Wednesday, 20 March 2024

Grievance debate

Government performance

Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (16:01): I rise to grieve for the state of Victoria for a number of reasons. I rise to grieve for the state of Victoria because of the way this Labor government has mismanaged the economy. I rise to grieve for the state of Victoria because of the way this Andrews now Allan Labor government have mismanaged not only the economy but the operation of government over the last 10 years. Just today we heard of the Commonwealth Games debacle presided over by this Andrews now Allan Labor government. We hear of Victorian taxpayers money being wasted in every which way. We hear of the lack of respect that the Victorian government has for Victorian taxpayers money.

The point that I want to make from the outset is this: the difference between the government and the opposition is that in our eyes we see Victorian taxpayers money as just that. We see Victorian taxpayers dollars as the hard-earned money of Victorians who do the right thing and who pay their taxes to be in turn provided with the services they rely upon – the health services, the education services, the emergency services and the public transport services – unlike those opposite, who see Victorian taxpayer dollars as simply the Victorian Labor Party slush fund. We know this because they waste, we know this because they tax and we know this because the Victorian taxpayer misses out on many opportunities time and time again.

We know that the Victorian government has wasted more than $38 billion on major project blowouts in the last 10 years alone. We know that Victoria’s debt is scheduled to be $177 billion, according to this government’s own budget papers and the budget update in December last year. We know that that means Victorians are paying $15 million each and every day for the interest bill courtesy of decisions made by the Allan Labor government, and we know that in just three short years time that interest bill will climb to $24 million a day, each and every day, just to pay off the interest on Labor’s debt.

I tend to believe the internationally renowned and respected ratings agency Standard & Poor’s more so than this Allan Labor government. They themselves have said that the debt in this state is more likely to climb to something like a quarter of a trillion dollars. If Victoria’s debt does reach a quarter of a trillion dollars, forget paying 15 million bucks each and every day in interest payments and forget paying 24 million bucks each and every day in interest payments; Victorian taxpayers will be slugged $40 million a day, each and every day, in interest payments courtesy of the mismanagement of Victoria’s economy at the hands of Labor.

Debt matters. Economic management and mismanagement matter. When Victorians work so, so hard to make ends meet, to pay for their school fees, to pay for their grocery bills, to pay for their energy bills, how are they rewarded by this Labor government – they are rewarded with higher taxes and more debt that they have to pay off. When Victorian Labor wastes, Victorian Labor taxes and Victorians pay the price each and every day.

In today’s Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report on the Commonwealth Games we see that Victorians have been slugged with Labor’s con games tax. Let me repeat that for Hansard so I am not misrepresented: Victorians have been slugged with Labor’s con – c-o-n – games tax. The Labor government have today been called out – they have been found out – for close to $600 million in waste because of the fiasco that has been caused by the Commonwealth Games cancellation. That means that every Victorian household will be charged 227 bucks. It is equivalent to $227 on the head of each Victorian household. It is equivalent to 88 bucks on the head of every Victorian. Again, when Labor waste, Labor tax and Victorians pay. Labor’s con games tax of close to $600 million matters. It matters because Victorians cannot trust the Allan Labor government to manage the economy. They cannot trust them to manage the state.

What is disappointing about this is that it is clear that the government uses the Victorian public service to proof up whatever it wants. You know, one day they are saying that the Comm Games should be this amount; the next day they are saying it should be that amount. They are undermining the independence of the public service along the way. It is an absolute disgrace, and when decisions are made in such a secretive and dishonest way, it is all Victorians that pay the price. The government is not giving Victorians the respect they deserve. The Victorian government is not giving Victorian taxpayers the respect they deserve. Again, the difference between the government and the opposition is that we respect Victorian taxpayers. Every day ending in ‘Y’ we respect Victorian taxpayers, unlike the government, who simply see Victorian taxes as the Victorian Labor Party’s slush fund to go and waste on projects that are often 10, 20, 30, 40, 60 per cent over budget, with blowouts left, right and centre. Again, when Labor waste, Labor tax and Victorians pay.

As we know, in Victoria at the moment – in fact across the country – Victorians are experiencing a cost-of-living crisis. Victorians are being subjected to the highest school fees in the country to send their kids to public school. Parents are paying more than $108,000 to send their kid to a public school in this state over 13 years of education. And what are they getting in return? They are getting NAPLAN results through the floor, they are getting education standards through the floor and they are getting a Minister for Education who stood here yesterday and assured this house that there was not a teacher working in Victorian schools that should not be working in Victorian schools, a Victorian education minister that is backing the Victorian Institute of Teaching, although the VIT itself have been found time and time again to be absolutely incompetent – and Victorians are again paying the price.

We have got energy bills through the roof. In the last 12 months alone energy prices in households have increased by 25 per cent and in businesses by 26 per cent. Victorians are paying the price for decisions the Labor government makes every day of the week. Now, Labor say that they are here for people, that they care for people, that they understand people, that they want to lift Victorians up when they are downtrodden, when they are hard on their luck. If that is true, then why don’t they demonstrate that in their actions? They simply do not. The cost of housing is going through the roof. The Victorian government has said that we are in the middle of a housing crisis, and we on this side agree – we are in the middle of a housing crisis. But they have been in government for 10 years. Victorians need to look no further than the Labor government here in Victoria, who by their decision-making and by their inaction over the last decade have actually contributed to this housing crisis.

What is Labor’s solution to the housing crisis that Victorians are currently facing?

Tim Richardson interjected.

Brad ROWSWELL: More taxes, member for Mordialloc – close but no cigar. More taxes – a rent tax and increases in land taxes. How on earth you can tax housing more and expect to get more houses online and more Victorians into houses I cannot for the life of me understand. But that is how dimwitted, that is how false in its argument, this Labor government is. Grocery bills – absolutely through the roof. In my household I do the supermarket shopping. Nine times out of 10 I do the supermarket shopping, and I know that my household grocery bill has increased from about 120 bucks a week to more than 200 bucks a week in the last 12 months. I know from speaking to supermarkets and from speaking to banks that people’s supermarket baskets are actually reducing in size. We have got a circumstance now where Victorians are buying groceries for maybe two or three days, and historically they may have bought them for the week. They are doing that because of their own cash flow circumstance. They do that because at the same time as they are trying to put food on the table they are trying to pay their mortgage, they are trying to pay their school bills and they are trying to pay their power bills. Cost of living is a massive issue in this state at the moment. According to the Salvation Army, over 12.8 million Australians – 62 per cent of Australians – are more stressed about their finances this year compared to last year, which is an increase of 10 per cent year on year. Australians are fair dinkum at breaking point, and of all the Australians reaching out to charities, almost half are doing so for the first time.

Darren Cheeseman interjected.

Brad ROWSWELL: Can I say there are lots of things that I would love to be proud of, but I would genuinely think, despite the unruly interjections of the member for South Barwon, that he and his colleagues would agree that the circumstance of the reliance of Victorians upon some of our charitable organisations in this state and certainly around the country is something that we should not be proud of at this time. According to Vinnies, a great organisation in our community, demand for Vinnies services has risen by 22 per cent. Vinnies says that of the people seeking help, one in three are reaching out for the first time, up from one in four on the previous year. According to the Foodbank, Foodbank Victoria is feeding 57,000 people a day in our state. Some of the charities they are distributing food relief through have seen a 200 per cent spike in demand. Many people are experiencing food insecurity for the very first time.

Again, there are many things that I am sure in a cross-partisan, nonpartisan way we should be proud of, but those statistics which I have referred to are surely something we can all agree are a great stain of shame on our state at this time. My point is this: when we have the privilege, when we have the opportunity, to sit on that side of the house instead of this side of the house, we just will not watch this going by. We will not just watch this going by. We will stand up for Victorians. We will stand up for vulnerable Victorians. Why? Because that is the right thing to do. On that side of the house they say they do, but their actions are yet to prove it. They have had the great privilege of occupying that side of the chamber for a decade, and this state is worse off because of it. What Victorians need to do, and what I implore all Victorians to do, is in November 2026 to consider whether their lives are better or worse after 10 years of Labor. Are they better or are they worse? I am sure, I am confident, the majority of Victorians will agree that their lives are not better off after a decade of Labor.

I am often asked as Shadow Treasurer: if elected, what will we do? I want to share with the house –

Members interjecting.

Brad ROWSWELL: If government members will stop interjecting, I will tell them exactly what we plan to do at this point in time. The first thing we will do is scrap your ridiculous schools tax. We will scrap that schools tax.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Member for South Barwon, you can leave the chamber for half an hour.

Member for South Barwon withdrew from chamber.

Brad ROWSWELL: We will launch a wholesale review of Victorian taxes. Victoria’s tax system under this government, where 53 taxes have either been increased or introduced in the last 10 years, is punishing Victorians at a time they can least afford it. That is why we will introduce a wholesale review of Victoria’s taxes – to improve productivity, to increase and stimulate the economy and to give Victorian businesses and investors the certainty they need to create jobs, to create wealth and to create investment opportunities so all of us do not just survive but thrive.

We will introduce a Victorian version of the Productivity Commission to improve productivity in this state, and we will govern for all Victorians by legislating a Victorian debt cap in this Parliament. That is our commitment to the Victorian people. That is an ironclad commitment to the Victorian people. In the short time I have remaining, Victorians cannot afford another year of this Labor government.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Tarneit, I remind members that interjecting across the chamber is disorderly.