Wednesday, 31 July 2024

Motions

Budget papers 2024–25

Debate resumed on motion of Steve Dimopoulos:

That this house takes note of the 2024–25 budget papers.

Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (15:44): It is a pleasure to get back up on my feet to pick up where I left off last sitting week with the time I have remaining. It is a pleasure to talk about all the investment we are making off the back of this budget, the 2024–25 budget, into local jobs, education, transport, health, environmental and social justice, and cost-of-living outcomes for my community, beginning with $1.27 million that we have allocated to improve road safety along Nicholson Street in East Coburg. I was very pleased to have secured and announced this funding through the budget to improve safety between Bell Street and Albion Street, which will provide for new electronic variable speed limit signage, electronic speed warning signs, dragon teeth pavement markings, coloured pavement at pedestrian crossings and kerb warning signs. I would like to particularly acknowledge local residents for their ongoing advocacy which helped lead to this outcome, including 93-year-old Anna and her daughter Maria. We did announce the funding at their place in Nicholson Street over some beautiful espresso and biscotti as well as with neighbours Rob, Steve, Andrea, Rosetta, Andrew, Desiree, Meg and so many others I have spoken to on this issue since being elected.

We have since also allocated $805,000 to reduce the speed limit on Bell Street itself between Pentridge Boulevard and Elizabeth Street ,which is very welcome news for the Coburg High community, Coburg Primary community and Safe Access over Bell Street Bridge for Everyone community as well, with the members for Preston and Northcote working very hard on this outcome to reduce the limit from 60 kilometres to 40 kilometres at school pick-up and drop-off hours.

Healthwise we have allocated $813 million to kick off upgrades to the Northern Hospital and $275 million for upgrades at the Austin Hospital too. But I am particularly proud of the $175,000 we have allocated to improve the long-overdue cricket nets that have long been declared past their use-by date, first built in the 1950s. That is welcome news for the Pascoe Vale Hadfield Cricket Club, and I would particularly like to acknowledge president Kelvin Thomson, Georgie McElligottt, Andrew Carlton, Stephen Whitchurch and many others. Council has come to the party at first drop with $100,000 and Cricket Victoria brought up the tail at $40,000.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (15:46): Budgets are about choices. In this year’s budget Labor have made their choices very clear. So for those playing along at home, I want to ask viewers: what choice would you make? Scenario 1: we are in the middle of the most disastrous housing crisis we have ever seen. The number of Victorians waiting for a public home has climbed to over 125,000 ‍people. On any given night 30,000 people experience homelessness. Out-of-control rent rises have pushed rents to an all-time high, leaving renters to sacrifice food and medicine just to keep a roof over their heads. You could (a) build 100,000 new public homes over the next decade, force property developers to include public and genuinely affordable homes in all new developments and make unlimited rent increases illegal, starting with an immediate two-year freeze or (b) you could demolish almost 7000 public homes, displacing more than 10,000 people and tearing apart their communities with absolutely no plan for where they will go. You could give huge tax breaks to multinational developers to screw over renters on a massive scale and blame everyone but yourselves for the crisis getting worse. Which one would you choose? Labor chose (b).

Despite the housing, renting and homelessness crises, there was no new funding for public housing – not a cent in this year’s budget. Labor seems intent on completely ending public housing in this state. With the demolition of 44 public housing towers, over 125,000 people on the waiting list and a regime of privatisation, people are scared. They are scared of losing their homes forever and never, ever having the right to live in public housing with a 25 per cent cap on rents and security of tenure. That is why people are scared. They are scared because the Greens are telling them the truth and Labor is trying to pull the wool over their eyes while demolishing their homes.

Last year, despite billions of dollars being announced for housing, the government only added 1554 ‍houses to the public and community housing stock. But, guess what, they demolished or sold off 1296 public homes, barely breaking even. At the current rate, it will take 31 years to clear the public housing waiting list. That is assuming that there is no growth in demand, and we know that demand is growing at unprecedented rates.

Labor has chosen to allow landlords to continue to raise the rent by however much they like, locking renters into the threat of a rent increase that will push them over the edge, a rent increase that will mean no matter what sacrifices they make they simply cannot afford it anymore. And because of the terrifyingly low vacancy rates, which do not have as much to do with the supply of new housing as with landlords hoarding 100,000 homes here in Melbourne and Labor letting 48,000 homes sit on Airbnb across the state, these renters know that they have absolutely no hope of finding another home if they choose to leave that home that they cannot afford, because there is no affordable housing. There is no affordable housing that is available to someone on the disability support pension and there is literally no affordable housing for single parents on JobSeeker, so they are forced to borrow and beg and steal or join the 125,000 people on the public housing waitlist for a home they are likely to never get.

Labor have made a choice to put their re-election before people’s basic rights to a home. They have made a choice to make deals with their property developer mates –

Katie Hall: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, this is a take-note motion about the budget, and I would ask you to call on the member to be relevant to the motion.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): I believe the member was being relevant.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI: The choice that Labor have made is to stand shoulder to shoulder with property developers and announce a program to demolish and privatise public housing – a program that they have shown no evidence will be successful, will be efficient, will actually work and will improve housing and homelessness and that they can actually fund over continuing to give people a public home. And when pressed about what they are doing to combat the rental crisis, there was nothing in this budget for renters. Labor loves instead to raise build-to-rent apartments, but build-to-rent is a scam. It is total rent washing. The build-to-rent apartments in Fitzroy –

Nick Staikos: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I would reiterate the earlier point of order by the member for Footscray on relevance. Perhaps the member for Richmond could quote a budget paper or a budget reference or a page in the budget papers.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): I think the member is being relevant. There is no point of order.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI: Once again Labor is funnelling public money to property developers with massive concessions. Build-to-rent properties developed by massive multinational companies get a 50 ‍per cent discount on land tax for 30 years and an exemption for foreign investors from paying the absentee owner surcharge, which costs the state and taxpayers significantly. Renters in these developments and renters in Kerr Street in Fitzroy have come to me in desperation. After just one year of living there they face the same vulnerabilities as the broader rental market. They face no-grounds evictions and they face unlimited rent hikes, and corporate landlords do not guarantee any extra security. If anything, the notion of a corporate landlord is a gigantic red flag. Build-to-rent properties are marketed to corporate investors as 20 per cent more expensive than comparable apartments in the same locations, making them in fact less affordable. So stop claiming that build-to-rents are in fact a solution to this housing crisis.

Budgets are about choices. Let us look at scenario 2: the world watches in despair as the Israeli military commits an unspeakable genocide against the Palestinian people. Labor have a choice: they could (a) listen to the hundreds of thousands of Victorians begging their governments to do everything in their power to stop the attacks, save lives and seek peace and justice for Palestine or (b) declare unqualified support for the Israeli government, double down their support for Israeli weapons manufacturers and fund a major –

Natalie Suleyman: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Richmond would know too well that she has now strayed away from the motion that is before the house, and I would ask you to direct the member to speak in relation to the motion that is before the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): I ask the member to come back to the budget.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI: Is the minister suggesting that the Victorian Labor government is not funding a major arms fair in September? Is that not part of this year’s state budget? I think it is. The Victorian government is the major –

Natalie Suleyman: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member is not relevant, and we do have a take-note motion in relation to the budget. I would ask you to remind the member to speak directly in relation to the take-note motion that is before the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): I ask the member to come back to the budget.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI: This year’s budget has allocated funds to the Land Forces conference, a major conference displaying the products of major weapons manufacturers from across the world – BAE Systems, NIOA, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Elbit Systems. This Victorian government has funded in this budget the major sponsorship of this defence trade fair. This is part of Victorian Labor’s 2024 budget funding commitments. Once again Labor are putting their corporate relations and their corporate dollars that they get to fund the next election over the lives of Victorians and the lives of Palestinians.

Scenario 3: the once-thriving capital of arts and live music is deeply struggling to stay afloat. Independent artists are leaving the sectors in droves, and arts organisations are losing core funding and shutting left, right and centre. Live music venues across the state are struggling and being forced to close because of exorbitant insurance costs. Labor has a choice. They could (a) axe the sick pay guarantee for artists as well as all other casual workers, pay millions of dollars to get the Foo Fighters to come to Victoria, leaving smaller arts and music organisations to languish and close, and let grant programs stagnate to prehistoric levels, or they could (b) properly fund small to medium arts organisations with recurrent organisational funding, establish a percentage-for-art scheme, establish a living wage for artists and make affordable public insurance available to our local live music venues. But instead they choose to ignore the hundreds of venues at risk of going under. Instead they offer tokenistic competitive grants as a box-ticking exercise to get the media off their back. They do not talk to venues about what they actually need. They just turn up at the front door when they need to make an announcement. Labor could provide a living wage for artists, a fair annual wage, so that they have the security to create the art that our state takes for granted.

Our small to medium organisations are under threat. These organisations are the bedrock of our evolving culture, and they suffer from an ever-diminishing pool of funding for the arts. I hear from arts organisations all the time that are struggling with funding uncertainties, from people who are having to close up shop and from highly skilled, passionate arts workers who are heartbroken. They are leaving the sector because they just cannot keep going. The cultural loss for Victoria is colossal. In the Richmond electorate we are bleeding grassroots organisations left, right and centre, organisations that have been feeding our culture for decades and have inexplicably lost their multiyear funding, which forces arts organisations into precarious situations and forces them to make difficult decisions.

At the same time these organisations are being declined getting project grants, with Creative Victoria, which funds them, saying that they are in too precarious a position to be able to receive the grants – the same organisation that took their multiyear funding away. It is a catch 22. The reason for this is that Labor has deprioritised the arts. It has not increased, let alone indexed, the funding that it makes available for the arts in years. It does have plenty of money for major well-established institutions, the ones that bring the international exhibits and international acts – say, the Foo Fighters – but it takes the money away from our local organisations: La Mama Theatre, the Nicholas Building, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne Fringe and the CCP, the Centre for Contemporary Photography. The Centre for Contemporary Photography in Fitzroy is right on the edge after almost 40 years. They have been defunded by Creative Victoria and, because of that, defunded by Creative Australia in favour of these mega festivals, mega events, mega galleries –

The SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for the matter of public importance.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.