Tuesday, 28 May 2024
Business of the house
Program
Program
That, under standing order 94(2), the orders of the day, government business, relating to the following bills be considered and completed by 5 pm on 30 May 2024:
Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024
Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024
Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation Repeal and Advisory Councils Bill 2024.
It is great to be back in the house after a pause when of course we had the opportunity for the parliamentary Public Accounts and Estimates Committee to hold their hearings, and I want to thank all members of that committee for the way in which they conducted themselves. I know that they are a bit weary; fair enough, it is a big job. But thank you. Now we are back with another busy Allan Labor government business program, getting on and delivering for the people of Victoria.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: As the member for Frankston says, not wasting a day. It has been our mantra since we were first elected almost 10 years ago now, and indeed it was the consequence of living that mantra every day that we were re-elected back in 2022, again with another full legislative program. We are a reforming government. We get on and deliver for the people of Victoria, and that is indeed what we are looking to continue this week in the house.
The Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024 goes to the importance of good governance, particularly for our local councils, making sure that they are supported to make sound decisions and deliver the services that their communities need. Councils deliver, obviously, many, many services, and we need to make sure that they are doing it in a fair and efficient way. One of the things of which we are very proud is that we did introduce rate capping. It is just one of the very many initiatives of our government to put downward pressure on cost of living and make sure that people could plan their household budgets better, and rate capping has delivered on that. But indeed we do need to make sure that again we have the appropriate safeguards around the way in which local government get to deliver their work and that they maintain the respect and confidence of the communities that they serve.
When we were elected back in 2014 we made a commitment to amend the Local Government Act 1989. The Local Government Act 2020 was successful, and councils have embraced new ways of engaging their communities to inform their decision-making and planning. However, we have noticed that since 2020 there has been an increase in the number of councils that have required interventions from the government, including municipal monitors, dismissal and suspension, so we need to act and always keep an eye out to make sure that the councils are being governed appropriately. So we look forward to that bill being debated.
The Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024 – back in 2019 our government moved to secure a long-term and sustainable future for Victoria’s forestry industry. We put forward a plan to support the sector as it transitioned. But since then native forestry has faced a number of natural disasters, which means that we are no longer able to do that. These of course included increasingly severe bushfires and prolonged legal action and court decisions. As a consequence of that we have moved to end native timber harvesting in state forests. That will be debated in this place.
The Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation Repeal and Advisory Councils Bill 2024 – we absolutely remain committed to supporting Victorians who are experiencing or are at risk of experiencing gambling harm, with a record investment in prevention and response. However, it is now time to repeal the work of the VRGF, the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation; it has met its objectives, and this bill will be debated in this place.
It is another example of our government’s busy legislative program – getting on and delivering for the people of Victoria. I look forward to the opposition supporting our government business program. I commend it to the house.
James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:20): The coalition will be opposing the government business program – the Leader of the House will have to wait for another week. The Leader of the House has gone through a number of bills that the government is proposing to consider this week. What is noticeable I think for the coalition of the non-government members in this place is the government is proposing to deal with three bills, which is not necessarily common in this place. We know their legislative agenda is light on, but what is missing is confirmation from the Leader of the House that the government will be providing time to debate the budget.
Does anyone remember the budget – the Victorian budget? Because the government do not remember it. The government do not want Victorians to remember it. We would have expected the Leader of the House to spring up and say how the Parliament will be provided time, will be provided certainty, to talk about their budget. I mean, I tell you, that budget sank like a stone, didn’t it? And what is missing in this government business program and from the Leader of the House has been certainty that members in this place will have an opportunity to talk about the $188 billion of debt. We know that is why the government does not want to talk about it. We know that is why the government will not provide us an opportunity to talk about funding cuts, promised funding for our schools – two in my electorate who have had that funding snatched away. Fake promises they were.
The Leader of the House did speak about three bills that are being considered this week if this government business program passes, and two of them, as the Leader of the House spoke to, are about the government cutting – cutting the native timber industry entirely. And as the Leader of the House said, the decisions around that on the government’s part were based around natural disaster and the courts’ fault. It was the courts’ fault – so the government had to come in here and shut down an industry. Well, I am absolutely sure that the industry and the communities, the families involved in that industry, know exactly who has destroyed their livelihoods. Every one of those people know who has destroyed their livelihood. And the coalition will certainly be looking forward to having an opportunity to speak on behalf of those communities – those good, hardworking people, who were promised some degree of certainty and timeline in terms of the decision the government made. How quickly they rolled over on those promises to look after people. So the coalition will absolutely be looking forward to an opportunity to talk about those issues.
The Leader of the House also spoke about the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, an initiative the member for Malvern certainly had a large part to play in in the former coalition government. And the Leader of the House spoke about the fact that the organisation needs to be scrapped because ‘It has met its objectives’. So I presume that everybody in Victoria gambles responsibly. I presume that the government is suggesting that everybody now in Victoria is gambling responsibly. We know of course that is not true. So the coalition will certainly be speaking to the fact that this Labor government has decided to scrap the responsible gambling foundation, and we will speak strongly on those issues.
The coalition went to the government to propose an opportunity for our shadow minister to take that bill into consideration in detail, and I know that the member would have done a sterling job holding the government to account. The 10-year Public Accounts and Estimates Committee member would have done a sterling job at holding the government to account. So is it any wonder the government said no? No minister could have held up to the scrutiny of that shadow minister. The experience and wit he would have brought into that consideration I am sure scared the government away, and so we were not provided with that opportunity. So of course we will, because of that, be opposing the government business program, and I do hope that at some stage the government stops hiding their budget and provides every member in this place with an opportunity to talk about the damage that it is doing to our great state.
Pauline RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (12:25): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to contribute on the government business program. To say we have a full agenda is an understatement – we have already seen this morning four bills introduced. I just want to initially respond to some of the claims made by the member for Brighton. Of course it is with great excitement that many people will have the opportunity to contribute on the budget as part of the take-note motion, and it has been communicated very clearly that there will be that opportunity. I am very much looking forward to hearing about the amazing legacy that we all as members of Parliament will have as we continue to make those important contributions in this place.
We have extraordinary bills to contribute on, and I am very much looking forward to fulsome, deep and meaningful contributions with great integrity, because I know that that is the expectation that the communities we serve have of us. The debate on the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024 will be an important conversation as well for us to have – making sure that this important part of democracy is undertaken in a way that reflects the needs and the aspirations of the communities we serve is going to be something that will be fully unpacked, and I am looking forward to that very much.
The Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024 is something that has been of great interest and has been discussed and I know many on several sides and of different political stripes have had important discussions with the community about, making sure that the steps we take are taken in a way that is analytical and reflective of the state that we live in and the different resources that we need to manage. These are very important debates.
Finally, the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation Repeal and Advisory Councils Bill 2024 – I am looking forward to making a contribution on that debate. As part of that I will also be ensuring that I recognise many of the people who have had strong views over many, many years about how we can make reforms in this area that do ensure that in the future people who are undertaking gambling do undertake it responsibly. It will be an opportunity for me to reflect back, when the time comes, on people I have worked with over many years. It is worth identifying people like Tim Costello and, in my context, Mark Zirnsak, who has worked very hard as part of the Uniting Church Justice and International Mission and – I can hear her behind me – who the member for Narre Warren South has worked closely with. They are people who take every opportunity to talk about what is best for our community. It is about those reflections of what it is that our community brings here as we represent them not just in our role as members of Parliament representing our communities but also very much with the ministers bringing forward legislation that has had deep and considered policy work undertaken as part of that.
We have a full speaking list. We have people who want to contribute on these debates. We have so many that it is going to be important for us to make sure that we do reflect on how our communities are going to benefit from these changes that will be made. Some of them are changes that will be made as part of the legislative agenda here. Some of them are changes that are made as part of the representations we make as members of Parliament. But we do have a fulsome opportunity this week through these three days to be able to reflect on how our communities will benefit from this legislation.
I am going to be open-hearted and open-minded and reflect that something that all members bring here is a sense of integrity – wanting to represent their communities but represent what is actually happening with honesty. I know sometimes I open my local paper and I see the member for Berwick over there has made representations about things that are going on that do not reflect the view that I have. Of course in here as part of this government business program we are able to put forward vigorous debate but also make sure that the legislation we are debating does have the benefit of insight, making sure that there is a fulsome opportunity to reflect our communities. I look forward to the week ahead.
Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (12:30): I rise today to talk on the government business program. The coalition will be opposing the government business program today, even though there are three items on the government business program that we need to work through and represent our communities on. I look forward to the opportunity to be able to stand up across the next three days and do so and hopefully relay the thoughts from my community about these three bills that we are going to speak about.
The first one we will be talking about is the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024, which is paramount down in my community through Gippsland and around regional Victoria. There are things within the bills that we need to be able to discuss and bring to the table and bring into the chamber so that members from all sides of politics that sit in this chamber can actually hear what we are hearing on the ground inside the timber communities about how they are feeling left out and need help moving forward. They are actually struggling with the funding that they are going to get – their payouts from being in the timber community – and that is actually causing great concern. We want to be able to come in and relay that into the chamber with this government business program moving forward and explain how the actual feet on the ground – the people that are actually at the coalface – are struggling with it. We look forward to the opportunity to do that.
The Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024 is another one which I think really concerns all municipalities around the state. I look forward to being able to talk to that later today when we stand up to do that. There are bits and pieces of the legislation for that that we will be able to dive into, and I welcome that the opportunity to be able to do that and once again relay our own personal stories of how our own councils are going to be able to handle that and give the rights to some protection moving forward. So it will be interesting to talk about that.
We also have the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation Repeal and Advisory Councils Bill 2024. I listened with intent before as the member for Brighton spoke about how the government does not want to go into consideration to work our way through the gambling bill. As he said, consideration on this bill is being stopped because ‘We have met our objectives.’ I move around my region and talk with businesses that actually have places where people can go and gamble, and it is the contrary; we have not met our obligations there. It would be fantastic to be able to talk about that and highlight how much more is needed. I think you can talk to anyone on the street about gambling, and I do not think the numbers are going down. Hopefully we can talk about this later on to prove a point. I do not think it is just my seat; I think it would be every single seat inside this chamber, Gambling is still a very, very big issue. In a time of a cost-of-living crisis, gamblers do not take that into consideration, I think, or the pressures that are on families. Moving forward we need to make sure that we do not water down the laws and actually push it into other areas. We need to make sure that we are considering the values of our communities and for people out there that need help, who are struggling with their gambling addictions, that there are easy services for them that they can go straight to.
At the moment, as we are diversifying out and moving this into other sections, it is going to make it harder and harder for these people to get the proper services that they need to help them with their addiction to gambling. In all, as we move through, it is disappointing that we cannot actually do that in consideration with the government, and I think the shadow minister would have loved the opportunity to sit down and debate that as best he could have. It is great that we stand here today – we are back; we are talking about three bills, and I welcome the opportunity to be able to stand up here over the next three days and talk about them – but we oppose the government business program today.
Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (12:35): It is great to be back here in the Parliament after a busy week in Greenvale and to have the opportunity to look ahead to a very busy week of important bills that address matters of importance to Victorians. I think the member for Morwell foreshadowed some of the contributions that will be made on these bills, which speaks to the comments of the member for Cranbourne earlier about the way in which we come here to represent our communities despite divergent opinions and perspectives but making sure that the sentiments within our communities are reflected through legislative debates on issues that really matter to Victoria.
I do want to also reflect that we will be talking about the take-note motion on the budget this week – I believe on Wednesday, the Leader of the House may have mentioned. It speaks to the complaints of the Manager of Opposition Business that there would not be an opportunity to speak on the budget, so something is amiss here. But I am looking forward to hearing comments, discussions and reflections upon the budget tomorrow in the house, and I wonder – I hope it is not pre-empting debate too much – if we will hear whether there is any grappling with the tension of every coalition member, between wanting more spending and yet also wanting no taxation. It will be very interesting to see whether they grapple with being a responsible party that aspires to be in government. I do not want to anticipate debate, so I will not go down any further on that thread.
I do want to come back to some of the bills that the Leader of the House foreshadowed earlier, on the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation.
Iwan WALTERS: The member for South-West Coast is at the table, and to misquote Churchill, never has anybody made more contributions for less value in a parliamentary context.
Returning to the bills themselves, the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation Repeal and Advisory Councils Bill 2024 I think is a really important piece of legislation that we will be debating. There has been, I think, appropriate scrutiny on the casino sector in Victoria over recent years, not as a consequence of any federal government action, which should be responsible for money laundering and the vast quantities of money coming into the casino sector, but rather state-based inquiries, both in Victoria and New South Wales, which have got to the heart of some of the real challenges in the casino sector. Gambling more broadly is an area that I think requires really careful attention on the part of governments. It is of course a legitimate pastime but one that has the risk of creating real harm and is also open to exploitation by criminals. So the establishment of the Gambling Harm Response Fund through that bill I think will be an important measure.
I do reflect on the importance of addressing gambling harm in an area like Greenvale within the City of Hume. I acknowledge council’s very strong advocacy for pieces of legislation like the one that will come to Parliament this week, recognising that gambling harm does have a significant impact across Victoria but particularly in lower income areas of our state where the relative incidence of that gambling harm is perhaps higher. There is a profound risk to Victorians of not getting gambling regulation and harm minimisation right, so I am looking forward to making a contribution on the provisions within that bill and talking about why they are important and why I think it is important that that bill has the support of the house. I do not want to get into the debate itself, but I am looking forward to that coming on for debate, I believe on Thursday.
Another important bill of course is the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024. It is really timely legislation, I think, given that we are looking forward, if that is the right expression, to local government elections later on this year. I note that we have had a number of specific-purpose pieces of legislation come to this house to deal with some of the governance challenges at councils across Victoria. I think in that context it is important to ensure that as a Parliament we are making sure that wherever possible the governance and accountability frameworks that councils operate under are improved and strengthened so that Victorians can have confidence in a really important tier of government. I certainly recognise and thank my local council for a productive working relationship, because I recognise that having a functioning and effective council is really significant for good outcomes across the community, particularly in the context of maternal and child health services and the kinds of community amenities like libraries, parks and school crossing supervisors – all those things which make a really tangible impact in the quality of life in communities. So a bill like this is an important one. The other bills we will be discussing are similarly important. I look forward to them all being debated this week, and I support the government business program.
Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (12:40): I rise to oppose the government business program, the reason being that we have asked on so many occasions in both this Parliament and the Parliament before for the opportunity to go into consideration in detail. It is a very reasonable request. What we do here is speak on behalf of the people we represent, and when we have questions in detail that we need to go into on a bill, it is reasonable to expect that the minister would give that opportunity in this house. What I see is a government who think they own all the ideas and who refuse to have any questioning of them. That leads me to the bill in question, which is on the government business program this week and which we wanted consideration in detail on, and that is the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation Repeal and Advisory Councils Bill 2024.
I would like to put on the record that I heard the member for Greenvale say that this is a bill that establishes the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the VRGF. He is quite incorrect, and I think he needs to correct himself when he speaks on the bill, hopefully. This is a bill that will abolish that foundation, not establish it. Just like last week when he tried to give us a lesson on how to raise funds – and that was if you do not have enough money, you have just got to tax more – this is a member of Parliament who really needs to have a think about his level of knowledge on the bills that are put before us and how financial management actually works.
This is a bill that actually abolishes the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, a foundation that was established by the Liberal–Nationals in 2011. It was established because it is important that we manage gambling harm, and this was what part of the foundation’s role was. Gambling harm is a significant problem in our communities. It is not something that has disappeared, so this is a foundation that needs to be in place so that we can support the people that have gambling problems. We want to see more done, not less, so if we do not have this body, how on earth can we be confident that this work will be done? The government has no plans to actually put in place something to replace it. When we are seeing a government who is overseeing gambling being advertised in Victoria – I understand it is a federal sphere, but this government does put boundaries around Victoria, as we have seen before – and when we are seeing them putting ads on telly minute after minute after minute, just hammering people, of course we have got harms from people gambling to excess. So having this body abolished with nothing else to replace it is absolutely appalling on the government’s behalf.
This government business program also has the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024 on it. This, again, is a government who has shut down the most sustainable industry in the world. We are actually renowned by many other countries for the sustainable way regeneration occurs so there is not a net loss to the forest. Now instead of having a sustainable forest industry, this government thinks it is smarter to import timbers from Tasmania and overseas, which has to have a worse effect on the environment than the sustainable industry that the Victorian industry was. Rather than sharing with the community exactly the great work that that industry had done to be sustainable – the word that everybody wants to see as a really lived true value – they have actually just folded and closed that industry down, which is a great loss to our communities.
Lastly, on the government business program a bill that will also be discussed this week is the Local Government Amendment (Governance and Integrity) Bill 2024, a bill that should reform the Local Government Act 2020 far more than it does. We see so many communities, particularly in regional Victoria, where the state government is cost shifting to the local government. As a result we are seeing things like the bin charge in the state government budget go up by over 100 per cent, and that will be hidden on people’s rate bills. Whilst we have got councils struggling to manage the sporting precincts, the ovals, the stadiums and infrastructure like the breakwater in Warrnambool, which the government expects the ratepayers to pay for when it is a state government asset, we would rather see reform that sees more equity, particularly in the rural councils, so that we can get a fairer rate base across the state of Victoria.
So I oppose this government business program, because the government refuses to listen to the opposition so that we can share ideas that our communities have asked us to bring to the table when we debate here in the chamber. By shutting down the consideration-in-detail opportunity, that is absolutely gagging the people of Victoria, the people that we represent.
The SPEAKER: The member for Prahran, by leave. Is leave granted?
Leave refused.
Assembly divided on motion:
Ayes (51): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Lauren Kathage, Sonya Kilkenny, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Tim Pallas, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Emma Vulin, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Belinda Wilson
Noes (30): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Annabelle Cleeland, Chris Crewther, Gabrielle de Vietri, Wayne Farnham, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, Sam Hibbins, David Hodgett, Emma Kealy, Tim McCurdy, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Tim Read, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, Ellen Sandell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Nicole Werner, Jess Wilson
Motion agreed to.