Wednesday, 19 June 2024

Motions

Budget papers 2024–25

Debate resumed.

Eden FOSTER (Mulgrave) (14:57): I was talking earlier on the take-note motion on the budget, and I was talking before lunchtime about my visit to Silverton Primary School and their school breakfast club, given that the Allan government has committed to expanding the school breakfast club program across all government schools. This means that it is an expansion that will see 150 additional schools invited to join the program at the beginning of next year. It is expected to support up to 200,000 ‍students before rolling out to remaining schools from June 2025. One thousand schools already participate in the program, which provides healthy breakfasts for students as well as lunches, snacks and take-home food packs for students experiencing disadvantage or financial strain.

I also look forward to visiting Springvale Rise Primary School in the coming week to participate in, observe and be part of their school breakfast club. It is really exciting to see young people actually look forward to having breakfast at school. We know it is really important for their mental health, for their attention and for their learning, so I really credit the government for expanding the school breakfast club.

But not only are we providing breakfast, we are also expanding the Glasses for Kids program, with more than 400 extra schools providing free vision screening to children in prep to year 3 and free glasses for students who need them. This is so important and again another initiative that helps with students learning. We know that many students perhaps have some visual impairment and do not have the finances to buy glasses, and this will help them to read the screen. I was going to say the blackboard, but we do not have blackboards anymore. I have been out of school for a while.

We also know that energy bills make up a substantial part of expenses for many families, and that is why we are helping Victorians access the Solar Homes program with an additional $37.7 million from this year’s budget, adding to the $624 million in rebates approved since 2018. This has delivered more than 330,000 systems across our state, helping Victorians run their homes more efficiently and put downward pressure on power bills. I know that my office has seen many constituents who are seeking assistance in accessing this.

We are also investing a further $3.4 million in the energy assistance program, helping families access free one-on-one advice on saving energy, understanding bills and accessing hardship programs and concessions. This is especially important in my electorate, because a large number of people speak English as a second or additional language. Accessing government programs is hard enough for someone who is fluent in English, let alone someone who perhaps has English as a second language, so this additional funding is going to make a massive difference for my electorate. This all relieves substantial pressure on working families across both my electorate and the state and explains why the crux of the budget has been helping families significantly.

Health is a big issue that people care about; they care about it across our community. Residents want to see good funding for hospitals, ambulance services and other health measures, and unlike those opposite, who when they have been in government have cut funding to help in hospitals, we are putting the funding into it. One of our local medical centres, the wonderful Monash Medical Centre, is receiving a massive $535 million expansion, which includes a new seven-storey tower above the newly expanded emergency department with new operating suites, birthing suites and pre- and post-op beds. The upgrade will allow for an extra 7500 surgeries every year. Monash Medical Centre is just a 10-minute drive away from Mulgrave, so this is going to be a big difference for not only those in the community of Clayton and the surrounding suburbs but those in the suburbs of Mulgrave and Glen Waverley.

Beyond just my electorate the state government is spending an immense $13 billion on health care. In fact this budget includes the single biggest multi-year investment in Victoria’s healthcare system in our history. This budget will also support our ambulance service to deliver timely care closer to home with a $146.3 million investment to provide the level of care people need when they need it by relieving pressure on our paramedic workforce, backing Ambulance Victoria’s secondary triage service and the medium-acuity transport service.

We are also providing a significant $31 million investment into vital tailored services and treatment options for Victorians with eating disorders. Eating disorders are close to my heart, given my professional background as a psychologist, and working in schools I have seen way too many young people suffering with eating disorders. So this funding injection is going to be significant. It comes following the unprecedented global pandemic and the pervasive impact of social media, which have both caused a significant rise in new eating disorders and relapses, a statistic that is sadly replicated worldwide. The package includes $6.4 million to deliver 10 dedicated early intervention professionals in the communities that need them most through area mental health and wellbeing services. These professionals will support consumers to improve the speed of recovery, reduce symptoms and improve the likelihood of long-term recovery. We will also provide $5.8 million to support the work of Eating Disorders Victoria, helping to continue its critical role in supporting Victorians experiencing eating disorders and their families and carers with services such as wellbeing checks and telehealth services and delivering life-changing initiatives like their unique peer mentoring program. Eating disorders are particularly pervasive among young people, and this funding is incredibly important to not only counter the health issues that arise from the disorders but also help people recover to the extent that hopefully it is no longer an issue.

Another passion of mine is education, and as someone who has worked in a high school I understand the value of education and the role it plays in providing opportunities to people. That is why having a strong education system is a key priority for this government, and the Allan Labor government has worked hard to make sure that the education we provide in this state is world class. We are not shutting down schools. In fact we are building schools, and we are building lots of them. I am proud to say that the 2024–25 budget provides $6 million towards Mulgrave Primary School in my electorate to upgrade their facilities, including turning their school hall into a brand new library and STEM centre. These resources will massively help our local community and provide new opportunities for children to get engaged in school in ways that previously were not possible.

We understand that in order to have the best schools possible you need the best teachers, and we are making that a reality with more than $1.6 billion to recruit and support teachers, with scholarships to make studying secondary teaching free, incentives to work in hard-to-staff schools and upskilling education support staff to become teachers in communities they know. We are also making an incredibly important $63.8 million investment to give our hardworking school staff more mental health and wellbeing support, helping to bolster recruitment, increase retention and support those returning to the workforce. We value our workers, our teachers and our school staff, and we are putting money into that.

When it comes to early childhood education, the policies of the Allan Labor government are nation leading. We are investing $14 billion to expand three-year-old kinder to every child and, better yet, make three- and four-year-old kinder free. This budget continues these investments, with a further $129 million to kickstart our kids’ education with two years of play-based learning while also saving families up to $2500 for every child, every year. We know that children learning earlier in life is really important for brain development, social development and emotional development.

I do also want to commend the Allan government on its gender-responsive budgeting. Women make up 51 per cent of the Victorian population, but for many years the needs of women have not been a primary concern for governments, despite the fact that they make up such a large part of our state. In 2021 we became the first state to introduce gender-responsive budgeting, so I want to commend the Allan Labor government on its gender responsive budgeting this year.

I will summarise here, as I know I am running short of time. I know the benefits for families that come from this year’s budget are obvious and clear, and I am so proud that the responses I have received from my community are so positive about the variety of things that this budget has put in place. I commend the motion to the house.

Tim READ (Brunswick) (15:08): I rise to speak on the Victorian state budget 2024–25. In many ways this is a difficult speech, as I always try to avoid those political clichés favoured by oppositions when describing the government – expressions like ‘a kick in the guts to hardworking Victorians’. You know the sorts of things. But when preparing this response to the recent state budget, I have to say the Allan Labor government has been making it really hard for me to avoid such clichés, because by any fair analysis the last few months have been pretty disappointing from the state government. According to analysis from the Age newspaper, more than a hundred promised projects have been delayed, many no doubt indefinitely. There are often good reasons for a government to back away from promises. Indeed changing your mind when circumstances change is an admirable trait, as John Maynard Keynes pointed out. But one of the most upsetting aspects of this is how there seems to be so much deception about how these promises were made and then broken.

Take for example making Brunswick level crossing free by 2027. This was announced with enormous fanfare, hi-vis and hard hats by the former Premier and a Labor candidate in my own seat during the 2022 election campaign. It certainly was a huge announcement for the people of Brunswick, with many constituents contacting my office supporting the project, as I do, mainly because of the open space that would be opened up to create separate bike and pedestrian paths. Many had other ideas for the open space. All of us wanted to know how the construction disturbance would be managed when removing the level crossings in such a narrow and densely built-up area. I had residents considering whether to move away to avoid working from home during construction. Merri-bek council conducted extensive consultation, hearing from people wanting to protect native vegetation and historic structures along the Upfield line, and I worked with local disability advocates who were figuring out how they were going to get around when the train line closed. It really was a big deal for the community.

And then a year after the announcement constituents started to come to me asking me to confirm rumours that the level crossing removals were delayed or cancelled, so I asked the ministers to confirm or deny this, and they simply refused to give a straight answer. This was over a year ago. I was not going to run a particularly partisan campaign on this; I was just trying to relay some clear information on what was happening to those affected in the community I represent. Now we have an opaque reference hidden in this budget about removing level crossings by 2030, which apparently confirms that the Brunswick level crossings will no longer be removed by 2027 as promised. Around the same time as the budget, the website was quietly changed to say ‘gone by 2030’. The minister further expanded in estimates that the delay was due to the density of the urban environment and the narrowness of the rail corridor, which, if that is the true reason, raises serious questions about how they were not aware of such obvious facts before they made the announcement. The local community were certainly aware. And it raises another question: should we place any more faith in a 2030 completion date than we did for 2027?

This brings me to Labor’s announcement that it is shelving the Arden hospital project, spruiked in a Premier’s press release just before the 2022 state election as:

… the biggest hospital project in Australia’s history, with massive upgrades to the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Royal Women’s Hospital and the construction of a new Arden medical precinct …

which would have given those hospitals new premises in North Melbourne. It certainly gave the Premier lots to talk about in the lead-up to the election. But it has been scrapped, allegedly because of electromagnetic interference from the nearby Melbourne Metro tunnel. My former colleagues at the Royal Melbourne Hospital have been telling me for years about how they have been moving their MRI machines for the same reason. This is hardly a surprise. It appears health department officials were aware of this issue in in 2021, so it is hard not to wonder whether there is incompetence or deception at play here. So the next time this government promises a hospital, or even a sick bay, what are we to think?

We have got new million-dollar court precincts that are being mothballed before they are even opened. My personal favourite is the $1.1 billion, 1248-bed capacity Western Plains prison north of Lara, which has been sitting empty for almost two years. Well, it is not actually empty; we spend almost $30 million a year on corrections officers to guard this empty prison, presumably tasked with keeping the thousands of people who currently need a roof over their heads out of it to keep it pristine and empty. As Sir Humphrey Appleby would say, ‘We can’t close it. It’s the best run prison in the state.’

So how much of this infrastructure is just for hard hat photo-ops? As I have said, often changing your mind is the right move, as the government has done many times this year, but the initial inadequately costed promises, the hoopla of the announcements and the final whispered abandonment all amount to a degree of dishonesty, because while these announcements win votes and allow ministers to engage in a bit of construction cosplay, people in places like Brunswick make often difficult decisions about their lives based on what is promised.

In the interest of balance I have tried to find some positives in this budget, and there are record amounts of service expenditure on our health system, which is a credit to the Minister for Health. There is also new health funding for something that I have long campaigned for, which is covering the cost of HIV treatment for those who do not have access to Medicare. There are a surprising number of people who do not have access to Medicare in Australia, and some of them require expensive medical treatment. This means treating doctors will no longer have to waste time finding funding or sourcing older generic medicines from overseas manufacturers. But there is not a lot to be optimistic about in this budget, and I am especially concerned about how little there is for young Victorians.

The budget strategy paper talks about rents in Melbourne increasing 23 per cent since late 2021. The strategy paper talks about home ownership becoming impossible but then effectively shrugs its shoulders and says, ‘Well, good luck with that, renters and millennials.’ I recently spoke about a young constituent facing a 30 per cent rent increase. Inflation does not explain an increase of this magnitude in the cost of renting an unrenovated mouldy apartment. How could any landlord justify increasing rent by 10, 20 or 30 per cent in a year? And more pertinently, how could a Labor government with the power to stop such blatant profiteering just stand back and allow it? Instead we are told that allowing these supersized profits for landlord rent-seekers is the very market mechanism which will increase housing supply and eventually reduce rental prices. Effectively Labor is telling us that this landlord greed is good, landlord greed is right, landlord greed works, landlord greed clarifies and that ultimately it is the very greed of property investors and landlords that will solve the housing crisis.

I can see why these dismal theories of Gordon Gekko might appeal to Labor and Liberal MPs who have drunk the neoliberal Kool Aid, but the rest of us recognise the absurdity in the government’s belief that the very let-it-rip approach towards landlords’ investment properties which led us to this housing catastrophe will miraculously also deliver us from it. Instead we must commit to the concept of housing as a human right, commit to no longer using housing as a means of exploiting other people to grow individual wealth and commit to legislating against unlimited rent increases. Alongside these commitments, the Victorian government must commit to building more public housing, just like they did 70-odd years ago, rather than demolishing it only for private developers to rebuild it and fill every bit of open space with private apartments.

I started this contribution talking about these white elephant infrastructure objects, like the $1.1 billion prison that has already racked up almost $60 million in operating costs despite sitting empty. The real tragedy of this project in particular is what the Greens have been saying: if you want to make the community safer and improve cohesion and economic mobility, build public housing for thousands of disadvantaged families and remove them from poverty and do not take the US approach of creating a prison industrial complex that entrenches the crime and the disadvantage. But this is a government that will literally build anything to win elections – empty court buildings, empty prisons and $100 million transport projects based on something drawn up on Luke Sayers’s napkin – but at the same time are completely averse to building the thing that Victoria needs most, and that is lots of new genuinely public housing.

Alan Kohler, writing in the Quarterly Essay, stated that between 1945 and 1955 state governments nationally built 14.4 per cent of all houses, whereas now that figure hovers around 1 to 2 per cent, with Victoria among the worst performers, if not the worst. Housing aside, the broader budget shows no signs of any of the hard decisions, vision and ambition needed to build a better future for young Victorians and those that follow. It has cancelled its innovative nation-leading program providing sick leave for casual workers, many of whom are young people struggling with the cost of living. In terms of minimising the climate impact on future generations, the signature election promises regarding the SEC appear also to be being slowly wound back, with the budget confirming that the nascent SEC organisation remains massively underfunded to play any more than a token role in our energy transition.

Cutting emissions means investing in decarbonising our entire economy. A simple local example is, for example, helping councils convert gas-heated pools to electric heat pumps, like the Collingwood pool, which would need $5 million or $6 million to achieve this, an amount that would be more than saved in future gas bills and averted climate impacts. Gas for pool heating is one of the largest sources of emissions from local government and one of their biggest bills, and this should be a priority for state government support. I would add the Brunswick Baths could do with it as well. Instead we are seeing too much cost-shifting from the state, such as leaving Yarra council to spend half a million dollars annually cleaning up syringes around the supervised injecting room.

The budget has also cut funding for biodiversity environmental protection at a time when feral animals and weeds, suburban sprawl and climate change are threatening most of our wild ecosystems. This is a budget that seems intent on building a vision of Melbourne for the 1950s, not the 2050s. It is winding back many public transport projects. It is not funding active or disability-accessible transport infrastructure while pouring seemingly endless billions into toll road projects and the suburban rail crescent, which seems about as likely to ever become a loop around metropolitan Melbourne as the Brunswick street I live on. Consider the fact that Victorian Labor has only committed to eight new disability tram stops in its last three budgets, leaving roughly 1150 tram stops still inaccessible to up to 20 per cent of the population with disability or mobility issues. At the current rate Melbourne’s famous tram network will be fully accessible for people with disabilities by the 2455–56 state budget, which tells you all you need to know about how much of a priority this is for Labor. Upholding the rights in the UN charter on the rights of people with disability, which Australia ratified in 2008, must have polled badly in Qdos focus groups, I guess.

In some places it appears the government really has not thought through the effect of its budget on young people, such as where it is withdrawing the relatively small amount of funding it provides to the Melbourne Youth Orchestras, ending almost 60 years of bipartisan funding support from Victorian state governments to this youth program. Melbourne’s live music scene is under enormous pressure, with venues, musicians and revellers alike feeling the heat of rising rents, insurance rates and the cost of living. The state government could do more by, for example, helping Yarra City Council fund their Leaps and Bounds music festival, which gives grants to small live music venues to ensure a diverse and exciting line-up of local acts.

As I said when I started this contribution, I do not want to be so critical of the government, and I recognise that in many ways the Premier has been handed a very difficult task by her predecessor. So while recognising that there are many challenges Victoria currently faces, I will end my contribution by urging the Allan government not to lose its nerve – not to lurch to the right and lose its progressive vision for this state. I remind the government that if it stays true to its stated values, there will be a progressive majority in both houses of Parliament that will support positive government policies which will work for young people, for renters, for our environment and climate and for our First Nations community. The Victorian Greens have always been prepared to work with progressive governments to do better on these things, and we remain ready to work with this government should it get back on track, so we can truly make Victoria the most progressive state in the Commonwealth.

Chris COUZENS (Geelong) (15:22): I am delighted to rise to talk on the take-note motion about the state budget and the outcomes for my electorate of Geelong. I want to start by thanking the Treasurer and his team for their fantastic work in putting this budget together. We know that there are challenges, but from my perspective and I know in my community we value the work that the Treasurer has done in terms of our budget.

This is a sensible budget. It is about supporting families, and my constituents certainly understand that. They did not expect anything else. This is a well-thought-out budget that continues to support the people of Geelong and our economy in Geelong. Our local economy is strong thanks to the infrastructure investments over the past nine years, and we continue to deliver the important infrastructure and services Geelong needs. Geelong is in a good place because of our government’s unprecedented investment over many budgets in school redevelopments, the culinary school at the Gordon TAFE, the redeveloped arts centre, the convention and exhibition centre, the duplication of the rail line at Waurn Ponds to South Geelong, the new station at South Geelong, the early parenting centre and the soon-to-start women’s and children’s hospital, just to name a few. These infrastructure projects have created thousands of jobs in construction and on completion and world-class facilities for the region of Geelong.

We know the cost of living for Geelong families has been a focus in this budget as well, with the $400 payment to families to cover education costs, uniforms, camps and excursions. We will also triple free Glasses for Kids, and this sits alongside many other concessions and supports that will continue as a result of this budget. Just on free Glasses for Kids, they have already started rolling out that program in my electorate. It has been fantastic to hear that they are in our schools measuring up those kids for their glasses. That will make a huge difference, not only to those kids but to their families, not having to pay the cost for that to happen.

I also want to raise regional rail fares remaining at $10.60, free rego for tradies, free kinder, $200 Get Active Kids vouchers and free pads and tampons. I could go on and on, but I am not going to have enough time. But these make a huge difference to people in my electorate. For those families that are struggling with the cost of living, for individuals and for young people it is making a huge difference, and I hear as I move around my electorate that we are making a big difference for them in terms of cost of living.

Of course we will continue the success of Solar Victoria with an extra 35,000 energy-efficient hot-water rebates, saving people up to $400 a year on their electricity bills. Again, when I am talking to people in my electorate, they are just so rapt at the fact that they are able to access these through the rebates but are also saving themselves money every year on energy costs.

This budget also delivered funding for the Geelong Food Relief Centre. This is a really important program that provides food relief to families that are struggling. We know the demand has increased, and in recognition of that we have continued to fund that program in Geelong. I know there are families that rely on that every week, and we have been able to provide that support. And the amazing volunteers that are there – the centre is run so well. It is like going to a supermarket, and people really appreciate that support that they are given when they go in there. So again, that was another big one for us in my community of Geelong, but also the surrounding electorates of Lara, South Barwon and Bellarine all supported this initiative.

We are looking at a basketball high-performance hub, which is fantastic for my community. The Geelong Project, a place-based education and wellbeing program that is evidence-based, is proving to work for young people in my community.

Further funding support went to the Outpost. The Outpost provide meals and support to the most vulnerable in our community, homeless people who rely on the Outpost to provide them with evening meals and other forms of support, and they do an incredible job – Amy, the coordinator there, and the volunteers. I cannot tell you what an amazing group of people they are, and they are out there every night providing those meals to homeless people. As a government we have continued to support their work. We are assisting them in a relocation to a more suitable venue but also providing them with funding to be able to provide the supports that they need to, as I said, help some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

We also provided funding to Kardinia Park trust. I know there has been a lot of controversy about the scoreboard and the funding of that, but without that scoreboard we cannot have those major sporting events at Kardinia Park. It is a simple as that. You have to have a scoreboard, and this one is on its way out. It desperately needs replacing. It has got nothing to do with the Geelong Cats. It is the Kardinia Park trust that manage that stadium, and it is their responsibility to provide the new scoreboard. But not only has the funding gone to the scoreboard, it has gone to the drainage that is desperately required there, so it is covering off quite a bit of work. It is not just a scoreboard, but as I said, we cannot continue to provide world-class sporting events there if we do not have a scoreboard that can actually give people the scores of whatever game is being played, so it is a really important one.

We also have continued to fund Strong Brother Strong Sister, which is an Aboriginal suicide prevention program. This was initiated by the Strong Brother Strong Sister Aboriginal support organisation to young people right across the Geelong region. There were a cluster of suicides about four years ago, and with the work from Strong Brother Strong Sister, me and the advocacy of others, we were able to get a program established that works with Aboriginal young people who are at risk of suicide. That has been an incredible program. It has been highly successful. It continues to operate, so I was delighted to hear that they had received another round of funding to continue that valuable work. We know how important this work is, along with the youth crime prevention and early intervention program, which has been running in Geelong now for probably six or seven years, which is an evidence-based program. Really it is about working with those young people who are repeat offenders fronting up to the courts. That intensive support that they are provided with has been highly successful, which is why it is been funded again. Again it is really important for our community to know what is going on, that there are those intensive supports, that we are addressing youth crime, and we have heard a lot about that this week with the announcement of the Youth Justice Bill 2024. So I think there is a lot to be proud of there.

We are also upgrading the 150-year-old rail tunnel between Geelong and South Geelong, and this is really challenging because that tunnel has a school sitting over the top of it. There are real challenges for the engineers to work out the best approach to that, so I am really pleased that there will be some upgrade funding provided to ensure that it can continue to be a safe environment.

In previous budgets we have set up Geelong with major infrastructure, which I have mentioned earlier, but there are things that we have continued to fund, such as the ongoing free TAFE, which is really important in my community. I move around my community and hear from people that are in those free TAFE courses and about the benefits that they are getting from that and the fact that they would not be in them if it was not free. To continue to provide free TAFE is fantastic from my perspective in my community but also, I am sure, for others around the state. It is really important that we see the connection from poverty to education and jobs and just how that connection is there, and the fact is that we are making that connection and ensuring that people have the opportunity to get an education, to have a pathway through the TAFE system, whether they go on to a new career or on to university, whatever their choice is. Those provisions are there now, and as I said, I hear from many in my community that are so excited at the fact that they have been given that opportunity, so that is really exciting.

The other one I want to mention is the budget investment of $165 million for the redress of those Victorians who were subjected to physical, psychological and emotional abuse in care. We did have the apology in this place earlier this year, and the fact that that allocation has been made I think gives those people confidence that this government has acted on what it said it was going to do. I know there was lots of advocacy and there were lots of discussions around that which led to the apology and then to the commitment, so I am really proud to be part of a government that has met that commitment.

The other one is women’s health – all the programs that we have been funding around women’s health but also the health and wellbeing support for 12 women’s health organisations to provide for preventative programs. That is so exciting, and I know when we first announced it there were so many women that made contact with me about how excited they were that we were going to do this. It is really important, and we know the evidence is there that women’s health has been under-represented for so long. The changes that we are making as a government are really having significant impacts for women in our communities.

Alongside that there is the women’s pain inquiry, looking at dealing with these issues and the information that has been provided throughout our community. I know we had a community forum with the Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health the member for Northcote only recently, and long before the time it was booked out completely. Women do want to have these conversations. They want to have a say, and they wanted to be able to hear about how to make a submission and what it was all about. It was fantastic to have a hundred women sitting there listening to other women talk about their experiences but also to hear from the member for Northcote, the Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health, on how we were progressing this pain inquiry. That was very exciting for my community as well.

We also have invested quite a bit of money into First Peoples’ self-determination and support and building on the existing $1.9 billion commitment. I just want to run through some of those areas. There is $51 million to support the future of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Victoria, increasing Aboriginal-led decision-making in education and increasing knowledge and understanding of our state’s history. This is a really important one. I talked about education in our TAFEs a minute ago. For many in the Aboriginal community this is the only way – through our TAFEs – that they can access education and feel confident and safe to do that. I know at the Gordon TAFE in Geelong there is a program, the Mumgu-dhal course, which is run for young people to get a foot in the door at the TAFE. Those pathways are created for them. Then of course there is the Aboriginal culinary school that will be established; it is going through a research process at the moment. It will be the first in this country and potentially the first in the world. It is pretty amazing what is happening there. That will attract Aboriginal students back into the education system.

There will be $42 million to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage, including funding for registered Aboriginal parties and the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council, and $16 million to support Aboriginal community controlled organisations to reduce First Nations people’s interaction with the justice system and to support Aboriginal women and families experiencing family violence. Again, we know how important these issues are. The Aboriginal community knows best how to deal with those issues, so providing that support and funding is really important to those communities. There is $11 million for the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation to deliver an expanded statewide cultural and kinship program and better support for their clients and $8.6 million for programs to address economic disparity for Aboriginal communities, including supporting our commitment to Closing the Gap. Of course we all know how important Closing the Gap is, as is trying to meet those targets.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (15:37): What a con this year’s budget is – ‘Helping families’. Well, it does not help families at all; in fact it hits them time and time again. If they can keep their heads above water, that is a good thing. At the time of year around the budget sometimes it can be exciting to see where the money is being invested and what the government is doing with their large Consolidated Fund. Where are they putting it? Who is going to get it? What is in it for me and my electorate? We also like to see where the money is coming from and how much taxpayers are being slugged. I tell you: we are absolutely being slugged left, right and centre here. The other thing we like to have a look at is the debt, and the debt is just growing astronomically. What this budget confirms is that Labor cannot manage money and they cannot be trusted to put forward a good budget. We can see that this current budget is making life harder for Victorians and not helping families.

I am going to touch on the debt to start with. Victoria is broke. Everybody knows that, and everybody can see the nonsense of putting all of our eggs in one basket with the Suburban Rail Loop when there is so little money to go around. It is not being directed into the northern suburbs, into the western suburbs or into regional Victoria. People are very edgy about this. It is interesting to have a look at the projected debt, which again has increased from last year. We were horrified to see the level of debt last year, but we can see that it has gone up again – the projected debt – to nearly $188 billion by 2028. We heard earlier that when Moody’s or S&P – the ratings agencies – dig into the detail, they actually get a different figure. They get a $230 billion projected debt. I want to take you back to when the member for Malvern was the Treasurer in 2014. The debt at the time – Victoria’s debt – was $21.8 billion. Now we are heading to $230 billion. That is $200 billion extra in debt.

I do not know how the Treasurer or any member of cabinet can sleep at night knowing they have signed Victoria up for decades and decades – generations – of not being able to invest and having to pay back this money. At the end of the day it is borrowed, and that means you have to pay it back. The Treasurer used to boast about the cost of interest, that it was hardly anything. ‘We keep borrowing because interest repayments are so little’ – until they are not, until you need to start paying it back. This is going to hit the government where it really hurts. The interest repayments on Victorian debt are projected to be $25 million-plus a day in 2028 – $25 million a day. I know that some of the investments in my electorate could be met with one day of debt. The tax revenue is $17.8 billion; in 2028 it is expected to be $45 billion. This is the equivalent of every Victorian owing $5834, grandparents and grandchildren alike.

At the same time as we have got this escalating debt and projects are being overrun like you would not believe, public sector wages for 2027–28 are $40 billion per year, and this is mostly at the senior executive level. So you have got to ask who we are looking after here and really what is happening, because it just does not ring true to me. We have had major funding cuts. One that was described as ‘exceptionally callous’ was a 70 per cent cut to cancer research funding. At the same time people were comparing it to the scoreboard at the stadium in Geelong. I heard the member for Geelong talking it up, but I am sure that if they need cancer services, the research to be undertaken is so vital because that moves us ahead. And we have had an excellent medical research culture; we have had that happening in Victoria for quite some time.

Wellbeing supports for schoolkids have been cut by $34 million. Who is that helping? That is not helping families at all. Kids that need support are not going to get it. The early childhood sector supports and regulations have been cut by $79 million. Just those two things alone are $110 million. Child protection is in a very sorry state in Victoria, and like many other members in this place, I am sure, I get a number of people who come to talk to me. There are horrific outcomes, and we need to do a lot more to turn that around. But at the same time they have cut the money allotted by $141 million. That is an extraordinary amount.

We saw the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee in June this year confirm that $77 million worth of cuts were made in the courts: $19.1 million in 2024–25 followed by another whopping $58 million in 2027–28. These court services are particularly important. I want to link this back to family violence, because we have a number of family violence courts that have been established and they are also subject to these cuts. This is at a time when the domestic violence and family violence stats are all heading in the wrong direction. It is not getting better; we are not turning the ship around despite a large investment in that area. I think having delays for people going to court to get intervention orders in place is not going to help anyone; it puts people at risk.

Other cuts include the expansion of free kinder for four-year-olds to 30 hours a week. Well, that is delayed up to four years, from 2032 to 2036. Is this helping families? No, it is not. Labor cannot manage money and they cannot manage the budget, and Victorians are paying the price.

Let us have a look at the tax grab. The property sector has been whacked $21.5 billion, and that really cripples this sector – $7.8 billion in land tax, $10.1 billion in land transfer duties, $1.49 billion in COVID debt levy on landholdings. If you own a property, if you are trying to get ahead – and remember, the reason people try and get ahead is to set themselves up for retirement, because we want superannuation, we want people to be able to rely on their own resources, not the federally funded pension scheme. There is $1 billion in the fire services property levy, and I will go into detail on that in a minute; $127 million in the congestion levy; $221 million in the metropolitan improvement levy; $125 million in the windfall gains tax; $25 million in the metropolitan planning levy – this goes on and on; $278 million in the financial accommodation levy; and $250 million in the growth area infrastructure contribution levy.

At the same time we have some pretty ordinary inefficiencies within the State Revenue Office. I will give a personal example. A couple of weeks ago I got three letters from the SRO on the one day. I thought, ‘Gosh, they’re all going to be the same letter.’ Well, no, there were three lots of land tax that they said they had not charged me over the last three years. They could have put it in one envelope but did not. They had sent me an email alerting me to the fact. A week later I get four letters with the same information. I received seven letters at a cost of $10.50 when it could have been $1.50. Nine dollars they have overspent on that. This is just one person. Imagine if it was 100,000 people; we are nearly up to $1 million. Imagine if it was 200,000 people. This just flies off – somebody else’s money. They treat the taxpayer funds with such contempt. There has been a 23 per cent increase in the property services levy. We see that farmers have had a huge whack, an almost 60 per cent increase in what they are having to pay.

On small businesses, the Minister for Small Business talks about the importance of small businesses and says they are the backbone of the state. We have got some 710,000 small businesses, and yes, they are, but they need to be supported and they are not being supported at all. You are absolutely screwed if you need dispute resolution, because the number of staff in the Victorian Small Business Commission has gone from 21 to 10, so if you have got a dispute, you are going to be pushed out for quite a time. It could be years before your dispute gets heard, and that could be the difference between survival and not survival.

I have mentioned in health the 70 per cent cut to cancer research funding. The Eltham community hospital is flagged for Diamond Creek. We know in 2018, six years ago, there were election commitments made about this – 10 new community hospitals. Five are under construction, none have opened, and the Eltham one, in Diamond Creek, looks as though it has well and truly been parked. I think the members for Eltham and Yan Yean have really let their communities down here.

I want to touch on roads and road funding. There is 16 per cent less funding invested in roads since 2020 and a 75 per cent reduction next year in the area that will be repaired. This year it is reduced to 96 per cent and then to 75 per cent. This is what we see. We see the state of the roads all around the state. The Melba Highway has had so many repairs, and the guys doing the repairs tell me that they are not given enough money to do a proper job. The government says, ‘You’ve got this much,’ and they say, ‘Well, we can’t do it for that much.’ It is like, ‘Bad luck. You better make it work.’ What happens? It fails very quickly. On the Goulburn Valley Highway at Cathkin there are some horrendous sections of road where the road has just broken down – and on the Maroondah Highway closer to Mansfield. Pedestrian safety needs addressing in Hurstbridge. There is a lot that can be done, and these are not big projects. The Heidelberg-Kinglake Road, which is an extremely windy, steep, narrow road, needs safety improvements. These are not multimillion-dollar projects – they could be upwards of a million – but they need to be done.

There are a couple of other roads that people come and talk to me about all the time. Yan Yean Road, promised at the 2018 and 2022 elections, carries 20,000 cars a day or more than that. The former Premier and the former member for Yan Yean would make a lot of noise about this. There are traffic jams on this road daily, routinely stretching 2 to 5 kilometres – cars making their way to and from the M80 and the city. But since 2018 all contracts have lapsed, the project seems to be mothballed and contractors have been stood down. This is despite the current member for Yan Yean telling locals that this is going to be addressed. They have been let down again. We have got the Wallan interchange, which has been around for quite a long time. People in that area have been let down again. We have got the seats of Kalkallo and Yan Yean either side of Wallan. We need ramps onto the Hume Highway. It is a $130 million project. The $50 million pledged by the federal government is not going to go anywhere, because the state Labor government have not put in. They are broke. They cannot put in the $80 million that is needed. The residents in the northern suburbs have been completely let down by the members of Parliament who will say one thing but cannot deliver on it because they know that the government is broke and has let them down as well.

Closer to home, locally emergency services have been let down. We have got the Mansfield SES station and the ambulance station, which are both well past their use-by dates. The council have identified the area for the emergency services precinct. Everybody is waiting for this to happen. Both of these projects have been in the top few for easily the last six years, and we have had no action. Yarck CFA continue to be located in the middle of the shops on the main street, despite land being purchased maybe seven years ago around the corner to get them off that busy little tourist destination. Hoddles Creek CFA told me the other day it looks as though any plans that they had to have their station rebuilt – which there were; they had seen plans – have been mothballed. This government is letting down so many.

The sporting clubs in my area need upgrading. At Wesburn junior footy club Wayne, the president there, does so much to advocate to council and to me and to the federal member Aaron Violi. At Healesville, Queens Park and the Don Road precinct need doing. Panton Hill’s footy ground needs doing – the whole lot needs bulldozing – and the council are looking at plans, but the plans do not go anywhere if the Growing Suburbs Fund has been axed or reduced significantly.

Poor old Wesburn Primary School on the busy Warburton Highway – it is foggy; it is on a big sweeping curve – have wanted electronic speed signs for the best part of seven or eight years, and the government has not delivered. It is one that we pledged time and time again for the safety of the schoolkids in Wesburn. The school have worked so hard to push for this, but it has fallen on deaf ears. The former Deputy Premier managed to put three in his electorate through his pork-barrelling, but one that was really needed on a main road was overlooked, and that is not good enough.

Belinda WILSON (Narre Warren North) (15:52): Acting Speaker Kathage, what a great member you are for Yan Yean, and I am very pleased to have you in the Speaker’s chair. You do incredible stuff for your community, and that is why you are an incredible member. You are not creating – what do we call them – nuclear focus groups, which other members in other chambers are doing, which is extraordinary, but anyway.

Danny O’Brien: Nuclear.

Belinda WILSON: Boom! Nuclear is what we are talking about. Anyway –

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Belinda WILSON: Did I not say that? Nuclear. Is that better?

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Belinda WILSON: I am having an elocution lesson in the chamber; thank you for that. I love talking about the budget, because with the Allan Labor government we deliver for our communities. I am sitting with a great array of my colleagues here who have continuously delivered for their communities around Victoria, and we continue to do that, and that is something that I am very, very proud of.

I love schools, like the member for Bentleigh. I know that he is an avid school lover, as am I. Schools are a very, very important part of what we do, and I think that the $400 that we are giving to the students in each of our government schools next year is going to be an absolute game changer for so many people that cannot afford camp and that cannot afford books and pencils to use during their class time. I am really excited. I have spoken to many of my state schools, which are also very excited about this $400 that students in each of our schools are getting. For many at my schools in my community, going to camp is the first holiday or the first trip they have ever been on, and I know how much of a difference that $400 is really going to make for them, so it is a very, very exciting budget announcement for us.

When I look at what my community received during this time, we are really excited about the $9 million for James Cook Primary. I know how excited everyone is in the community to receive this money for the upgrade to the school. In fact I took the minister out for a visit to James Cook Primary recently, and it was so exciting to see the kids, the teachers and the principal and to see how they have gone through the planning process and are getting ready to turn the first sod, which will not be that far away. We are really looking forward to that and seeing that project all the way through. I know how much of a difference it is going to make for that school.

The other thing is kinder. I have over 50 childcare centres or kinders in my electorate, which is a lot. The free kinder program has been incredible. I know for me as a parent – as a mum of three kids who are a long way past kinder – I was very surprised, when my daughter had to go to kinder, to be hit with a $2500 bill. I was not aware that kinder was so expensive. For so many parents to be able to get free kinder for three- and four-year-olds, $2500 is a lot of money when you have got your first child going to kinder, your second child, your third child or even more children. It is a huge saving to lots and lots of families. I am really excited to have that program continue in my electorate and have such incredible feedback about that as well.

The other great thing in Narre Warren North that we are doing is upgrading Hallam Secondary College. Hallam Secondary College is one of three high schools in my electorate. Simon and the team there have an incredible staff of teachers. But we all know that some schools do get tired over time, and Hallam is one of those. They also have just gone through the planning process and are getting ready to turn the sod on their incredible project. We have committed $25 million to Hallam Secondary College, and we are really excited about that.

I cannot wait to see both these projects go through their building stage and then of course be finished. I think that is one of the most exciting things. I know the member for Bentleigh enjoys projects going from zero to completion.

Nick Staikos interjected.

Belinda WILSON: Every post a winner. He is very well known for doing incredible stuff at schools, and I know how important our schools are to everybody.

I am just trying to see what I have missed in my program. I was so thrown by my elocution lesson.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Belinda WILSON: No, I have got many, many things to keep on talking about. This is one of my very favourites, and I am so pleased that the member for Ripon has just walked into the chamber. There is $28.8 million to support child and maternity health. Now, on child and maternity health, the person who becomes your child and maternal health nurse will change your life. They are your lifeline to everything when you have your first child. I remember mine very, very well and how much of a difference she made to my life when I was crying, the baby would not sleep and I needed assistance. She was there for me with all three of my children. They really are an incredible benefit to our community. I know that she picked up a number of things in my kids that I was not aware of, and one of them in particular was life-changing for my son. If she had not picked that up, it would have been a very different outcome. For me, that investment that we are making in maternal and child health is absolutely critical, and I am very, very proud to talk about that.

We are also committing to community legal services with a $28.8 million allocation to community legal centres and specialist legal services, including South-East Monash Legal Services. Again, they are another incredible community organisation who are really dedicated to what they do.

We are also dedicating $1.35 million to support community hubs for migrants and refugees. I have two of these community hubs in my electorate, which again I am really proud of – one at Fleetwood Primary School and one at Fountain Gate Primary School, both great primary schools. These hubs bring our multicultural community together. They get them to have a cup of tea, to learn new skills and to learn what is happening in the area where they may be just newly arrived. They help them to embrace the community and assist them with absolutely anything. The people who lead those community hubs are absolutely amazing. They do such a great job. These are really great initiatives. I know how excited they are about being able to continue those two programs at those primary schools.

I also understand the critical role of our healthcare workers. I am very close to, although they are not directly in my electorate, Dandenong Hospital and Casey Hospital. These are both great services –

The SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for the matter of public importance. The member will have the call when the matter is next before the house.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.