Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:57): I rise to speak on the most recent annual report of the Department of the Legislative Council. In particular I wish to share a few comments on the very important role of parliamentary committees across a wide range of committees, be it across the joint committees that we partake in or the very extensively used Council committee process. It is a very fascinating and enjoyable part of the role to be able to engage with in-depth issues through a variety of different committees and different forums. I recall early on, four years ago, one of my political mentors who is a former MP in the other place said to me, ‘Make sure that whatever you do, you don’t put yourself on any more than one committee.’ That did not quite work out. Being a member of Legislative Council, it is something that does not work out for many people. But it is a very enjoyable part of this role, to spend some time with virtually every member of this chamber I think on different committees.

We do get to explore issues that are of really critical importance to Victorian people. I can think of just a few recent ones, whether it is the inquiry into anti-LGBTIQA+ hate crimes in Victoria, where I got to work with Mr Puglielli, Mr McCracken and other members, including Ms Watt, of this chamber to really focus on an issue that has become, in a very short space of time, unfortunately very pertinent and very difficult for many. To be able to hear both that expert experience and that lived experience and platform the genuine feelings of people was a very special thing to be a part of.

It goes to matters of important public policy as well. I reflect on the select committee on Victoria’s planning provisions last year, along with Mr Batchelor and Ms Watt, where we saw a scurrilous attack on the housing aspirations of young Victorians by the Liberal Party. They were trying to use the select committee as a pretence to abolish planning reforms which are so critical in providing that equality of opportunity for young people to get a chance to rent or buy into the housing market. We do have, and we continue to have, a very serious housing crisis in this country. It is not something that should go unremarked upon – the fact that our economy continues to boom, that we are attracting business investment from interstate and overseas, that we remain the largest domestic target of internal migration in this country and that more people are moving to Victoria than anywhere else. It is in that context a remarkable achievement that we have seen that rental prices in Melbourne are now the least expensive out of all eight Australian capital cities. That is something that happens when you invest in supply, when you provide those supply opportunities. The state government cannot do everything for that, but as many experts have said, including the Grattan Institute, the number one thing that you can do as a state government in Australia is to pull those planning levers. That is exactly what this government has done and continues to stand by through the housing plan, through the unlocking of activity centres across those dense inner-city suburbs and those middle-ring suburbs with train connections, tram connections and services.

Indeed as I reflect on another inquiry, this one conducted by the Legal and Social Issues Committee into public school funding in Victoria, often in areas where school enrolments have dropped, not due to the performance of those schools and not due to other factors but due to the very simple fact that young families cannot afford to live in some of these areas, we have an absolute surplus – estimated at over 10,000 – of school spaces in public schools in inner and middle-ring suburbs such as Camberwell and Kew, where the Liberal Party is trying to block people out of those housing aspirations. We have seen the investment that this government continues to make, even in just one small part of my region, in one suburb, that of Clyde North, where we have opened six new public primary and secondary schools in that suburb alone in the last four years and where we are continuing to build these new schools as part of 100 across the state to meet that demand. Yet we see schools in some inner-city suburbs where there is a massive capacity shortfall that is not being filled, and that is because we used to have archaic planning rules that kept people out of living in those areas.

This government is taking real action to provide young people with an opportunity to have a house, to have economic stability and to have a future, and we will continue to do so no matter how much the Liberal Party or One Nation seek to try and stop that, to protect their own interests and to keep looking after themselves at the expense of everyday young working Victorians.