Wednesday, 19 March 2025

Victorian Auditor-General’s Office

Major Projects Performance Reporting 2024

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (17:33): The report I want to speak on is the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office Major Projects Performance Reporting 2024 that was tabled in the Parliament recently. That was subject to quite a number of days of news stories, but I think today is an important day to recap and discuss why a lot of these blowouts are happening. We know that the government does not have the processes in place within the bureaucracy to be able to properly audit project performance. The recommendations for more thorough performance reporting were actually dismissed by the Department of Transport and Planning, the very department that is meant to be overseeing a lot of our big builds. Is there any wonder why we have had about $50 billion of cost blowouts over the last 10 years when the department of the minister in charge takes such a lax approach to reporting on major projects. The report revealed that major project costs increased by $11.66 billion, 53 of 113 projects collectively exceeded their original budgets by $14.9 billion and there was an 8.7 per cent increase in total estimated investment required for 113 projects. The Suburban Rail Loop East blew out by $300 million in the early works stage, and we were chatting about the Suburban Rail Loop earlier today.

We know that the report says that public reporting on major projects is not ‘meaningful, reliable or comprehensive’. Internal analysis of project performance is often high quality and meaningful, but not actually publicly reported by this government. So if the government had a little more transparency and if the government opened the doors, we might not see the decay which we see on our construction sites today, and the Liberals and Nationals have suggested a standing infrastructure major projects committee of the Parliament to scrutinise major projects. Every taxpayer dollar lost to waste is a tax increase on hardworking Victorians, is a rent increase on renters, is a tax increase on rental providers and is a tax increase that goes directly onto your energy bills and that directly impacts the cost-of-living crisis we are facing now. Is it any wonder? With the antics we saw today, members on the other side blocked a simple call for a royal commission. We saw those opposite side with criminals and underworld thugs by blocking a call for a royal commission into alleged criminal behaviour on construction sites. We saw allegations in particular about the abuse of women, where women were beaten up by militant union thugs, locked in rooms and stomped on. When those women, at least three of them, went to report the behaviour of union thugs on construction sites to their women’s officer, it was not taken further up the chain. The victims of these abuses were kicked off those construction sites and blacklisted from every other taxpayer-funded construction site. So if you report abuse, you lose your entire career.

The standard we walk past is the standard we accept, and the standard those opposite accept on our construction sites is an abysmal record of blowouts and failure. We see underworld bosses profiting from major projects – fleecing money. Even motorcycle gang members that were banned from construction sites and kicked off construction sites are still earning, through subcontractors, $11,000 a week for sitting at home. This is what happens under this government. Again, we need more reporting on major projects, better project reporting and better scrutiny. We have announced we will bring back the construction code with construction enforcement Victoria to ensure we better manage our major projects and keep them away from this thuggery we have seen in the media in the past week and in the past year.