Thursday, 17 October 2024

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (10:17): Eighty years ago Robert Menzies convened a meeting not far from Parliament House in Canberra and formed the Liberal Party. Since that time the Liberal Party has delivered many things, but most notably and what Victorians know is that the Liberals are good economic managers. The economic stability that Liberal governments have provided is an anathema to this state Labor government, which has racked up debt. Due to financial incompetence the burden to pay down that debt has landed on hardworking Victorians, who are being taxed at levels never seen before. But it is not only current Victorian taxpayers footing the bill for Jacinta Allan’s and Labor’s incompetence, it is going to be generations of Victorians who will be paying the price. Labor’s 55 new or increased taxes are killing aspiration, killing confidence in business and driving our great state backwards.

It has been Jacinta Allan over the last 10 years who has presided over financial waste and mismanagement, with project blow-outs, corruption rife within state government run infrastructure projects, a health system lurching from crisis to crisis, an energy crisis, an education system that is far from providing students with best opportunities and a community that has never felt less safe. Jacinta Allan has conned Victorians more than once, whether that be the Commonwealth Games debacle or the current appalling plans for dozens of high-rise towers – some 20 storeys and above – that will be built across our suburbs. Jacinta Allan and Labor never went to the last state election telling Victorians that huge swathes of our community will be covered with high-rise developments, and Labor did not tell the community and local councils that they would have no say. But this is Labor – they con, they tax, they blame and they disregard – (Time expired)