Wednesday, 19 March 2025

Leader of the Opposition

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (16:16): Jeez, how am I going to follow that one? It is a tough act to follow – really nailed us there. I grieve for Victoria and Victorians if they are led by a part-time Liberal leader who cares more about pre-planned holidays and boats than the safety of this community. I am talking about Boaty McBoatface, the member for the Coral Sea himself. I grieve for the day –

Wayne Farnham: On a point of order, Speaker, the member knows to refer to people by their correct titles.

The SPEAKER: Member for Tarneit, I ask you to refer to members when you are referring to members by their correct titles.

Dylan WIGHT: I was not necessarily referring to members, but sure. Thank you, Speaker. I grieve for Victorians, and I shudder to think of the day that they are represented by a part-time Liberal leader that cares more about going on cruises than he does about the safety of Victorians and the safety of our community.

In the last two weeks, since we were previously in this place, the Allan Labor government made a series of announcements to help keep Victorians safe. I have said in this place many times before that the number one priority of the Allan Labor government, the number one priority for me, is keeping the community safe. We made an announcement that we were going to introduce – and we have and passed it through the lower house – the toughest bail laws anywhere in Australia. We did so after listening to our community; we did so after consulting with Victoria Police. This week we have passed that legislation, making sure that people that do the wrong thing, that people that seek to cause harm to other Victorians, get the punishment that they deserve.

Last week we made those announcements, and I sat there and I listened to them and we did our briefings and all of those things, and I go, ‘You know, the member for Berwick is going to be up and about this week. You know, the old member for Berwick – tough on crime himself – is going to be really up and about,’ so it was a great surprise that once we made these announcements there was radio silence. We did not hear anything from the member for Berwick. It was genuinely strange. We came to realise that it was not just us that did not know where the member for Berwick was; his own party room did not know where he was – bizarre. In normal circumstances the party room would sit there and go, ‘Jeez, we can’t find our leader.’ We would have some sort of acting leader situation, and usually you would roll out the deputy leader. My assumption is that the narrative within the Liberal party room at the proposition of rolling out the deputy leader on this one would be something along the lines of, ‘We’d better not let the member for Nepean start speaking, because then everyone will figure out how dense he really is’ – absolutely bizarre.

Time goes on, and the Liberal party room and we figure out that the member for Berwick is on a cruise through the Coral Sea. He is up to Airlie Beach – a beautiful part of the world, I must say. He is on a cruise, so he is not here representing Victorian people. He is not here representing his party room on an issue that he would consider his 1 wood. It is, I would have thought, pretty poor leadership. He is off doing that, and then he comes back. He does not tell his party room. He tells a lie that he was going to see his parents and actually ends up on a cruise.

I am not one to stand here and say that politicians should not take holidays. Nobody is going to sit here and say that, because that is utterly ridiculous. I will make the point that you had a pre-planned holiday, you have kind of changed jobs in that time and perhaps, after three months of being in the job, maybe cancel the holiday. But whatever, I am not his travel agent. This is not an issue of a politician taking a holiday. This is not an issue of a politician exercising poor judgement and taking holiday. This is an issue of integrity because when questioned about the issue the first inclination of the member for Berwick was to lie. That was his first inclination. It was a test of the integrity of the member for Berwick, and he failed it dismally. That is what this issue is about. It is not about holidays; it is about integrity, and we have learned over the last week or so that the member for Berwick has very little of it. ‘Tough on crime’, but he is absent when we make our announcements about crime and cannot even respond to them. Nobody knows where he is. Then he gets caught out, and then he lies. This is an opportunity for the member for Berwick to show the Victorian people that he has some integrity.

Matthew Guy: On a point of order, Speaker, you have previously ruled on the use of the word ‘lie’ directly in relation to members, particularly when levelled against members of the government, particularly the Premier. You yourself have ruled on the use of that term being unparliamentary, and I am seeking your feedback or clarity on what the member is –

The SPEAKER: I do remember, yes, member for Bulleen. Member for Tarneit, I remind you about the use of unparliamentary language, including the use of the word ‘lies’. I also remind members that the use of ‘you’ is a reflection on the Chair.

Dylan WIGHT: Indeed, Speaker. I can rephrase it: mislead, was loose with the truth, showed not a skerrick of integrity. I walked into this place in very close proximity to the member for Bulleen on Tuesday morning, and from the response that he gave to the waiting media pack he was not thrilled about it himself. In fact we saw over a number of days several members of the Liberal party room briefing the media – the Age, the Herald Sun – about how displeased they were with their leader. In fact the member for Hawthorn was asked about it. Let us be quite honest, the member for Hawthorn, according to him anyway, did not take a holiday and worked really hard. When the member for Hawthorn was asked about this, he could not help but give a little jab back to the member for Berwick. When you have got your own party room briefing out against you consistently because of the lack of integrity that you have shown, you know that it is a problem. You know it is a problem, and it is a substantial one.

The member for Berwick was sunning himself on a cruise ship. I had a look at the cruise ship. It has got an indoor skydiving facility. It is pretty flash, pretty luxurious sort of stuff – the bogan from Berwick on a luxury cruise doing some indoor skydiving. Give me a break. I mean, it was the tan that gave it away. He came back from the cruise – ‘Oh, no, I have just been crook for a few days, guys’ – and he is tanned to the nines. Whilst he was doing that the Allan Labor government was getting on with keeping the community safe, getting machetes off our streets because they are dangerous weapons that have no place in our outer suburbs. I know through consultation – because we were around to be able to undertake consultation, we were not on a cruise and then lying about it – that these are incredibly important and popular reforms in my electorate of Tarneit and in Hoppers Crossing. So we were doing that.

What we were also doing was formulating and announcing the toughest bail laws anywhere in Australia, which will make sure that if you are somebody that is repeatedly doing the wrong thing in our communities – if you are somebody that is stealing cars or carjacking, if you are somebody that is invading homes to steal from working, ordinary families and you are continuously doing that – then you will get the punishment that you deserve. You will be remanded and you will no longer be in our community. These are some of the most important reforms that we have introduced into this Parliament in this term. They are designed to keep families safe – to keep people in the outer suburbs safe and to keep working families safe – because they are the real victims of crime here. Working families, working people, ordinary Victorians going about their day, trying to do the right thing, trying to get ahead – they are the victims of this. By introducing these laws it is them that we stand with and it is them that we are trying to protect.

Let me reiterate this, because it is an incredibly important point. There has been a flurry of activity from the member for Berwick since he returned. He has been all over Twitter sharing things, sharing pages of the Herald Sun. Let me be clear and let me reiterate for the record that we can make jokes and call the member for Berwick ‘Boaty McBoatface’ – which I am not actually doing, but we could do that. We could make all those funny little quips, but that this is a serious thing. This is not an issue of somebody going on a holiday. This is not an issue of somebody going on a cruise. This is a fundamental test of integrity and one that the member for Berwick has failed dismally. He has shown everybody in Victoria – not just in this place but everybody in Victoria that is taking notice – that he has no integrity. We all make mistakes, but when you make mistakes you front up, particularly to your party room or in my case the caucus. You front up and say, ‘Look, it was probably the wrong thing to do. I should have cancelled it. Sorry. Let’s move ahead.’ You do not lie.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Tarneit, I have already cautioned you about the use of unparliamentary language.

Dylan WIGHT: Sorry, yes. You do not mislead your own party room, and indeed you do not mislead the people of Victoria. I would have thought it was probably one of the fundamental qualities that you should have whilst trying to ask the Victorian people for their vote. In my electorate of Tarneit as we have been going and undertaking consultation on these new bail changes and the machete laws as well I have heard from families about their worries regarding a recent uptick in crime, whether that be an uptick statistically or at the very least a perceived increase in crime in our communities.

To be clear, crime has not gone significantly up in Wyndham, but it has in some particular areas and some particular areas that are incredibly concerning. That is why I am incredibly proud of the changes that we are making, but that is fundamentally why we are making them. Like I said, whether the stats are actually going up, the perception is or the perception has been that crime is going up significantly, and that makes people not feel safe. If you do not feel safe in your home at night, if you do not feel safe in your community during the day to be able to go out and spend time in your community with your family, then there is a problem, and there is a problem that needs to be responded to. That is exactly what we have done this week. This week makes me incredibly proud to be a member of the Allan Labor government, because we can stand in here and say that what we are doing we are doing to keep our community safe, to keep Victorian families and ordinary Victorians safe. As I said, this is an incredibly proud week to be sitting in here or standing in here talking about the bail changes and the machete changes from the Allan Labor government, whilst I would think it is quite the opposite for the member for Berwick, who has shown every single Victorian and his own party room the lack of integrity that he has.