Tuesday, 26 November 2024

Motions

Budget papers 2024–25

Debate resumed on motion of Steve Dimopoulos:

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

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (17:20): I will blow the dust off my budget notes here. It has been 203 ‍days since Labor delivered the budget. I had to go through quickly, as I raced off and heard we were going to move to the budget take-note motion today, to check that my budget notes were actually still relevant ‍– it has been so long since the Treasurer delivered his budget back in May – and I tell you what, they certainly are not. When you look at reports last week about our future debt and where we may be landing, back in May when the budget was delivered, state debt was predicted to get up around $188 billion, with $20 million a day in interest payments. What have we read this week? $228 billion by 2028 and rising every single day. We heard the Premier in question time talking about the current fiscal state of the budget of Victoria and talking about how they are going to deliver a surplus on the budget. I am not sure she is fully taking into consideration exactly where the state is at the moment and that growing level of debt. Major project blowouts – it is just an absolute mess here in Victoria 200-odd days since the budget was delivered.

I am going to touch briefly on a few local projects that continue to not be funded under the Allan Labor government here in Victoria, and I am going to start with one I speak about regularly in this place, and that is Rosebud Hospital. I really do want to say, first of all, before I talk about the need for the new hospital, I was actually in there on Saturday night with one of my twin boys. Unfortunately, he was under the weather, dealing with a little bit of vomiting, and the staff as always were absolutely incredible. But it is very, very hard, as many of the members in this chamber would know, if they go into their local hospital. Rosebud is a small hospital. They do know what job I have got, and every single one of the nurses in there raised the need for an upgrade to that facility. Of course before the last election – unfortunately we ended up on this side of the chamber – we did make a commitment to rebuilding Rosebud Hospital, one that continues to not be matched by those on the other side of the chamber. Every single time I hear from the Minister for Health in a letter, she sends me the stock-standard letter that we all get from ministers on the other side. A constituent says, ‘We need Rosebud Hospital. We need an upgrade. I spent time in there. I spent too long in the emergency room. The facilities weren’t up to standard, weren’t up to scratch.’ The letter comes back from the Minister for Health: ‘We’re investing in Frankston.’ Fantastic. Do you know how long it takes to drive from Rosebud Hospital to Frankston Hospital in no traffic? Let us not forget, when everybody is down over the summer and the peninsula is chockers, it takes 40 minutes to get from Rosebud to Frankston. You tell me where else in metropolitan Melbourne you have to drive 40 minutes to get appropriate health care.

Bridget Vallence interjected.

Sam GROTH: The member for Evelyn in the Yarra Ranges has the same experience. But constituents on the Mornington Peninsula are one of the oldest demographics in the state. They need quality health care close to home and the facilities to be able to deliver it. The nurses, the doctors, everyone there – all the staff do an incredible job with the facility that they have got, but they need that money committed to the hospital so that they can deliver the best possible health care that they can.

The other issue that continues to be a problem – and I am sure many members in this chamber will sit in traffic here over the next few months – is the Jetty Road overpass. We saw a previous federal coalition government deliver $75 million for that upgrade that was never used by the Labor government here in Victoria. They just handed that money back to the feds and did not put it to work. It is one of the most dangerous intersections in all of my electorate by far. When you come off the end of Mornington Peninsula Freeway, you hit the double roundabouts there. There is an accident there every other day – multiple accidents every single week. They have put a pedestrian crossing in. It is one of the most ridiculous things.

Kim Wells interjected.

Sam GROTH: They do bank up, member for Rowville. It needs investment. Again, we made that commitment. It still remains unfunded in the latest budget under this government. We need to make sure that we are seeing the infrastructure delivered on the peninsula. At the moment the government seems to be signing us up to contract after contract on the Suburban Rail Loop, and while that continues to happen and all the money keeps getting invested into that one basket, people on the peninsula will continue to be neglected when it comes to the infrastructure that they need. They are neglected when it comes to Jetty Road, and they are neglected when it comes to the maintenance of the roads. If you do drive on any of the VicRoads roads down in my electorate, whether it is Point Nepean Road or Frankston-Flinders Road out on the other side, from Acting Speaker Mercurio’s electorate through to mine, that road is absolutely abysmal. And if you are going from east to west, one side to the other, Boneo Road is the other major one. You cannot drive 50 metres without having to swerve to avoid a pothole. It is dangerous. We write weekly to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety about Boneo Road. It is in an absolute state of disrepair.

We hear about the summer maintenance budget and everything that is going on – well, I can guarantee you, with traffic banked up over the summer, there will be very little summer maintenance going on in the electorate of Nepean. And if it is, I tell you what, you could not pick a worse time to do it than when the population of my electorate swells by over 100,000 people. Tell me how you are going to resurface roads when there is one way in and one way out in peak periods. I tell you what, though, in gridlock it is hard to damage your car – you are not hitting those potholes at speed, so maybe, just maybe, the community will get through the summer unscathed with this government’s lack of road maintenance.

We still need to see sound barriers delivered on the Mornington Peninsula Freeway. It is not always in gridlock; quite often the cars are going down there, especially in non-peak times, at that 100-kilometre-an-hour speed limit. I continue to get residents who write to me in regard to the sound barriers. They have had VicRoads out, who have measured the decibel limit. It has been professionally vetted and it exceeds the threshold of a healthy level by VicRoads standards, and many people are reporting to me about their mental health and their lack of sleep. They have consistently measured it at over 60 decibels, and we just really need to see at some point those sound barriers go up. Unfortunately, what I would say to those people that live on the Mornington Peninsula Freeway whose properties back onto it, at the moment with the current state of the budget as it is – $228 billion by 2028 – I would not be holding your breath, because if you want that project to be delivered, you need a government that can handle the budget and manage the finances, and at the moment we know that Labor cannot manage money. All you have to do is look at the current state of the budget.

More broadly when you look at the state – and I will touch briefly on my shadow portfolio in the tourism sector – we saw huge cuts to the budget when it came to the tourism sector. On Thursday night we went to Victorian Tourism Awards. The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events was there and spruiked what a great job the sector does and how much they put themselves on the line and deliver experiences for those people that visit from inside Victoria or who come to Victoria from overseas or interstate, and I agree they do an amazing job. These are people who put themselves on the line every day. But when you get a cut of over 60 per cent in tourism and major events funding in the last budget, you just wonder how those people can keep working hard every single day to keep their businesses open and to create local jobs – they employ locals, they boost the local economy; they do an amazing job – to keep being able to promote themselves more broadly to visitors from New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and from other states or from overseas to come here when the government has absolutely smashed the destination marketing budget.

Within three days of the budget and the destination marketing budget being cut from $32.5 million a year to $32.5 million for four years, with $6 million in the budget this year, we saw the Down Under Summit cancelled. That is a big trade show that is put on in the US. In the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee last week we could not get an exact number of the current employees at Visit Victoria, but we know in the last year and since the budget there have been 30 full-time equivalent jobs lost at Visit Victoria, who do the job of promoting tourism, securing major events and working with the business events community. We are seeing job cuts in this area. We are seeing cuts to destination marketing. How does the state continue to promote itself when this budget continues to put all its money into contracts for major projects that continue to run over budget? There is a whole list of them that this government loves to stand up and talk about, the things they have done, but they never, ever mention how much money they have run over by. Well, I think Victorian people are getting quite sick of it, and I think that it is those small business operators, those tourism operators who have to run to a budget, who have to work week in, week out to understand how much they are bringing in, how much they are putting out – they are the ones that are starting to suffer because they cannot get the marketing they need from Visit Victoria, who no longer have the staff they need or the budget to promote the state.

We have seen year to date around 400,000 less visitors compared to pre COVID. We have seen other states who are getting back to those levels far quicker, who are making record investment. When you look at New South Wales and Queensland, who are our two biggest competitors, both of them are making record investments. We have seen Western Australia in their most recent budget make record investment into the tourism and major events space. We saw Queensland spend more on a campaign for three months with Bluey than we are going to spend in four years on destination marketing. We have got the Australian Open and we have got the Grand Prix. Tell me one event that this government has acquired since it came to power in 2014 – one event that you have acquired, just one. Give me one. I would love to hear one that you have acquired since 2014. Not a single event has been acquired by this government. They hang their hat on a calendar that was handed to them when they came to power, and all they have done is waste money, rip it up and go into debt. Go and acquire something before you spruik your credentials when it comes to supporting an industry that you are absolutely ripping the guts out of at the moment.

This government has no idea when it comes to managing money. They have no idea when it comes to managing tourism. They have no idea when it comes to helping the people of Nepean. I do hope, as we head to two years since the election and two years to the next one, that the Victorian public take note of just how incompetent the Allan Labor government is when it comes to managing money.

Paul HAMER (Box Hill) (17:31): I thought the member for Nepean was on a roll. I thought he would go the full distance, but that is all right. I am very happy to speak on the budget. I know it has taken a little bit of time to try and fit everyone in who has been wanting to speak amongst the busy legislative program that we have had in 2024, but there is no time like the present to talk about the budget and what it has meant for Box Hill through 2024.

I just want to start by making some general observations about the budget and the state of the economy and the state of Victoria, because for those at home who were listening to the member for Nepean, he was not really doing the sales pitch. Particularly for somebody who we know has had some experience in tourism promotion on the small screen, I would have hoped that there was a little bit more promotion that he could give for this great state, because Victoria does have the strongest employment growth in all of the states, in both absolute and percentage terms. Almost 885,000 jobs have been created since we were elected, and we have also added 100,000 more businesses since June 2020. If you think about that time, that was just after the pandemic hit, and since that time 100,000 extra businesses are in Victoria, which is the largest percentage growth of any state. Since coming to government 10 years ago there are 190,000 extra businesses, which is a fantastic endorsement of the state, the state’s economy and what this government is doing to attract more businesses.

Even though I am a metro MP, I know about the tax changes that we have made in the regions, particularly on the payroll tax to really make that the lowest payroll tax in the country. If you set up a business in the regions and you are beyond that threshold to pay payroll tax, it is a very attractive incentive to be setting up business in the regions. I know there are a few local companies that I have spoken to who have been contemplating setting up high-tech manufacturing facilities in Victoria. I have been encouraging them to have a look at our great regions to set up, because once they get to that size they will probably attract the payroll tax, and where better to set up than regional Victoria, with a very highly skilled workforce, access to transport networks and access to the port, export markets and of course our very favourable tax regime.

As a result of all of that business investment, the size of our economy has increased. It has increased to over $600 billion in 2023–24 in nominal terms, and that means that in real terms Victoria’s economy is now 11 per cent larger than before the pandemic and 31 per cent larger since the government was elected 10 years ago, which by any measure is demonstrating the growth in the state and the growth in the economy. All of the economic statistics and data are pointing to this growth.

I do want to talk about some of the big-ticket items that were promoted in this year’s budget, and not necessarily in terms of absolute cost but just in terms of the difference that they are making to our local communities. The one I want to talk first about is the $400 school saving bonus. Many, many parents will be receiving it – possibly today, this afternoon. Parents with children in our government schools will be receiving an email with some login information today so that they can take advantage of that $400. It covers a whole range of things – excursions, uniforms, camps. We know how difficult it is at the moment. The cost-of-living pressures are real for many, many families. Some schools have even cut back the number of excursions and the number of camps that they have had just so that it becomes more affordable for families, so having this $400 accessible to families for these costs is absolutely critical coming right at this time of the year as they are going into the new school year. Particularly for students who are going into secondary school, just the cost of the textbooks and all the associated other things that you need for each of your different classes in secondary school adds up significantly, so this $400 is coming really at the right time and is so desperately needed for many, many families.

I also want to just talk about some of our local projects that were funded in this year’s budget. I was pleased to see we got a number of allocations for some of our terrific sporting clubs and sporting assets. It is so important, and the amount of work and the amount of participation that goes on at our local sporting clubs can never really be overestimated. I mean, it is tireless work by all of the volunteers, all of the committee members that put in to help their sporting clubs. As we have seen and as we saw particularly through the pandemic, having that outlet not only for junior sport but also for senior sport, for people to come and participate in their local community – they are so much the lifeblood of our community, our sporting groups.

I was really pleased to both advocate for and also be able to receive and pass on the good news that through the council the clubs’ facilities were going to get some upgrades. Just to highlight some of these upgrades: Mont Albert Reserve, which is home to both the mighty Mont Albert Cricket Club as well as the Surrey Park Lacrosse Club, has received $140,000 towards particularly pavilion upgrades. They have a wonderful facility and a wonderful pavilion that is not too old, but it does not have much of an external area where people can congregate and go and use that space to socialise and make more of the matches that they have at the ground. I know that they are already working with the Whitehorse council to develop those plans and make sure that something happens.

We have also managed to secure funding for an electronic scoreboard at Elgar Park. This will serve a number of clubs, particularly the Box Hill North Football Club, the amateur football club that plays out there. They are a terrific club. They have got the seniors team, but they have also offered me a position on the veterans team. They have an over-45s team. It has been a very long time since I played football. I was a small forward pocket at the time, back in the school football days, and I would probably be an even smaller forward pocket these days, so the attractiveness of coming in and putting on the boots and running around for the veterans does not quite take me, but I do appreciate the offer from the football club. Coming down and helping them to get a scoreboard is certainly a way I can help them out.

Koonung Reserve is a sporting facility in Blackburn North. There are currently two ovals and a very old pavilion. The pavilion must have been built in the 1960s or 70s. It has one room; that is how old it is. And the room is separated – obviously you have the home and away teams – by just one of those old vinyl curtains you would probably be familiar with from other facilities that were built around that period of time. That is all that separates the home and away teams. They also have a women’s team, so how you manage home and away and then men’s and women’s teams is an enormous challenge. They do need to have new clubrooms. They have been pushing for a redevelopment for a number of years. I am glad to say that we were able to secure money towards a master plan for that facility to at least start that process, to look at what facilities the clubs and that area require.

We were also able to secure some funding, also for a scoreboard, at Koonung Reserve. Whether it is cricket with the Blackburn North Cricket Club or football with the Nunawading Lions football club – the two major codes that play at that oval – they all still use a manual scoreboard, just flicking through the blocks of numbers on the ground and sticking them on the old hook, and that is how it has been done since day one. I think the cricket team and the football team were able to secure some grants through the AFL and through Cricket Victoria towards the construction of an electronic scoreboard, but it did not cover the entire cost, and we were able to assist them greatly by making a contribution towards that. So they are some great local projects that we will be seeing over the next couple of years. Like I said, they make a huge difference to the local sporting clubs, just being able to show that you really take pride in your area and pride in your community by upgrading these facilities.

I am also really pleased to see how our budget commitments from previous years are continuing and continuing to grow the Box Hill community, particularly in our schools. Last week I was at Kerrimuir Primary School to see how their multipurpose gym was faring. It is such a terrific build and there is such terrific need for that site. If I recall correctly, that was funded back in the 2021 budget. We are getting very close to the completion stage now; I think it is due for completion in the first half of 2025. It is really taking shape, and it is going to be, again, such a boon for the community. Basketball is so big in the Box Hill community. The demographics of the community just love basketball. You go down to the junior basketball clubs, and there is such a diverse mix of kids that come to play. Particularly in the Chinese community a lot of families like to take their kids to basketball and get them involved in junior basketball, and we simply do not have enough courts. There has already been a lot of interest from the many junior community clubs in our area in hiring the facility once it is completed, but it is just as important for the school.

The school has been running assemblies outside for years and years and years because they simply do not have an indoor facility that is large enough to accommodate whole-school assemblies. Finally when this gym is completed and delivered they will be able to have their assemblies inside in all weather. It will be a wonderful asset to the school, and I am really looking forward to being able to see it finally open.

The other school that I wanted to give a shout-out to was Laburnum Primary School, which we also funded. I think that was in 2022, and that was for a replacement classroom wing. I think there are 10 ‍new classrooms which are being delivered as part of that project. That is a school which is right on the doorstep of Box Hill and the Box Hill activity centre. We know that that is experiencing growth, so it is really important that these extra classrooms are delivered. I cannot wait to see this project delivered. I think it is a wonderful budget that is really hitting the mark in Box Hill.

Kim WELLS (Rowville) (17:46): The budget for 2024–25: another Labor budget and yet another financial mess. It just goes to prove that Labor can never, ever manage money. It never has and it never will. State Labor has never, ever handed over the state finances to a coalition government in a better state than when they received them. Let me give you a couple of examples. In 1992 state Labor were a basket case, and we were called the rust bucket state of the country. We were so bankrupt that the state government was going to have to borrow money to pay for teachers, nurses and police wages. They were so bankrupt that they actually had to sell Loy Yang B to Mission Energy. I am always amused when the government says it was Jeff Kennett who privatised the SEC. It was actually started by the previous Labor government in the Cain–Kirner days.

It must be remembered that the SEC had a debt of $7 billion. I am always amused by the press release that they put out at the time. It was put out by the Premier, who said:

The Victorian Government’s decision to involve private investment in this new project is essential to our energy future.

But it was not about that. It was about how badly the state was being run. Tony Sheehan, the Treasurer at the time, said:

It will be the first time that part of a major State power station will be part-owned and managed by a private investor.

It will mean:

… improved plant performance and industrial relations in the power generation industry in Victoria.

Then after the Bracks–Brumby period between 1999 and 2010 we had another financial mess. Massive write-downs of state taxes and cuts to GST meant a revenue cut of around $8 billion and the budget was in structural deficit – another mess that the Baillieu government had to deal with.

So I always find it amusing in recent times when the Labor ministers get up and have the audacity to say in question time that we did not fund one police officer in that time between 2010 and 2014. We actually funded 1800 police and 1000 PSOs. The member for Croydon was part of that cabinet decision and the policymaking to make sure that we funded the 1800 police and 1000 PSOs. That was a real, good legacy.

But there were more issues that we had to deal with. One of them was regional rail, which the Labor government is so proud about. When we took it over we found all of a sudden, as Dr Death, the Department of Treasury and Finance’s Grant Hehir, used to come in and say to me: ‘Treasurer, we have an issue.’ Regional rail had forgotten to include the cost of the signals – $500 million that we had to find to put the signals on the regional rail. Then when we asked the question to Treasury, ‘Where are all the trains coming from?’ they had not ordered one extra train to run on regional rail, not one extra train. All of a sudden we had this brand new fantastic railway line running along, but we had no trains. We then had to go and find more money to fund trains to run on the regional rail.

The other issue was the Epping fruit market – another basket case. It was so bad that we had to take it out of the departments and put it into Treasury so we could maintain the costs on that. It was just so embarrassing. Myki did not work; we had to fix Myki. It was a financial mess after a financial mess. For the difference between Labor and Liberal, I refer to a Winston Churchill quote, one of my favourites: ‘I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.’ That pretty much sums up the difference between the Liberal–Nationals and Labor: while Labor try to tax their way into prosperity, we believe in sensible financial management.

I want to move on to domestic violence. Funding domestic violence is crucial. It is one of the scourges on society. We cannot get on top of domestic violence until the behaviour of men changes. When domestic violence is part of your family, the family is never, ever the same after multiple events of domestic violence. No matter how many times the husband or the father says, ‘It will never happen again. I will stop drinking,’ it does not last. It is repeat behaviour. It is something that a family never, ever recovers from because there is a breakdown in trust between the entire family.

I want to add that I am still a strong believer that Clare’s law, which has been implemented in the UK and which should be implemented here, makes so much sense. You are trying to resolve an issue before it becomes an issue. In regard to family violence and Clare’s law, it is the issue of the right to ask and the right to know. It came about when Clare Wood started dating a man who she met online. She had no idea of his violent past, and in the end she was murdered. Her father Michael Brown campaigned to ensure that other women were not in the same situation as her. The right to ask and the right to know are the two pillars which make a two-entry path to access evidence. I went and looked at this, and I worked with the UK police.

An example took place when I was there in the police station where a friend of a woman came to police and said, ‘I am really, really concerned about my friend who has just met this fellow online from the other side of England. I need to know that my friend is going to be safe.’ They checked the records. This man had a long history of violence against women. The police went out and said to the woman, ‘We want you to bring in your friend tomorrow morning so we can discuss this with her.’ They came in and discussed the record of that person, and it was able to be dealt with with the help of the friend and family. It is the right to know.

Online dating is obviously the big thing these days. Women should have the right to know, to be able to go to a police station and ask police, ‘This is the fellow who I am dating. Is there or is there not a problem?’ If there is not a problem, the police say, ‘You have nothing to worry about.’ If there is a problem, then they are able to sit down with her and put around strong counselling and support for those women. It is knowing up-front. I just find it so difficult when we have so many programs after the fact. Clare’s Law is before the fact, and it is something that I hope both sides of the Parliament would look at seriously. The right to ask and the right to know should be the right of every single woman who is entering a new relationship. People will say, ‘Well, you know, is it a breach of privacy?’ You are probably right; it is a breach of privacy, but I think there is a greater good in regard to a woman having the right to know. Hopefully Parliament will be able to work together to make it a lot safer, especially for women, because the cases – and it was even mentioned today during question time – are frightening. It is absolutely frightening what is happening to women. Making it 50 times worse is being assaulted or killed by someone that they know, who they have loved and trusted. It is just an awful situation.

Locally speaking, the budget spoke about a $10 million major upgrade to Carrington Primary School, one of the really good schools in my electorate in Knoxfield. But the problem is we still cannot find where that money is in the budget, because it is actually a part of a pool. While they promised the local school that $10 million is coming, it is actually not the case. We do not know what is going to happen to it – they are out doing consultation – but we need a commitment one way or the other about what is going to happen to that school funding for Carrington in Knoxfield.

The one concerning issue, in addition to what Rowville is not receiving, is that as soon as the federal Labor government came in, the Albanese government, they started cutting funding for our roads. Alan Tudge, the previous member for Aston, had made a number of commitments to be able to upgrade the roads in our area. For example, for the Rowville rail there was $475 million secured, and we were waiting on the state to be able to match it and to get on with it. To even build it from Caulfield to Monash would have been a start. They cut the $50 million for duplication of Napoleon Road in Rowville, they cut $100 million for the Wellington Road upgrade, they cut the funding for the Dorset Road extension and of course they cut the $4 billion for the east–west link. These are all incredibly important road projects. So now we have this dreadful situation where Albanese and the Labor government get elected and the first thing they do is say, ‘Right, we are cutting all those funding commitments that Alan Tudge, the member for Aston, had made.’ In our electorate in Rowville, when you look at the roads, it is just one pothole after another. I know the member for Croydon talks about this as well: all of the major roads in our electorates are just covered in potholes. We had four potholes on Ferntree Gully Road. They came out and fixed them, and we thought, ‘Gee, how good is that? They have actually fixed them,’ because we wrote to the minister about it. Four days later the potholes were exactly the same as they were. I do not know what they are doing in order to try and fix these potholes, but it just simply is not working.

We have got a federal election coming up, and it is going to be a bit difficult for the Albanese government to now turn around and go, ‘Oh, by the way, the state is completely broke; we cannot make those commitments where we have already cut that funding.’ The duplications, the upgrade to Wellington Road and the Dorset Road extension should all be state-funded projects.

But for some reason the money that is being paid in interest on the debt – and I think the debt is now forecast to be up to $228 billion. I mean, it is just phenomenal. I think when we left it was $53 billion, so it is four times greater in a matter of 10 years. It has gone from $53 billion to $228 billion, and now they have got themselves into this dreadful situation where all this money – vital money, taxpayers money – is being spent on the interest bill. As your credit rating decreases, the cost of interest increases because of the higher risk, and that is the dreadful situation that we have got ourselves into.

The people of Rowville deserve so much better, and between now and the next election, whether it be the federal election or the state election, we are going to be campaigning every single day to make sure that our schools are upgraded, that our roads are fixed and that the hospital waitlist is cut.

Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (18:01): I rise to speak on the 2024–25 state budget. I would firstly like to thank the Treasurer and his team for putting another budget together. It is certainly no easy task to do, and there are many challenges to overcome, as we are all aware. But I do truly believe that we have the best people on our side to conduct this important work, which is to deliver for all Victorians a fair and equitable budget to progress our great state and continue the fantastic work that this Labor government does.

I remember on the evening of the budget announcement I went outside and I spoke to one of the television reporters that was talking about the budget. We had a quick chat, and he said to me, ‘You know, Paul, it’s a fair budget. It’s the sort of budget we needed.’ I was a little bit shocked, but I was grateful. I said, ‘Well, can you say something nice on television?’ And sure enough, he actually made a positive comment on the nightly news about the budget, so I am very grateful for that. And he was correct; it is the budget we needed for this time.

Last year I was privileged and honoured to have given my first speech in this place. I spoke about how I wanted to keep communities connected and, using a seat at the table, to advocate and push for real change in my electorate, which had not been seen really for 16 years because we had a Liberal incumbent. One of those ways to keep our communities connected is quite simple: public transport. I have spoken about this many, many times – the fact that you cannot get a bus to go from the Western Port side of the Mornington Peninsula to the Port Phillip side without making a long detour, for instance, from Hastings up to Frankston, changing to the bus in Frankston or even catching the train up there, and then catching the bus from Frankston back to Mornington. It is a 2- to 2½-hour trip. I am very happy to say that in last year’s budget, the 2023–24 budget, I got money for planning for a cross-peninsula bus service, and I am very grateful to say that in the 2024–25 budget I got further money for infrastructure and community engagement. That community engagement has happened; it happened in September and October and was incredibly positive. People are talking about it in my electorate, and they cannot wait until we progress further with getting the bus. I certainly look forward to joining with many members of my community and jumping on the first bus to go from Hastings to Mornington in maybe 20 minutes, and I promise that I will tap on. That is what a seat at the table can achieve.

Another matter I raised in my inaugural speech was the sad fact that people feel like Western Port is the forgotten side of the Mornington Peninsula, but I do believe the tide is turning. The more I go out in the community, the more I see pride in people in what they are doing and achieving, be that through the business they run, the community group they volunteer for or simply the fact that they just love where they live. But those people need our support too so that they do not feel forgotten, which is why this government is delivering for them.

We all know that our local sporting clubs and the volunteers that run them can certainly stretch a dollar pretty far, so whatever you give them is utilised to its maximum potential. I was recently at the Somerville Recreation Reserve – well, not recently; it was quite a while ago – with the Premier. I was very grateful that she came down. It is the home of the Somerville Eagles senior and junior football clubs and netball clubs, Somerville Bowling Club, Somerville Cricket Club and also Somerville Tennis Club. We were there to announce $300,000 that was going to them in the budget for much-needed work and upgrades to their facilities. There are over 54 clubs going through the Somerville Recreation Reserve, so it is a much-loved ground and it is a very much used ground. I know that they will make the best of that funding, and I also look forward to seeing the works complete. Additionally, there was $100,000 given to the Hastings Tennis Club so that they can do some work around their club. They have four courts playing every weekend, and I know they will welcome any type of support. They have recently had lighting upgrades, and they are also about to have some court upgrades on two courts that are not in use at the moment.

Getting more people on the courts to have a hit and keep up their fitness also helps mental health, because we know playing any type of sport has positive benefits on our minds and our bodies, and that is something that I am sure we can all agree we need all the time. Let us keep it positive. So thanks to Ron, Peter, Debbie, Adrian, Karyn, Sam and Darryl for continuing to advocate for all your clubs. The effort you put in is what makes things like this happen, and I will continue to work with you for what the future holds. That is what a seat at the table can achieve.

What is also exciting about this budget is that it will continue to invest in and provide for young families and Victorians through all levels of education, from our youngest in kinders across the state that are thriving because of our landmark Building Blocks grants, providing newly built kinders, additional rooms or play spaces, to those that are also making their places of learning for everyone by putting inclusive equipment and practices in place that are for all kids, because every child deserves to have the best early education possible with as few barriers as possible. I have been fortunate to visit some of our wonderful kinders across the electorate of Hastings and see firsthand what these grants are achieving. I have visited these kindergartens with the former Premier Dan Andrews but also with current members and ministers, and it is always great to visit the kinders and read them a story, especially when they want to sit in your lap – not the teachers or the minister, the kids – because obviously they are having a good time and they feel good. We have supplied money to different communities for IT equipment for kinders so they can continue to provide education. We also visited earlier this year the new site of the Long Street kindergarten in Langwarrin, which will soon be co-located at the Langwarrin Community Centre, providing so many young families in Langwarrin with additional and much-needed kindergarten places.

But the support for families and kids at school does not stop there. Whenever I am out and about talking with parents or schools, there has been a common theme: is there any help for them to pay for various school costs like camps or uniforms? And of course we all know what the answer to that is. This is why every student enrolled at a government school and eligible families at non-government schools will have access to the $400 school saving bonus. This money can be used for school camps, excursions, sporting activities and all those little extras that do run up a bill for families. We are providing much-needed relief to those that need it, and we know that any extra investment in our kids’ education is just a positive step for the future. The $400 school saving bonus is building upon the incredible work that this Labor government has done since 2014 in our schools.

I have seen a few of the Smile Squad vans in action, and I must say they are fantastic. Essentially a dentist practice on wheels, they provide students with free dental care and teach them the importance of keeping your teeth and gums clean and healthy. The staff are all very friendly as well, with oral health therapists, dentists, dental assistants and more providing a much-needed service to our kids. When I was a kid we did not have a van that came to our school. I know I have spoken about this before. We used to have to catch a bus to Freo to the dental clinic, which was full of students and was not a very good experience. Mum used to bribe us with a block of Cadbury’s chocolate afterwards if we went. So I am very grateful for the dental vans.

Additional funding of $6.8 million is included in the 2024–25 budget that will expand on the Glasses for Kids program, an awesome program that provides prep to year 3 students at participating schools with the chance to get free vision screening and further eye testing and, if needed, a pair of glasses. Now that kids have beaming smiles and can see much better, they also need to be learning on a full stomach. We have committed a further $21.1 million into our hugely successful schools breakfast club programs across the state. No child should have to come to school hungry or try to learn whilst their focus is on a meal. This will provide students with a healthy breakfast, lunch, snacks or possibly a take-home pack for those that need it. With all the stresses that kids must deal with these days, having to go through it all with a growling stomach should not be happening. That is what having a seat at the table can achieve.

Being part of a Labor government that has implemented gender-responsive budgeting is truly incredible. In Victoria we make sure that when we make decisions we are thinking about how it will impact all of our population, not half like in the past – you know, like the male half – but all of the population. I have said this before, in my inaugural speech, that during my time as a dancer in a ballet company men and women were all equal. There were only people working incredibly hard together. Men lifted women, women lifted men. We worked together as a team of equals, everyone giving everything to the performance, to the audience, to each other. It was only when I left that world and entered the business world that I saw this concept of women not being equal to men, and it stunned me. Now, two years into this term, I am proud of the ongoing commitment and hard work by the Allan Labor government for true equality within our government and within our communities. In this budget we are continuing the funding of Respectful Relationships, which is a program that is helping students, teachers and carers to understand how gender norms can affect attitudes and behaviour within society. That is gender-responsive budgeting in action. That is why it is incredibly important that we look through multiple lenses when it comes to policy ideas and implementation. With this Parliament finally achieving gender parity, their seats at the table have been achieved – having a seat at the table has achieved that.

I have spoken about some of the things that this budget has achieved and some of the money that my community has received from this budget to help build a better and stronger community. On top of that, the Labor government continues to support my electorate by funding a variety of community needs that are not budget bids but ongoing commitments. We have announced a variety of funding. St Jude’s Primary School in Langwarrin received $1.8 million in the non-government schools fund. This will create three new learning spaces and renovate four classrooms in the old junior building. We have also announced $230,000, combined, in bushfire preparedness grants for Western Port Secondary College, Somers School Camp, Woodlands Primary School, Balnarring Primary School, Tyabb Primary School, Hastings Primary School, Crib Point Primary School and Perseverance Primary School on French Island. Last year Bunjilwarra Koori health service received up to $335,000 over three years. Bittern Primary School received $3 million for upgrading and modernising their classrooms. This year Western Port Secondary College opened their new $11.5 million learning hub for junior and senior students. I thank the Deputy Premier for coming down in fact for a morning tea with 20 local principals from the various schools, and we also opened the facilities.

Also this year Flinders Christian Community College opened their Joshua Centre, with the Allan Labor government contributing $1.5 million, and just recently they have received some further grant funding I believe for kindergarten planning. The Frankston Naval Memorial Club in Langwarrin South received a veterans improvement grant of $34,500, which they used to install solar panels, and in May a further $46,000 for new storage sheds. Over $90,000 combined in Living Local grants was given to Willum Warrain, Western Port Men’s Shed, Sages Cottage, Abacus Learning and Presentation Family Centre to enable community organisations to continue their important work with funds for minor building refurbishments or to acquire equipment.

Over the last couple of years we have funded $271,000 for the Hastings boat ramp pontoon renewal, including provisions for a hoist to enable all abilities. We have had $37,000 combined in active school grants for Western Port Secondary College and other primary schools in my electorate, and this is to implement a whole-school approach to improving student physical activity.

We have had Tiny Towns funds. Western Port Biosphere received $8000 to deliver informative and visually striking signage for French Island to highlight the hidden treasures that the island possesses. They also received $930,000 to upgrade the boat ramp on French Island, and that work is about to commence, which is great. There has been further funding. We got over $10 million for the Myers and Coolart roads roundabout, which is very dangerous. These bits and pieces, where people will often say, ‘We don’t get any funding; we don’t get any support,’ all up probably represent over $30 million of funding that the Allan Labor government is pumping into my electorate to support my community, and I am very grateful for that. Post COVID we are certainly living in a vastly different economic time, with challenges that no governments faced in the past. Inflation and rising costs are being felt all over the world, and no government is immune to these pressures, which is why I believe this budget balances out the need to be financially responsible while still delivering for Victorians across education, health care, business and all aspects of life. I will continue to fight for my community. I thank the Treasurer for this budget.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (18:16): I will push on through with my 15 minutes. The voice is a bit croaky. I stand here as the member for Morwell to represent my community down in the Latrobe Valley. I think it is happy birthday to all the new politicians that were elected two years ago, so it is good for us. But what I have found standing in the chamber is a lot of the time when we are talking about infrastructure and budgets or anything that the government does, we are always ‘nation leading’, and it flies in the face of what I find is happening down in the Latrobe Valley. To have to sit and listen about things that are going on in the city when we are doing it tough out in the regions and hear the government say, ‘Yes, we are looking after our regions’ – well, I beg to differ, especially given what has happened down in the Latrobe Valley.

Respectfully – and it is not going to be an unparliamentary word that I will use – I have got it written here that there are going to be maybe a few f-bombs that I am going to drop in the contribution, but they are not going to be that one you are all thinking they are going to be. It will be parliamentary, but there will be a few of a word that starts with F. I could speak for hours about the government’s sustained neglect of the Latrobe Valley, which is what I am going to do here. In the interests of time I thought I would instead provide a little bit of a report card of where we sit after Labor’s 10 years in government and how it has served my region, the seat of Morwell and the people of the Latrobe Valley.

We start with health. The government has spent a lot of money on the Latrobe Regional Hospital. It is a great facility, with hundreds of millions of dollars poured into it, but there is no money to staff it. It is a hospital with no staff. We have this magnificent facility that has been opened, and we cannot attract staff to actually look after the people of the region. In the Latrobe Valley they are travelling from as far as Gippsland East and Gippsland South, but our wait times there are incredibly long. The people in charge of the hospital are trying to do their best, but we cannot attract doctors and nurses to the region to work there, because not only are they struggling to get housing to live there but they are really struggling to get their children into preschool and into primary school because of circumstances that have gone on. For our health system in the Latrobe Valley the government get an absolute fail on the report card. They have not helped us out at all, especially in the two years I have been here. We have just seen recently the ambulance services and the paramedics get a pay rise, but that has not stopped the ramping that is at the hospital. Time and time again the people of the Latrobe Valley are left without an ambulance in the Latrobe Valley because they are off around the countryside, around Gippsland, helping out. We are struggling to actually facilitate the needs of the people, the everyday people. When they pick up the phone and they are in need, the government is failing to help them out. The paramedics, when I was speaking to them, were actually using technology virtually out of the ark, and the government needs to work harder to give them the state-of-the-art facilities inside the ambulances that they need to make them work better. So for that, once again – another one – the government has failed on that.

We move on to our roads. I have got certain roads in my electorate. One is the Bank Street intersection. It was promised safety upgrades and there have been works done on it, but we still wait and wait and wait for traffic lights. This is on the major highway running through Traralgon, and people are taking their lives in their own hands as they try and negotiate the intersection. The government’s way of fixing it has been to drop the speed to 60 kilometres an hour so if there is an accident – and there will be another one because there have been accidents before. One involved a school bus, but because they were doing 60 kilometres an hour, the damage was contained, and there was no-one hurt. There were people taken to hospital, but they were checked out, and they were okay. So once again we have another failure of the government to provide traffic lights. They say that they will be coming, and when we press the government when they will be there, November – and I think we are in November now – 2026. That is the forecast for when these traffic lights will go up. So we need to continue on with the people of the Latrobe Valley relying on the goodwill of whoever is in the other car to keep them safe.

The Tyers bridge – and I have banged on about the Tyers bridge – is always flooded, so the government decided they would build a new bridge and shut the road down for over 12 months. So to access Tyers you had to go the long way around. Well, when we opened it up, two days after it was open we had a little bit of rain in the area and it flooded again and they had to shut it. So here is a government with a big promise of providing a bridge for the people at Tyers – a major thoroughfare as we go through – that has failed once again, because when it rains a bridge that has been lifted up out of the ground still floods. They have failed on all fronts there.

We have the Lloyd Street–Waterloo Road rail crossing in Moe, which was promised upgrades. We had been told that they would start two months ago, but when pressed again we have found out that the government have not even purchased the land to do it. Labor has removed over 84 level crossings in Melbourne, which is fantastic, but it cannot address one level crossing issue. We do not want to remove it; we just want to make it safe, and they have failed to do that for the people of Moe.

Industry – the Latrobe Valley Authority was in operation for six years. The LVA was formed when the Hazelwood power station was shutting down to help the region transition. They spent $300 million to produce a glossy brochure, while jobs in the Latrobe Valley decreased. So here is something the government has put in place to bring employment to the region which has failed miserably. The electronic vehicle manufacturing facility where electric vehicles were going to be manufactured fell over – no interest. It was going to provide 500 jobs for the people in the Latrobe Valley. It was not just a project that may happen but a project that was dead in the water – another fail.

Development – 43 per cent of our land for our housing and commercial expansion is locked up under coal overlays that are more than 40 years old. Now, we are shutting down the coal-fired power stations, so the mines are not going to expand. But the minister says that we are not going to lift these overlays and that we still need them in place, even though they are 40 years old and there is going to be no expansion. There were probably never, ever going to be any more coal works done on these particular parcels of land. We have had a lot of stuff being shut down in the valley, with our power stations, which are on death row as well. We have Yallourn shutting in 2028. Loy Yang A is going to shut in the mid-2030s, and Loy Yang B will probably have to follow suit if they cannot use the coal out of the mine later on.

I noticed today – and everybody here would have seen it – that the sun was not shining because it was foggy and the wind was not blowing because of the calm conditions, hence why we still had the fog. Today renewables were generating less than 3 per cent of what was needed for Victoria, so we are still reliant on the coal industry, and the government is shutting this down. Where are our jobs going to be? The Minister for the State Electricity Commission and for bringing back the renewables made a major announcement last week of a new solar farm and battery, but not in the Latrobe Valley. Since you are shutting down jobs and people are going to be losing their jobs, wouldn’t you try and bring work to the Latrobe Valley to keep the people of the Latrobe Valley in work and also help them stay in the Latrobe Valley by giving them some certainty?

We have a job – well, it is a thought, really – the minister for the SEC does, and it is called the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) project. It is a hydrogen project which is being backed by the Japanese government, and I know, speaking with the Treasurer, that this is an option that is ready to go which will provide certainty and jobs for the Latrobe Valley. But we have a minister – and we talk about blockers – who is the only roadblock in the way of this project getting up and going. We have a minister that stands at the table and tells us to our faces that our energy prices are going down, down, down. Well, they are not. If you ask any person, and if I ask anyone here in the chamber, if you have your prices coming through –

Vicki Ward: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, in terms of misrepresentation of what the minister actually says, when people use Energy Compare, when they get cheaper deals, the energy prices do go down. She also talks to the fact that electricity –

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): That is not a point of order.

Martin CAMERON: People are awake to what is going on. I know it is a bit touchy talking about coal, and it is a passion of mine because that is what the people of the Latrobe Valley have done for a living for the last hundred years – supply power to Victoria and the rest of Australia. We need to make sure that there are jobs coming into the area. So far the government have shut down the timber industry, they are shutting the coal industry and they have shut the white paper manufacturing. So they are the jobs going out; what are the jobs coming in? They tell us that bringing back the SEC is going to provide 59,000 new jobs. Well, we need a few of them in the Latrobe Valley. We need to be manufacturing what we need for these renewable projects that are going to happen into the future.

The Commonwealth Games – what a fiasco that was. No games so far; no legacy projects. We were meant to have housing built on the back of the athletes village. It has gone very quiet. There have been maybe one or two sporting clubs that have heard noises that there will be some funding coming, but we need tangible funding on the ground which is going to help the people of the Latrobe Valley.

In schools one of our biggest problems – and this is a budgetary requirement that we do need – is the Victorian School Building Authority’s make-safe program. While it works and makes it safe, they are leaving schools in the lurch and having to provide funding, which should be going to help employ teachers to educate the children, to fix works that the government should be doing – maintenance work, roof leaks, mould on the walls. They are happy enough to come down and talk the talk, but then they walk away and leave the schools holding the baby.

Crime on our streets – we do not have to be Einstein to work out that that is at a crisis point too. We have had a family in here today to talk about their son and what happened. Our crime levels are going up. Right across the board we do not have a lot of good news in the Latrobe Valley. It has been a fail for the budget, it has been a fail for the Treasurer.

Luba GRIGOROVITCH (Kororoit) (18:31): This year’s budget is the ninth budget that this Labor government has handed down since coming into office almost 10 years ago. I am finally getting the chance to rise and speak to it, and I am absolutely delighted because over the past few months I have had the absolute pleasure of seeing firsthand exactly how our budget has assisted my local community. Whether it is helping with the cost of living, making sure that our kids can be their best, record funding for health care, as I know everyone around this chamber has seen, or continuing to invest in more of the services which families rely on, the Victorian Allan Labor budget 2024–25 has invested in our community, and it is something that we are all incredibly proud of.

The Victorian economy has created more than 560,000 jobs since September 2020, the highest job growth in Australia. Those opposite would have us believe that that is just not true, but it is: the highest jobs growth in Australia. One in seven of all people employed in Victoria have been employed since September 2020, and about one in three of all jobs created nationwide over this period have been in Victoria. This is the most jobs created by any state in Australia in both absolute and also percentage terms. As a result, unemployment in Victoria remains historically low at about 4 per cent, near the lowest it has been in nearly 50 years.

Since the depths of the COVID pandemic, business investment has increased by nearly 40 per cent. This is around one-third higher than the rest of Australia. In 2023 alone investment grew by more than 13 per cent, the largest increase of all the states at almost 6 percentage points higher growth than the rest of Australia. The only reason that we are in such a good position as we are today is the good forecast ahead of us and our economy growing. This is because on this side of the chamber we have a Labor government which is ready to do what it must for working people’s wellbeing and one that simply will not shirk responsibility.

Unemployment and youth unemployment are a problem in my seat of Kororoit, and they unfortunately have been for generations. My seat’s community are a proud, resilient people, but the fact that so many of them occupy the bottom of the economic pile means that they are often blighted by a pervasive lack of access to local jobs, education and opportunity in life. It is social injustice. It is obvious that the pervasiveness of unemployment destroys lives, it scars families and it leads to all of the obvious knock-on consequences, whether that be drug abuse, crime, alcoholism, youth crime or problem gambling. As I said before, there is still much more that this state government needs to do and can do to alleviate unemployment in seats like mine where it is concentrated the most.

The money in this budget is going to amenities, schools and community spaces in Kororoit. It will help keep it the dignified and lively melting pot of a place that it is. With the current cost of living, covering supplies and extracurricular activities can be hard on families doing it tough. Whether that be uniforms, camps, excursions, we all know that it all adds up. That is why we are providing a one-off school saving bonus to help cover the costs. The $400 bonus will help make sure that our kids have everything they need for the school day, supporting families and children at government schools and families at our non-government schools who need it most.

From speaking to a number of parents, the $400 bonus could not come at a better time. Anne-Marie, a local Kororoit resident, actually popped into my office the other day because she received the little advert that came up in the school newsletter in Compass. She wanted to know if it was a scam. I was so proud to tell her that, no, it was not – that this $400 school saving bonus was something that would be in their pockets. It is dedicated to helping cover the costs of learning essentials and the extracurricular activities that we all know made school so much fun and continue to do that for students today. It will be available by the start of the 2025 school year. My office is so much looking forward to assisting the many, many families in the electorate that will need assistance, and I encourage all members in this place to help out as many families as possible to make sure that they receive that school bonus.

For those of you that did not know, our government is also tripling our free Glasses for Kids program, making sure that even more young Victorians can be their best in the classroom and beyond. Having already helped 34,000 kids across our state, this investment will help 74,000 more, providing free vision screening and prescription glasses for students who need it most.

We know that learning is not limited to the classroom. We are investing $6 million to extend our Get Active Kids voucher, providing up to $200 to help eligible families with the cost of sporting club registrations, uniforms and equipment.

With this budget we are investing more than $1.8 billion to continue building the Education State and building a better future for Victoria’s children. Families should be able to count on having a great local school, no matter where they live. We promised to build 100 new schools by 2026 – that is phenomenal. Already we have opened 75 primary, secondary and specialist schools where they are needed the most. One example that is very close to my heart is of course the Dharra School and the Yarrabing Secondary College. They were both opened earlier this year by the Minister for Education and me. This is a beautiful community and one that is going to absolutely thrive in a growing area where we need these schools the most. Parents have been yelling out for a new school in this area, and I was so proud to be able to announce, but more importantly to open, these two schools earlier in the year.

We have a further nine on the way, including the new Tarneit Plains primary school in Mount Atkinson, another thriving community. I know I have gone on about the Mount Atkinson community a lot, but it is an area that is growing – every single day more dwellings are popping up there – and we need the amenities, the education and all of the facilities close by to this growing estate. This school will receive a share of $948 million for new school construction to deliver a brand new primary school which will be opened by 2026. Our government is also making further investments in education by purchasing land for a new Aintree North primary school, which is of course its interim name. Again, Aintree, Mount Atkinson – as my good friend the member for Melton knows, it is all a growing area.

Those opposite might be wondering why I am telling you this. It is because both the member for Melton and I cover Australia’s fastest growing LGA. Our LGA of Melton is having 54 babies per week. That is a phenomenal amount, and it means that we need to futureproof our areas to ensure that we have got the right facilities. I am confident that this budget is going to ensure that that happens. This Labor government is making sure that we have great local schools close to where people are choosing to call home so that they have access to a great education, and we know that a great education gives children the best start to life and the best start to their future.

We are providing funding for five community hubs in Brimbank. Many of our primary schools in Kororoit, along with the community hubs, support migrant and refugee families, particularly mothers and young children, to connect with playgroups, schools and of course each other. As we all know, we need these services to provide health, education and settlement support. I regularly visit the community hub at Deer Park North Primary School. In fact I actually went to the end of term 3 break-up with the mums and bubs. It was a few months ago now, but it was one of those times out of the office that I well and truly enjoyed.

I remember sitting there with all of the mothers – I think there were about 12 of us – and one of the mums said to me, ‘You know what, I’m a new mum, and I hadn’t left the house for months. Thanks to this happening here at this community hub in walking distance I’ve actually come out of the house, and it’s been a saviour for me.’ That is something that really makes you realise how important it is for mums and bubs to be able to have the support that they truly need to make sure that they feel like they are not isolated in the community. They were excited on the day to share the range of different skills that they had learned, but most importantly, I loved to hear how much of a chance it gave them to connect with other parents. I want to thank Ruth, who is the hub leader at Deer Park North Primary School, for all of the work that she does, for the openness in sharing a meal and in encouraging everybody to speak up. There were many stories that were shared. There was a lot of laughter. There were even a few tears, and it was really a warm environment. I look so forward to going at the end of term 4 for their final celebration for the year.

We are providing $110,000 to the Caroline Chisholm Society, another community hub which is in Kororoit. This hub provides women and children who are experiencing homelessness in the western suburbs with specialist homelessness services. Again, this is really the work of an angel that the Caroline Chisholm Society do. It has been my honour to get to know these workers there, and my hat goes off to them. Thank you to each and every one of them for the work that they do. They do invaluable work. They assist to identify housing options and provide advocacy and support to access private and social housing. I cannot thank them enough for the work that they continue to do for the members of our community.

As part of a total package of $28.78 million the budget supports the continuation of the Brimbank Melton Community Legal Centre’s family violence program, which provides legal assistance to victim-survivors of family violence through health justice partnerships. Again, I lean on my good friend the member for Melton, who came along with me, along with the minister, who is in the chamber at the moment, and we actually visited some of these services. It has been our honour to be able to go to these services and see firsthand the great work that is happening. We know that there has been an increase in family violence not only in Victoria but across Australia. As a government we are making sure that those organisations have the support that they need to assist those victim-survivors and their families.

Only today – this morning in fact – we all came together in Queen’s Hall and celebrated the journey that we have all been on. I again want to recognise the minister, the Premier and the former Premier for all of the work that we have done in this domestic violence space. I also want to make mention of all of the speakers across both sides who spoke today so passionately. Without singling any of you out, you all spoke so passionately about the varied heartaches that each and every one of you have all gone through with domestic violence. It is sad, but it is something that I am proud that our government has recognised, and we are trying to make a difference.

On to our multicultural community, Kororoit is proudly home to a beautiful African community of many different nationalities. This budget delivers $5.13 million to help to continue delivering 14 ‍African Australian led homework clubs across Victoria to students who require additional tailored support. I must say one of our local African churches has really led the way in this homework club. It has been my absolute honour to go down and see firsthand the work that the tutors do to make sure that the kids are engaged in doing their homework and making a difference. I know there are many, many students in Kororoit, but there is one in particular who I will not name because I know he would die of embarrassment – I cannot wait for his results to come out. There are many that have been part of this homework group that I am so confident are going to do so well in this year 12 round. I so look forward to all that can really be achieved not only through your ATAR that you receive on 14 ‍December but also beyond. We are all rooting for you. This budget – and I have seen it firsthand – gives the positive impact that these programs are having on the community and for those students who are benefiting from these programs.

There is also $6.63 million which is going to support the youth crime prevention and early intervention project – again, a very important project. It plays a critical role in reducing reoffending and ensuring that more young people will be supported and diverted away from custody. Funding provides for the continuation of the program across the police service areas of both Brimbank and Wyndham.

As the former Rail, Tram and Bus Union secretary, I cannot resist giving this one a shout-out: $133.44 million in funding from this budget is going to go towards supporting our regional rail network, including operating newly delivered train stabling yards, stations and VLocity trains.

This is another Labor budget which puts people’s priorities first. It is a budget that cares about people and cares about families. I know that the Kororoit community still need so much more to meet their needs and problems, as does all of Victoria. Along with my colleagues, I know that there is a lot more to be done, but we will all keep fighting and ensuring that our areas get looked after. After all, that is why we are in this place. This budget is a great start in showing that Labor is not leaving anyone in Victoria behind.

My spine shivers to think how much damage those opposite would have done to my constituents in Kororoit and in the west in this economic climate, and it is another reason why I am so proud to stand on this side of the chamber alongside the Allan-led Labor government and spruik about the great achievements of this budget. I look forward to seeing even more that comes to fruition over the next few months and then announcing the new budget in 2025.

Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (18:46): I rise today to speak on this take-note on the 2024–25 budget that was handed down 203 days ago. It has taken quite a while to get to this point to have the opportunity finally to speak – on the day that happens to be the two-year anniversary since my election and the election of many others here in the chamber. The situation has got much worse since the budget; it has got much worse over the last 203 days. The original situation that we heard about was that by 2027 there would be a $188 billion debt with $26 million of taxpayer-funded interest payments every single day. But in the last few days we have had projections showing that the debt will grow to $228 billion by 2028, which will mean even more interest payments every single day for taxpayers.

The member for Kororoit before mentioned that this government cares about people and cares about families. How are you caring about people, how are you caring about families and indeed how are you caring about children when they will have to pay this debt back for perhaps decades or even generations to come if this debt is not brought in soon and lowered soon? We have projections and current rates of debt growing at $80 million a day, which is above the rate that we are paying back by 2027 of $26 million a day. It is growing at a rate where a bailout has even been talked about in recent news articles and elsewhere. It is growing at a rate where the credit rating has been downgraded and where we might soon see further credit rating downgrades as well. We have the largest debt per capita in the whole of Australia, which is not something to be proud about. We have the lowest credit rating out of any state in Australia as well.

But this debt is not just about numbers, it is about what it is doing in terms of our ability to provide the infrastructure and services that our communities and Victorians need and deserve. For example, if you look at roads across my electorate and across the whole of Victoria, we are seeing an enormous amount of potholes that are sitting there for ages. Indeed in some cases they are craters. We see homelessness going up and up and up in my electorate and across the Mornington Peninsula. The Mornington Peninsula now has the fourth highest level of homelessness in Victoria. That is matched with the situation where we have 61,000 now on the public housing waitlist.

Crime rates and crime incidents continue to go up as well. In my electorate alone crime incidents have gone up by 22 per cent in the last year and family violence rates have gone up by 17 per cent. In this space, and particularly because of the debt levels we now face, Victoria Police are 1000 personnel short of where they need to be. In my electorate of Mornington the reception hours for Mornington police have been reduced from 24 hours down to 16 hours. We have the situation where bail laws have been weakened, and it is very discouraging for police, who are in the situation of arresting criminals and having to rearrest them and rearrest them again and again as they keep getting bail. I know that Mornington police are doing the best they can to tackle the increased crime rate. However, it is clear that they are under-resourced and underfunded, and that links back to this budget we are talking about. I have personally spoken with police officers in my local area who have stated that they need more resources and staffing to tackle the increased crime rate and indeed to do the preventative crime work that they want to do. Despite consistent representations to the Minister for Police and to this Labor government, it is a travesty that this government has not only refused to better resource Mornington police, but they have actively cut funds from crime prevention and community safety initiatives.

If we look more broadly at the situation we are facing in Victoria because of this debt, on public transport so many projects have been neglected because the Allan Labor government has tunnel vision on the $216 billion Suburban Rail Loop. They have also significantly overspent and wasted funds on many other projects across Victoria. I note that recently the Labor government signed the first major tunnelling contracts for the Suburban Rail Loop despite expert recommendations against this. If we did have more funds available, we could do so much more for public transport in my electorate and beyond, particularly for places that have minimal public transport or indeed have no public transport altogether. For example, I have been advocating fiercely for changes to bus routes around Mornington just to get buses to service existing bus stops at two retirement villages, a holiday village and a school, and I have been advocating for a long time now – even before I was elected – for the Mornington to Hastings bus service. I will give credit where credit is due. Finally, after working hard with the community and advocating to this government, they have committed to the Mornington–Hastings bus route, and they have finally committed to delivering bus services to these retirement villages, but the people of the retirement villages have been told that these simple route changes will not happen until that Mornington to Hastings bus route is brought about even though they could happen now. I am calling on and continue to call upon this government to make those changes now. We should not have to wait even longer for the Mornington to Hastings bus service to come about.

I have also been advocating for rail services to our electorate, which currently has none whatsoever. But state Labor’s lack of investment due to financial mismanagement in extending metro rail from Frankston through to Baxter and not committing to the project that was in part funded a number of years ago through my efforts when I was in federal Parliament has led to Labor at the federal level dropping $225 million of budgeted funds that I had secured for this project, which importantly would have not only provided services to Baxter, Langwarrin, the hospital and the university but would have opened the way for services to return to Mornington, Somerville and Hastings and on the Stony Point line.

Beyond my electorate, places like Mildura still do not have passenger rail, even though we have had, by the next election, 23 out of the last 27 years of Labor government here in Victoria. That is the largest population centre in Australia with no service. Places like Horsham, where I grew up, have no regular rail services other than the occasional Overlander. It is disgraceful that Victorians continue to be ignored because of the Allan Labor government’s financial mismanagement and cost blowouts on other projects.

Homelessness, as I mentioned, is getting out of hand on the Mornington Peninsula. In fact, as I mentioned, we have the fourth-highest level of homelessness in the state. The number of people who are homeless on the peninsula is estimated to be anywhere between 1000 to 2000 plus, although no exact numbers are known. Fifteen to 20 per cent of that number consists of people who are sleeping rough, which is an extremely high rate compared to the rest of the state. Ever since my election as the member for Mornington I have been tirelessly urging the state government to intervene to solve the homelessness crisis on the peninsula. In particular I called on the Minister for Housing to ensure that vacant public housing is fit for purpose. I believe, at least according to the data that has been provided to the Mornington Peninsula shire, that over 30 per cent of public houses on the peninsula are vacant due to being in disrepair, unfit for purpose or otherwise unavailable for habitation. This is disgraceful, as many of these homes could be provided to vulnerable individuals. In addition, while the government has proposed building a significant amount of new public houses across Victoria, only a very small portion of these have actually been built, and an even smaller proportion on the peninsula. A local mum contacted me recently, stating:

We are now homeless. We spent 2 nights sleeping in the car and are now in crisis accommodation. We are being housed in a motel with men who have been removed from their homes due to committing family violence, with addicts and people suffering from Mental Health issues. The door to our motel room is a flimsy interior door, there is no heating, and the cleanliness of the room is appalling.

This is distressing, and we are failing our most vulnerable. That is an example of a person who is not yet sleeping rough, but many people are sleeping rough. I just met with another mother of a young daughter who has been sleeping in her car in different friends’ driveways for many months now. This is a disgraceful situation that needs to be fixed.

Linked to this is public housing, and this also links to the debt issue, because if we had more money to spend, we could actually resolve a lot of these issues. I am reliably informed, as I mentioned, that over 30 per cent of public houses on the peninsula are vacant due to being in disrepair or otherwise. But so far I have heard absolutely nothing from the state government in terms of solutions to these vacant homes, and this is not just confined to the Mornington Peninsula. Victoria has thousands of vacant public housing dwellings and continues to have the worst occupancy rates in the nation, with new data showing that the state has added a mere 300 new public homes in the past eight years.

What does the government say to people in my electorate like Linda, in her late 70s, who is going blind, no longer able to drive and surviving on the pension in private rentals, depending on friends and community resources for food? More than 4000 residents like her are on the public housing waiting list, but there are just 1400 social housing properties across the peninsula.

Speaking of insane, a few months ago the Victorian government spent $20 million on an affordable housing block in Cheltenham, a property which was linked to a liquidated building company which has strong links to notorious residential construction company SLC Bayside, which collapsed last year. The Cheltenham property itself has multiple defects. You would think that the government would do their due diligence. Unfortunately, this is a pattern across the state. The world of development is essentially a cowboy industry for some. An overall lack of oversight in the construction industry under this Labor government is fuelling a legacy of defects in apartment blocks across Victoria, and it is making it hard for builders trying to do the right thing as well because they have to compete on cost with those doing the wrong thing. That includes, for example, cracking foundations, balcony defects, mould, flammable cladding, water leaks and more.

The member for Brighton and I went recently to a place in Frankston South that I have been talking about for many years now whose issues have not yet been resolved by this Labor government. The issues were first raised in late 2018. They have been on national media and more, and they are really suffering. Developers in their case used cheap materials, cheap finishes and cheap construction. I raised the fact of the tribulation of the residents at Culcairn Drive in Frankston South, who have been left many hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket due to the many defects in their apartments. Simply put, there need to be criminal consequences for these builders and developers, not just fines, because at the moment they are not even taking action to fix what they caused in the first place. They cannot keep getting away with it, and I was incredibly disappointed to see little to nothing done to address this growing issue in the 2024 budget.

Now let us go to roads. The Allan Labor government’s 45 per cent cut to the road maintenance budget since 2020 has led to the appalling state of roads in metropolitan and regional areas. Wayne from Mount Eliza in my electorate is only one of many who have written to me about potholes being an absolute disgrace and a deathtrap for motorists. Furthermore, it feels like every second week I am representing constituents to the minister who are concerned about the maintenance, overgrown vegetation and general state of disrepair on the Nepean Highway and Esplanade. Rowan from Mount Eliza, Susan and Amanda are just a few constituents that have raised this issue with me.

I do want to comment as well on the consistent delays by both the state and federal Labor governments on the repairs to both the Forest Drive and Uralla Road intersections, two deadly intersections which strike fear into the hearts of locals every time they drive through them. The state government have now finally commenced the Forest Drive works after the Albanese government nearly scrapped the funding that was committed by the federal Labor government many years ago after the state Labor government played games on this project simply due to politics for many, many years. But we are still waiting for the Uralla Road intersection upgrade to commence. I will continue to advocate for these upgrades to go ahead –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am required by sessional orders to interrupt business now. The member will have the call when the matter returns to the house.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.