Wednesday, 7 February 2024

Government performance

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (17:28): I rise to make a contribution to the grievance debate this afternoon, because the people of Victoria have been let down by this state Labor government. This government has been in power for almost 10 years. They are a tired, burnt out government, and not only are they tired but they are incompetent, and I will back up my statements.

The state Labor government has managed to rack up a massive debt and has no plan to address it – a debt greater than Queensland’s, New South Wales’s and Tasmania’s put together. The state Labor government have spent a decade spinning the spin so they can present a facade that they care about community, care about Victoria and care about families, but the wheels of spin are falling off, and the gaping hole left by the mismanagement of this government is demonstrated by the hole in the budget that they now have to deal with and have no idea how. Labor have billions and billions of dollars in debt. Labor have lost billions and billions of dollars in cost overruns, waste and poorly managed projects, and yet Labor continue on their reckless program of major investment, like the Suburban Rail Loop, which the state just cannot afford. Now, because of the waste and mismanagement, families are struggling. I am sure it is a nice concept to have; however, with no business case it is not appropriate. We cannot do this. The costs are so wrong. They have even got the experts who usually back Labor calling for Labor to halt their reckless program. The new Premier continues in the same manner as her corrupt, aggressive predecessor. This reckless and tired government, who cannot manage money, are sending Victoria broke. Once again it looks like Back to the Future, like the 1990s under Kirner, where we are starting to hear phrases again like ‘the rust bucket state of Australia’ and it is Victoria that they are referring to. Jacinta Allan is Joan Kirner mark 2. Just like John Cain, Daniel Andrews flew the coop, and the chickens are now coming home to roost.

And what are the consequences of the Labor government not being able to manage money for the last 10 years? Because that is what really needs to be understood. That is what really matters – the consequences of mismanagement. Well, these consequences are real and they are distressing, and they are hurting every Victorian family who is now struggling under a government who have been wasteful and ignore their governance responsibilities and have been laid bare in the seven IBAC reports recently published and are ignoring the levers they could pull to assist the struggling and hurting Victorian families that are now left in this state of debt created by Labor. What are the consequences? They are 53 taxes and charges that Labor have imposed on families because they have no way of paying for their debt and their mismanagement except to reach out to Victorian families and take more of their hard-earned money in the form of the increased taxes and charges – 53 of them since they came into government.

What are the consequences in my electorate? Well, the obvious first one is the crumbling state of our roads. It is often said you can judge a state or a country by their regional roads. If a government is in turmoil, corrupt or broke, across the world it is often seen in the state of their roads, and our roads in regional Victoria are in a dangerous state of disrepair and are being completely ignored by this irresponsible government.

You can see it in the healthcare system. Just recently the Minister for Health came to Warrnambool, and instead of doing what she has done for the other 10 health services in the metropolitan areas and increasing funding for Warrnambool Base Hospital in line with the increased cost of building, she simply denied Warrnambool that. Instead of delivering the hospital to the original design and scope, the building will be cut because of increased costs incurred under Labor. Labor are not giving the money required to build the hospital, which is needed for the specifications that have been set. And they will not be able to deliver services if they do not get these specifications as required by the families of South-West Coast.

We saw the Commonwealth Games cancelled, a clear indication that the government has run out of money. We have seen taxes imposed on renters; taxes imposed on schools and education; taxes imposed on holidays and holiday rentals; taxes imposed on cruise ships, costing Melbourne businesses more than the government is generating in the income they are receiving from the taxes – how stupid ‍– and, yes, a patient tax. That is right – a tax put on patients, making it more expensive to see a doctor in a healthcare crisis and shifting burdens onto the accident and emergency centres instead of promoting and enabling and encouraging patients to go to GP clinics. Labor are taxing the cost of a patient seeing a doctor. Consequently from Labor’s mismanagement, the health system under Labor is groaning under the stress of a system that has been let go by Labor.

Let us recall the fact that per capita there is less investment in the health system in Victoria than in any other state. Nurses are burnt out. Nurses are leaving. We need them most of all, and the government has left them unsupported and feeling undervalued. Police are striking. They feel disappointed by a government that does not value them. They do not feel backed in by the government and supported. They are able to be attacked whilst on the job. During COVID they were forced to send grandmothers home for sitting on park benches. They have had to stand by idle and watch terrible atrocities occur because they have not been given the laws, such as move-on laws, by the Labor government nor the support to stand up for them.

The recent protests at the Port of Melbourne saw the port held to ransom for four days. Nowhere else in the world is this happening – nowhere else. Vital medicines and necessities were obstructed from getting to the community by a handful of people. Again, nowhere else in the world is this occurring. The government are too weak to show leadership. Still the government have not explained why they did not act quickly and move these protesters on. The Treasurer actually said it was a minor inconvenience. With 100,000 ‍containers sitting out at sea, this government clearly has no understanding of the vital role the port plays in Victoria’s economy.

Criminals in Victoria under this Labor government are given more and more rights, while victims feel let down by the Labor government. The perfect example of this is the weakening of the bail laws under Labor. Further consequences of this incompetent Labor government are the fact that ambulance services have not had the investment required to keep up with the demand of a growing population. As one person who could not get an ambulance said to me, ‘In my state I have what I believe is a basic expectation – that if I call an ambulance, an ambulance would turn up.’ Too many are left stranded today under Labor when they expect an ambulance.

The mismanagement of this government has even left our teachers unsupported. These are the educators of our future generations. The burnout experienced by teachers is real and cannot be denied by this government, and that is why we are seeing a massive teacher shortage. In my electorate the schools are struggling with kids who have not readjusted after COVID with situations where assaults are taking place in school. There are not enough teachers to escort the children who are at risk between what are now known as ‘safe spaces’. I still cannot get over the fact that schools have to have safe spaces and boast of how many they have. I thought all school grounds should be safe. Teachers tell me that the Labor government is not giving them the tools to set the boundaries for the students, and the students, as a consequence, are in control, not the teachers. That is what the teachers tell me.

This Labor government has taken away the rights of an individual to heat their home with firewood even. Restaurants and hotels will eventually lose the ability to cook with gas for their customers. Energy has got more and more expensive under a government who rush to meet their energy targets without the ability to fulfil their promise of delivering energy in a reliable and affordable manner. There are more people with no roof over their head than ever before. Labor say they will build 80,000 homes a year – 800,000 over the next 10 years. I ask: what have they been doing for the last 10 years to be in this position? They are failing already on this. They are miles behind already on that target too.

There are real consequences of this government. In my shadow portfolio of ports and freight I have learned of the next tax to be imposed on all Victorians. It is a tax on trucks entering and leaving the port. It will be the 54th tax for Victorian families. Trucks going in and out of the Port of Melbourne will be slugged between $150 and $250 per container. Ninety-six per cent of our goods we use here in Victoria come in through the Port of Melbourne. Most things we buy will be affected by this tax, even things manufactured here in Victoria, because often ingredients are imported. The income our farmers bring to the state of Victoria through exports will also bear the brunt of this new tax. This tax will increase the cost of living. The government is touting it as an emissions reduction move. The reality is the government did not deliver the promised rail network they have been talking about for the last 10 years. They have failed to deliver on this, so now to fund their rail infrastructure they are taxing trucks, and this tax will be passed back to the consumer, whose goods the trucks carry. Goods being carried on rail under Labor over the last 10 years have gone down from 14 per cent of goods carried by rail to 5 per cent. That is a fail. They failed to meet their own targets to grow rail freight, and now they are going to tax the consumer to fund the job they should have done by now. So we have less freight on rail even though over the government’s 10 years in power they have spent half a billion dollars on rail and things are worse for that spend, not better. Fail. Fail.

Whilst all these things are horrific and affect every single Victorian, what I think is most horrific is the fact that under Labor our children who are our most vulnerable, who need the support of the state when their family is unable to deliver for them, are also being treated with disdain. When families let children down, the child protection system steps in. A state system in good order is needed. Under Labor our children are being let down by the Allan Labor government. In the words of the first Commissioner for Children and Young People Bernie Geary, ‘The state is a terrible parent.’ That is Labor he is talking about. I raised in Parliament the need for an inquiry due to the fact that children are dying in the state’s care, being criminalised whilst in the state’s care and being sexually abused in the state’s care. The reports identifying this continue to be tabled, and yet the government ignores the children in their care. This despicable government denied these children that inquiry so their voices now cannot be heard. Nothing can be more abhorrent.

I cannot even speak about some the despicable accounts I have been given by concerned family members or caseworkers about different cases of young children and the sexual acts being described as performed by young girls in state care, because it is too shocking for our community to hear the details. I know our caring community would be shocked if the government were honest with them about what is really going on. The fact the government go to the Supreme Court to prevent information getting to the public and use the children as a rationale for the gag order they seek is low. Even the courts denied the government this recently and stated it was not to protect the child. Clearly it is the government trying to protect themselves. They do not want the community to know they are failing in their role to protect innocent children.

The commissioner for children and young people would not say the system was broken if she did not mean it. Under Labor, in real terms, each child in care gets $26,000 less allocated to their care than they did in 2017. I know Labor say they put more money into the system – that is because there are more children. Labor are not fixing the problem, they are just underfunding the system. Our children then suffer.

Foster carers get less in Victoria to care for the state’s children than they do in any other state in Australia – $14,000 out of pocket is the figure, they tell me. The government is asking foster carers to take on a child out of the goodness of their hearts at a cost to the family. Many families want to do this but simply cannot afford to. They are struggling themselves to meet the challenge of the cost of living. The reimbursement that they get is actually only to clothe, feed and keep the child warm. If the child in the care of foster carers needs dental work or even just the pleasure of being allowed to have an activity after school, such as dance lessons, the foster family has to pay for that, not the state. No wonder foster carers are leaving the system in droves. Labor have more children in residential care, which is not a family environment – the loving, caring environment that they should be in – when they should be in the loving arms of foster carers. You can see why: when the figures are laid out, all families are struggling under the cost of living. So how can the Allan Labor government expect any family – any foster caring family – to take on an extra child without the right financial costs getting covered to house the child?

This is why I grieve for the people of Victoria. This is why I grieve for the people of South-West Coast. The evidence is all laid out to see. Daniel Andrews’s corruption, secrecy and mismanagement of funds were a hallmark of his reign, and many wanted to see a different Victoria under the new Premier, but we have more of the same. People are homeless. No-one can get child care in regional Victoria. The roads are a mess in regional Victoria. Police are striking. Nurses are leaving. We have teacher shortages. Ambulances do not turn up in Victoria. Rents are soaring. Families are hurting. The government cannot keep up the spin that they care. It is just not stacking up.