHealth Victoria has been so fortunate to not only have the world’s first-ever health promotion agency but one that is now seen as the ideal model for health promotion across the world. Across its 40-year history VicHealth has run successful initiatives to reduce the rates of drinking and smoking, encourage active and socially connected lifestyles and encourage the living of healthier lives overall. VicHealth were one of the first to correctly identify gambling harm as a significant public health issue, recognising just how detrimental it is to lives and wellbeing. Many of you will have heard me raise in this place the importance of improving women’s participation in sport. On this, VicHealth’s work was also groundbreaking through their incredibly successful This Girl Can campaign, which encouraged women to get involved and to get active in sport. Their work recognised systemic barriers to good health and was firmly grounded in the understanding that health promotion works best when it is led by the community itself. VicHealth is truly a rare thing in our divided modern political world, and this debate is evidence of that. It is a Victorian government agency with multipartisan backing, global renown and strong public support. The government must reverse their decision and they must save VicHealth.

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:05): I think, from Ms Watt’s speech, that maybe they have responded to this and restored the funding. That is what it seems like from their funding, but in fact they have not. I will say this: when I first started, my first real job, if you like, was in health promotion of projects funded by VicHealth. I still remember so well the analogy that they would use, and that was essentially of a river that is flowing downstream that has a strong current, and they said that there are essentially two options. They painted the picture of people getting caught in this stream, and they would have to be rescued downstream. They would send an ambulance out, they would pull them out of the water and resuscitate them; they would do all of these things. Or what you could do is you could go upstream and you could build guardrails. That was the analogy. I will tell you what: in Victoria, where it is almost impossible to get an ambulance on time and where some people wait hours to days, where there are more than 68,000 people on the public elective surgery waitlist, where chronic health, as Ms Purcell said, is costing billions of dollars, do you know what you need to do? You need to go upstream, and you have to make sure that people have the education and it is prevented.

I think it is absolutely shameful and short-sighted that the reason the government is doing it is as a cost-saving measure. In reality what they are doing is they are taking the guardrails off and they are allowing vulnerable people to get caught in this stream, which will cost a lot more later on. Heart disease, diabetes and a lot of lifestyle illnesses can be helped and can be prevented with the right information. Cutting the body that provides that information, which has bipartisan support, seems extremely short-sighted. It just seems like something that could cause and probably will cause a lot more congestion in our hospitals, a lot more need for people to get an ambulance and a lot more money being spent treating this. So I commend this motion to the house. I hope that Ms Watt’s speech is a prophecy. I hope that they are going to put their money where their mouth is, because the action of cutting VicHealth and the speech given by a member of the government quite frankly do not add up. I commend this motion to the house.

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:08): What a remarkable display we have seen on full view here today. We have had the government’s lead speaker –

Renee Heath interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: and only speaker lament the garrotting of VicHealth. It is absolutely breathtaking. Yet we have in the chamber the Treasurer, who is instrumental in making the decision to garrotte VicHealth. VicHealth, which was established by the Labor Party –

Wendy Lovell interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: albeit with bipartisan support – spectacularly lost its way from the former health minister in the 1980s. For this government to now somehow today present itself with some sort of crocodile tears and with a single speaker somehow telling this place and the people of Victoria that it will go on to live a new life in a department – what absolute hypocrisy. What an absolutely shameless exhibition of an absolutely faux attempt to show that they somehow care – to year after year lecture the people of Victoria and lecture other political parties about preventative health and then to cut the single agency whose job it is to perform a function outside of government and outside of politics to tackle those issues without fear or favour, all in the name of toe-cutting and of cost-saving. This corrupt, morally moribund, without-a-moral-compass government of Allan, of Andrews and now of Carroll is proceeding to do it regardless of knowing the full cost on the health of every Victorian: every Victorian child, every Victorian girl, every Victorian boy, every Victorian male and female – you name it. And where are they? Where are those opposite? We have a sprinkling of representation here tonight at the death knell of this organisation of the once Labor Party who championed, so they said, both the worker and the downtrodden. And yet here it is, the Labor Party. Where is David White? What would he think of this? He would think it is a disgrace. They should be ashamed, those opposite, and they are, by their absence. They do not even want to front up to what it is they are about to perform. Their actions consistently, in this government, abandon workers and abandon the people of Victoria – (Time expired)

Motion agreed to.