Thursday, 17 August 2023

Motions

Budget papers 2023–24

Debate resumed on motion of Mary-Anne Thomas:

That this house takes note of the 2023–24 budget papers.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (12:31): From colonising Mars to improving Wallan, I am so happy to speak about the 2023–24 budget and the improvements and industry that we are bringing there. I am inspired to do so by the presence of the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Community Sport and Minister for Suburban Development, the member for Kalkallo, who I am so pleased to work with to deliver a major feature of the 2023–24 budget: the delivery of the Watson Street interchange and road improvements for the communities of Wallan East and Wallan proper, which we share. This project is going to be a game changer. What I want to stress today is that this was included in the 2023–24 budget, and you know what – works are underway. The planning is underway. We have engineers onsite making technical assessments. We have traffic modelling underway, and the project manager herself, Suki, has been in the community engaging with the community to understand what is important to them in the development of these ramps. Now, how great is it that our community can speak directly to the project manager and have their views taken into account in the finalised designs of this project? When I asked the project manager what the common themes were of the feedback she was receiving, the main theme was please do it quickly. There is nothing the member for Kalkallo and I would agree with more, and that is why we are working so hard to make sure this feature of the 2023–24 budget is turned into a reality as soon as possible. There had been an earlier hiccup as we waited for the former federal government to release funding – when they had not committed enough for the project – but now that we have our good partners in Canberra and now that the state government has been able to commit funding to the project, it is getting there, so I would like to reassure the people of Wallan that this project is a big priority for me and the member for Kalkallo, and we will see that one through.

The reason people want the road is because they have got places to go, and some of the places people are going to is schools. I was also very pleased that we were able to announce that Wandong Primary School and Whittlesea Secondary College will also be upgraded as part of the 2023–24 budget. We have got smart students in our area, and we want them to be supported with great facilities. We have got dedicated teachers in our area, and we want them to have the ease and comfort of the facilities they need to deliver the best quality education for the children of the north.

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (12:34): I take this opportunity to rise on the take-note motion for the 2023–24 budget papers. Three months ago the budget was delivered. A lot has changed, actually, since the budget, and I will get to that in a minute. First, I will start with just a few little bits and pieces from Nepean. In earlier debate, another piece that was mentioned – he is not here anymore, but the member for Pascoe Vale said the budget was endorsed right across the state. Well, it certainly was not in Nepean, otherwise the previous member would still be sitting on the other side of the chamber. For Nepean, in the budget there are a few bits and pieces for some school funding. I note that there is some planning funding for Eastbourne Primary –

Darren Cheeseman interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for South Barwon is not in his seat.

Sam GROTH: Thank you, Deputy Speaker – which is fantastic. Eastbourne Primary is definitely in need of an upgrade. What I will say, though, is that planning funding is not going to assist students. The school needs the funding to be delivered ASAP. You cannot store your PE equipment in a plan or play at recess in a plan. You cannot write or draw with a plan. While I do welcome the investment in funding, I want to see some action. Also when you talk about schools, Rye Primary need a couple of hundred thousand, and there was $42,000 in this budget. You know, if a playground costs $200,000 to build and there is only $42,000 in the first year, I am not sure when the other $160,000-odd is coming and how it is going to be used.

I also note that there was $6.9 million across four projects in Victoria for piers. Dromana Pier was promised $10 million at the last election. $6.9 million for four projects is a long way short of the $10 million this government promised for Dromana Pier, so I am hoping that in future budgets the rest of that funding will come through for the community in Dromana. I will also note that the major projects that we advocated for during the election campaign down there – some of the major projects that are desperately needed, such as Rosebud Hospital, which I have mentioned numerous times in this chamber – did not receive any funding in the budget. So health care is once again neglected on the southern peninsula.

As well there is no funding for the Jetty Road overpass, which has had $75 million of federal funding sitting on the table for going on five years now. There is still no funding to commit to that project for those constituents in the Rosebud and the further southern peninsula area. I mean, it is a debacle of an intersection at the end of the freeway. I am sure many members in the chamber from both sides have travelled that road at some stage and know that, especially during the busy parts of the year, that intersection is in much need of an upgrade and the extension. There is also no money for sound barriers down the Mornington Peninsula Freeway. It is one of the only metro freeways – incredibly it is metro – left in Melbourne that does not have any noise abatement or anything to stop the sound. Those residents have been, since 2018, when studies were done by VicRoads, living with noise that is well over the decibel threshold for something to be done, and it actually is detrimental. Noise at that level has been shown to actually cause things like early dementia and Alzheimer’s and such, so I encourage the government to keep looking at doing something about those sound issues along the freeway.

More broadly, we have seen in this budget an increase in taxes – when you think about the rental tax, the payroll tax, the schools tax. And this government has set a fairly ambitious housing agenda that they keep talking about, but when you start to look at sending houses or trying to help those people who need houses, either affordable places to buy or to rent, increasing land tax on those properties – I have got 5500-odd properties on the long-term rental market, and I will say that on the southern peninsula the Airbnb versus long-term rental situation is a delicate one. I have a huge number of Airbnb properties that do drive a lot of that tourism industry that my community so much relies on. When you have 5500 rentals at the moment and you talk about the Airbnbs, driving land taxes up, which those landlords are just going to pass on to their renters, is not going to drive more houses to the long-term market. It is actually going to turn people away from putting their houses on the long-term market as they try to recover some of the losses that they have made. And when you talk about interest rate rises and those sorts of things, an extra tax, for most people, is not going to send any more properties back to the long-term rental market.

Since the budget we have already seen other states poaching and pitching for business to take their interests interstate. We have seen South Australia and Tasmania both pitching, because of the extra tax on payroll, saying, ‘Come and do business in our state. Send business over here. We’ll look after you. It’s going to cost you less’. We do not want to see that. We do not want to see business leaving this state. We want to make this state the best place to do business, not by increasing their taxes but by encouraging people. We should not be taxing payroll. We should not be putting an extra tax on jobs. We should be doing everything we can to make it an attractive place to grow your business to employ more people, not the other way around.

The big one, though, that we have seen over the last few weeks – it was mentioned in the budget papers, only to be cancelled eight weeks later – is the Commonwealth Games. How can you have a budget that budgets $2.6 billion for the Commonwealth Games and eight weeks later see an increase of up to $5 billion and then all of a sudden the price tag is $7 billion for something that was going to be a 12-day event? Having had lots of conversations with ministers and the department and briefings over the last few weeks since that cancellation, I am not sure the government has a plan on how they are going to get out of this in any way that is going to deliver for regional Victoria. We hear about a billion dollars for housing. The department is not taking any responsibility. It is handing that off to somebody else and saying, ‘Well, we’re still working through those’.

I am not sure how they are going to deliver what is supposed to be 14 sporting legacy projects across those regional hubs. We have in the last few days been told it will have a price tag of around $500 million but as long as those projects meet the budget they will be delivered. There is no guarantee on those projects or what level they are going to be delivered to. Are they going to be delivered to an international standard like they were going to be for the games, or are they going to be wound back now to fit within what the government calls an ‘infrastructure legacy spend’? There are a lot of questions around that. For these communities we have to be listening. I understand there were certain projects that would have had to be delivered for the Commonwealth Games and that would have made sense because we were delivering a games, but now we need to go back to those communities and make sure that they are being given pieces of legacy infrastructure that they need.

Michaela Settle: And we are. We have got consultation booked across all of the regions.

Sam GROTH: I glad we have an expert on the other side on this. It is incredible that the member knows when yesterday the department themselves did not know what they are doing. If the member has information that the department does not, I would be incredibly keen to hear what that information is, because the department says they do not have that information yet.

Members interjecting.

Sam GROTH: Can I continue? Are you excited? Sounds it.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Through the Chair. Without assistance.

Sam GROTH: Overall this is an awful budget for Victoria. If this government had not blown the budget and got our debt out to $170 odd billion – we are paying $15 million a day in debt, and it is going to rise to $22 million a day. I would love all the members on the other side just to acknowledge what their communities could do with $15 million a day. $15 million a day in one month in my community would build the hospital, would build the intersection, would build the pier, would fix Flinders Pier, would fix the roads with the potholes and would build every school that we need to have fixed. If they cannot acknowledge that their financial mismanagement has driven this state to a place where we cannot afford to build things, we cannot afford to deliver events that we have committed to – if those on the other side think that we are doing things well in this state with the current level of debt, then I think they need to go and take a good hard look in the mirror. This is one of the worst budgets this state has ever seen. While there are little bits for my community in there, there is a lot missing, and there is a lot more to be done.

Danny PEARSON (Essendon – Minister for Government Services, Assistant Treasurer, Minister for WorkSafe and the TAC, Minister for Consumer Affairs) (12:43): It is a delight to be able to take note of this great Labor budget. If you go back in time to the depths of the pandemic, the government set itself four key targets. The first was to stabilise the economy and to grow the economy, and since that time we have created in the order of 450,000 jobs. The second focus was to look at having a cash surplus in the general government sector, and we are on track. I think we have secured that in the recent financial year. The third phase was about having an operating surplus in the general government sector, and that is projected at the end of the forward estimates. Then beyond that it was about stabilising debt. If you look at the budget papers, you see that debt as a proportion of gross state product is getting close to stabilising. It is not quite there yet, but it is pretty close. The metrics that we are on are really strong and solid. The Victorian economy is incredibly strong and robust, as we saw.

I note the member for Nepean’s contribution. I appreciate the fact that he was not here in the last term, but when you are confronted with the greatest economic crisis the state or the nation has seen since the Great Depression, you can turn around and say we will adopt the Sir Otto Niemeyer plan which was imposed on governments during the Great Depression, which is that governments need to act like a household budget – when you do not have any money coming in, you cut all expenditure and you try and basically pull everything back. All that did, in terms of the Great Depression –

Wayne Farnham: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, you cannot use the word ‘you’. That is a reflection on the Chair.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is correct. I appreciate there is some context, but yes, ‘you’ is reflecting on the Chair.

Danny PEARSON: Well, it is always a delight when new members start reading up on the standing orders. I will give credit there, through the Chair. So in that particular case, what you had happen was that public sectors and governments around the world started to withdraw and not invest in communities. As we saw, that resulted in the rise of fascism and led to what was a minor economic contraction in 1927 becoming a full-blown depression.

At the time – and the member for Gippsland East was certainly here; he predates me – as a government we were faced with that situation. Well, we could either recreate the mistakes which were made in the 1930s, or we could recognise the fact that we were in this situation where we could use our state budget to support household budgets. That is a strategy that we used, that is a strategy which the Morrison government used and it is a strategy that the Biden government used. It is a case where you turn around and say we can gaze out over years and decades, long beyond the forward estimates, to think about how we can try and use our budget as a shock absorber for the economy. How can we try and make sure that the economy is well supported to be able to get through difficult times? We know that times will turn and that times will improve, and at that point on we can start to repay that debt. That is why the Treasurer has established the Victorian Future Fund, a future fund that is holding the receipts of various long leases and co-investments which will allow the opportunity to try and service that debt and pay it down. We made those necessary investments; we provided $11 billion worth of support for Victorian businesses at a time when they needed it.

I think in terms of this budget, it reflects the fact that we are in a really strong position, but equally we do have to recognise the fact that we took on all this extra debt at a time when we needed to and we need to try and pay it back. Now, we do not have the benefit that the Commonwealth government has in terms of getting corporate tax returns through company tax rates. We do not have the benefit of the Western Australian government in terms of mining royalties, nor of the fact that they have got what can only be described as a very unfair GST allocation that is in their favour. But nonetheless we are in this position where we have got a really strong, robust economy. If you look at the unemployment rate, I think –

Darren Cheeseman: Record lows.

Danny PEARSON: Well, my good friend the member for South Barwon would know the regional unemployment rate – 2.8 per cent, 2.9 per cent. I mean, you almost have to go back to the gold rush to see an unemployment rate that low. So the economy is really humming along beautifully, and the budget really ensures that we are in a very strong position to build on those strengths.

Certainly from my perspective as the Minister for Government Services, I am really excited about the money that we are investing in terms of Service Victoria. We have provided tens of millions of dollars – I think if you look at it overall, it is around about $120 million – to digitise and improve services. Not all of that is going to government services or to Service Victoria, but we are starting to onboard more and more transactions onto that platform and into the Service Victoria wallet. We have got the working with children check card and the Ambulance Victoria card. We have got the seniors card coming on board, as well as the veterans card that has recently been launched. I am really excited that, in terms of Ballarat, we have got the launch of the digital drivers licence, which I know the member for Eureka is very excited about –

Michaela Settle: I’ve got one.

Danny PEARSON: You have already got one. It is a great user experience. So this is all about trying to find ways in which we can more efficiently deliver services to the community. I think that when we start to onboard more and more of these transactions – Service Victoria has now got well over 100 transactions you can perform on that application – we will improve the quality of service and we will ensure that there is a consistent level of service provided to the citizens.

The Service Victoria app has been downloaded about 1.4 million times. It has got a really high satisfaction rating; it is like 95 to 97 per cent. We can start to onboard more and more of these transactions because we want to ultimately be in a position where we can improve the user experience and we can improve the citizen experience. That means that as a government we can reallocate resources where they are needed most. If you think about that for a moment, what does it mean? Well, it means that we can start to put money towards people who may be digitally illiterate or who may not feel comfortable using the internet or a digital app for their health and solutions.

An example of that is we are putting $51.4 million into public libraries. Our public libraries – and I appreciate that that is a portfolio responsibility of the Minister for Local Government – do a fantastic job. They really are incredibly important in terms of presenting an opportunity to deal with people who do not have the opportunity to use the internet or use a digital solution effectively. I think these sorts of investments really help to improve that experience. It is about sort of segmenting the community so that people who are digital natives and people who are early adopters – people who are fluent and conversant in digital technology – can have a consistent level of service through the app, but we can then reallocate resources to people who do not have that. The public libraries present a really great opportunity for trying to do that and doing that well.

I am really pleased that we are allocating $30 million to the Business Acceleration Fund. Again, this is about making sure that we can do process redesign to make sure that regulation can be appropriate and rolled out and administered in the most efficient and effective way possible. These investments are important. Usually in the past when we did this the return on investment was in the order of, I think, about 10 or 12 to 1. Where you can try and make it easier for business to be able to comply with the laws of the state and do so in an efficient and an effective way, that is a really good thing.

If you go back historically and you go back to the 1990s, it was all about deregulation. There were ministers for deregulation. Maybe if you had come out of the 1970s and 1980s, when there was a pretty tightly prescriptive regulatory regime in place across the country, that might have been appropriate. But it is more about better regulation now. It is more about understanding that we need to have regulation in place. We have seen what happens when you have regulatory failure. We have seen examples like Porter Davis, where we have just basically had shonk operators, rogue operators, behaving in the most egregious of ways. So we need to make sure that there is regulation in place, but how can we structure it to be better? How can we make sure that it is more efficient and more effective and services the needs of the community? These things are incredibly important, and I think that with the $30 million that we are allocating, we will ensure that we are in a really strong position there.

I also note the fact that we have looked at providing $1.2 million to specialist financial counselling services. I will be careful in what I say now because I do not want to identify an individual, but I was at a sporting event recently. A woman came up to me and she said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you on a Saturday. I need to talk to you.’ I said, ‘That’s fine. I’m working.’ She talked to me in a very graphic way about the way in which she had been treated by her estranged, abusive partner. He had conducted himself in such a way that, despite the fact that it would appear that they were from means and had a comfortable life and a comfortable existence – she was wearing really nice clothes, she spoke very well and she was very articulate – she was facing homelessness because of the abuse. She said it was not physical. She said, ‘He never touched me. There were no bruises.’ But it was the controlling nature of the abuse and the fact that she was facing the prospect of being homeless. She did not know where to turn. She said, ‘Can you help me?’ I think that putting in this money for specialist financial counselling services is incredibly important, because we know that in many cases with family violence it is about control and it is about power, and we know that perpetrators of family violence often use financial abuse as a form of abuse. It is one of the tools that they use to abuse their spouses. That is why having an investment like this is so incredibly important, because the state does need to intervene. The state does need to be active in this space. The state does have a role to play. We can try and provide those levels of support that victims of family violence need.

In terms of Essendon, this budget acquitted many of the commitments we took to the election. I am super excited about the fact that we will be having a community battery in the City of Moonee Valley. That is going to present a really great opportunity to be able to take off some of that excess power and store it to be used later by the community. I know certainly parts of my community are incredibly excited about what this could do in terms of reducing their carbon footprint and what it will do in terms of tackling climate change. Essendon Primary School is one of the oldest primary schools in the state. I think it was founded in around about 1860, right next door to Windy Hill. The community there have been advocating very firmly for a new playground, and we have provided $2.6 million in funding for that. That is something I am really looking forward to working with the community on as we start to co-design, build and develop this fantastic piece of infrastructure.

I think we have gotten much better as a community and as a society. Deputy Speaker, you and I are of a similar age – it did not matter which school you went to, they were all the same. They were all procured in the same way, with the same architectural fit, the same look and the same feel, always with the zigzag structure that was holding up the ceiling. We have gotten better as a society and community. We co-design and work with our communities better. We understand the fact that if you look at Cranbourne, if you look at Essendon or if you look at Ashwood, they are all very different communities, and the infrastructure that we deploy and develop in those communities needs to reflect the aspirations of those communities. So in my case I am really looking forward to working with the community.

A big shout-out to Peter Moore. He is the principal of St Monica’s Primary School. We will be providing $2 million in funding for the new foundation classrooms at that school. Those classrooms were built in 1917. They are not fit for purpose. There are foundation students at that school who have got issues in relation to access and egress at that building, and so this investment I think is going to be really important. Peter has done a fantastic job as the principal at that school in really supporting, nurturing and encouraging that community. From my perspective, being able to provide that funding will be incredibly important.

I am pleased that we will be providing $100,000 in funding to the Moonee Valley Legal Service. I want to give a shout-out to Helene McNamara, who recently lost her husband Jim Cusack, who had been on the board at the Moonee Valley Legal Service for many years. The legal service provides a really important role in supporting people down at Ascot Vale, particularly those who live on the Wingate Avenue public housing estate. They deal with many issues, and they do really important work providing essential legal services to people who need them the most, when they need them. In addition to this, I am pleased that we will be providing $300,000 to the Fanny Street Reserve bike track and $400,000 to a bike park in Flemington. This budget is a Labor budget, and this budget reflects the values –

Sam Groth interjected.

Danny PEARSON: Yes, you are right. It is. That is why we won, and that is why this is the first time a government in this state’s history has increased its margin at three successive elections. That is what happened, and that is why we have got the strong support of the community.

Members interjecting.

Danny PEARSON: No. I was making a point, member for Nepean, that the election occurred before the budget. What I am saying is that this budget reflects the community’s aspirations and hopes. It is instructive of the fact that we have increased our majority every time we have gone to the people, because this reflects the hopes and the aspirations of the people of Victoria. It is why we command a two-thirds majority in this place. It is something I am incredibly proud of. It reflects the times which we are in, it ensures that we are on a really strong, stable footing to chart the waters that lay before us and it is something I am incredibly proud of. I know the people of Essendon are going to love to see the rollout of this budget and the delivery of these projects across the forward estimates. It is a great time to be alive. It is a joy.

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (12:58): Acknowledging that we will be going to lunch in a fairly short time –

A member: You do your best work in 2 minutes.

Tim BULL: Yes, I do, but I will take a little bit longer on this occasion, honourable member. I was one of the few members on this side who had the opportunity to speak on the original budget reply, so I will use this take-note motion on the 2023–24 budget to provide, I guess, a little bit more of a timely update, with a few months having transpired since that time. The first issue that I want to touch on, which I will go into in more depth after the break, is the abhorrent decision to end our native timber industry. What has transpired since then, with the lack of information that has gone to impacted families, workers and communities in relation to what is going to be going on in the next few months before they lose their employment, and the lack of access to information that they have had? As I said, I will go into more detail on that after the break, but it is a very, very worrying issue for a lot of people within my community of East Gippsland and the other Gippsland electorates that are impacted.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:01 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.