Thursday, 22 February 2024

Bills

Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Lizzie Blandthorn:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (10:04): I am rising this morning to make my contribution on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2023, and in doing so I will cover off on a number of clauses and the changes within the bill but also touch more heavily on some than others, as is my opportunity. Certainly this is an omnibus bill that amends 14 acts across 10 portfolios. Some of them are fairly minor and technical in nature. But we heard a broad-ranging contribution on Tuesday, so I will take up where some left off. The bill has four objectives. One is to streamline requirements for businesses and social service providers. We all are in favour of streamlining businesses. We all just need our businesses to afford to stay in business. This is something that we have seen in Victoria under a Labor government: we have seen many businesses leave Victoria in their tenure. Also the bill will improve emergency preparedness, and I would like to do a little bit of a deeper dive into that; support technology-neutral legislation; and make simple and uncontroversial amendments to support an efficient regulatory system through amendments to a variety of acts.

In relation to the streamlining of businesses, unfortunately we have seen an inordinate amount of businesses leave Victoria – going elsewhere, exiting the state, finding it is just too hard to do business in a Labor government environment. We have seen, as we all know, over 50 new or increased taxes. We have seen the burden of that falling on small businesses. Indeed small businesses also make up about 95 per cent of the total business community in our state. We also know that 26 per cent of those small businesses are in our rural and regional towns. They are very much the heartbeat of our rural towns in our main streets. They do so much. They employ our local people, they give opportunities in a diversity of industry and commercial operations and of course they donate to our sporting clubs, charities and communities. We certainly always thank them for that. But unfortunately in 2023, 7600 of them thought that it was really not worth being in business or they were just not able to be in business, and I am sure those COVID lockdowns, which really put a strain on businesses, impacted very heavily.

The government claim that some of their regulatory changes will provide over $2.6 million in annual savings to businesses in Victoria. These are removing licences and permits and making regulatory compliance much easier. If you do the maths on how many businesses are in this state, there are approximately 700,000. As I have heard my colleague Mr Mulholland speak about, if we do the maths across those businesses, they can have a thin smear of savings, of under $4 per year. We are hearing from the Commonwealth Games inquiry – and I am not speaking out of turn; I am actually speaking in relation to the hearings that we had in Geelong and in Ballarat last week – that there is a lack of confidence in the ability of this government to deliver on its commitments and promises post that Comm Games cancellation. I do not believe that a smearing of under $4 per year in annual savings is going to give much confidence to many of those businesses. We also heard that Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Cost and Ease of Doing Business in Victoria report perceived that we are of course the most expensive state to do business, hence some of this exodus and the fact that people are absolutely struggling to keep that flow, to make their profit, to pay their wages and to pay for their stock.

This bill certainly, as I said, looks at a range of things. It changes the Casino Control Act 1991, and it looks at the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005 arrangements under the child information sharing scheme. It would be remiss of me to not be able to take this opportunity to say that the government has child safe standards in schools. I have been contacted by a number of concerned parents in my electorate over many years about how child safe standards cannot just be a statement. They have to be enacted and lived through every level of the school organisation, from principals through to teachers and that school community. I call on the government and indeed the Minister for Education and Department of Education to have a fresh look at child safe standards and ensure that there is that commitment to protect our children, both normal children, if I can say that, in our state system and also those children in disability schools. It is highly important. I am sure there are many people who feel as passionately as I do about it, working in the government system, but I just want to put on record that there are many parents who are concerned that these child safe standards are not always being adhered to.

Part 5 looks at the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981, and while I am on a roll on the education system, part 6 amends the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 by removing ambiguities and inefficiencies with the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority and the VIT, the Victorian Institute of Teaching. Again, we have got an inquiry into teaching in the upper house, and if you are interested in going online and having a look at some of the public submissions made, some of those submissions actually highlight a frustration with both the VRQA and the VIT. But what we really see in some of those submissions is the impact of the lockdowns of our schools on teachers, on school principals and on students attending and their outcomes. What I would say to the government is that many of those submissions are very concerned about teacher vacancies and the fact that we do not have enough qualified staff in front of the required classes, and this is putting a huge burden not only on the teachers and the school community but on principals struggling to fill those classes. I have also heard of principals actually having to write lesson plans, give them to their CRTs, emergency teachers, and then correct that homework. That is not what a principal should be doing, and many of those submissions to that inquiry certainly pertain to that. So any slight efficiencies that can be created with this bill will be welcome, but again, a deep dive is needed into the VIT and VRQA and their overall efficiencies.

One thing that is really prevalent in the minds of the Mirboo North people at the moment could pertain to this part of the bill, which is part 7, which looks at the Environment Protection Act 2017 to grant authority to the EPA to authorise transportation of waste in an emergency, and it updates the EPA’s response to this sort of emergency context by allowing the EPA to set proportionate regulatory requirements about waste transport when we have these dire circumstances. There are certainly dire circumstances in Pomonal, and I congratulate my western colleague Emma Kealy for doing a power of work supporting her community, standing up for their needs and drilling down and working with levels of government, council, response organisations and volunteers – also the same in Eastern Victoria Region, in Mirboo North and environs. What I do know is that the Mirboo North transfer station is full to overflowing, and I want to give my thanks to all the staff that are working incredibly hard there. There is green waste debris from the devastation of the storm coming there, and I understand that they need some industrial mulchers there, because they are absolutely full to brimming. We also need to see this clean-up contract from the government come into play today, if not last week.

I note Mr Batchelor spoke about asbestos in his contribution to this bill and the importance of dealing with asbestos in the most sensitive way to protect the health and safety of our public. I understand that with the storm that occurred on Tuesday last week, there were homes whose roofs blew off. Some of the homes in Mirboo North are new and fabulous, and some of them are old and fabulous, but some of those old homes do have asbestos in them. I put on record that governments need to expedite what they can do if there is any asbestos floating around on public land but also support those who are doing the professional clean-up on their own land to be able to dispose of it in a safe and environmentally understanding way.

I will hold my conversation about I Cook Foods, because Mr Mulholland went into that in great detail and I support his comments. It was a sad indictment on how government can reach honest people, loyal people and ethical businesses, shut them down and cause great distress and loss of income not only for them but for the people they employ.

Part 10 looks at gaming and part 11 the meat industry. Part 12 has my particular interest in relation to the Regional Development Victoria Act 2002. It increases the membership of the Regional Development Advisory Committee from nine to 10. It is a fairly perfunctory and minor change. But what we know from this government over time is that rather than calling it Regional Development Victoria they are turning this department into ‘regional underdevelopment Victoria’. During the former 2010–14 Baillieu and Peter Ryan government they established an incredibly worthwhile funding stream. It was $1 billion over a period of time for regional development. They equipped regional development to provide grants for councils in rural and regional Victoria to increase the capacity of the councils for infrastructure that benefits our community and benefits people living their lives so they have a better quality of life, really trying to bring up the standard to a more city-based standard. That $1 billion also provided regional business with investment opportunities, but it was really specific about having to ensure that jobs were created. Those businesses could be involved and provide that important context around government grants but also leverage them to make that economy grow and sing in our regions. I congratulate former Deputy Premier Peter Ryan, who was an outstanding advocate, as were many of my colleagues in that space.

What we see with this government is that regional development is being gutted. It is becoming another back room in the department of meagreness. What we see is that they have a Tiny Towns grant. I feel like this Tiny Towns grant is about making larger towns into tiny towns, because this government is underdeveloping this whole regional development space. It is an indictment. We hear people all the time congratulate our regional Victorians on their work in dire times, on their volunteerism, which I endorse. But then we see this government is pulling funding out of this. The investment in our regions needs to stay. It needs to be increased, and it needs to be realised.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Melina BATH: I hear Mr McIntosh is going to get up and have a little gad about. Well, Mr McIntosh needs to go to his Minister for Regional Development and call on her to reinstate proper funding to our regions, not to turn tiny towns into tinier towns but to provide and leverage that investment and that care. There are people in regional development departments in my region who are scratching their heads, saying, ‘How can I actually provide that investment, that support?’ For that matter, this bill can pass, but this government needs to focus on regional and rural Victoria.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (10:19): I am delighted to speak today on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2023, the second regulatory reform omnibus bill that this government has brought to the Parliament. At the heart of this bill is our government’s determination to make it easier to do business in Victoria. Regulatory reform may not sound sexy, but it is beautiful to us on this side of the chamber. Through the reforms this bill introduces, Labor will make it easier for businesses to apply for, obtain and hold licences and registration. The changes proposed are what we describe as ‘no regrets reform’ – small, non-controversial regulatory changes from many portfolios. I will get into the detail shortly, but first I would like to remind members that this bill is just one part of the government’s regulatory reform agenda, an agenda which includes the Business Acceleration Fund, rapid reviews of regulatory settings, better approval processes for regulators and businesses, and the establishment of an economic growth commissioner to undertake inquiries into impediments to economic growth.

This bill proposes 54 amendments over 14 acts and 10 ministerial portfolios to modernise and streamline regulatory requirements for a range of businesses and social services, to support emergency preparedness, to ensure technology neutrality and to make other simple and uncontroversial changes. These amendments have been developed in consultation with relevant agency regulators and of course stakeholders. They reflect the feedback and suggestions received from businesses and social services providers who are affected by current regulatory frameworks. Specifically this bill will improve outcomes for consumers and service users, enhance food safety and public health, and generally keep our legislation up to date. The Department of Treasury and Finance estimates that the bill and these reforms will provide over $2.6 million in benefits to Victoria annually in time and cost savings.

To go to the first objective of the bill, it is to modernise and streamline requirements for businesses and social services providers without compromising the effective management of harms. The first matter in this omnibus bill allows the health secretary to authorise a health service or entity to obtain, possess or deal with medicines on a risk-assessment basis. As the minister noted in the second-reading speech in the other place, Victorian residential aged care facilities cannot currently be supplied or possess antiviral medicines from the national medicine stockpile unless they hold a permit. The bill amends the act to create a mechanism for the secretary to authorise a health service or entity to access medicines. This will reduce the regulatory burden on entities who need certain medicines and support safe and timely access to medications for Victorians more generally. A flow-on benefit from this change is that regulatory oversight can focus on really high-risk entities. That improvement in accessibility is tremendously important when you consider the ongoing risk of viral infection that people living in our residential aged care facilities face.

The Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill also makes a number of changes to streamline food safety assurance and licensing procedures. I read with interest that it is going to make life easier for those of us that enjoy the occasional beef jerky, and those members will be pleased to hear that the bill will reduce the regulatory burden for businesses to sell dried meat online. I must confess a trip to South Africa did enlighten me on the opportunities of the dried-meat markets. Stakeholders have drawn this to our attention, and we have certainly responded.

Refrigerated vehicles are essential to Victoria’s fresh food producers in getting their products to the market. The bill will streamline licensing requirements to recognise that refrigerated vehicles are often used to transport a number of different commodities. Poultry and game processers have been required to provide information to PrimeSafe, the industry regulator for meat, poultry, seafood and pet food. As it turns out, some of that information PrimeSafe just does not need, and the bill will remove the requirement for the poultry and game processing facilities to provide that information. This bill will also remove a requirement for PrimeSafe to refuse a licence for vehicle-based meat processing facilities when an application is consistent with planning schemes. These reforms have been the subject of extensive industry and stakeholder consultation, certainly because Labor listens and acts with common sense for the common good. Crucially, the bill will ensure that the Secretary of the Department of Health and local councils can direct a business to undertake improvements to an inadequate food safety program. This is so important when you consider the enormous damage that food safety crises can cause across the horticultural and agricultural sectors, and certainly some examples are coming to mind.

Moving on now to occupational health and safety, a subject matter that members of this side of the chamber are deeply passionate about, I want to discuss confined space. Entry licences are a key requirement for workers in construction, cleaning and other sectors; however, confined space entry licence applicants have been providing evidence of former employment in their applications. It really is not relevant. For those who might not be aware, a confined space could be a vat, a tank, a pit, pipes, ducts, flues, chimneys, silos, containers, pressure vessels, underground sewers, wet or dry wells, shafts, trenches, tunnels or other similarly enclosed or partially enclosed structures. Thanks to WorkSafe for having made that available for me to understand exactly what a confined space is in our state. That is one that I am sure a number of workers in that sector particularly will be looking at with interest.

One that is of familiarity to me with my background in social services is changes to the streamlining of mandatory notifications to the social services regulator.

You will see the second objective of this bill is to improve emergency preparedness. It will do this by clearly enabling the EPA to authorise transportation of waste for the purposes of meeting a temporary emergency, providing for the temporary relief of a public nuisance or community hardship, and enabling the commissioning, repair, decommissioning or dismantling of any item of plant or equipment. My gosh, this is a bill with so much in it. I am going to keep going with the EPA and their changes. We know that this amendment will help the EPA in emergency response contexts – such as in an emergency animal disease situation, floods or fires – and allow the EPA to set proportionate regulatory requirements relating to the transportation of waste in these circumstances.

I will go now to number 3, and that is about supporting technology-neutral legislation. There are amendments to three acts that intend to meet that objective. The first is keno. Keno licensees will be able to authorise remote access to keno systems, reflecting the advancements that are now available in technology that mean that access does not need to be physical. There you go, keno. The next one is a requirement that is clarified in this bill to modernise notice requirements to allow for electronic transmission and publication of closure orders. The third one makes simple and uncontroversial amendments to support the regulatory system through amendments to a variety of acts. There you go. I will just say there is a lot in it.

When we came to government in 2014 we inherited a regulatory system in crisis, frankly, and there were large numbers of amendments made to regulations that caused some hardships in the community, which were meant to protect Victorian citizens and businesses. We are very much committed to making regulation more efficient for everyday Victorians and businesses while guaranteeing the protection that these regulations offer. I did take some time to reflect on what other regulatory changes have been made since we on this side have been in government, and over the last 10 years we have reviewed reform regulations in liquor, environmental protection, essential services, electricity, building and construction, health, planning, consumer affairs, fee pricing and owners corporations. In fact I very much remember a contribution on the owners corporation regulatory reform. We have legislated regulatory improvements to automatic mutual recognition, cladding safety, wage theft, gender equality, casino and gambling laws, worker screening processes and green energy – my goodness, the list goes on – including greater energy market protections, to name just a few.

We have reduced Victoria’s regulatory burden by 25 per cent. We invest in regulatory reform because we know that good reform needs a head start and a helping hand to get savings for the Victorian community both now and into the future. That includes an investment of over $80 million in more than 60 regulatory reform projects across local and state government through the Treasurer’s incentive fund, the Regulatory Reform Incentive Fund and the Business Acceleration Fund, which is estimated to grow Victoria’s economy by over $450 million per year and give back Victorians nearly 330,000 days per year in saved time. Someone very smart indeed did that calculation, and I am grateful to them for that because that is certainly worth knowing and worth celebrating.

We have simplified the food safety requirements, and that has had an incredible impact on businesses, with 25,000 businesses across the state saving nearly 40,000 days per year in preparing and managing their food safety programs. That is time back that they can use to grow their businesses and provide more goods and services to all Victorians.

We have streamlined Heritage Victoria permits for low- and no-harm applications, including removing the need for some permits altogether. That is saving 6000 businesses 91,000 days a year and speeding up approvals to get houses built quicker and cheaper, increasing housing supply. What an incredible change that will make in the next little while as we are on track to deliver our commitments with the housing statement. We have digitised applications – this is exciting – and approvals at the conservation regulator, making it quicker and easier to get protected wildlife management permits, saving 11,000 agricultural businesses and individuals over 600,000 days per year. We are digitising licensing and approvals for early childhood education and care providers, saving workers 120 days per year of time. This is quite incredible. We have streamlined screening checks for NDIS workers, saving 2800 days per year for applicants, and we are furthermore getting these workers into jobs faster so that they can get on with supporting Victorians with a disability to live with dignity and respect, something I know the minister responsible is very passionate about.

Can I now go to other efforts to make it easier to get more workers into jobs sooner, such as accelerating approvals for accredited taxis and rideshare services, making it four weeks sooner for you to get on the job. We have replaced labour-intensive, paper-based national police checks with digital certificates through Service Victoria, reducing the time it takes for workers to start working by two weeks. I know what it is to have to wait for a police check, so this is going to be very welcome indeed. We are even digitising working with children checks to make it easier for workers to show their credentials to employers and get on with the job sooner. So many of us have had a working with children check in our professional or even personal capacities, and I have got mine on my desk.

I need to say that the government’s regulatory reform agenda has helped make economic participation in Victoria more inclusive. We have streamlined the housing register process, reducing community housing registration by five weeks and allowing providers to get building and increase the supply of homes for low-income Victorians sooner. There is more on that. We have created the building consumer information service to help consumers navigate the building regulation system – it can be complex – and that is helping 2000 families per year in resolving building disputes.

The Allan Labor government knows that some of the most onerous regulation for Victorians is at the local government level. That is why we have partnered with local governments across the state to streamline and digitise their approval forms, making it simpler and easier for local Victorian businesses to have their applications processed faster as well as making it quicker and simpler for Victorians to apply and receive a permit from their local council. All of this is part of the Allan Labor government’s focus on growing the economy for everyone. That is why we are boosting productivity with our nation-building infrastructure agenda.

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (10:34): I rise to speak on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2023. This bill is a piece of omnibus legislation that amends 14 acts across 10 portfolios. The reforms contained in this bill are mostly minor, technical or clarifying in nature and do not represent substantive changes to the acts in question. The majority of the amendments are aimed at streamlining requirements or rectifying specific instances where current provisions are not working as intended or have become impractical. The coalition does not seek to oppose the passage of this bill through the Parliament, but we do note that the government’s record on regulatory reform and red tape reduction is fairly thin, resulting in Victoria being perceived as the most expensive place in Australia to do business.

This bill is similar in composition to an omnibus bill passed by the Parliament in 2022. Like that bill, this one brings together a number of minor changes across a range of portfolios that were not significant enough to warrant their own standalone bill. This bill is the result of the government inviting departments to submit minor amendments to improve regulatory compliance or produce admin efficiency. This bill has four main objectives, which are to streamline requirements for business and social services providers, to improve emergency preparedness, to support technology-neutral legislation and to make simple and uncontroversial amendments to support an efficient regulatory system through amending a variety of acts.

I guess the one that would be most on our mind at the moment is number two, which is to improve emergency preparedness. I am just going to take this opportunity to say that we were faced with quite a few emergencies last week in this state, and I want to just put on record my thanks to the amazing emergency services that responded, and not only the emergency services but the communities, which pitch in to help out whenever they can. Our emergency services are just incredible. To our CFA volunteers, particularly today, I just want to say thank you. I caught up with so many around the Gippsland South and Monbulk state seat areas over the last week, and I took in a lot of what they said. I think they are really under-resourced in this state. A lot of our CFA stations need upgrading, and so does our machinery.

I also want to say that a huge group that have always contributed in this area have been the workers from the native timber industry. They bring their machinery. They help with the clean-up whenever there is an emergency, and this is something, after Labor’s decision to close the native timber industry, we will not have in the years ahead. That is a huge concern and a huge worry.

This year this lot of events has really highlighted that we really do need to have better emergency preparedness. We sadly lost one life last week in the Mirboo North region, which was just absolutely devastating. We sustained a lot of damage to houses; some are uninhabitable. We know we lost in the fires some 44 houses. We had over 500 houses without power this year at the peak, and we still have some, so we need to see reform in this area. There would not be one person in this place, I do not think, that would not agree with that.

The government claims that it is reducing red tape, but there is no secret that this government loves red tape. This government claims these regulatory reforms will provide over $2.6 million in annual savings to Victorian businesses. These savings are achieved by removing licensing and permit fees and making regulatory compliance easier. Specifically, the department identifies the amendments below as equating to $2.6 million in savings. The bill amends the Essential Services Commission Act 2001 to remove the requirement to provide notice of price determinations to regulatory entities. It amends the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 to create a mechanism for the secretary to authorise a specific class of entity to undertake an activity that would otherwise require a licence or a permit. But this government does still have a lot of red tape.

While any savings for Victorian small businesses are welcome, this certainly is just not enough. If you look, there are 710,000 small businesses in Victoria. If you divide this saving by that many businesses, it is a saving of $3.66 per year. That is less than the price of a coffee. Victorian businesses took a hammering, particularly over the COVID-19 crisis. We were more locked down than anyone else. There were businesses that were shut down when it simply did not make sense; they could have done click and collect, yet they were shut down. I think it is almost a bit of a slap in the face to offer them a saving of $3.66.

According to the ABS, Victoria is the only state that went backwards in the number of businesses in 2023, and it is understandable as to why. We lost 7600 businesses last year, and many were forced out due to unfavourable economic conditions and too many regulations which they just could not keep up with. I spoke to a business owner last week, and he said, ‘I really get why people are leaving this state. It costs more in Victoria to grow and sell a tomato than it does in any other state.’ That really highlighted to me how ridiculous that is. We need to get rid of all the strangling regulations around small businesses and let small businesses do what they need to do and thrive. The Liberals and Nationals are committed to regulatory reform and reducing red tape, and we want to see this happen across the state. If this bill is anything to go by, Labor has absolutely zero plans for real regulatory reform, leaving businesses to grapple with red tape and high costs.

Last year I sat on the housing inquiry. I learned a lot from that housing inquiry, but one of the things that really stuck out to me was the amount of rental providers that are leaving the state because it is so expensive to operate here. This is causing a huge gap in the rental market. As we all know, there is just not enough rental stock to sustain the market. Homelessness is going to become more and more of an issue, which is just devastating. I had a lady from Pakenham in my office just last week who said she had been a very good renter for 24 years, but when the landlord needed his house back, she and her son were left with absolutely nowhere to go. This is devastating, and this is the real-life impact that policies that are made in this place have on the lives of everyday Victorians. For us it might be a piece of paper, it might be something where we are just ticking a box and getting it out of the way, and I would warn against that, because every single bill that passes in this house has a real impact on the lives of Victorians. That has to be first and foremost what we think about when every single thing comes across our desks. We have to make sure that we are always making decisions based on practicality and putting people at the centre of those policies rather than based on ideology or what is easy for us.

There are a couple of areas in this bill that I would like to particularly talk about. The first one is part 5, which is the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981. It creates a new mechanism for the Department of Health to make authorisations for certain organisations to obtain, possess and store medicine. I think that is good, I think that is practical, but I also want to look back to why this is happening. Our health system is under so much pressure in this state. Waiting lists are absolutely out of control. In my area the Pakenham hospital was promised. It was going to be started in 2022, and it was going to be finished by 2024. Well, here we are in 2024, and when you walk around that site, all you see is a derelict building that has broken windows, that has graffiti everywhere. A lot of people come into my office asking, ‘What is that area there? What is happening to it? Why can’t we access the health care that we need?’ This is a huge area.

The government has not been able to manage the healthcare burden, and because of that we have seen some regulatory change in this place. I just want to note that when that pharmacy bill went through that allowed pharmacists to give some antibiotics for non-complicated urinary tract infections, to give the pill out without a prescription and to address non-complicated skin infections, that bill really concerned me, because what we were doing really was putting pharmacists in a position that they were not completely trained for. There was no thought really given to the difference in the insurance that these pharmacists would need, and I believe it is placing them at a risk because we have not got our act together and we have not got enough infrastructure and health infrastructure to deal with the growth areas in our region. So I think this is a good amendment and it is a needed amendment, but unless we go back and deal with the root cause as to why we needed an amendment like this, I think we are really fooling ourselves.

The next part I would like to talk about is part 6, education and training reform, which is to fix the drafting ambiguities and create efficiencies in the operation of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority and the Victorian Institute of Teaching. One of the things that this does is simplify the process for reinstating retired teachers, and I think that is fantastic. There is a major teacher shortage; every single day we are thousands of teachers short in this state. I caught up with a teacher in Beaconsfield who said they were so short on teachers that they had one teacher just walking up and down the hallway trying to keep the students safe and in line. That is not acceptable. This should not be happening in a country like Australia and in a state like Victoria, which claims to be the most livable state in the world really.

A member: It’s total chaos under this government.

Renee HEATH: Yes, it is total chaos. Not only that but we are also failing children when this happens. We saw with the Grattan Institute research that was released last week that around one-third of Australian students cannot read proficiently. This is something that I find absolutely devastating, because if children cannot learn to read in those early years of their primary education, when that flips and all of a sudden that teaching finishes and they are meant to read to learn, that is something they cannot do, and the research shows that they just never catch up. This is absolutely devastating, so I think it is very good that we are able to reinstate retired teachers that still have an amazing amount they can contribute. I think it is fantastic. What I would like to look at is what the research from the Grattan Institute and many other research papers highlighted, which is that our universities are not teaching teachers how to teach phonics, how to teach evidence-based practice methods and how to manage a classroom. This is something that is stressing teachers out, and it is damaging the next generation. So this is something we need to look at: how do we upskill these teachers so they have the ability to really do the job that they are passionate about, that they came into to make a difference, so they are able to do that.

I have spoken to a few schools lately that have moved to the phonics teaching and also science-based mathematics. One thing that I think has been fantastic is they have one teacher that has become a coach to other teachers, who has been able to go classroom to classroom, observe them and then help them upskill. I think that has just been absolutely fantastic. I spoke about Churchill Primary School in a members statement earlier on. What they did is they sent the whole teaching staff to go and do the OG training for phonics-based learning and science-based learning. Then what they did is – because everyone does this upskilling but then can find how to then implement it overwhelming – all the teachers did it, and then they have one teacher, Mrs McColl, who goes classroom to classroom and helps them with strategies of how to implement that better. They have seen an outstanding turnaround. I think that is exemplary and should be celebrated, and I think that is a really wonderful thing.

I have got 30 seconds left, so I probably do not have time to go through the rest of it. I will just say I agree with Mr Mulholland and what he said about the whole I Cook saga. I am glad that that is being addressed, and I am glad that we will fully implement the recommendations from that inquiry. I will leave it there.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:49): I also rise to speak on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2023. As has been stated, this bill affects a large number of acts. It makes mostly minor changes or ones that are technical in nature; however, overall it is a small improvement in removing red tape for businesses. The government claims there will be $2.6 million in direct savings for businesses. On average that is going to be very small, but nevertheless I am committed to saying nice things about the government when they do nice things. In this case they are doing something smaller than I would like. I concur with the opposition in that I would like the government to go further, but I am not going to attack the government when they make a small step in the right direction. That is a good thing.

One of the things in this that I really like is the changes to the Meat Industry Act 1993. During the pandemic there was a business right near my office called Tony’s meats run by a South African butcher. He makes a very delicious product called biltong, which is a dried meat. During the pandemic he was doing online sales, and it is my understanding he had lots of customers during the pandemic that wanted to eat meat snacks while they were at home. This bill makes it a little bit easier to sell dried meat online, so I hope businesses like Tony’s meats that sell jerky, biltong and things like that will have a little bit of red tape removed. I also note that some of the requirements around the transportation of meat, which seemed pretty silly in the past, have now been simplified. That is a good thing as well – less licence applications and things like that.

Overall the Libertarian Party will not be opposing this bill. I concur with my colleague Dr Heath: let us keep going in the right direction, and maybe more things will come out of Better Regulation Victoria to help small businesses. It is my vision that Victoria will be a place that businesses clamour to come to. I want them to see us as a place where they really want to come, set up businesses and run businesses – an economic powerhouse. The more attractive we can make our state to businesses, the better. Let us keep removing unnecessary regulations, taxes and other things that stop small businesses thriving in this state. This is a small step in that direction, so I commend this bill to the house.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:52): I also rise to make a contribution on this bill, the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2023. Who would have thought on this day we would be having a discussion about beef jerky? I think Minister Shing referred to it as ‘chewing gum meat’ –

Harriet Shing: Meaty gum.

Sonja TERPSTRA: ‘Meaty gum’. It might be delicious, but it is not something I am really looking forward to trying anytime soon. It is just not in my wheelhouse.

David Limbrick: You’ve got to try biltong.

Sonja TERPSTRA: I will take your word for it, Mr Limbrick – that it is something that you rate – and it is obviously a good thing for the business that you spoke about in your electorate to be able to sell it online if that is what they want to do. From a regulatory reform point of view, if it is something that this bill is enabling, that is great, but it is not something I am myself clamouring to try.

It is an important omnibus bill in terms of making a number of regulatory reforms. The bill proposes 54 amendments across 14 acts and 10 ministerial portfolios to modernise and streamline regulatory requirements for businesses and social services, support emergency preparedness, ensure technology neutrality and make other simple and uncontroversial changes. I think somebody might have referred to this at some point as the ‘dots and commas’ bill – or maybe that is next week, when we are looking to reform language in some bills. Certainly when we get an opportunity to modernise language or other things in bills we should do that, but we should also streamline regulations where it makes good sense to do so. It is not a green light to completely repeal regulations. As we know, it is important to regulate industry and sectors for a whole variety of reasons.

The amendments that are contained in this bill have been developed in consultation with relevant departments, agencies, regulators and stakeholders. The changes that are proposed reflect the feedback and suggestions received from businesses and social service providers who are affected by the current regulatory frameworks. The bill will deliver substantial benefits to Victorians by reducing regulatory burden, improving outcomes for consumers and service users, enhancing food safety and public health and of course also keeping legislation up to date. The Department of Treasury and Finance estimates that the reforms will provide over $2.6 million in benefits to Victorians annually in time and in cost savings, so that is always a good and positive thing.

The first objective of the bill will be to modernise and streamline requirements for social services providers without compromising the effective management of harms. For example, the bill will allow the Secretary of the Department of Health to authorise a class of entities for medicines. The bill will reduce the regulatory burden for businesses to sell dried meat online, and we just had that bit of banter with Mr Limbrick over the business in his electorate who want to sell beef jerky online. That is probably a business opportunity that did not exist before but potentially may flourish as a consequence of these changes, so that is a good thing.

The bill will streamline licensing requirements to recognise that refrigerated vehicles are often used to transport multiple commodities, and it will also remove a requirement for poultry and game processing facilities to provide information to PrimeSafe that PrimeSafe does not need. It will also remove a requirement for PrimeSafe to refuse a licence for vehicle-based meat processing facilities where an application is consistent with the planning scheme or schemes. It will make amendments to remove requirements for casino special employees licence applicants to provide evidence of former employment that is not relevant. And the bill will enable the streamlining of mandatory notifications by registered social services providers to the social services regulator. The bill also ensures that the Secretary of the Department of Health and local councils can direct a business to undertake improvements to an inadequate food safety program.

The second objective of the bill is to improve emergency preparedness. It will do this by clearly enabling the Environment Protection Authority Victoria, otherwise known as the EPA, to authorise transportation of waste for the purposes of meeting a temporary emergency, providing for the relief of public nuisance or community hardship and enabling the commissioning, repair, decommissioning or dismantling of any item of a plant or equipment. The amendment will help the EPA in emergency response contexts such as an emergency animal disease situation, floods or fires and will allow the EPA to set proportionate regulatory requirements relating to the transportation of waste in these circumstances.

The third objective of the bill is to support technology-neutral legislation, and it will amend three acts to do this. Keno licensees will be able to be authorise remote access to keno systems, reflecting the advancements in technology that mean that access is not required to be physical, and the bill will clarify and modernise notice requirements to allow for electronic transmission and publication of closure orders. Lastly and certainly not least, the bill seeks to make simple and uncontroversial amendments to support an effective and efficient regulatory system through amendments to a variety of acts.

Earlier in the week we were talking about the Service Victoria app and obviously the changes that are happening where more licences are able to be online or available through the Service Victoria app. As we can see, we are moving towards having things more accessible on digital platforms, which is good. I know this is not really germane to the bill, but I cannot wait to be able to have my licence available digitally, and any other licence that I might have, rather than having to have a plastic card in my wallet or stowed somewhere else. To be able to access that digitally is a good thing. I note, for example, you can also access many things digitally. I was talking about going to the music festival the other day when I had Ticketek tickets delivered to me digitally. You turn up to events these days, and there is a scanner or a barcode reader or something like that there and these things can be scanned and looked at. It is the same thing with licences. I know you can have your Medicare card available on a digital platform as well. So we are just seeing lots of advances in that space, where you can have various documents or things or items available on a digital platform. If there needs to regulatory reform across a range of bills or acts of Parliament to make that happen, that is definitely a good thing; it will make things easier. I know, like many other people, I often lose things – licences, cards and the like. When you lose your card or your licence it is a big palaver to get that replaced, so if you can have these things done digitally, that will save a lot of pain and heartache no doubt. These are good reforms, and I spoke about the one in the business context earlier as well. They are sensible reforms, but of course it is good to see. It might be a bit pedestrian for some in this chamber today, but nevertheless it is important.

This bill is the second regulatory reform omnibus bill that the government has brought forward, and it is a key part of our agenda of regulatory reform, which is designed to make it easier to do business in Victoria. The changes proposed in the bill, as I said earlier, are designed to make it easier for businesses to do business or for regulators to apply for, obtain and hold licences and registration, as well as to make other small non-controversial changes from many different portfolios, so it is a good opportunity to bring all those things together in one bill. As I said, it is an ongoing part of our reform agenda in this space. The bill is one part of the government’s agenda, which also includes the Business Acceleration Fund, rapid reviews of regulatory settings, better approvals processes for regulators and establishing an economic growth commissioner to undertake inquiries into impediments to economic growth – and that is a good thing.

While the reforms may be a collection of what we are talking about today – they sound relatively simple and straightforward – continuous fine-tuning of legislation is essential to the Victorian government and the Allan Labor government’s vision of a high-performing state and local regulatory system that supports increased productivity, because we know that that drives economic growth and it also makes it easy to do business in Victoria. We want to attract more businesses to Victoria when we can and where we can, and it also protects consumers, and that is an important aspect. It is about getting the balance right. We want to reform regulation to make sure that businesses can do business but we do not lessen any consumer protections, and that certainly does not happen with this bill. Consumer protection is upheld and also community health and safety and the environment. That is also very important.

Over the last 10 years we have reviewed and reformed regulations in a number of spaces, and notably that has been in the liquor space, the environmental protection space, essential services, electricity, building and construction, health, planning, consumer affairs, fee pricing, owners corporations and many, many more. We have legislated regulatory improvements to automatic mutual recognition, cladding safety, very importantly wage theft, equally importantly gender equality and casino and gambling laws, as well as worker screening processes, green energy and greater energy market protections, just to name a few.

I know there is a lot of debate around red tape and the like, and that seems to be the straw man argument. I think Mr Limbrick and the Libertarian Party would like to have no regulation at all. Referring to it as ‘red tape’ is really quite unfair, because we know that if we had no regulation at all, consumer protection would also evaporate. So it is a bit of an easy grab, perhaps a social media line, to talk about red tape. But it is not red tape, it is regulation to make sure that there are no market failures and that people who need protection from market failures get that protection.

We have actually got on with the job of reform despite what those opposite and others might say in this chamber, but the job of reform has meant that we have reduced Victoria’s regulatory burden by 25 per cent without compromising on consumer protections, and that is a really good thing. We have invested over $80 million in more than 60 regulatory reform projects across local and state governments through the Treasurer’s incentive fund and also the Regulation Reform Incentive Fund and the Business Acceleration Fund, and that is estimated to grow Victoria’s economy by over $450 million per year and to give back to Victorians nearly 330,000 days per year in saved time. So time savings also have an economic factor to them. Of course if you are working in a business or working for someone in a business, your time equals money and it is valuable, and that is a good thing. So that is a significant saving to businesses.

We have simplified Victoria’s food safety requirements, saving 25,000 businesses nearly 40,000 days per year in preparing and managing their food safety programs. That is time back to that business that it can use to grow its business and provide more goods and services to all Victorians. So that is a good thing. We have also streamlined Heritage Victoria permits for low- and no-harm applications, including removing the need for some permits altogether, and that will save 6000 businesses over 9000 days a year, speeding up approvals to get houses built quicker and cheaper and increasing housing supply. As we know, that is a very good thing, because we know it is only this government that has a strong commitment to building more homes for more Victorians where they need them – and affordable housing, I might add as well. We have digitised applications and approvals as well – I just talked a little bit earlier about digitising all sorts of cards and licensing, but this is also a good thing – at the conservation regulator, which makes it quicker and easier to process wildlife management permits, saving 11,000 agricultural businesses and individuals at least 678 days per year. We have digitised licensing and approvals for early childhood education and care providers, saving workers collectively 120 days per year. We are also streamlining screening checks for NDIS workers, saving 2800 days per year for applicants. We are getting these workers into jobs faster so they can get on with supporting Victorians who live with disability in order that they can live their best lives and live lives with dignity and respect.

As you can see, there are important reforms, and there are more. We have accelerated approvals for accrediting taxis and rideshare services, meaning workers can get on the job four weeks sooner. We have replaced the labour-intensive paper-based national police check with digital certificates through Service Victoria, reducing the time it takes for workers to start by two weeks. We have digitised working with children checks to make it easier for workers to show their credentials to employers and get on the job sooner, and I spoke about this earlier. There are lots of cards and licences that one might have, and if they are all digitised and in one space in your phone or in your digital wallet, it gives a level of comfort – not worrying or stressing about losing those things and getting them out quickly when you need them. They are all good things for the individual. But I have outlined the benefits to individual workers and businesses who are saving time, and time equals money.

I might leave my contribution there. I have only got 20-odd seconds on the clock. But there is so much more I could talk about in regard to this omnibus bill. It is an important bill. As I said, it highlights how the Allan Labor government is getting on with its regulatory reform agenda. There is still much more to do, but as I said, this is the second omnibus bill that will make some important changes. I commend this bill to the house.

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (11:07): I rise to speak today on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2023. This is an administrative omnibus bill that makes relatively minor changes to a large number of acts that are summarised in the second reading in a profusion of management objectives, like streamlining and modernising. I commend those members who have summarised the details of the 54 amendments across the 14 acts in their own contributions so I do not have to do so in mine. The Victorian Greens do not think there is anything too controversial included, so we will not oppose the bill. But as the Minister for Children stated in the second-reading speech, one of the objectives of these omnibus bills is to make improvements to regulation, and I think by extension this means to help not just businesses and regulators but also Victorian consumers who may benefit from better business and industry regulation.

Those who watched Four Corners this week will not be surprised that the Greens believe that better regulation is needed to stop the supermarket duopoly ripping off Victorian consumers. The Australian supermarket industry is one of the most concentrated in the world. At best, nearly all of us have to shop at one of four supermarket chains, but a substantial majority actually shop at only one of two: Coles and Woolworths. Inflation, much of it caused by global events, has of course been a factor in the recent increases in food and grocery prices, but given the unparalleled concentration of the retail grocery sector in Australia, an effective duopoly in terms of the big two’s ability to act as price setters for suppliers and consumers, attention has rightly shifted to what Allan Fels recently observed as:

… an increase in margins in both Coles and Woolworths food and grocery segments driven by low competitive forces and an ability to not pass on immediate cost reductions.

Some describe this more simply as price gouging. I believe there is a case to answer when Woolworths’s 2023 annual report shows that while the sales volumes of Australian food went up 5 per cent from the previous year, dollar earnings from that same food went up 19.1 per cent.

Across Australia the Greens have led the cause for a look at the industry practices of the supermarket duopoly by instigating inquiries at both state and federal levels. A separate ACTU-backed inquiry led by Professor Fels, from which I just quoted, also looked at price gouging more broadly across oligopolies in Australia’s banking, supermarket, aviation and energy sectors. A recommendation from that report led to the federal Treasurer belatedly calling for an ACCC inquiry into pricing and competition in the supermarket sector, which the Greens also support. But the Greens too recognise the limitations of these inquiries, not least that good recommendations are not always acted upon by governments or, in the case of this Victorian Labor government, that whole inquiries are not even responded to.

The ACCC has looked at supermarkets before. In 2008 an almost identically named inquiry into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries led to the introduction of standardised unit pricing but not much else. The Greens believe these sporadic supermarket inquiries are not enough by themselves in a market so concentrated and in an industry so essential as supermarkets. There is clearly a need for, at an absolute minimum, some ongoing monitoring and reporting on supermarket competition and prices and a need for regulators to be able to name and shame the companies that do things like price gouging. I am introducing amendments today to do just that, and I am happy for my amendments to be circulated, please.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

Samantha RATNAM: Yesterday this chamber debated grocery price regulation, and we heard a number of arguments, some more lucid than others, opposing regulating prices to help people struggling with the cost of living. Today we are offering another choice to the government and the opposition: ongoing monitoring and reporting of competition and prices. Surely this is the very least this Parliament can offer Victorians struggling to put food on the table. The ACCC inquiry into the supermarkets was touted repeatedly by people in this chamber yesterday and the other place as the answer to the current crisis, but surely we too have a responsibility to the people of Victoria to do what we can too.

The amendments I am circulating now are based on two tenets that are indisputable: firstly, that the provision of food is the most essential of all essential services and that the cost of food is quite literally the cost of living, and secondly, that there is a lack of competition among supermarket retailers selling food and grocery staples in Victoria. The amendments seek to establish this reality in Victorian law by defining the retail grocery industry or supermarkets as an essential service under the Essential Services Commission Act 2001. But the amendments do more than simply recognising supermarkets as an essential service as a means unto itself. Proposed clause 23C will provide specific functions to the Essential Services Commission (ESC) in relation to the supermarket industry with the overall objective of deterring excessive price increases or price-gouging practices and reducing the escalating price of food and groceries for Victorians. It will do this by providing the commission with ongoing powers to monitor and report on prices at supermarkets, whether retail prices paid by consumers or wholesale or supply chain prices, as well as to monitor and report on the competitiveness or lack thereof of the supermarket industry in Victoria.

I am not proposing any novel powers for the commission here. Current section 10AAB of the Essential Services Commission Act already provides the commission with analogous functions in terms of monitoring and reporting on Victoria’s energy retailers – somewhat paradoxically, given there is far greater consumer choice and competition in that market than there is in supermarkets. In fact there are 34 separate retailers competing to provide Victorians electricity according to the Energy Compare website. Compare this to effectively four supermarket retailers, with two that are dominant. It is patently absurd that we currently have an Essential Services Commission Act that empowers the commission to monitor and report on competition in the competitive retail energy market but not the uncompetitive supermarket sector.

Should the amendments be supported, it is our expectation that the ESC will use these new powers to name and shame individual supermarket companies that do the wrong thing. By happy coincidence, in the last fortnight both Professor Fels at the National Press Club and Alan Kohler in an article in the New Daily have called for exactly the same name-and-shame powers regarding supermarkets that we are proposing with these amendments today. I heard numerous contributions from the government benches, especially yesterday, calling for more competition in the sector, yet to date the Victorian government has tried to wash its hands of any responsibility for reducing skyrocketing supermarket prices. These amendments show that this does not have to be the case. We have a choice. We can act. We can vote against these amendments and tell Victorians that the supermarkets are too powerful and profitable to be regulated on an ongoing basis and that we simply have to shrug and suck up the higher prices, or we can choose to support the amendments and in doing so recognise what is plainly evident – that supermarket goods are essential for Victorians and therefore, at an absolute minimum, they should be subject to ongoing independent monitoring and reporting as to their prices and competitive practices by the Essential Services Commission, just like energy retailers are.

To us it is an obvious choice: for Parliament to stand up for consumers and lower food prices and stand against the profiteering of the powerful supermarket duopoly. I commend these amendments to the house.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (11:16): I am looking forward to my contribution here today. It is very interesting. We have got populism to the left, populism to the right – there is something about the colour green. There is immense populism. Sorry, I have just noticed that our contingent from Malaysia are here. Selamat pagi, and welcome again. I am a bit flustered, I must admit, after listening to that latest contribution and listening to the contribution from the Nationals – populism on either side. Anyway, I am going to speak to the bill, and I am going to address comments from either flank of the populist green-coloured parties.

This regulatory reform bill is the second regulatory reform omnibus bill that this government has brought. It is a key part of the regulatory reform agenda that the government has to make it easier to do business in Victoria. The changes proposed in the bill are reforms that make it easier for business or regulators to apply, obtain and hold licences and registrations as well as other small, non-controversial regulatory changes for many different portfolios. The bill is one part of the government’s regulatory reform agenda, which also includes the Business Acceleration Fund, rapid reviews of regulatory settings, better approvals processes for regulators and businesses and establishing an economic growth commissioner to undertake inquiries into impediments to economic growth.

While the bill may be a collection of relatively simple and straightforward reforms, continuous fine-tuning of legislation is essential to the Victorian government’s vision of high-performing state and local regulatory systems. It supports increased productivity, makes it easier to do business in Victoria and protects consumers, community health and the safety of the environment. It is important that on this side we consider business but we also consider consumers, getting the balance right, unlike some of the comments we have just been hearing.

When we came to government in 2014 we inherited a regulatory system in crisis from those opposite. They had only had four years – four years of Nap Time and Dolittle. Not only were they a post in the ground, standing still while other states and nations were moving forward, they took us backwards. The previous government slashed indiscriminately at regulations to protect Victorian citizens and businesses. In their time, rather than taking the great privilege of being in government, as I say often, they had no plan, and incredibly, here we are over a decade later and they still have no plan – no goal, no overarching narrative. You can ask this side what we believe in; we can tell you. We can tell you home family what we believe in. I can even tell you in Bahasa Melayu: keluarga, rumah, transport – all these things we care about; we know it. We are going to bring them with us. I just realised ‘transportasi’ is the same thing. That is what we are going to do. Those opposite have no plan; they have no attempt. But this Labor government do have a plan – rencana besar. We came to government to make regulation more efficient and fair, and that is what we are doing.

A member interjected.

Tom McINTOSH: Well, I am going to come to the fact of a stimulated economy. As per Ms Bath’s comments – comments quite disconnected from reality – I will come to those comments, and I will come to the comments that you are making.

Joe McCracken interjected.

Tom McINTOSH: I will pop in between languages. Construction, health, planning, consumer affairs, fee pricing, owners corporations and more – we have legislated regulatory improvements to automatic mutual recognition, cladding safety, wage theft, gender equality and casino and gambling laws, as well as worker screening processes, green energy and greater energy market protections, to name a few things that are making it easier for business every day but at the same time ensuring we are protecting consumers every day. Whilst those opposite are sitting there heckling on, we have reduced Victoria’s regulatory burden by 25 per cent. That is a 25 per cent reduction on what you left us. We invest in regulatory reform because we know it is good for the economy.

Ann-Marie Hermans: There are no houses. People are becoming homeless.

Tom McINTOSH: I am going to come to that as well. If you can sit tight, I am going to come to that. That is why we have invested over $80 million in more than 60 regulatory reform projects across local and state government through the Treasurer’s Regulation Reform Incentive Fund and the Business Acceleration Fund, which are estimated to grow Victoria’s economy by over $450 million per year and give back to Victorians nearly 330,000 days per year in saved time. We have simplified Victoria’s food safety requirements, saving 25,000 businesses nearly 40,000 days per year in preparing and managing their food safety programs. That is time back they can use to grow their business and provide more goods and services to all Victorians. We have streamlined Heritage Victoria permits, which is an important thing to enable people to get on with, with no-harm applications, including removing the need for some permits altogether, saving 6000 businesses time and speeding up approvals to get houses built quicker and cheaper, increasing housing supply. We have digitised applications and approvals at the conservation regulator, making it quicker and easier to process wildlife management permits, saving 11,000 agriculture businesses and individuals at least 678 days per year.

My Bahasa was so good they have vacated the building.

We have digitised the licensing and approvals for early childhood education and care providers, saving workers collectively 120 days per year, and we have streamlined screening checks for NDIS workers, saving 2800 days per year for applicants. We are getting these workers into jobs faster so they can get on with supporting disabled Victorians with dignity and respect. But that is not all this does. We are accelerating approvals for accredited taxis and rideshare services, and we are replacing the labour-intensive, paper-based national police check with a digital certificate through Service Victoria, reducing the time it takes for workers to start by two weeks. We are getting rid of red tape. We are not talking about it, we are doing it. We have digitised working with children checks to make it easier for workers to show their credentials to their employers and get on the job sooner. While those opposite might think making things easier is just getting rid of all this and not having workers checks, not ensuring that people working with children are fit to do so, we are making sure it can be done but streamlining the process – as we have done with the housing registers processes, reducing community housing registration times by five weeks, allowing providers to get building and increase the supply of housing for low-income Victorians sooner. We have created the building consumer information service to help consumers navigate the complex building regulation system, helping almost 2000 families per year resolve their building disputes. We have developed digital guides and training material for work and development permit sponsors so they can spend more time helping disadvantaged offenders to participate in work programs.

From a local government perspective, we have partnered with local governments across the state, streamlining and digitising their approval system and making it simpler and faster for local Victorian businesses to have their applications processed as well as making it quicker and simpler for Victorians to apply for and receive a building permit from their local council. We have instituted the Better Approvals for Business program, reduced the cost of approvals for telecom infrastructure, events and festivals in eight pilot councils and increased productivity and capability in the med tech sector. We have been working with local governments to pilot automatic approvals for low-risk permits, which has the potential to reduce some permit approval times from seven days to 10 minutes.

This is all part of the Allan Labor government’s focus on growing the economy for everyone, and that is what we are focused on. Not like that side over there perhaps worried about a few of their key stakeholders, we are worried about everyone and ensuring that our children, our people working, our families and our retired, right the way through our economy, are benefiting from the investments that we are making, the regulatory framework that we are setting, so that everybody’s quality of life continues to improve. When you have that as a goal – as a map, if you will – then you can ensure that the principles that underpin the changes that you are making will guide the delivery of the investments that you make.

I do need to touch on Ms Bath’s comments. Coming back to those in green, the Greens’ and the Nationals’ comments do not seem to be connected to reality. Ms Bath is talking about regional towns and regional towns dying. I think I have mentioned in this place once or twice before that I remember growing up in regional towns that were dying – when services were gutted out, when trains were pulled out, when banks followed suit, years of drought, people moving out, homes left to rot into the ground, pubs closing, schools closing, often under the direction of those opposite. That is a very, very, very different reality to that of now, of historically low unemployment in our regions. Businesses are searching for workers to fill the jobs that they have, which is why we are focused on TAFE and ensuring our school leavers can get into TAFE and can get skilled up in the areas for which local employers need workers. We are making sure that those kids are coming through with a world-class education – whether that be through our investment in early learning – so kids both emotionally and academically from three- and four-year-old kinder are getting the most solid building blocks to their life. At the same time we are getting parents back to work, particularly mothers back to work, and continuing to grow their super fund – the super fund that those on the other side would probably rather see not exist or would have people raid for their current cost of living. We are investing in things that address cost of living in this period of time where inflation is high across the globe.

It is the investment that we have made in our infrastructure, whether that is our roads or whether that is our transport. I have got pages and pages of notes, because I do not think it is possible for any human to memorise all the investment that we are making in Eastern Victoria. I have had to limit it to a handful of seats just so I can get to it. But just on the bigger, broader investments: fairer fares so regional Victorians can travel for the same price as metro Victorians. Those opposite were not interested in that, and not only is it getting people along the line, for those who go all the way into the city, it is getting people from the city out into the regions and getting them spending money in the regions. We are seeing this through the tourism numbers that are going into the regions, we are seeing this through the money that is being spent and we are seeing this in the businesses looking for more workers to staff their businesses because they are flat chat. That is what we are seeing. It is the infrastructure.

We are investing in housing. The $2 billion regional package has $1 billion for housing in it. We have got $150 million to assist employers that are looking for workers to fill the demand of their businesses and to get worker accommodation in the places where it is needed.

Michael Galea: People in Geelong and Ballarat were very excited about it too.

Tom McINTOSH: Indeed they were. From our conversations in the regions, we are constantly being told that there is excitement and there is anticipation about these funds that are open, and people are applying to take advantage of this. It is the investment in the infrastructure; it is the investment in the people. It is investment that is not only seeing our regions do well at the moment – we are doing well at the moment – but will see us do well into the future. Indeed Mr Davis likes to point out how many years we have been in government of the last 23, 24. You see that in the regions. We have had good Labor members. We have had good Labor Premiers: Jacinta Allan from Bendigo, Dan Andrews, who grew up bush. We have had Brumby, Bracks – Ballarat, Bendigo. We understand, we care and, as I said earlier, we have the underlying principles and value set to make these investments.

A member: We care about regional communities.

Tom McINTOSH: That is right, we on this side absolutely do. So this negativity that we see from the populist extremes of politics, this fearmongering, this scaremongering and telling everyone it is all doom and gloom – the reality on the ground of the investment and the opportunity that is there is not reflected compared to when I grew up in regional towns that were crumbling. I have got pages of investment I cannot even get to. I will save that for my next contribution.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:31): I am also very excited to be rising today to speak on the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2023. I think it is fair to say that it has been a wideranging discussion this morning. We have had various different contributions, as Mr McIntosh said, from the far left and from the far right; I feel like everything is coming in from different angles. We even had some Bahasa spoken, I believe, as well, which I particularly enjoyed. I think everyone in this chamber enjoyed it, though I do perhaps feel for our friends in Hansard. But the rest of us here certainly enjoyed that contribution. It is wonderful to have the delegation popping in to see the cut and thrust of this chamber as well.

We did have a few interesting points raised, firstly by Dr Heath. There are some parts of this bill which are relevant to health. None, I think, are directly relevant to hospitals, but she did bring up some discussion around hospitals in the south-east of Melbourne in fact, just over the border in her region. But of course she and I both know that there is a huge amount of investment going into hospitals and health infrastructure right across the state, in the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region and in eastern Victoria too. We have the $1.1 billion rebuild upgrade of Frankston Hospital, which I spoke about yesterday in this place. It is an amazing project on an enormous scale. We have got major upgrades coming to Monash Medical Centre and Dandenong Hospital. We have already upgraded Casey Hospital, and there are further upgrades on the way, including the recently announced women’s health clinic at Casey Hospital, which is going to be absolutely outstanding for that community.

I am sure Dr Heath will also be very excited about the new West Gippsland Hospital, which in a growing part of her region will be a very exciting addition to see as well, as will of course the future stages of the Wonthaggi Hospital. I distinctly remember those opposite many years ago saying, ‘It will never happen. You’ll never even build stage 1.’ Well, we did. It is there. It is no wonder those opposite said that, because if those opposite were in charge, it would not have been done. It would not have been delivered, because as Mr McIntosh said, that is all they do – they pull things out of regional Victoria. There is still no train to Leongatha; they pulled that out. They pull things out, and they do not invest in the regions.

We do invest. We said that we would do it. The fantastic member for Bass Jordan Crugnale went out and made that commitment, and do you know what she did? She got it done. She delivered it. That is why she was re-elected in the last election when everyone else had written her off. She is an outstanding local member who has been advocating for her community right from Clyde down to the Bass Coast, and that fantastic hospital, which we will soon see even more additions to, is an absolute testament to her dedication to her community.

We also had some interesting commentary from Dr Ratnam with regard to her instruction motion, and I am looking forward to seeing how that goes. Dr Ratnam knows of course that this has already been tried by her Assembly colleagues just the other week and it was ruled out of scope. We know that they know that this is completely out of scope and irrelevant to the bill. We have been through this many times just this week, but powers to do with regulation for things such as supermarkets do fall within the ACCC, which is why it is good to see those inquiries already underway and the federal government undertaking a number of inquiries at a state level. Yes, I am very excited as a member of the Legal and Social Issues Committee to be looking into some of those aspects as well later this year, but at the end of the day we must remember that it is a federal responsibility.

I do have to say I have particularly enjoyed some of the various videos being put online by members from across this chamber in recent weeks. I do not think anyone can probably top Mrs McArthur’s videos, but we did see, I will say, quite an entertaining video put forward by the Greens a few weeks ago with the ‘We’re the Greens’. I have got to say, for a political video it was actually pretty funny. I enjoyed it.

Samantha Ratnam interjected.

Michael GALEA: It was. The Liberals tried to do it too. It was a bit cringe-worthy, I am afraid. It was not as cringe-worthy as their Taylor Swift video, of course – and what a moment to touch on Taylor Swift again and talk about the amazing success that her three shows in Melbourne were over the weekend, an amazing success for the Eras Tour. It was a huge uplift to our local economy. There are so many people in and around Parliament with the Swiftie bracelets on this week. It is great to see everyone is getting into the spirit. What a time to be in the best, most livable city in the world, to have Taylor Swift having her biggest ever attendance – ever, worldwide – at any of her concerts. It is fantastic to see, and it is certainly up to Sydney to try and do its best to imitate Melbourne this weekend. I am sure they will do their best.

But back to those social media videos – I am sure we will see contributions from the Greens members on social media over the weekend about rallying the fight on grocery prices. It is just a pity they are doing it in a place that does not actually have the power to control that. I am looking forward to the sequel video next week when we see the Greens saying, ‘We’re the Greens; of course we bring up instruction motions that are completely irrelevant to what’s being discussed on the bill.’ I look forward to seeing that video next week as well.

Samantha Ratnam interjected.

Michael GALEA: Well, we will see how we go with that, Dr Ratnam. You always give me good ideas. But as I say, this instruction motion, well-intentioned though it is – we know the cost of living is a very important issue, and I have spoken countless times in this place this week and in previous weeks about the various cost-of-living measures that this government has already implemented, including free TAFE, cheaper regional fares, power saving bonuses, free three- and four-year-old kinder –

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Michael GALEA: I see Mrs Hermans getting excited now too. She does not like us telling people that they can access free three- and four-year-old kinder, because she knows as well as I do that families in the south-east have been benefiting from that.

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: I hear my colleagues interjecting with all sorts of other free benefits too. There are simply far too many to mention.

Enver Erdogan interjected.

Michael GALEA: There is the power saving bonus, as I say, Mr Erdogan. We even had the great joy of some members opposite, the very sadly departed Dr Bach even, promoting the power saving bonus to their constituents. Our ideas are so good. You know what, that is probably one of the best things about this place – if you see a good idea, just take it. We have seen that with some of the social media videos that have not always gone to plan – like, as I say, when the Liberals did try and redo the ‘We’re the Greens’ videos. I will give the Greens credit: they did a much better job with that one. But at the end of the day Bev McArthur still is the reigning queen of parliamentary social media videos. I think it is fair to say we are all trying our best to get up to her level, even if we completely disagree with pretty much everything that she says.

There are many things that have been discussed. It is great to see Dr Heath in the chamber as well, as I did just mention all the huge investments in hospitals. I will reiterate for her benefit: the West Gippsland Hospital, the Wonthaggi Hospital – huge upgrades – and also Frankston, Casey, Monash Medical Centre and Dandenong, and that is just down our side of the world. Of course you have got huge new campuses being built, tying in with the Arden station precinct as part of the Metro Tunnel project, another fantastic project of this Labor government, which will be opening in the next year or so. The Arden train station, with the new hospital campuses that will also be built there, is going to transform the way people get around our city and our state, whether you are coming from my region, especially from the south-east, or whether you are coming from the regions, whether it is Gippsland, whether it is Western Victoria. Having access to the existing healthcare and academic facilities at that part of the city or even the fantastic new facilities that we will be building right near Arden station as well is yet another example of the benefits that that project will bring.

There are many other parts of this bill which will cover many different specific areas, and colleagues have talked about that – everything from the ability to sell dried meats online and health security authorisations right through to refrigerated vehicle licensing and various things regarding the EPA as well that are all very important. Whether it is an exciting piece of legislation or whether it is a relatively functional piece such as regulatory reform, the things that we do in this place are very important, and they are important because they facilitate the government doing things that make a difference for Victorians. At the end of the day that is what we are all here for, whether it is investing in schools, investing in free child care or investing in free TAFE.

In my region alone we have just opened a brand new primary school in Clyde North; Topirum Primary School opened a couple of weeks ago. It has accepted its first batch of students. It is really, really great to see. Along with the aforementioned member for Bass, Ms Crugnale, I also had the chance to visit another Clyde North primary school, Ramlegh Park Primary, just a few weeks ago to hand out prep bags, another initiative of this government. These prep bags are handed out to every single prep student in Victoria who attends a public school, and they have all sorts of educational, health and wellbeing resources, lots of books –

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: I don’t think there was a slingshot in there, Dr Heath, but we can run that past Mr Carroll’s office and see what he says for next year.

There are all sorts of fun educational books. There was a particular book about a sloth that Ms Crugnale and I enjoyed reading together to one of the prep classes at Ramlegh Park Primary School – very, very good engagement from the students on that one, which was very exciting to see. We had a great response to those prep bags. That is one of our booming schools. It is also a new school; it was opened in the last term of this government – one of the many that we have already invested in opening in the Clyde North suburb. We have gone from zero to now three opened with a further two in the construction pipeline – with one of them expected to be opening next year, which is fantastic – as well as Clyde North secondary college, which is also in the works.

Ramlegh Park is a very successful school in the Clyde North area. I want to give acknowledgement to the principal Linda Corcoran as well, who has been there from day dot. It has seen huge growth already, and there are now well over a thousand students in this growing suburb. The new schools that we will be building and opening next year, including the interim-named Thompsons West primary school, will really make a difference and will ease that pressure on our fantastic existing schools as we build more and more new schools to cater for the demand that is there. Providing our young Victorians with the foundational support they need – with a good education in a good classroom that is clean, safe and up to date – is one of the hallmarks of this government.

After four years of, frankly, absolutely nothing, four years of negligence, we hit the ground running, and we have been running ever since. Ten years later we are still investing in existing schools and building new schools. The good Dr Bach used to frequently accuse us of focusing our new build of schools in Labor seats, ignoring the fact that virtually all the growth area seats are in fact Labor seats, because people in these growing areas understand that it is a Labor government that actually delivers. I am quick to point out that the electorate of Berwick, which is a Liberal-held seat, is home to the suburb of Clyde North, where all these new schools are being opened. In fact I am quite confident that we are currently building more schools in the Berwick electorate than the previous Liberal government built in the entire state of Victoria. That says everything. They just want to shut them down. They do not want to invest. Education is the most important thing that we can do to set up our kids for their future.

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: I am enjoying the various interjections. I am not sure where we are up to with the interjections now. I am not sure what Pepsi has to do with it.

It really underscores the point that whatever regional town, inner-city suburb or, in a region like mine, growing outer suburban area you live in, this is a government that is investing in schools to provide the support that you need. We are providing support in every growth area of this state, with new schools, upgraded roads and new health services. We also opened an early parenting centre in Clyde North just a few weeks ago, a fantastic facility that is going to provide huge amounts of support for new and growing families, especially those that are going through some challenges and especially those who may not have had experience with raising kids; maybe it is their firstborn. For any sort of issues that they have, they can come along to this early parenting centre and get the expert support they need. It is being run by Monash Health. It is a fantastic site. It is also right around the corner from the new Clyde North ambulance station, which has opened and is providing a huge amount of support for that local community as well.

For so long governments not just in this state but across the nation were accused of not doing enough to keep up with the infrastructure. We actually hear those opposite complaining that we are doing too much, but this is a government that will not resile from acting to provide Victorians with the schools, the health services, the transport networks and the other social services that they need. The testament of that is in the economic progress that we have had as a state and, as Mr McIntosh referenced, the record low unemployment rates in regional Victoria. That does not happen by accident; that happens when you have a government that invests in people, that invests in communities, that invests in small business, which some of these regulatory changes will support as well, and ultimately that invests in Victorians.

Those opposite like to claim that we have been in government for 20 of the last 24 years; they never stop to think there might be a reason for that. They never stop to look at themselves and say, ‘What are we doing wrong?’ It is all attack, attack, attack. It is all cut, cut, cut, and that is all it ever will be from them. I commend the bill to the house.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Instruction to committee

The PRESIDENT (11:46): Under standing order 14.11 a member can move to put amendments during committee stage which are deemed by me to be out of scope, so I will now call Dr Ratnam.

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (11:46): I move:

That it be an instruction to the committee that they have power to consider amendments and new clauses to amend the Essential Services Commission Act 2001 to provide for a new function in relation to the operation of supermarkets.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (22): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Katherine Copsey, David Davis, Moira Deeming, David Ettershank, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Sarah Mansfield, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch

Noes (13): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Enver Erdogan, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, Tom McIntosh, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney

Motion agreed to.

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.