Thursday, 24 September 2026

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (11:39): Thank you so very much for the opportunity to rise and make a contribution on the budget motion. I did not think I would in fact get an opportunity to speak to our marvellous 2026–27 budget here in the Parliament, but alas, the schedule of the day does afford me this opportunity to rise and speak. I really am proud to speak on a budget that delivers real, meaningful relief right to the front doors of families in the Northern Metropolitan Region. We know that global conflicts in the Middle East continue to push up prices at the petrol pump, and we know that the Reserve Bank has been hiking interest rates because of national inflationary pressures. For what it is worth, I too hope that the interest rates do not rise, knowing of course how many are desperately struggling with the cost of living. The message that I hear right across our community is consistent: things are tight, people are feeling the pinch and families are watching every single line item in the household budget. That is exactly why our government has made cost-of-living relief a central priority in this budget. We are delivering massive cost-of-living supports and housing initiatives to make life easier, fairer and more affordable for the Victorians who need it most.

It is fitting, actually, that the Minister for Government Services is here in the chamber as I speak to one of the most immediate, impactful measures in the budget, and that is the Labor government’s 20 per cent off rego rebate, which I know was a huge success right across the north. I do not have the numbers on hand, but everyone I know, including many, many folks that came through my electorate office door, took advantage of this great initiative. Perhaps I will take this opportunity to thank the minister while he is here and, on the record, thank him for all his work in that initiative, because it truly did make a difference. It was direct money straight into the household budget for families with a single car, and it was double that support back for households that run two cars to get to work and get the kids to school.

Can I just say, along with that immediate relief, we are putting power back in the hands of consumers and have heavily invested into the fair fuel plan. The daily fuel price cap is now a legal requirement, meaning our anti-price-gouging laws force retailers to set the daily cap and publish it in advance. You can jump on the Servo Saver feature on the Service Victoria app, compare prices across more than 1500 registered fuel retailers, find the best deal today and know with certainty that the price will not jump the following morning before you fill up. That is a really, really good thing.

Our government also knows that the best way to save on petrol is to leave the car at home. I know this is being felt quite acutely at the moment with the cost of fuel rising, which is why we are transforming the way that Victorians get around. We provided instant relief earlier this year, making public transport free over April and May and then extending that to half-price fares across trains, trams and buses right through till the end of the year. This comes on top of our incredible initiative that began this year making public transport entirely free for anyone under the age of 18. To make those journeys better, we are investing significantly into the rolling stock and expanding services. For our local commuters in the north, this means brilliant new train carriages on the tracks. Our government is delivering state-of-the-art X’trapolis 2.0 trains for the metropolitan network, including on the Craigieburn and Upfield lines. These modern trains are going to redefine the passenger experience, making the daily commute smoother, quieter and more accessible.

We also know that a truly connected transport network relies on local links, which is why we are delivering more frequent buses where they are needed most, particularly across our fast-growing northern suburbs. We are also upgrading our tram network with modern, accessible stops and delivering the biggest road blitz in our state’s history, rebuilding key intersections, resurfacing local roads and, yes, fixing potholes.

When I talk to local parents, they tell me the mounting cost of raising kids can really get them down. Throughout the school year I am really proud to speak to some initiatives that absolutely make a difference. We are continuing strong funding for the affordable school uniforms program so that every child can feel proud and included in class. We are expanding the wonderful Glasses for Kids program, which provides free vision screenings and free glasses directly at school, saving parents valuable time and the high costs of these private optometry appointments. We are making sure our kids have full bellies and are ready to learn by investing deeply in school breakfast clubs. And for a great family day out that does not break the bank, we are providing free admission for kids under 16 to our zoos right now during school holidays, so if you have not taken advantage of that, get on board.

It is not just about the day-to-day costs of going to school, it is about investing in the schools themselves. Our government is incredibly proud to have delivered massive, sustained capital investment over the last 12 years to build, maintain and upgrade our public schools across Victoria. I am absolutely thrilled to see huge wins for the northern suburbs in our capital works program. We are investing in local communities with crucial modernisation funding for Spensley Street Primary, and we are getting on with the early planning stages of a brand new Arden Secondary School for this growing precinct and are backing our inner-city families by building a substantial new campus for Docklands Primary School. This is about ensuring that our kids have access to first-rate educational facilities right where they live. We are also looking after our youngest learners, with substantial capital funding to build and expand local kindergartens and Early Learning Victoria centres. This dedicated grants program is for 27 new and expanded kinders and significant funding to construct five brand new government-owned early learning centres in communities where local demand heavily outstrips supply.

For our school leavers and workers looking to upskill, we are continuing to champion vocational training, with sweeping investments across our TAFE sector, including fully funded places to keep delivering free TAFE across our 80 priority courses. We are injecting a massive multiyear pipeline of funding into the Social Housing Growth Fund. We are modernising our planning legislation to ensure planning approvals are processed faster, and we are backing the development facilitation program to fast-track major shovel-ready residential projects.

One that I am particularly proud of is the work to look after our most vulnerable people in the community. This budget delivers extra emergency accommodation and nine new specialist outreach teams to help rough sleepers connect with vital supports that they absolutely need. We are providing dedicated funding for stable long-term housing, with wraparound health care and social supports across five supported housing sites alongside targeted assistance to help vulnerable renters maintain their private tenancies so they do not fall into homelessness.

When it comes to health care, our Labor government always steps up. For the outer north I am particularly proud of the significant uplift to the Craigieburn Community Hospital. This expansion means families in Craigieburn and surrounding suburbs will have better, faster access to public health care close to home, without having to travel for hours to major inner-city hospitals. Statewide we are providing substantial funding to deliver tens of thousands of additional specialist paediatric appointments and thousands more planned surgeries for children. We are also funding hospital-level care directly in patients’ homes, including dedicated support for home-based dialysis, making everyday treatment far easier and more comfortable for patients and their carers.

Our government is doing the hard work to support Victorians through tough times, but we have to look at the alternative. What we know is that the coalition has openly promised a massively devastating $40 billion of cuts across our public services, and those cuts would inevitably mean fewer classroom teachers, fewer frontline nurses and longer wait times in our emergency departments. I have got to say, we invest in our people. We choose to deliver genuine cost-of-living relief. We choose to build better schools across the north. We choose to make our public transport network work for local families, and we choose to deliver the world-class health care that our community needs.

As I look back on our investments over the last four years, I reflect on schools. I take a moment to acknowledge and pay my respects to so many of the school councils that I have had the privilege of working with and the volunteers who speak up on behalf of some very busy local parents to make sure that their concerns are heard and make sure that the vital upgrades that will change the educational experience for students right across the northern suburbs occur. I am particularly proud of, can I just say, the opening of Docklands Primary School. That community is thriving and growing, and many, many people are choosing to live their whole lives in Docklands. The stigma of it being a very transient community is well and truly over. The folks that are living in Docklands and choosing to educate their children in Docklands are now desperately filling our classrooms, such that we had a temporary school and now we have plans in this budget to build a new site for Docklands primary. It is kind of extraordinary and, I would like to say, possibly unexpected just how popular Docklands has become. I thank principal Adam Bright. To the team at Docklands primary, I have got to say it was a real point of pride attending your opening all those years ago and seeing your school community grow and thrive and become quite a force for change.

Furthermore, just with respect to our communities around there, I want to acknowledge the building of North Melbourne Primary School’s second campus; it is one of our vertical schools, and we have got a few of them now around the place. It has been quite an adjustment for parents to embrace vertical schools, but I have got to tell you, the ones embracing it with open arms are in fact the students who are just loving the world-class facilities that we have there, whether it is North Melbourne Primary School or the Wurun campus there on Queens Parade, which is home to the Bundha centre, which has got all those excellent basketball courts. I think that vertical schools are here to stay, and I am going to continue to be, as much as I can, a very strong advocate for new ways of learning and providing world-class opportunities for our students.

Beyond education, I would like to acknowledge the critical investments that we have made across public transport, ones that I am enormously proud to help promote as the Parliamentary Secretary for Public and Active Transport, including of course the new trains. I spent a significant amount of time last week talking to commuters at Strathmore station, Coburg station, Moonee Ponds station and others. Watch out, train stations: I will be talking to more of you just about what the new uplifts on the Craigieburn and Upfield line mean.

There are hundreds of new services, and what I have seen is a real change in commuter behaviour at those stations. Years ago, if you heard those bells ring, you would see commuters running, running, running to make that train, knowing of course that it might be 20 minutes or so before the next one comes; that has absolutely changed now, and I have seen commuters go, ‘Oh, well, there’ll be another one here in less than 5 minutes.’ The very fact that that behaviour has changed and the stress of running up the platform, finding your Myki, tapping on – ‘Oh no, I’ve got to top it up’ – is all gone. That is because not only have we improved the services on the Craigieburn and Upfield lines, we have also introduced the X’trapolis 2.0, which means that we have got bigger and more beautiful trains that allow for much more space and for many more commuters on board. I have got to say, tap-and-go has been embraced with quite a lot of enthusiasm right across the lines. Watching folks have their phones out in hand as they approach the platform in the mornings, ready to tap and go to get onto their services – knowing of course that those services are half price until the end of the year – does absolutely make a difference, so it is with great pride that I report that.

As the Parliamentary Secretary for Community Sport, I get to hang out at sports clubs and see the growing, thriving clubs that keep our community strong. Big respect to our presidents, volunteers, canteen helpers, boundary runners, scorers, folks that pick up young ones and bring them to the game and folks that volunteer on the weekends to help mend a dusted-up knee or – sometimes it is worse – make trips to the urgent care clinic; all of what you do keeps our community sport strong. To you, the volunteers, can I say thank you for doing what you do. I am proud to continue to work with this government to make sure that those vital investments – whether they are in safety, security, facilities, training centres or even just having, for the very first time, women’s change rooms – make all the world of difference.

I could go on forever, but I am going to leave my remarks there, and with great pride I recommend and commend the budget for 2026–27.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (11:54): I rise to speak to the take-note motion on the budget, and I have got to say that on the very last sitting day of this term of Parliament we are debating this because this government are so hopelessly chaotic that they cannot get their agenda right. The whole Parliament is a mess, the legislative agenda is a mess, and that is symbolic of what is happening in the state. It is a complete mess. It does not matter which part of the budget you look at, it is in big trouble. It is in big trouble because of the extraordinary debt that Victoria is in, and that is because of Labor’s out-of-control spending and their inability to understand the importance of responsible economic and financial management. And as a result we get failures in the system.

I want to come back to the health system. I listened to Ms Watt, who said it is a marvellous budget. I went to the table office to get the Treasurer’s speech to remind myself of what she said back in May, because it is now September and we are 65 days out from an election and we are debating this motion – I mean, spare me. But on the budget, I am reminded about what the Treasurer said on road maintenance:

… the largest sustained investment in road maintenance in Victoria’s history.

Because better roads do more than get people from A to B.

They make the trip safer.

They make it easier for parents, tradies, and regional communities to get where they need to go, sooner.

Can you believe the Treasurer? We have had a revolving door of treasurers in this term of Parliament, like we have had a revolving door of ministers. I mean, I am nearly onto my second hand counting the number of ministers I have had. But the revolving door of treasurers in this term of Parliament says everything as well. Listen to the words of the then Treasurer Jaclyn Symes, who had no clue. She went to speak to businesses and asked them what their favourite tax was, for God’s sake. I mean, heavens above, we are the highest taxed state in the country and she goes to the business community and asks them what their favourite tax is. That is the calibre of the government that is here in Victoria, and that is the calibre of these people that are running the place. It is no wonder that the budget is in a mess and the state is in a mess. The roads are in a mess with the potholes. And we have got the latest Premier – who is not a leader, he is a follower – saying, ‘We need to fix the potholes. We’ll invest a bit more’.

The Treasurer’s speech went on to say:

Because government investment should not live on a balance sheet – it should make life work better for people.

And the byline for the budget is ‘Easier. Safer. More Affordable.’ Well, it is not easier, it is not safer and it is not more affordable. I say again: look at the potholes in the roads and look at the catastrophes and the tragedies that have occurred. And more will happen because of the ongoing degradation.

The Treasurer’s speech went on to say:

We also have to ensure that every Victorian feels safe …

Safe at home.

Safe in their communities.

Safe where they work, study and travel.

Look at the crime that is happening in this state. Look at what has occurred over the last four years: home invasions, carjackings, firebombings and machete attacks – the horrendous statistics of people being murdered by people that are roaming around with machetes and committing the most horrific crimes against innocent Victorians. That is the state of what we are dealing with in Victoria. This government might say things, but their actions speak louder than their words. It is a disaster. There are too many innocent Victorians who have been subjected to crime; there are horrific outcomes of these machete attacks. But look at firebombings – I cannot even believe I am talking about firebombings. We have had over 200 firebombings. We had another one this morning. They are just an everyday occurrence. What state are we living in? What country are we living in?

David Davis interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: It is shameful, Mr Davis. But it is symbolic of how this government has operated: turn a blind eye, say nothing, say these nice words on a piece of paper and everyone will think it is okay and will believe us. Well, Victorians have woken up. They are sick of it. They are sick of the deceit, the lies, the cons and the buying of votes. Remember the Commonwealth Games? All a con – they just lied to Victorians. They said they would do it; they never were going to do it. Like the PET scanners: they were going to deliver PET scanners around regional Victoria – they could not do it. They went out there and said they were going to deliver them, but they could never deliver these things because they did not understand that you have got to have nuclear medicine operations in there to deliver them.

This is a government that has got no clue about how to deliver services. I was listening to Ms Watt talking about our first-class healthcare system. This is no reflection on the doctors, nurses and others – the physios, the radiographers and all of those people that work right across our health system and make it tick – but let us not forget that at Mildura hospital, which the government runs, 150 Victorians’ referrals were left in a box.

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.