Legislative Assembly Hansard - Tuesday 26 October 2021
Legislative Assembly Hansard
Tuesday 26 October 2021

Tuesday, 26 October 2021

The SPEAKER (Hon. Colin Brooks) took the chair at 9.02 am and read the prayer.

Announcements

Acknowledgement of country

The SPEAKER (09:03): We acknowledge the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land on which we are meeting. We pay our respects to them, their culture, their elders past, present and future, and elders from other communities who may be here today.

Business of the house

Standing and sessional orders

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (09:03): I move, by leave:

That the resolution of the House agreed to on Thursday 7 October 2021 setting temporary arrangements be revoked and that so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended to allow the following arrangements to come into effect immediately and to remain in place until 29 October 2021:

Order of business

(1) The order of business is:

Tuesday

Formal business

Statements by members

Government business

Question time—2.00 pm

Government business continued

Wednesday

Formal business

Statements by members

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Government business

Lunch break and cleaning in the Chamber—1.00 pm to 2.00 pm

Question time—2.00 pm

Government business continued

Matter of public importance or grievance debate—4.00 pm

Government business continued

Thursday

Formal business

Statements by members

Government business

Lunch break and cleaning in the Chamber—1.00 pm to 2.00 pm

Question time—2.00 pm

Government business continued.

(2) On Tuesday 26 October 2021, the Chair will interrupt business under Sessional Order 2(1)(a) at 4.00 pm.

(3) The processes for interruptions under Sessional Orders 2 and 3(4) apply at the times set out in paragraphs (1) and (2).

Cleaning in the Chamber

(4) The Speaker may order additional breaks to facilitate cleaning in the Chamber.

Face masks in the Chamber

(5) Members must wear face masks in the Chamber except when they have the call to speak or if an exception applies.

Lower public galleries deemed part of Chamber and reduced numbers of members to assist with physical distancing

(6) The lower public galleries are included as part of the Legislative Assembly Chamber at all times other than when a division or vote is taking place under paragraphs (12) or (14).

(7) Subject to paragraphs (11), (12) and (14), the House will be composed of the Chair and no more than 29 other members, being:

(a) 13 from the Government, seven from the Opposition, one Greens member and three independent members on the floor of the Chamber; and

(b) three from the Government and two from the Opposition in the lower public galleries.

(8) Except as provided for in paragraphs (11), (12) and (14), if more members than those listed in paragraph (7) vote in a division, the Clerk will not count their vote.

Quorum

(9) The House gives the Chair further discretion in ringing the bells to form a quorum under SO 29, provided the Chair is confident that a quorum is present within the parliamentary precinct.

(10) If, under paragraph (9) and SO 29(1), the bells are rung to form a quorum, the provisions under paragraph (7) are suspended until a quorum is formed.

(11) If, under SO 29(2), there is found not to be a quorum during a division:

(a) the provisions under paragraph (7) are suspended;

(b) the bells must be rung for a further four minutes;

(c) the Chamber will be composed of the Chair and no more than 40 other members, being 23 from the Government, 13 from the Opposition, one Greens member and three independent members for the remainder of the sitting day; and

(d) if more members than those listed in subparagraph (c) vote in the division, the Clerk will not count their vote.

Divisions

(12) For questions relating to the passage of bills on the government business program, the provisions of paragraph (7) are suspended and divisions will take place as follows:

(a) the Chair will direct that the lower public galleries be cleared for the duration of the division;

(b) members will vote in up to four voting groups;

(c) for each voting group:

(i) no more than 24 members, in addition to the Chair, the Leader of the House and Manager of Opposition Business (or their representatives), will be permitted into the Chamber;

(ii) the Chair will direct that the doors be locked and state the question being voted on;

(iii) the Chair will ask members who are voting ‘aye’ to stand in their place and, in turn, will ask members who are voting ‘no’ to stand in their place;

(iv) the Clerk will count the votes and the Chair will announce the number of votes cast for the ‘ayes’ and ‘noes’ in that group;

(v) subject to subparagraph (e), all members except the Chair must then leave the Chamber;

(vi) the Chair will then ask the Clerk to ring the bells for one minute to call members to the Chamber for the next voting group, or to resume the make up of the Chamber as set out in paragraph (7), as required;

(d) subject to subparagraph (e), members will only be permitted to enter the Chamber once for each division and any member present in the Chamber must vote;

(e) the Leader of the House and Manager of Opposition Business, or their representatives, may remain in the Chamber for the entirety of the division, but can only stand to vote in one group; and

(f) at the conclusion of the four voting groups, the Chair will announce the result of the division.

Register of opinion on division questions

(13) If a division has taken place, a member who is in attendance and not currently suspended by the house for the division can register their opinion on the question:

(a) any members wishing to do so must notify the Clerk in writing of their opinion (either ‘aye’ or ‘no’) by no later than one hour after the division has been completed; and

(b) any such opinion will be published, separately from the results of the vote, in Hansard and the Votes and Proceedings.

Bills requiring an absolute or special majority on third reading

(14) Where the Chair advises the House that the third reading of a bill requires an absolute or special majority (or both) under the Constitution Act 1975, the provisions of paragraph (7) are suspended and the following procedure will apply:

(a) the Chair will direct that the lower public galleries be cleared for the duration of the division;

(b) the Chair will announce that an absolute or special majority (or both) is required on the third reading and put the third reading question;

(c) if there are voices for the ‘noes’ and a division is called:

(i) the division will be conducted according to the provisions of paragraph (12);

(ii) after announcing the result of the division according to subparagraph (12)(f), the Chair will declare whether the third reading passed by an absolute and/or special majority of the whole number of the members of the Legislative Assembly;

if there are no voices for the ‘noes’, the Chair will establish whether an absolute and/or special majority has been achieved as follows:

members will vote in up to four voting groups;

for each voting group:

no more than 24 members, in addition to the Chair, the Leader of the House and Manager of Opposition Business (or their representatives), will be permitted into the Chamber;

the Chair will direct that the doors be locked and state the question being voted on;

the Chair will ask members voting ‘aye’ to stand in their place;

the Clerk will count the votes and the Chair will announce the number of votes cast for the ‘ayes’ in that group;

subject to subparagraph (iv), all members except the Chair must then leave the Chamber;

the Chair will then ask the Clerk to ring the bells for one minute to call members to the Chamber for the next voting group, or to resume the make up of the Chamber as set out in paragraph (7), as required;

subject to subparagraph (iv), members will only be permitted to enter the Chamber once for each question on the third reading requiring an absolute and/or special majority;

the Leader of the House and Manager of Opposition Business, or their representatives, may remain in the Chamber for the entirety of the vote, but can only stand to vote in one group; and

at the conclusion of the four voting groups, the Chair will announce the number of members who voted ‘aye’ and declare whether the third reading passed by an absolute and/or special majority of the whole number of the members of the Legislative Assembly.

I appreciate the leave of the house to put the motion for these arrangements for this sitting week. I have just a couple of brief observations, again acknowledging the cooperative approach across the chamber to putting arrangements in place with the opposition and crossbench. I am sure colleagues will have noted, and hopefully welcomed, that we are sitting a full deck of hours this week—full sitting week hours—and that is terrific because particularly this week we have got a lot of legislation and a lot of things to discuss. I might save those comments for the government business program in a moment.

The only observation I did want to add was just noting that due to the ongoing settings in the broader community around work arrangements obviously the numbers in this place remain reduced. The motion provides for, I think, no more than 30, including yourself, Speaker, to be in the chamber this week, with the lower galleries being opened up for members.

This is something that obviously will be reviewed between this sitting week and the next sitting week, which is a couple of weeks into November. By that point in November we will have well and truly smashed the 80 per cent double-dose rate here in Victoria and be fast closing in on the 90 per cent double-dose vaccination rate as the Victorian community have had the opportunity to see what that looks like going forward following the Premier’s terrific announcements on Sunday. Given those changes, I want to flag through this forum that I look to having some further conversations with yourself, Speaker, the clerks, the Manager of Opposition Business and the Greens and Independent representatives about what the numbers might look like on the floor of the chamber and whether there is an opportunity—I hope there is—to increase the numbers of MPs able to participate on the floor of the chamber next sitting week. As I said, that is a conversation for us to have between the sitting weeks, but I did just want to flag that.

Other than the reduced numbers arrangements, we are back to pretty much normal in the chamber, which is a terrific outcome for the role that the Parliament has been able to play in operating successfully throughout the course of the pandemic, but it is also a terrific recognition that Victorians have got out and got those vaccinations—got those jabs in arms—and we are able to start to return many of our settings back to more normal-like conditions. With those comments, I commend the motion to the house and again am thankful for the terrific cooperation we have had across the chamber—the Manager of Opposition Business, the Greens and the crossbench—to get to this point.

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (09:07): I also want to make some brief comments on the sitting arrangements motion moved by the Leader of the House. I think the Leader of the House knows ‘terrific cooperation’ and ‘cooperative’ are trigger words for the Leader of The Nationals, and if there is one way to ensure that I will not remain in this role, it is to note how cooperative we have been. However, I do come to this sitting arrangements motion noting that we have got back a number of speaking opportunities—in fact all of our speaking opportunities—in this chamber, which is something that we have been asking for for some time. We are pleased to be able to return to having all of those important opportunities for all members to speak up for their constituents in constituency questions, adjournments and members statements. I am sure we will all, across the chamber and across the house, be taking every opportunity to do so this week. I also note that there are slightly increased numbers in the chamber this week. I would have every expectation that, given this motion has an end date of 29 October, this may be the last time we have a sitting arrangements motion and we can in fact go back to sessional orders next sitting week, so I will be hoping that we get there.

In terms of the other changes, of course we are back to normal hours in terms of the numbers of hours. We are sitting at 9 o’clock this morning because we agreed two weeks ago that the house would come back at 9.00 am, and so we have, but given that this arrangements motion that we are debating expires on 29 October, I would therefore assume that we will be able to come back at the normal time of midday next sitting week. Beyond that, as the Leader of the House said, we have no problems with this motion, and we will not oppose it.

Motion agreed to.

The SPEAKER: I just want to thank again the Leader of the House, the Manager of Opposition Business, other members and the clerks and parliamentary staff for sorting through those arrangements and making sure we are able to sit.

Bills

Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021

Introduction and first reading

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (09:09): I move:

That I introduce a bill for an act to amend the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 in relation to the effective management of pandemics and for other purposes.

Motion agreed to.

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (09:10): I ask for a brief explanation of the bill.

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (09:10): This is a bill to introduce fit-for-purpose, pandemic-specific provisions to manage the ongoing pandemic and for future pandemics, to amend the Public Health and Wellbeing Act accordingly and also amend fines arrangements and for other purposes.

Read first time.

Ordered to be read second time tomorrow.

Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2021

Introduction and first reading

Ms HORNE (Williamstown—Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Fishing and Boating) (09:11): I move:

That I introduce a bill for an act to amend Victorian casino and gambling legislation to implement recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence, strengthen the oversight and regulation of casino operators and establish the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission and for other purposes.

Motion agreed to.

Read first time.

Ordered to be read second time tomorrow.

Justice Legislation Amendment (Criminal Procedure Disclosure and Other Matters) Bill 2021

Introduction and first reading

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (09:12): Representing the Minister for Corrections, I move:

That I introduce a bill for an act to amend the Criminal Procedure Act 2009 in relation to disclosure obligations and applications for orders relating to non-disclosure, to amend the Magistrates’ Court Act 1989, the Supreme Court Act 1986, the Constitution Act 1975 and other acts in relation to dual commission holders, to amend the Criminal Procedure Act 2009 and the Victims’ Charter Act 2006 in relation to sentence indications, to amend the Personal Safety Intervention Orders Act 2010 in relation to applications for personal safety intervention orders, to amend the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 in relation to the Family Division of the Children’s Court and to amend the Criminal Procedure Act 2009 and the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 in relation to giving evidence remotely in certain proceedings and for other purposes.

Motion agreed to.

Read first time.

Ordered to be read second time tomorrow.

Members

Member for Forest Hill

Suspension

The Clerk: A resolution of the house from Thursday, 14 October, required members to provide me with proof of first dose of COVID vaccination by 15 October or proof of exception. Any members in breach of the order stand suspended from the chamber and the precinct. The resolution also requires me to report to the house any cases of non-compliance and subsequent suspension. I advise the house that the member for Forest Hill has not complied with the order of the house and is suspended accordingly.

Petitions

Following petitions presented to house by Clerk:

Seaford noise mitigation

The Petition of certain citizens of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the Legislative Assembly that LXRA have no plans to provide mitigation for noise, for the Ultimate Kananook Train Stabling Facility in Seaford. Noise in this 24/7 facility will be continuous and close to residents and the Seaford/Edithvale Ramsar Listed Wetlands. Operational noise includes: The Safety Check (idling train for 5 minutes, test brakes and horn) shunting trains, horns sounding, air conditioning for maintenance shed, staff amenities and administration buildings, two outside train washes, pneumatic tools, forklifts and accelerating trucks, roof mounted exhaust fans, internal cleaning and maintenance in trains as the air conditioning—12 units per train—must run. Health complications of noise for the community as noted by the World Health Organisation: sleep disturbances, learning disorder and cognitive impairment, heart disease and stroke. Health affects for the birds who migrate to reproduce in the RAMSAR listed wetlands nearby: Birds unable to detect danger from predators as they use their hearing, The mothers of the migratory birds become stressed by noise which affects the chicks birth weight and the number of chicks the bird will have, thus their reproduction rate decreases.

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative the Assembly of Victoria direct LXRA to provide mitigation for the noise generated by the operational procedures at the Kananook Train Stabling Facility in Seaford.

By Mr BURGESS (Hastings) (42 signatures)

COVID-19

The Petition of certain citizens of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the Legislative Assembly the plight of the residents of the Mornington Peninsula Shire. There have been 1.2 cases of Covid‐19 per thousand residents in the Mornington Peninsula Shire compared with 3.9 cases per thousand in the City of Greater Geelong. Despite having more than three times as many cases per resident, the City of Greater Geelong is classified as regional for the purposes of the Directions of the Chief Health Officer, and has been locked down for a fraction of the time that residents of the Mornington Peninsula have endured. Residents of Geelong, as a regional council, are eligible for higher first home buyers grants, lower payroll tax, and lower stamp duty charges. Residents of Mornington Peninsula, as a metro Council, are not. The Peninsula is not an extension of the metropolitan area. The standard of government services on the Mornington Peninsula is not up to metropolitan standards. The interests of the Peninsula are complementary to the metropolitan area, but different. It is time to recognise the differences and re‐classify the Peninsula as regional.

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Assembly direct the Premier to immediately exclude the Mornington Peninsula from metropolitan Melbourne for the purposes of the Covid‐19 lockdowns, and to recognise the Mornington Peninsula as a non‐metropolitan Council for all other reasons.

By Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (48 signatures)

Morwell electorate hospice

The Petition of certain citizens of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the Legislative Assembly the absence of a dedicated hospice facility in the Latrobe Valley and Gippsland region. Improvements to end of life care were highlighted in 2019 by the Latrobe Health Advocate with the number one recommendation being to establish a dedicated hospice for the Gippsland region. The former Hazelwood House aged care facility located in Churchill currently remains vacant and would be ideally placed to be converted into a hospice. Other Latrobe Valley based localities could also be considered. With an already established care facility available and overwhelming community support the petitioners call upon the State Government to deliver a dedicated hospice that would benefit Gippsland residents and the loved ones of those receiving end of life care.

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Assembly call upon the Minister for Health to explore the option of converting the former Churchill Hazelwood House aged care facility into a dedicated hospice facility, or to find another suitable location within the Latrobe Valley and Gippsland region for the purposes of building a hospice as recommended by the Latrobe Health Advocate.

By Mr NORTHE (Morwell) (338 signatures)

Zero emissions target advertising

The Petition of certain citizens of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the Legislative Assembly THAT the advertising claims of a growing number of big companies that “they will reach zero carbon dioxide emissions by a certain future date” is wrong and should be named as highly misleading advertising .

Such virtue signalling is misleading and cannot be supported by thinking Australian taxpayers because to achieve such a claim, on their behalf, would require;

- The economic cooperation of a large number of other companies, government and people.

- The above cooperation could be expected to involve substantial financial and other commitments by groups and individuals other than their own

- the means by which sound scientific processes and technologies would be applied to reach such a target is not known or identified at this time.

- To achieve that goal would require the commitment of all future board and share members till the set date.

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative the Assembly of Victoria debate the advertising of zero emission targets by big companies and to seek to challenge the growing amounts of virtue signalling misinformation by advertisers in this country.

By Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (2 signatures)

Tabled.

Ordered that petition lodged by member for Hastings be considered next day on motion of Mr BURGESS (Hastings).

Committees

Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee

Alert Digest No. 14

Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (09:15): I have the honour to present to the house a report from the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, being Alert Digest No. 14 of 2021, on the following bills:

Domestic Animals Amendment (Reuniting Pets and Other Matters) Bill 2021

Local Government Amendment (Rates and Charges) Bill 2021

Planning and Environment Amendment Bill 2021

Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021

Special Investigator Bill 2021

Terrorism (Community Protection) Amendment Bill 2021

Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021

Water and Catchment Legislation Amendment Bill 2021

Windfall Gains Tax and State Taxation and Other Acts Further Amendment Bill 2021

together with appendices.

Ordered to be published.

Documents

Documents

Incorporated list as follows:

DOCUMENTS TABLED UNDER ACTS OF PARLIAMENT—The Clerk tabled the following documents under Acts of Parliament:

Financial Management Act 1994—Financial Report 2020–21 for the State of Victoria, incorporating Quarterly Financial Report No 4—Ordered to be published

Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission—Operation Turon: An investigation into alleged misconduct by a former Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner—Ordered to be published

Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984—Notice under s 32(3)(a)(iii) in relation to Statutory Rule 92 (Gazette G41, 14 October 2021)

Planning and Environment Act 1987—Notices of approval of amendments to the following Planning Schemes:

Boroondara—C363

Campaspe—GC151

Cardinia—C264

Casey—GC182

Central Goldfields—C31

Frankston—GC182

Greater Bendigo—C235

Greater Shepparton—C231, GC151

Hume—C247

Moonee Valley—C211

Queenscliffe—C33

Surf Coast—C124, C127

Swan Hill—C73

Wangaratta—C76

Whittlesea—C255

Wyndham—C236

Yarra—C272, C288, C296

Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence—Report (three volumes)—Ordered to be published

Statutory Rules under the following Acts:

Building Act 1993—SR 128

Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981—SR 127

Subordinate Legislation Act 1994:

Documents under s 15 in relation to Statutory Rules 127, 128

Documents under s 16B in relation to the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981:

Secretary Approval: Nurse Immunisers—SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Vaccine

Secretary Approval: Pharmacist Immuniser—SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Vaccine

Victorian Government Purchasing Board—Report 2020–21

Victorian Multicultural Commission—Report 2020–21

Victorian Racing Integrity Board—Report 2020–21.

PROCLAMATIONS—Under Standing Order 177A, the Clerk tabled the following proclamations fixing operative dates:

Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021—Part 5 and ss 1 and 2—26 October 2021 (Gazette S580, 19 October 2021)

Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Fairness) Act 2021—Part 1, Division 4 of Part 2 and Division 4 of Part 3—25 October 2021 (Gazette S579, 19 October 2021)

Transport Legislation Miscellaneous Amendments Act 2021—Part 7, Division 2 of Part 8 and ss 101 and 102—3 November 2021 (Gazette S578, 19 October 2021).

DOCUMENT TABLED UNDER A RESOLUTION OF THE HOUSE—The Clerk tabled the following document:

Parliamentary Integrity Adviser—Report 2020–21.

Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence

Report of the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence

Ms HORNE (Williamstown—Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Fishing and Boating) (09:18): I table, by leave, the government response to the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence report.

Ordered to be published.

Bills

Firearms and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2021

Council’s agreement

The SPEAKER (09:18): I wish to advise the house that I have received a message from the Legislative Council agreeing to be Firearms and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2021 without amendment.

Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment Bill 2021

Building Amendment (Registration and Other Matters) Bill 2021

Essential Services Commission (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill 2021

Great Ocean Road and Environs Protection Amendment Bill 2021

Suburban Rail Loop Bill 2021

Royal assent

The SPEAKER (09:19): I also wish to advise the house that the Governor has given royal assent to the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment Bill 2021, the Building Amendment (Registration and Other Matters) Bill 2021, the Essential Services Commission (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill 2021, the Great Ocean Road and Environs Protection Amendment Bill 2021 and the Suburban Rail Loop Bill 2021.

Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021

Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021

Special Investigator Bill 2021

Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021

Windfall Gains Tax and State Taxation and Other Acts Further Amendment Bill 2021

Appropriation

The SPEAKER (09:19): I have received messages from the Governor recommending appropriations for the purposes of the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021, the Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021, the Special Investigator Bill 2021, the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021 and the Windfall Gains Tax and State Taxation and Other Acts Further Amendment Bill 2021.

Joint sitting of Parliament

Senate vacancy

The SPEAKER (09:19): I wish to also advise the house that I have received a letter from the Governor transmitting a dispatch from the Governor-General notifying of a vacancy in the representation of the state of Victoria in the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia through the resignation of the Honourable Senator Scott Ryan on 12 October 2021.

Motions

Standing and sessional orders

Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (09:20): I desire to move, by leave:

That this house agrees to the following changes to the standing and sessional orders to come into effect on the next sitting day:

(1) Omit standing orders 37, 38 and 39 and insert:

37. Non-government business

Non-government business includes notices of motion and orders of the day moved by members who are not members of the party or coalition in government.

38. Order of consideration of non-government business

(1) Before the house meets in any week representatives of the non-government parties and Independents may meet and agree which items of non-government business the house will consider that week;

(2) On the first sitting day of the week a member who is not a member of the party or coalition in government may move without notice or leave a motion specifying items of non-government business to have precedence on the next sitting day;

(a) The debate will last for 30 minutes or until six members have spoken, whichever is the shorter;

(3) Over the course of a Parliament the specified items proposed by each non-government party and Independent member must be proportional to the number of Independent members and members representing non-government parties in the house;

(4) If a motion is not moved or agreed to, the house will consider non-government business in the order it is set down on the notice paper under general business.

39. Time for non-government business

(1) Every sitting Wednesday at 2.00 pm the house will consider non-government business for 3 hours.

(2) At 2.00 pm every sitting Wednesday:

Unless a division is taking place, the Chair will interrupt the business before the house and the bells are then rung for 1 minute;

If a division is taking place when the time for interruption arises:

The division will be completed without interruption and the result announced;

If the division is on a closure motion and the motion is agreed to, the question or questions then required to be put to close the issue before the house will also be dealt with;

Business is then interrupted according to subparagraph (a); and

Any business under discussion and not completed at the interruption will be resumed immediately at the end of non-government business, and any member speaking at the time of the interruption may then continue their speech.

(iii) Debate on each motion considered during general business will have an overall time limit of 90 minutes with the following speaking times to apply:

Mover: 15 minutes;

Lead speaker in response from the government: 15 minutes;

Any other member: 10 minutes;

Mover in reply: 5 minutes.

At the end of the allocated time for the motion the Chair will immediately put the questions on any amendments and the motion;

(iv) The time limits for private members bills under standing order 31 apply to debate on bills during general business.

(2) Omit paragraphs (3) to (5) of sessional order 3 and insert:

(3) So much of standing orders 36 and 41 be suspended so as to enable the following order of business:

On Wednesdays

Formal business

Disallowance motions

Statements by members

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Government business

Question time 11.00 am

Government business continued

Non-government business 2.00 pm

Government business continued

General business

Thursdays and Fridays

Formal business

Statements by members

Government business

Question time 11.00 am

Government business continued

General business

Leave refused.

Business of the house

Program

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (09:24): I move:

That, under standing order 94(2), the orders of the day, government business, relating to the following bills be considered and completed by 5.00 pm on Thursday, 28 October 2021:

Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021

Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021

Special Investigator Bill 2021

Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021

Windfall Gains Tax and State Taxation and Other Acts Further Amendment Bill 2021.

I am very pleased to put this government business program to the house this morning, and as the house will note, it is an action-packed government business program. It contains five bills, all of which contain significant work that has gone on across the government, across departments and in consultation with the Victorian community whilst at the same time we have been needing to manage the challenges of the global pandemic. I look forward to considerable debate. I know there is a lot of interest in each of these bills because they do contain, as I said, important policy reform—long overdue reform, you could say, in the case of the Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021, a big piece of work that has been worked on for a number of years now that will bring significant changes and improvements in the conditions for sex workers in our community—including the work on the mental health and wellbeing bill, establishing the collaborative centre. The government has moved very quickly on implementing the recommendations—each and every one of the recommendations—of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. Not everyone in this place can say that they fully support the royal commission recommendations on mental health. We can, and we moved very quickly on those elements that require legislative change, and it is great to see the debate this week on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing.

There is also the windfall gains tax and state taxation reform bill—again, an important reform. It is a difficult reform and complex work. We appreciate that there are elements in some of the community who are not supportive of this, but these are reforms that are necessary to support the ongoing operation of the state, supporting and understanding the need to improve and strengthen the taxation base here in the state, particularly at a time when reform seems to be something going begging in the federal arena, where they have the big levers to control taxation policy and to control housing policy. Sadly, reform is going lacking on that front, and I really do commend the Treasurer for the great work he is doing on that front.

Finally, the public health and wellbeing amendment bill, and colleagues will note that this is an addition to the government business program that was advised on Thursday afternoon in the usual way. The government has made a decision to have the bill introduced into the Parliament this week and debated in the Assembly this week to have certainty around the debate on this bill, and as I said, to be optimistic around the passage of this bill through the Parliament. We have three sitting weeks remaining in the Parliament. This is a big bill, and it does require that appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. At the same time, it is a bill that has gone through extensive consultation, both externally to this place and internally in this place as well. I will not stray into the content of the bill, obviously—this is a procedural debate. But I do note that there were those in this Parliament who put their hand up and said, ‘Yes, we want to work with the government. We want to work through the challenges on this bill’, and there were those who did not. There were those who were given the opportunity and who walked away from the challenge and preferred to take the hysterical low road as we have seen today.

It is also in recognition of the need to put this bill in place for certainty in terms of its passage through the Parliament. It is important for certainty in the broader Victorian community. We are fast approaching 80 per cent fully vaccinated rates in the Victorian community, and we will soon fast close on 90 per cent as well. We have said for some time now—for many, many months; indeed probably the best part of a year—that we have recognised that the pandemic framework that was in place and that we have been working under needed reform and needed to be modernised. I think it is to the tremendous credit of our Minister for Health, who has had the challenge of leading the work of the government through the pandemic and working with the federal government on helping them to fix the challenges with the vaccine rollout, that he has also had the time to institute significant reform that has gone through extensive consultation with members of the Parliament and also the broader Victorian community. It is a consequence of that work that we can bring it to the Parliament this week.

So I commend the motion to the house. I look forward to its support across the chamber, noting that we have got a big and busy legislative program for this week that reflects the government’s desire to continue to reform and to continue to govern for the whole of the state.

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (09:29): I rise to speak on the government business program. And so it begins: the government has just first read a bill moments ago that, if reports are to be believed, will introduce draconian and wideranging powers, and the Leader of the House now comes to the government business program and attempts to put this on the government business program. No notice was given before now to the Parliament that this was coming. The discussion was there were going to be four bills, and now she seeks to put a fifth bill on. And it is not just any bill. It is not a minor bill. It is not a simple bill. It is not one that does something that is perhaps technical. This is a major, major piece of legislation, a huge piece of legislation that will, if reports are to be believed, transfer significant powers to one man. And yet we have just been told we are going to ram it through the Assembly this week, so it will be second read tomorrow and presumably debated tomorrow or Thursday. Where is the consultation on that bill? Where is the ability for members of the Assembly to go to their communities? We have not formally seen the bill yet. How are we meant to consult with people on a bill? This goes against the forms of the house. I have repeatedly railed against this government riding roughshod over the forms of the house and the traditional two-week provision that bills lie on the table. And this is a big one. It is not a little one, this is a big one. With that, I move:

That the government business program moved by the Leader of the House be amended by omitting the order of the day, government business, relating to the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021.

That bill should not be on this government business program. There is no way the government can argue there has been proper consultation, any sort of consultation. The Leader of the House got up and tried to say that if you are a crossbencher or a party in the other place that had supported their extensions of the state of emergency—extensions that went on and on and on—therefore that dealt you into being able to be consulted on this bill. So that means she has just admitted that three Victorians—three Victorians out of the total millions of Victorians—have been consulted on this government’s draconian bill. I mean, I am not even clear that the government’s backbench has seen this bill before this morning.

Therefore to bring it on today—not a simple bill, not something that is without controversy; the government knows that this is a controversial and widely condemned act that they are seeking to bring into this place—and then to put it on the government business program so it is going to be rammed through the Assembly in three days, is disgraceful, utterly disgraceful. It goes to the heart of what is wrong with this government when it comes to matters of propriety, matters of procedure, matters of openness, transparency and good government. It just has none anymore. The amount of hubris in this government—they think they can do whatever they like because they have the numbers in this place and, as the Leader of the House has admitted, they expect to have the numbers in the other place because they have corralled those three so-called Independents to vote with them yet again. The Labor-voting Independents will be again nailing their colours to the mast with Labor, and Victorians will not be forgetting this. They will not forget who is going to stand up on which side for this terrible, terrible piece of legislation that the government proposes to put to the Parliament this week with no consultation.

This is a moment for everybody in this Parliament to decide. This is a moment: do you stand with the longstanding democratic norms of this place, norms that require decisions to go through cabinet, norms that require major decisions that lock people down, that restrict their movements, to go through the Parliament? All of those things are basic democratic norms, you would have thought, in a place like Victoria. But, oh no, this government wants to ride roughshod over them with this bill, and it is starting today by trying to run it through the Parliament in three days—no ability for anybody to go and get consultation with our people or any other person that might be interested.

Mr CARBINES (Ivanhoe) (09:34): I am pleased and indebted to the member for Frankston, who drew my attention to several comments that I think are relevant following on from the Manager of Opposition Business in relation to comments from the member for Bulleen in relation to a matter that is on the government business program that we seek support for, the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021. Well, he said:

Those who make these decisions—politicians—should be ultimately accountable for them …

As a general principle, I think [public health orders] should be ticked off by a minister or the Premier.

When it’s a minister or a politician, we are responsible and we are accountable to the people, and I think during a pandemic, making legislation that is so wide-reaching, they should be accountable, and those decisions should be accountable to the people …

et cetera, et cetera. All those points were made by the member for Bulleen—again, the very fact of the matter that we are debating this week on the government business program, the health and wellbeing amendment bill. As the member for Frankston has pointed out with regard to those comments, we actually agree with the Leader of the Opposition when he says the public health orders should be signed off by a minister or the Premier. That is why we are introducing pandemic-specific legislation, just as we promised to do. After examining the powers in other jurisdictions, like New South Wales and New Zealand, and working through the issues with an independent panel, we have introduced this particular bill so that we will be able, through the government business program, to manage pandemics in the future and to keep Victorians safe.

I will also reflect—and I will pick up on these comments in my contribution on that amendment bill, when hopefully the government business program is passed today—that back in 2008, when work was done by the Bracks government and then the Brumby government to introduce the Public Health and Wellbeing Bill off the back of many infectious diseases like SARS and others, this was far-sighted legislation. Our government and our Parliament and our Victorian people have been able to rely on it as a steady guide and a steady authority to be able to provide support and advice through public health advice and the legislative framework that was enacted back in 2008, and we have been able to draw on it for just the type of pandemic that we have had to deal with, which was unprecedented not only here but across the world. That legislation introduced in 2008 shows the very foresighted nature of Labor governments and the work of our now Premier, then Minister for Health, in driving through that legislation and being able to rely on it to navigate our way through the pandemic and keep Victorians safe.

I certainly commend the business program. I commend that amendment bill, which picks up further on our work in 2008 to lay the groundwork and to give us a legislative framework to guide and drive our support to keep Victorians safe through the pandemic. And now of course as we come out the other side there is the opportunity to further amend and make changes, through our lived experiences through the pandemic, around that Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008. It is all very sensible and all very orderly and picks up, I think, the contrast with the hysterical claims from those opposite, particularly when they talk about draconian powers, when really they are quoting themselves and their own claims about what they think may or may not be the basis of the amendment bill.

Further—and I know other colleagues of mine will speak further to those matters—be very clear: this picks up on our work back in 2008, our far-sighted plans around potential future public health crises that we may need to deal with and the capacity to pick up and run with that through a pandemic. And now we are offering an opportunity with the amendment bill that we seek to address in the business program this week to further fine-tune and build on the gains and the supports and the safety arrangements that we have had in place, as we break out of many of the restrictions that have kept Victorians safe, and to steer a clear path that keeps our people safe in the months and the years ahead. All of that stems from work that Labor governments have done, Labor governments have driven and this Parliament has affirmed time and time again.

Can I give, further, my acknowledgement and thanks to parliamentary staff and MPs as we also now move away from a lot of online arrangements in the Parliament, and that has been flagged of course by the Leader of the House in relation to moving back to full contributions in the chamber and negotiation and discussions to move to larger numbers of MPs in the house. The opportunities that have been provided to many members both to contribute written contributions and to contribute online have been useful and will stand the house in good stead and the Parliament in good stead in the future. I commend the work of parliamentary staff and MPs and their electorate officers for the work that they have done to continue to contribute to put a voice forward for the people in their electorates and for the way the Parliament has operated. I commend the business program and the very significant bills that we will be debating this week.

Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (09:39): Eight months this government has had to deal with the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment Act 2008 and the state of emergency, and yet here we are, with only three sitting weeks to go, and the government introduces what can only be described, member for Ivanhoe, as draconian legislation. It expects this house to pass it within a couple of days, expects this house to just throw out all of the democratic norms that we are used to and expects the people of Victoria just to roll over and accept what the Premier says.

This is just extraordinary. It is extraordinary, but it is also no surprise because we are very used to, particularly in the last two years, this government just telling Victorians and telling this Parliament what it will do. This is not a democracy at the moment. This is the Premier telling Victorians and telling this Parliament what to do. We hear the Leader of the House say that there has been ‘extensive consultation’ on this Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021. Who with? Member for Ripon? No. Member for Gembrook? No. Member for Warrandyte? Member for Shepparton? Did the member for Morwell or the member for Mildura hear about it? No. Did the Greens? Oh, well maybe the Greens did because the government knows they are a vote they can rely on, so maybe they have had some information on it. We know the member for Ivanhoe has. He says that we should fear nothing. He makes light of what we are calling draconian powers, powers that lock people in their homes, powers that this government is currently saying it is going to use to stop unvaccinated people being involved in the economy for another year. But is it another year? Under this bill that we are proposing to debate this week, is it going to be a year? Is it going to be more? If the Premier has these powers every three months, this could go on forever and ever.

This government seems to have no understanding of the suffering, the pain and the frustration that Victorians have been through. We wake up this morning and hear that the government says, ‘We want to keep going with this. We want the power to continue this’, and that the Premier himself will have the power to continually declare us in a state of pandemic This is the Premier, I remind you, that said just on 18 September:

We have … to normalise this, we have got to pass through and beyond this pandemic.

And yet here he is today introducing legislation and wanting to rush it through on the government business program this week, which will far from normalise it. It will just keep it going and going and going. This is wrong. It is wrong that the government is bringing this in and doing this in the government business program with no notice. The opposition I think got a call last night, offering a briefing on this legislation. We have not seen the bill here in this chamber. It has just been first read by the Minister for Health, and the government now says, ‘We’re going to get it through by Thursday’.

I am speaking a little bit on the bill because I am pretty clear that there is unlikely to be a chance for me to speak on this legislation, because this government will use its numbers to ram through this legislation this week, to quell dissent, to ensure there is no debate and to say again, as it does all the time, ‘It’s our way or the highway’. This is the way this government operates, and the Victorian public is already having its say.

I must say in the last few days I am sure all members have been receiving those emails—‘Make sure you vote against the extension of the state of emergency’, ‘Make sure you vote against the pandemic’. I have got to say, initially you sort of think, ‘Well, guys, you haven’t even seen the legislation. We don’t know what the government’s proposing. It’s a bit early’. I know now why they were in early, because they know that this government operates this way. It is going to just rush this through. There will not be an opportunity to mount a campaign. There will not be an opportunity for those mushrooms on the Labor government backbench to actually hear from their communities about this legislation. The government will simply rush this through this week and quell any dissent.

Now, I bet you there has been no dissent in the government backbench, because they sit there and do what they are told by the Premier. But there is absolutely dissent already in the Victorian community, not from the crazies who are saying that we are running things like a dictatorship but from ordinary everyday Victorians who are worried about the overreach of powers that this government has continually used. This government continually has gone over and above what it needs to do, consistent with and compared to other states, compared to other countries. This government business program is wrong. I support the amendment of the member for Ripon to take out the public health and wellbeing bill from this government business program this week. This is wrong, and I will be opposing this rushed, flawed assault on democracy.

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (09:44): The member for Gippsland South is such a fun guy, isn’t he—just a terrific contribution widely besmirching those sitting on this side of the chamber with vegetable references, of all things.

This is an important government business program. It is a government business program that delivers not just on the circumstances in which we find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, but delivers on a whole range of other commitments, including sex work decriminalisation—a very, very important piece of work—and I commend the minister for bringing this bill to the house. It has been a mighty journey on that one. There is important work around the Special Investigator Bill 2021, important work particularly when members on this side of the chamber all wholeheartedly agree to implementing every single recommendation of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, and that includes establishing a Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing—important work, very important work.

And of course, yes, we have on the government business program now the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021. I accept absolutely that there are a range of views on this bill. Some say that those who make these decisions—politicians—should ultimately be accountable for them. Some say as a general principle, ‘I think these public health orders should be ticked off by a minister or Premier’. Some say when it is a minister or a politician we are responsible and we are accountable to the people, and I think during a pandemic, making legislation that is so wide reaching, they should be accountable and those decisions should be held accountable to the people. That is one view. Another view is that this bill is a very dangerous overreach, placing all power in the Premier with no oversight. That is another view. The problem is that those are views both expressed by the member for Bulleen. So which way does the opposition want it? They say on one hand that these powers ought to be vested in the elected officials of this state, but they also say that it is an overreach and power should not be concentrated in those same elected officials. It is completely absurd. It is hypocrisy of the most extreme type that the opposition can come in here and say, ‘This is draconian. This is an overreach. This is all very unfair’.

These rules respond to the very things that the opposition have been asking for—right up until the moment where is politically inconvenient to do so, and political convenience is the hallmark of this opposition. Political convenience is exactly the modus operandi of this Leader of the Opposition, because on any given day, depending on the way the wind is blowing, that too is the way that the opposition leader will blow. Whether it is on matters of equality—and I know the member for Murray Plains has very strong views on some of those matters—whether it is on those sorts of matters, whether it is on public health and wellbeing matters or whether it is on a whole range of other matters, political expediency is what drives the decision-making or perhaps the lack of collaborative decision-making in those opposite.

This is an important bill. It is a bill that needs to be brought to the house. It is a bill that needs to be debated, and that is exactly what we are doing this week. It is no mystery to people that in contemplating whether you need rolling states of emergency to deal with these things or rather purpose-built pandemic-specific legislation, the latter is preferred, and that is exactly why we are bringing this bill to the house. That is exactly why this bill is being debated, and it is exactly why I am very hopeful that it will attract not just the support of this chamber but also those in the other place.

This is a busy program. We have got a busy run to the line this year, and no surprise, because this is a government that is getting on and delivering for Victorians each and every day. We will not waste the opportunity of sitting on this side of the chamber as those opposite did between 2010 and 2014. We will not waste that opportunity. We will instead focus on delivering for our constituents each and every day we stand here. We have the great honour and the great privilege of being on the Treasury benches, and we will not let that opportunity go to waste. That is why this government business program is ambitious. That is why the legislative program for the remainder of this year is ambitious. This is a government of ambition. It is not a political party that seeks to duck and hide, seeks to weave in and around an issue or to take the politically expedient route or on any given day seeks to contradict itself each and every day that it is in office or, worse, seeks to disparage one another in the most revolting terms, as we heard last week. This is a government that is getting on and getting it done, as is evidenced by this government business program, and I commend most strongly this government business program to the house.

Mr ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (09:49): I also rise to address the government business program, and in doing so I want to say this: the very foundational institution of our democracy, the Parliament, matters. Democracy matters. Freedom matters and must be defended at all costs.

In my first contribution in this place about three years ago I recalled the service and the sacrifice of more than 102 000 Australian men and women who gave of themselves in blood, who paid the ultimate sacrifice, to defend freedom and to defend democracy. And yet the manager of government business comes into this place seeking to, with the fiat of her party, dispose of those traditions, dispose of those foundations, dispose of any community consultation or engagement and dispose of any processes that would otherwise be acceptable to introduce legislation that would surpass and would undermine those freedoms.

Now, in the last 16 hours I have been contacted by hundreds of people, hundreds of Victorians, who have indicated to me that they are worried about the legislation that the government proposes—the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021. In the last 18 months the Premier has wielded unprecedented power to declare pandemics and enforce emergency laws under legislation. This legislation is set to replace Victoria’s controversial state-of-emergency framework, but the nature of this type of bill of course undermines the very fabric of democracy.

We must give Victorians their lives and livelihoods back and rebuild our mutilated economy. When I address these matters I think about those business owners in my own constituency; those mums and dads in my own constituency; those schoolchildren in my own constituency, who I have done my very best to help these past 18 months; those mums who have been in tears, who are deeply concerned about their own children’s mental health; and those children who have been denied the opportunity to be in classes. Face-to-face learning has been denied to those children because of decisions made by this government, and yet the legislation that this government wants to bring into this place gives them more power to do more damage. This must not be accepted. This cannot be accepted. We must do better for all those people who have been affected, whose mental health has been affected, and all those people who have demonstrated that they have no other choice—

A member: Seriously.

Ms Allan: Yes—seriously. On a point of order, Speaker, this is a procedural debate. If the member chooses to make this contribution, he can make it during the debate on the bill. I ask him to come back to the procedural motion that is before the house, not the substance of the public health and wellbeing bill.

The SPEAKER: Order! During this debate members have touched on the content of a number of bills, one bill in particular. Members have been careful to relate those comments back to the government business program. I do ask the member to relate his comments to the business program.

Mr ROWSWELL: The bill proposed on the government business program is one that must be opposed because it has the potential to give the government power which affects people’s lives in a way that is unacceptable. If you wish to see how that power that the government has wielded over people’s lives in the last 18 months is unacceptable, there are many cases in point which I previously attempted to address before I was interrupted by the manager of government business.

These matters are serious. This bill deserves decent consultation, this bill deserves decent scrutiny, and it is my fear that the government will simply not allow that to take place and the effect on the lives of Victorians—those people who are the good people of Victoria who have put us here to represent them and to advocate for them—is that that will not be allowed to take place because of this government’s agenda. I commend the Manager of Opposition Business’s amendment to this motion, and I will be opposing the government business program today.

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the House has moved that five bills be considered and completed by 5.00 pm on Thursday, 28 October. The member for Ripon has moved to omit the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021. The question is:

That the amendment be agreed to.

Members supporting the member for Ripon’s amendment should vote aye.

House divided on question:

Ayes, 10
Battin, Mr Sheed, Ms Staley, Ms
Britnell, Ms Smith, Mr R Wakeling, Mr
O’Brien, Mr D Southwick, Mr Walsh, Mr
Rowswell, Mr
Noes, 16
Allan, Ms Dimopoulos, Mr Kilkenny, Ms
Blandthorn, Ms Edbrooke, Mr Scott, Mr
Bull, Mr J Fowles, Mr Settle, Ms
Carbines, Mr Fregon, Mr Tak, Mr
Cheeseman, Mr Kennedy, Mr Taylor, Mr
Connolly, Ms

Question defeated.

Register of opinion on question

Ayes

Mr Blackwood, Mr T Bull, Mr Burgess, Mr Hodgett, Ms Kealy, Ms McLeish, Mr Morris, Mr Newbury, Mr Northe, Mr M O’Brien, Mr Riordan, Mr Tilley, Ms Vallence, Mr Wells

Noes

Ms Addison, Mr Andrews, Mr Brayne, Mr Carroll, Ms Couzens, Ms Crugnale, Ms D’Ambrosio, Mr Donnellan, Ms Edwards, Mr Foley, Ms Green, Ms Halfpenny, Ms Hall, Mr Halse, Mr Hamer, Ms Hennessy, Ms Horne, Ms Hutchins, Mr Maas, Mr McGhie, Mr McGuire, Mr Merlino, Ms Neville, Mr Pakula, Mr Pallas, Mr Pearson, Ms Richards, Mr Richardson, Ms Spence, Mr Staikos, Ms Suleyman, Ms Theophanous, Ms Thomas, Ms Ward, Ms Williams

House divided on motion:

Ayes, 16
Allan, Ms Dimopoulos, Mr Kilkenny, Ms
Blandthorn, Ms Edbrooke, Mr Scott, Mr
Bull, Mr J Fowles, Mr Settle, Ms
Carbines, Mr Fregon, Mr Tak, Mr
Cheeseman, Mr Kennedy, Mr Taylor, Mr
Connolly, Ms
Noes, 10
Battin, Mr Sheed, Ms Staley, Ms
Britnell, Ms Smith, Mr R Wakeling, Mr
O’Brien, Mr D Southwick, Mr Walsh, Mr
Rowswell, Mr

Motion agreed to.

Register of opinion on motion

Ayes

Ms Addison, Mr Andrews, Mr Brayne, Mr Carroll, Ms Crugnale, Ms D’Ambrosio, Mr Donnellan, Ms Edwards, Mr Eren, Mr Foley, Ms Green, Ms Halfpenny, Ms Hall, Mr Halse, Mr Hamer, Ms Hennessy, Ms Horne, Ms Hutchins, Mr Maas, Mr McGhie, Mr McGuire, Mr Merlino, Ms Neville, Mr Pakula, Mr Pearson, Ms Richards, Mr Richardson, Ms Spence, Mr Staikos, Ms Suleyman, Ms Theophanous, Ms Thomas, Ms Ward, Ms Williams, Mr Wynne

Noes

Mr Blackwood, Mr T Bull, Mr Burgess, Mr Hodgett, Ms Kealy, Ms McLeish, Mr Morris, Mr Newbury, Mr Northe, Mr Tilley, Ms Vallence, Mr Wells

Members statements

VCE exams

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (10:02): While we are in the chamber this week tomorrow marks the first day of English exams for our VCE students. There is no group that has had it tougher than our students, particularly VCE students—160 days where they have had homeschool or no school at all. I want to give a very special shout-out to all of the parents and all of those kids that are embarking on a very, very important time of their life. We know it has been tough. We know you have missed a lot of milestones. I know you have missed a lot of celebrations with your friends. But keep your chin up, do your very best that you possibly can and remember this is not the end but just the beginning of another chapter.

COVID-19

Mr SOUTHWICK: Could I also give a special shout-out to many of the gyms and retailers in my electorate that have been locked down and not able to open during this time. This government is all about winners and losers, and we have seen that from the likes of Genesis Health and Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Workout Zone in Caulfield North, 9Round in Elsternwick, 6 Degrees South, Mace Fitness, FitMiss, 12RND Fitness Balaclava, XT-Pro Fitness, StudioForty6 and Vital Assurance. All of these gyms cannot open. They are losing out, and many of them have still not had their government grants paid for six weeks. Not only are they not allowed to open, but they have received no assistance from this government, a government that picks winners and losers. Retail and gyms are missing out right now.

COVID-19

Ms KILKENNY (Carrum) (10:03): These past two years have been long and difficult, but we are nearly there. Soon Victoria will be one of the most vaccinated places in the world. Thanks to the overwhelming response by so many Victorians we are going to smash through 80 per cent double dosed and hit 90 per cent. All along the way there have been so many people, good people, who have put the greater good—Victoria’s public health—above their own missed opportunities, disruptions, struggles and challenges. And then there are those really special people—the ones who have stood by, stood strong and shared a smile and even a tear and those who have gone above and beyond and who have shown such kind-heartedness, care and patience. To them I say thank you.

I wanted to start by thanking and acknowledging my incredible electorate office staff: Janet Wright, Kylie Alnwick, Maureen Lim, Nadia Oosthuizen and Giovanni Costanzo. These amazing individuals have been inspiring, working together, supporting each other and conducting themselves with such professionalism and empathy in often very difficult and confronting circumstances and with humility and kindness. I am indebted to them for the support they have shown not just to members of the community but to me as well during business hours, after business hours and even on weekends. And I am grateful to their families not only for sharing them with me and my community but for getting involved. Whether posting birthday cards or letters or even feeding our office cat, all of it has made a difference. Together they have made an incredible team, helping to support so many people in our local community, listening to them and responding to their needs. To them I say thank you.

Lowan electorate bushfire preparedness

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (10:05): The Grampians group of fire brigades have contacted me regarding the lack of fire hazard reduction works along highways right across our region. I am told that no fire prevention works have been undertaken by Regional Roads Victoria this year. That means no slashing and not even any spraying around the white posts or signs on the side of the road. Last year our region experienced a similar issue, with the slashing of highways not occurring until the week leading up to Christmas. This is months into the fire season and simply too late for good fire hazard reduction management. The response from RRV at the time was that they did not have the funding. It is simply unacceptable that RRV is not provided sufficient funding to undertake fire management responsibilities, particularly in the Grampians region. I therefore ask the Minister for Roads and Road Safety to immediately ensure that appropriate funding and direction is given to RRV to urgently undertake fire hazard reduction works along the highways in my electorate.

COVID-19

Ms KEALY: I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all of the parents and educators who have been homeschooling their kids over the past nearly two years—18 months. I know that a lot of parents have spoken to me who have seen their kids’ mental health decline over this period. They have been really concerned about how their kids will adjust back to the classroom. And now we have got information coming from the government that masks are mandated in regional Victoria, but the chief health officer directions do not match that. We need to remove all barriers to make sure our kids get a good education and support our kids’ mental health in schools to get them happy, active and learning again.

Bayswater electorate projects

Mr TAYLOR (Bayswater) (10:07): I want to provide an update on what is happening locally. I have got 90 seconds to do it, and for every update I can get in I will donate $10 to Boronia Rotary. Okay, and go. Construction has begun on the new home of basketball at the State Basketball Centre in Knox. Bayswater Secondary, Boronia West Primary, Templeton Primary and Fairhills High now all have architects appointed to deliver over $30 million of major upgrades. The majority of work is done on $1.7 million of upgrades for Heathmont station. We turned the sod at the Knox Regional Netball Centre, where we have committed $5 million to get it done. 3135 new police officers have been delivered. Early work has started on the North East Link to get you home sooner. We have opened new toilets at Marlborough Primary and Bayswater West Primary because that is important too. We are removing 10 more dangerous and congested level crossings. There have been thousands of enrolments in our free TAFE program, and there are now over 60 courses to choose from. Work is progressing on $67 000 for Knox Central Primary’s new street-facing front fence and $496 000 for Fairhills Primary School for the new basketball court shading and of course the Fairhills shade structures as well.

Detailed planning of the major expansion at Angliss Hospital has begun. Design work on the safer Alchester Village crossing is on the way. The new Knox SES unit building is finished. We are putting thousands of solar panels on roofs. More projects have been announced to revitalise Boronia as part of nearly $3 million in funding. Boronia K–12 and Marlborough Primary’s new central space is done. We are on the way to get to net zero emissions by 2050, with ambitious interim targets set. We have $1000 rebates to replace old heaters for 200 000 Victorian households. Detailed planning is on the way and $2.5 million for a new double-storey pavilion at JW Manson Reserve in Wantirna. Boronia Heights Primary’s new oval and grounds are complete. We opened the new oval, playground and so much more at the Basin Primary. Construction is well underway at the Wantirna public aged-care facility. Tunnelling is complete on the Metro Tunnel, and construction of a new shared pathway across Burwood Highway is complete. We continue to roll out dental vans in government schools and to deliver funded three-year-old kinder. We are building 12 000 new social homes to put roofs over heads. We have mental health practitioners in all secondary schools. It is all happening. I am proud we have got on with delivering over $400 million of local projects as part of the Andrews Labor government.

Col Clausen

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (10:08): It has been a long time since I worked with a friend and colleague, Col Clausen, who this week unfortunately came home with his children and found his lifelong partner had passed away in the family home. At just a young age—Col is a very, very similar age to me—to come home with his three boys, Mitch, Lucas and Lachlan, would have been devastating, to find his soulmate, his partner in life, someone that he speaks about so highly, whether it is through social media or I know through friends I have spoken to in the last week. We want to send all our thoughts to the family. Col has put the whole story out on social media, on Facebook, so people are aware of the pain that the family has gone through. I know that Mitch, the eldest son, today is actually heading off to school to do an exam, and that must be absolutely devastating, knowing that his mother is not at home. They have put on their post the fact that the 000 call that they made in the time when they came home—which would not have made any difference; they have been very strong in that—took 8 minutes to be answered. The 8 minutes that one of the boys was on hold whilst Col was performing CPR is not good enough in any community or any society, and we want to make sure that is fixed. But today the message is to Col and his family: we and all the Victorian police family stand with you, stand side by side with you and will back you no matter what.

Gambling harm

Ms SETTLE (Buninyong) (10:10): Before I became the member for Buninyong I worked at Ballarat Community Health and I had the good fortune to sit next to the wonderful Deb Greenslade, research coordinator and health promotion coordinator at Ballarat Community Health. We shared a desk but we also shared a passion to prevent gambling harm—me, through my lived experience of gambling harm, and Deb, through her extensive research in this area. Deb and I discussed the need for early intervention and the lack of universal screening tools to help doctors prevent and identify gambling harm. So last week I was incredibly proud to launch Victoria’s first trial of a gambling screening tool which aims to connect treatment and support for people struggling with gambling. Ballarat Community Health and child and family services will conduct the pilot, which includes a training program and the new screening tool. The pilot was developed by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, and I thank them for their work. They developed it with the guidance of the gambling minds team at Alfred psychiatry and gambling harm service clinical consultant Dr Jane Oakes to deliver more accessible, integrated and visible pathways to support.

This pilot is an important initiative, and it will create more opportunities for people to reach out for help in the safe environment of their doctor and healthcare provider. The pilot will equip healthcare professionals. I also wish to thank the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation for her ongoing commitment to addressing gambling. (Time expired)

Government performance

Mr R SMITH (Warrandyte) (10:11): I would like to draw to the attention of the house the lack of responsiveness from multiple ministers within the Labor government. I currently have 14 pieces of outstanding correspondence, most outstanding for over two months, including from the Speaker. While Victorians were forced to stay at home during their sixth lockdown, it seems the mechanisms of government ceased to work, or perhaps ministerial staff were too busy watching the IBAC hearings into corruption to see if they or their responsible minister were being named. The Minister for Health has three outstanding responses, while other ministers have routinely made constituents wait in excess of two months to respond to other outstanding issues.

Two notable issues that are outstanding are: one, a constituent raised a very troubling issue regarding systemic child abuse within Gymnastics Victoria, which has now been subject to an investigation by the Australian Human Rights Commission. I raised this with the Attorney-General on 3 May, though despite her being responsible for redress within Victoria, two months later the Attorney said this was an issue for the Minister for Community Sport’s responsibility. Almost six months later, and the Andrews government is continuing to ignore this issue. And in February 2020 I raised an issue on behalf of Mr Billing with the then minister for roads, where it was then directed to the then Attorney-General in April 2020. As of today this issue remains ongoing, with the now Attorney-General still unable to provide a response, almost two years later.

Having said this, I would like to acknowledge the Minister for Public Transport and his department for providing a briefing to discuss local issues within my electorate. However, he still has a number of other outstanding issues in the roads portfolio, not least the significant safety matter at the Five Ways intersection. After asking so much of Victorians, it does not seem much to ask ministers to do their job. (Time expired)

Michaela Goggin

Mr EDBROOKE (Frankston) (10:13): I would like to extend hearty congratulations to Frankston High School student Michaela Goggin for being awarded the 2021 VCE Leadership Award by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. This award recognises Michaela’s role as an environmental advocate and her assistance for those less fortunate, through projects and fundraising in my community. Michaela was Frankston’s Young Citizen of the Year in 2020 for her efforts in the school and wider community, including her charity work and tutoring students from refugee backgrounds as well. In true Michaela fashion, being modest, she said at the time:

The fact that people felt I made a big enough contribution … that they thought I was deserving of this award is astounding and just makes me want to do more.

This is a well-deserved award for a friend who is an amazing young woman.

Station Street mall, Frankston

Mr EDBROOKE: The Frankston council and state government partnership to build the revitalised and redeveloped Station Street mall has won another award. Following a recent Victorian architecture competition this project has just won a national landscape architectural award, complementing the national recognition that the station design received as well only a few months ago. It is an amazing thing to sit on the Frankston Revitalisation Board with so many stakeholders and partnering with council to provide such wonderful initiatives and projects such as the Station Street revitalisation. It has now won a national award as well as a Victorian award, and it is a sign of the way things are going in Frankston. There is a lot of momentum, and we want to build on that in the future. (Time expired)

Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (10:14): I want to make some comments on what has occurred over the past few days. First of all we have pandemic legislation coming into the Parliament that, according to reports, gives overwhelming power to our Premier, in three-month blocks with no limit on the amount of time that it can be extended. We hear this gives power to the Premier to make decisions on whether to lock us down, close businesses and declare public health orders on specific classes of people—all this at the Premier’s discretion. After what we have been through, you have to be kidding.

COVID-19 vaccinations

Mr T BULL: I also want to make some comments on vaccination and the comments on Sunday that vaccination will be required for all of 2022 for people to enter cafes, enter restaurants, attend events and even go to a hairdresser or buy a pair of shoes. This is totally unfair. I support vaccination absolutely, and I am pro-vaccination, but I have also spoken to many who have huge anxiety and huge levels of stress over this. New South Wales will not recognise vaccination status after 1 December and no other state has taken this step, but we are told we have got another 14 months of it. There has got to be a time when the segregation ends. It is not in the national plan that our Premier agreed to. So I ask him to do what is in the national plan that he agreed to and stop the segregation ongoing.

IPC Health

Ms HENNESSY (Altona) (10:16): I rise to place on the record my deep appreciation for one of the really significant community health providers in Melbourne’s western suburbs, and that is IPC Health. They have done an extraordinary and an outstanding job in showing leadership and service delivery in the course of the pandemic. Their service offering goes from such breadth as alcohol and drugs to gambling assistance, family violence response and primary health. They have got an incredible focus on a population health model, and they work very, very closely with many leaders from many diverse communities in order to ensure that health services are fit for purpose.

They have gone above and beyond the call of duty in the course of the pandemic. They have also been part of the C-19 group, which is made up of five community health service providers. And when we have had outbreaks and challenges, they have been part of the service delivery model where services have been wrapped around. They have been focused on the real-life experiences of people living in Melbourne’s western suburbs—many essential workers who have also been over-represented in the prevalence of COVID—and I want to express my deep gratitude to them and their work. They are doing 1300 COVID tests a day at the moment. So despite the fact that many of us are enjoying getting our hair done and getting out, some people are still working very hard at the coalface.

Jack Hallowell

Ms HENNESSY: In conclusion I also want to wish Jack Hallowell a very happy 90th birthday.

Sheree Clausen

Mr WAKELING (Ferntree Gully) (10:17): The Knox community was recently devastated by the sudden death of Sheree Clausen. Her husband, Colin, is an active member of the Knox police and a former junior coordinator of the Ferntree Gully junior cricket association. They also were my neighbours, and we had set up a ladder so that our respective children could jump the fence and play with each other when they were younger. My heart goes out to Colin and his three children, and I know that the Knox community is despairing for the loss of his wife.

COVID-19

Mr WAKELING: I have been contacted by many local schools across Knox who have raised issues with me about the government’s supposed commitment to deliver air purifiers. These have not been delivered as promised by the start of the return of the school year after the lockdown, and many are finding that there are not purifiers in every classroom, meaning that children are in fact leaving one room with a purifier and then entering another room where there are no purifiers. I call on the government to deliver on what they committed to to ensure that schools across the Knox community get the purifiers that were promised.

Volunteer firefighters

Mr WAKELING: I have also been contacted by Knox residents who are gravely concerned about the United Firefighters Union’s recent campaign attacking volunteer firefighters. We are well served by the volunteer firefighters in Ferntree Gully, the Basin, Bayswater, Boronia, Scoresby and Rowville, and I for one stand up for those hardworking volunteers and call out the UFU and the government’s support for their program.

COVID-19 vaccinations

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (10:19): I rise today to acknowledge, congratulate and celebrate the hard work and achievements in my local community through the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccination program. I would first like to give a thankyou to the hardworking healthcare workers at the Deakin Burwood COVID-19 testing clinic, who service residents of the Burwood and Forest Hill electorates, keeping our communities safe and healthy. I also want to thank David Rogers, the principal of Forest Hill College in the Forest Hill electorate, for all of his assistance over the weekend of 16 and 17 October, when Forest Hill College became a pop-up vaccination clinic. Some 613 doses were administered, which was a fantastic result, both for residents of the Forest Hill electorate and my own. Thanks to their hard work the suburb of Forest Hill has now surpassed a vaccination rate of 90 per cent first dose. Whilst a very small minority have taken the decision not to get vaccinated, I want to thank each and every resident of the Forest Hill electorate who has made the right choice to protect themselves, their families and their friends and to return to work.

Education funding

Mr FOWLES: The Andrews Labor government will always make sure that every single student across the state has access to the best education possible and receives the recognition they deserve, which is why I am also proud to congratulate Aurora School, Burwood Heights Primary and Vermont South Special School, all in the Forest Hill electorate, on their recent funding allocations and thank them on behalf of all of the residents of the Forest Hill electorate for their hard work to provide the best possible education to their students.

COVID-19 vaccinations

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) (10:20): I want to congratulate everyone in the Prahran electorate on a massive effort to get vaccinated. It was great to be out and about on the weekend meeting with people and seeing cafes open. I was not able to make it to the late-night singalong on Chapel Street, but I certainly share in the sentiments. I was really concerned that Victoria’s vaccination rates would hit a wall and reaching the 80 per cent target would be a struggle, but we did it ahead of time, so let us keep it going to 90 per cent and beyond.

Now, during this pandemic there has been a lot of finger-pointing about people breaking the rules and stereotyping about who might not be getting vaccinated, but what I have seen in our community is people, particularly young people, rising to the challenge to get vaccinated. I see people making considered decisions every single day to look after their health and wellbeing and that of their families and to do the right thing by the wider community, so I want to acknowledge the sacrifices and the hard work of everyone in our community.

Healthcare workers

Mr HIBBINS: I also want to acknowledge that it will still be a very difficult time for our healthcare workers in the following months and they will need our support and that for everyone there will still be a lot of healing to do after what has been an incredibly difficult past two years.

Our Lady Help of Christians Primary School, Wendouree

Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (10:22): Happy 60th birthday to Our Lady Help of Christians Primary School, a fantastic primary school in Wendouree. OLHC was established in Gillies Street on 15 October 1961 by the Sisters of Mercy with just two rooms on site. Sixty years on, the school is continuing to provide Catholic education to 125 students and employs 24 staff. For many generations OLHC has played an important role in supporting Wendouree families. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the school over the last 60 years, including the Mercy sisters, past principals, teachers, students and parents. Some well-known OLHC alumni include Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Michelle Payne and AFL great Mick Malthouse. Thank you to the current principal, Leigh Bradshaw, and her wonderful team of inspiring and caring teachers and support staff, who provide a positive learning environment for all students. I love to visit the school and always enjoy catching up with my former teacher, Paddy Ryan. I hope to return to the school very soon and wish everyone at OLHC a happy 60th and a fantastic term 4.

Chloe Dew

Ms ADDISON: Congratulations to Black Hill Primary School teacher Chloe Dew on being recognised in the 2021 Victorian Education Excellence Awards as Victoria’s most outstanding physical education and activity teacher. Chloe’s award is well deserved and has been welcomed and endorsed by many parents of her students. Well done, Chloe. We are so fortunate to have teachers like you.

COVID-19

Mr WELLS (Rowville) (10:23): This statement condemns the chaotic rules for Victorian businesses trying to open up. The government has caused enormous confusion with its road map and shifting advice. Hospitality workers were banned from breaking curfew to set up before the midnight reopening, only to have the government backflip after an outcry from business. Hospitality workers and hairdressers were ordered to be double vaccinated by 22 October, contradicting advice released just weeks ago. The government then moved the goalposts, telling businesses that if staff were not double vaccinated at the 80 per cent target, businesses could not open up to more people. This kind of chaos is unacceptable. After six lockdowns and 18 months of the pandemic the government must provide businesses with a consistent and sensible pathway out.

Unlike New South Wales, Victoria has a cap of 20 guests for indoor dining for all hospitality venues, from small local cafes with 10 tables to a multistorey pub, and indoor retail is still banned. Operating outdoors on the footpath is just not practical for many businesses. Density limits have not been used like last time. Has health advice on density limits changed? If so, why is New South Wales using density limits? Indoor cinemas, gyms and pools are still closed in Victoria but were open in New South Wales as soon as the 70 per cent vaccinated mark was reached. Masks outdoors are still required here but not in New South Wales, despite a damning assessment of the Burnet Institute mask study being based on insufficient data.

Hawthorn electorate

Mr KENNEDY (Hawthorn) (10:25): I am very pleased to be speaking about Hawthorn again. It just occurred to me that really I should be talking more often about Hawthorn, because in 65 years or so Labor has only once had the opportunity of working in Hawthorn and I think I need to just let the house know from time to time all the good news that is coming from Hawthorn under this new dispensation. We have made quite an impact. I do not just mean politically in terms of the change in leadership in the opposition when my predecessor could possibly have been here—no, not that sort of thing; more what is happening in Hawthorn. Initially when I was in this role there was a little bit of grief around the place, a little bit of mourning, amongst those who were not used to that sort of arrangement, but they have really rallied now and I am just delighted. Can I give you an example of that?

A member interjected.

Mr KENNEDY: Well, I will then. I would like to thank my constituents and all Victorians of course for coming forward in droves to get vaccinated. Their decisions mean we can accelerate out of lockdown as we reach our double-dose targets. This weekend people enjoyed breakfast at their local cafe, dinner out with the family and even a simple trip to the barber shop. Next weekend retail and cinemas will welcome their customers back, along with many more freedoms—so great news in Hawthorn.

Tarneit Rise Primary School

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (10:26): I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Tarneit Rise Primary School on being recognised at the 20th Victorian Education Excellence Awards. The school was nominated in the category of outstanding provision for high-ability students, and last week they won. Congratulations to principal Nadia Bettio and her amazing team for delivering positive education outcomes across the board. When it comes to schools, we talk a lot about the ways to ensure that no kid is left behind, which is really, really important, but kids who are excelling in school also need an avenue to nurture their talents—and I am so pleased to see that schools like Tarneit Rise are being celebrated for doing just that. It has been an absolute pleasure over the past couple of years watching Tarneit Rise grow and develop as a school since their opening in 2018. I look forward to seeing the school continue to kick goals and deliver a first-class education for kids in Tarneit.

COVID-19 vaccinations

Ms CONNOLLY: And in the last 30-odd seconds that I have got as part of this members statement, I want to give a huge shout-out to every single person in Wyndham who has gone and rolled up their sleeve twice to get double vaxxed. Our numbers last week increased by 10.9 per cent alone. We are now sitting at 79.7 per cent double vaxxed, and that sees us leading the way, ahead of Victoria overall, which is now sitting at a rate of 74.7 per cent. We have been the epicentre of this pandemic twice. We are rolling up our sleeves. We are getting the job done.

Ivanhoe electorate project funding

Mr CARBINES (Ivanhoe) (10:28): I am pleased to update the house on nearly $5 million of early learning centre work and capital investment across the Ivanhoe electorate. Just at the end of my street, in Bellevue Avenue, there is $1.5 million for a new partnership with Goodstart in Rosanna. The demolition is underway there at what was the old Uniting Church. We are going to see eight new learning spaces and three dedicated kindergarten rooms for three- and four-year-olds under construction there, just at the end of our street in Rosanna, which is fantastic. At KU Heidelberg children’s centre at 25 Stradbroke Avenue, there is a $1 million grant from our government. We are going to see a new children’s centre in Heidelberg, which includes a kindergarten, long day care and allied health rooms, which are really important for the local community. That is a fantastic project that is also getting underway.

The Bellfield community hub has a $2 million contribution from our government, with two new kinder rooms. The hub will have a large outdoor play area, two maternal and child health rooms, a social enterprise cafe and a big community garden. As a past member of the Bellfield community centre committee of management, I am really pleased that project will acknowledge the late Charlie Greenwood, who was a great community leader and World War II vet. He was a big part of community centres if you go right back to the days of the igloo, for those locals who recall that—a $2 million contribution there. On top of all of that, there is the Fairy Hills Kindergarten—a $350 000 contribution—which has concluded and been opened by the Deputy Premier. Well done, Ivanhoe.

COVID-19 vaccinations

Mr J BULL (Sunbury) (10:29): Thank you, Victoria, and thank you to each and every member of my local community. This pandemic has been one of the longest roads and one of the hardest roads. We still have a way to go, but we have come so far. As of today, 75 per cent of Victorians over 16 have been fully vaccinated and a massive 91 per cent first dosed to protect themselves, their family, their friends and of course our local community.

There have been many stories of tragedy brought on by this pandemic, but there have also been inspiring stories. I want to take a moment to share one particular story, which is a testament to this government’s commitment to creating opportunities for all, no matter your age. Last week I was able to visit the Incolink vaccination bus stationed at Bunnings, Sunbury, and was approached by a vaccination nurse, Colin. He shared with me that after receiving a free TAFE flyer from me in his mailbox about three years ago he was motivated to shake things up. After 40 years in the banking sector, he decided to retrain as a nurse. At nearly 75, Colin graduated from TAFE, having benefited from the Andrews Labor government’s huge investment in TAFE. Colin is indeed a health hero, helping to serve our community on the front line against COVID-19. I thank Colin, his colleagues and all of those in our health workforce who are doing and have done an outstanding job over these past two years.

Mental health in schools program

Mr J BULL: I also want to acknowledge the good news for Goonawarra Primary School, Sunbury and Macedon Ranges Specialist School and Sunbury Heights Primary School, in my electorate, who will be joining the mental health in primary schools pilot program—a terrific announcement.

Melton electorate youth advisory group

Mr McGHIE (Melton) (10:31): My newly formed youth advisory group has just met for the first time, and I was blown away by the breadth and depth of these talented individuals, all keen and willing to work and make a positive impact on our community of Melton. Allow me to introduce you to them. Intern in my office and leading the group, Hannah Sammut has a passion for social justice and is studying a bachelor of global studies at Monash. Sobur Dhieu is a final-year Melbourne Uni media and communications degree student, seeking to study law. Sarah Emmanuel is working to become a doctor, studying biomedical science; Sarah is the founder of Millennium Disability Care. Christopher Stavropoulos is studying commerce and law and working for a law firm in Melbourne. Robiel Abraham is studying science and majoring in neuroscience with the goal of becoming a doctor or a clinical neurophysiologist. Ariel Mezzacappa and Tasmin Broadway are our youngest participants, in high school and in the student leadership group, already looking for ways to give back and support young people. Maneet Hora is studying nursing on the front line in Victoria’s COVID response and is a founder of platform Humankind. Rebecca Chin, Malou Lueth, Sheladi Nsengiyumva, Abak Dhieu and Chaos Seitz—they are all ready and active in the community through organisations like Girl Chat, an organisation that seeks to empower young females of Melton. Others participate in a not-for-profit called African Youth Initiative, including Robiel and Sobur as founding members. I feel quite lucky to have such a diverse, intelligent and socially astute group willing to work with me to support our young people in Melton.

Bills

Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Mr MERLINO:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (10:33): I rise today to speak on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. This is of course a very important bill, and it is a milestone really having this in the Parliament because it was back on 28 November, two years ago, in 2019 that we heard the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System’s first findings when they published their interim report, which was intended to be a list of high-priority items that needed to be brought forward as soon as possible to ensure that when the royal commission handed down its final report Victoria would be best placed to move on with that as soon as possible. It probably seems somewhat late that we have got this legislation through. Nonetheless we have it here, and that is something that I know the sector is supportive of, particularly when it comes to the importance of aligning evidence-based findings with their application in how we can best treat individuals.

That is something that was heard through many, many submissions to the royal commission. It is still something we hear of today: people feeling that they do not always receive the same treatment approach if they go to one service provider then another, and sometimes the treatment approach that is given to them is not based on evidence. That is something I have heard firsthand in my own region from psychologists and psychiatrists. We need to get that systematic approach where we are undertaking fantastic research into mental health. Again, Victoria has brought this forward to be a world leader when it comes to cutting-edge research and the application of that research to make sure we can provide the best possible mental health system for all Victorians. I guess at this point in time, when we have had two years of the pandemic and, more importantly, COVID restrictions which have had such a significant impact on the mental health of each and every Victorian, we need to make sure that we move ahead with this very, very quickly.

This bill does provide for the establishment of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing to deliver mental health services and research, which was, as I noted earlier, recommended by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. The purposes of the bill are to establish the VCC for mental health and wellbeing and also make consequential amendments to other acts. In terms of the outlay of the legislation, I would like to pass on my thanks to the ministerial team who made themselves available very quickly after the last sitting week to deliver the information to me and to respond to the questions that we had around the bill to better explain that. I do thank them again for that prompt response to the outlying questions that could not be responded to on the day of the bill briefing.

This legislation will provide the legal foundations for the new collaborative centre. The legislation is unique in that it ensures representation for people with lived experience on the collaborative centre’s governance board and an innovative co-director model of executive leadership whereby one director is designated as someone who has lived experience and the other has a clinical background. Now, this element of making sure that people with lived experience of mental ill health and mental illness but also experience of what it is like to enter into treatment in Victoria, whether that be not being able to access support, not getting the support when they needed it or their treatment within our healthcare facilities in Victoria, is something that was really pushed hard for by a lot of key members in the community.

I would like to thank everybody, particularly those with lived experience, who spoke up during the royal commission’s hearings or provided evidence and who have continued to do so as well. It is very, very challenging to go through that period where you have mental ill health or you are diagnosed with mental illness, and to be in a position where you can recognise that you actually need to reach out and get help and that you are worth that and that that offers you a line of hope in your life is something that is very courageous to do. I say that because I know there are so many people who do struggle with their mental health and have struggled over the past two years particularly. It is not everybody who can come out and share their story, so for those who do come and share their story I want to particularly thank them because by them sharing their voice around their experience with mental ill health or mental illness they are giving a voice to the people who cannot do so, who cannot because in their own health they are not up to that stage yet or otherwise it is just too close for them. Of course we also have to overcome the stigma which continues in mental health whereby people are unfortunately still treated differently if they have a diagnosable mental illness in particular. I think we are moving forward in other elements of mental illness, particularly in younger people who are far more likely to be able to talk about their anxiety and depression in particular, but when it comes to diagnosable mental illnesses there is certainly is still a significant stigma. That is something that we all need to work towards.

My own reflection has been that one of the elements of the response to the COVID pandemic is that mental health does not seem to have been recognised as a key risk to harm that could be done in the community. It has been a very myopic approach where the only risk focused on has been the spread of the virus and there really has not been that balance of making sure that people can still take control of and maintain their mental health, particularly in areas where there are low cases of coronavirus or no cases of coronavirus, or just understanding the potential harms that we might do to particularly children in the community when there are very, very strict restrictions. I will go into more of that later, but I would like to just touch on that because it has been an extraordinarily difficult two years for a number of people and it has deeply concerned me that a priority of this government has not been to put mental health at equal stead and equal stepping with physical health and particularly the spread of the virus. That is where we should be headed. We need to see a government lead by example in making sure that the priorities for mental health are equally as important as the priorities for physical health and wellbeing.

In terms of the details of the bill and the key elements of the bill, clause 8 outlines the centre’s functions. They are quite straightforward in what you would expect from an organisation with the intentions of the centre as have been set out by the royal commission in its interim report. It is interesting that this centre will be legislated to be a public entity rather than a public health service. Given that elements of the collaborative centre will actually be designed to provide bed-based services, community-based services and even home treatment, there will be a level of public health required as part of the services that the centre will provide. It is not solely research based, and it is not solely around the collaboration of different people who are leading in the sector sharing information and distributing it out so that people have got access to that evidence-based best approach and consistently highest quality of care we can provide individuals who are seeking support; it is also about how they actually provide a high level of treatment as well themselves as an entity. I understand why it has been defined as an entity rather than a public health service; however, I do wonder if that is something that will have to be reconsidered once the actual framework of the centre is more fully understood, because I would not want to see that there are people who are seeking to access services within the centre who, because the centre is not governed by those same regulations as defined for a public health service, may receive a lesser quality of health care. Even if that is a concern of people and there is a feeling that people will not go there for that reason, we need to make sure that that is tied off and in completeness so that there is not any deficiency in that being defined as a public entity rather than as a public health service.

Clause 10 deals with particular arrangements which the centre is to enter into with another designated mental health service and with an academic institution. The intention is that this centre would form a partnership and work in a contractual arrangement with both a designated mental health service and an academic institution. During the bill briefing it was explained to me that this was legislated as a minimum of one service that they are involved with from an academic side and from a clinical side a mental health service provider, but that does not limit the centre in creating further contractual arrangements or agreements with other designated mental health services or with other academic institutions. So while this is a minimum level, and this is to be rolled out in the second part of the bill from 1 April 2023 to give the centre time to be established—obviously it has got to be built; they also need to appoint all the people inside it, and it will take time to get up and running—at that later stage it is expected that those two primary contracts with a designated mental health service and an academic institution will be formed at that time of 1 April 2023.

Clause 11 deals with the composition of the governing body or the board, including in subclause (6) that:

at least 2 members of the Board are persons who identify as experiencing, or as having experienced, mental illness or psychological distress; and

(b) at least 2 members of the Board are persons who identify as caring for or supporting, or as having cared for or supported, a person with mental illness or psychological distress.

There was some feedback from the sector with concerns around the definition of what ‘psychological distress’ might actually mean and what that level is and how that may be defined. It would be useful—and as I raise matters through my debate, I do ask that the minister’s advisers take note of these queries—perhaps if this information could be provided to all members of the upper house before the bill is considered in that chamber. But it is information that we would like some clarity on. Potentially there is an opportunity to amend the bill before it reaches the upper house so that we can ensure a quicker passage of the bill through both houses.

There is a question around that mental illness and psychological distress, and particularly the psychological distress and how that may be interpreted—how distressed somebody may have to be and over what that critical limit is. At the moment I believe it is defined as threat of harm to self or threat of harm to others, but there are other elements of psychological distress which can present, which may not be picked up through the lack of definition around that term.

Clause 23 provides that the board appoint two directors of the centre where:

one is a person who—

has worked, or is working, in academia in the field of mental health; and

has worked, or is working, in clinical practice as a practitioner …

So you have got one person, who is a co-director, who has got academic or clinical experience, and then we have got one person who:

(i) identifies as experiencing, or as having experienced, mental illness or psychological distress; and

(ii) has demonstrated the ability to apply their experience with mental illness or psychological distress to improve systems that deliver health or human services or to develop policy.

So that is the other co-director, somebody who has lived experience, who has a proven ability to apply their experience to better the health service for other people who are going through the mental health system. It is a unique model, and in some ways I support the model, but I guess we will need to make sure that the government put people in place who also work well together. You have to make sure that in any organisation you have clear decision-making powers, because there is only one person who is responsible at the end of the day. These two directors will need to work very, very closely together, obviously. But we will also need to make sure when they are being appointed that they are compatible, because if there is any level of mistrust or there are competing interests and an inability to manage through them, then it could actually result in a deterioration of the outcomes of the intention of the centre. And we simply do not want to see that.

I think it is fantastic that we are actually finally giving a voice to people with lived experience and to carers, the people who are there who often are the ones who have to deal with health services in trying to provide the best possible care to their loved one. This may not be a mum or a dad; it may also be a child of somebody who is living with mental illness or mental ill health. There is an amount of pressure put on those individuals, who see what is happening but often do not have a lot of control or input into supporting and caring for their loved one or in decision-making about the care that is provided to them or even information sharing, which is another element where they are often excluded from key decisions and key information.

I recall speaking to Vivienne, who has been enormously distressed because her son who was dealing with a number of mental health issues would routinely be discharged from hospital without her knowledge, and as his carer she was excluded from that, and unfortunately her son took his life. Now, we need to make sure that that experience is incorporated and taken into how we model our mental health services in the future, because while we obviously have to respect privacy and confidentiality, we also have to ensure that we provide a safe mechanism and a safety net for people, particularly when their decision-making and their mental health are not necessarily going to lead to finding the best supports for them or the best decision-making for them at that time particular point in time.

Just going back to what the royal commission actually put forward in their report, and particularly in the interim report, recommendation 1 of the interim report was that:

The Royal Commission recommends that the Victorian Government establishes a new entity, the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing. As a first step, the Mental Health Implementation Office should establish the governance of the Collaborative Centre and begin planning for a purpose-built facility in Melbourne.

I do note I asked if there was any further information available around the design of the centre. That was something that the mental health royal commission handed down two years ago, and unfortunately there is still no information available about the scale of the collaborative centre, how many beds might be involved or where it might be located. It is concerning that we are two years down the track and we are only just now getting the legislative framework in place, and we have still got a lot of work to go.

I did note—and it was a question that was raised in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee this year—that no capital funding has been provided for the collaborative centre. Now, in the minister’s own words this is at the heart of the newly reformed mental health system, so I do question why that funding for capital works was not provided in this year’s budget so that it could be delivered sooner rather than later, given it was the first priority of the interim report, and I do question why it has taken two years to put forward this legislation. It is obviously important that we consult with the sector, but the consultation took place during the royal commission, and so we need to respect their findings as well.

As I said, I note that there will be beds involved in this service, acute beds, and it will be fantastic if the research that is undertaken at the collaborative centre translates to improved care and support for people who are seeking support for their mental ill health and mental illness. We will be watching very closely because this will make Victoria a world leader. The royal commission put an enormous amount of work into defining time frames but also the scope of individual reports and how they would like to see Victoria’s mental health system rebuilt, so it is fantastic this is getting moving now. It is disappointing that the first thing that the government took out of this was to implement a new tax, particularly at a time of pandemic when people were really struggling, particularly around their jobs, because essentially it was a jobs tax, and that should not be the priority. The priority should be for better care for all Victorians around their mental health and wellbeing.

I would like to provide some other feedback that was provided to me from other stakeholders within the sector around feelings of, particularly, limitations in the bill and in how it was constructed. A number of these stakeholders have said that these sentiments are echoed in the consultation which has taken place around the mental health and wellbeing bill, which is currently being drafted and which has been out for circulation for some time, and I understand there is another iteration that will be released soon. I expect it to be before the house in the not-too-distant future. There are similar themes that have been brought up in relation to the mental health and wellbeing bill, which we are yet to see, and the content of this bill before us today, the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021.

In particular the drug and alcohol sector is very concerned that as part of the integration theme of the royal commission there is actually no clear definition of what ‘integration’ means, particularly as the drug and alcohol sector was not a key focus of the royal commission; it was strictly around mental health. But we also know that there has been a significant push across both the mental health and the alcohol and other drug sectors that they should be less siloed and treated as separate entities less often, because of the high rate of co-conditions; often people who have a drug and alcohol addiction also have underlying mental ill health or mental illness or have some trauma that they experienced in their younger years which they have not properly dealt with. And so this need for services that can deal with both ends of that and to not be separated is very, very important.

This is very concerning to, particularly, the drug and alcohol sector, which feel that rather than a push for those sectors to be put together, actually there is a resegregation, a reseparation of the drug and alcohol sector, cutting it off and away from mental health, which is not going to provide the best possible care to people who need both alcohol and other drug support and mental health support. It was also raised that the bill does not canvass issues relating to stigma and discrimination, that client-centred care does not appear to be a focus and that there is a lack of clarity on the process of translating research into practice. So, as I mentioned earlier, how do we make sure that the leading research we are doing is then translated into better mental health supports for individuals who are seeking mental health help? Given the governance structure and the absence of cross-sector consideration within the bill there is a risk that the research elements will not cover broader and contributing issues relating to trauma, which might, for example, include a history of victimisation, family violence, alcohol and other drug dependency et cetera. They believe that there is a need to provide a clear definition of ‘wellbeing and health’, and that is not encompassed within the bill.

While the bill notes consumer involvement in the governance structures, the absence of cross-sectoral considerations creates a cause for concern that lived experience of trauma including alcohol and other drugs may not be represented. And while the bill supports a highly skilled mental health workforce, there is no consideration of the current deficits in skilled workers in mental health or other sectors. A prevailing concern within the AOD sector is difficulty in recruiting suitably skilled staff, especially in rural and regional areas. It is likely that the mental health sector will provide greater remuneration and job security, and therefore as the uplift in mental health progresses it is probable that the AOD sector will experience an exodus of skilled workers—this essential and pressing issue with government priorities resulting in variance in the quality of the support Victorians receive depending on their presenting issue, postcode and broader levels of disadvantage.

Those concerns around the workforce shortages, and particularly making sure that rural and regional Victorians are properly treated and able to access better mental health support, were also picked up through Mental Health First Aid International. I note that for Australia as a whole there are a number of major inequities in access to services by area, socio-economic disadvantage and remoteness. This would apply to all Victoria as well. The role of the proposed centre in reducing such inequities could be strengthened. For example, where clause 8 provides wellbeing services and:

to assist service providers to facilitate and improve access to mental health and wellbeing services …

the following words could be added: ‘including inequities in service access due to socio-economic disadvantage and remoteness’.

Another omission from the bill is mention of prevention services. That could be strengthened in the bill by adding the words, ‘including population prevention services to provide, promote and coordinate the provision of mental health and wellbeing services’.

I also received correspondence from the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, who are concerned that while there is a defined requirement to have people with lived experience on the board, there is not a defined requirement to have people from multicultural communities. Particularly refugees have a high incidence of trauma in the early years, and those segments of the community have different needs and different backgrounds and experiences, so they requested that that be taken into consideration when the board is being appointed and that there be consideration of those people with lived experience being appointed to the board.

So I think all in all that is a note for the government really to take on board: that we need to ensure that people are not left out of this process. That is really the key message. People want to be part of this. Whether it is around multicultural and ethnic communities, whether it is about Victorians who are living in rural and regional Victoria, we need to make sure that everybody is included and that we do not become too selective around who is treated and who receives help and that we do not have too small a circle and diminish and exclude other important workforces and sectors like the AOD sector.

Through that feedback I have just provided there was mention of course around workforce, and that has been a critical issue particularly over the last two years. We simply do not have enough mental health workers to provide the support that Victorians desperately need, and even more so over the last two years. We are seeing that and hearing it through regular articles in the newspaper around people who simply feel like they have been left behind during the COVID restrictions that have been put on all Victorians.

I note an article that was published in the Herald Sun just last weekend which was around women suffering the most anxiety and depression from pandemic lockdowns. This was from Smiling Mind. They do an absolutely fantastic job, and they performed a study which saw that women are far more likely than men to suffer mental health problems as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. It showed that 70 per cent of Australian women reported feeling stressed this year compared to 54 per cent of men. It also revealed that 56 per cent of women and 71 per cent of single mothers or fathers are suffering high to very high psychological distress. Now, this is an article from last weekend, but this has been reported on for the last two years around the pressures that women in particular have picked up over the pandemic, whether it is supporting their kids, who cannot go to school at the moment even though there might be no local cases of coronavirus, having to work from home or the increased pressure that has been put on them.

It is like everything that we have been talking about for the last 10 years around the importance of taking pressure off women and recognising the important work that they do in the home has just simply been forgotten over this pandemic. The family violence rates have been absolutely horrific. They are just devastating, and there just has not been that opportunity or that focus by government to say, ‘You know what, our restrictions are causing a lot of harm to people in our community’. It is causing a lot of harm to the mental health of our children in particular. Calls to Kids Helpline have gone up by 68 per cent during lockdown periods—68 per cent more kids are contacting Kids Helpline. This is of course one of the hotlines that did not receive any additional funding support, yet they have really been amazing in the amount of support they have been able to provide to our children.

We also look at the waiting lists of people who are waiting to get a bed when they present to an emergency department in psychological distress, and they are waiting for longer and longer. People cannot see a psychologist or a psychiatrist not just for a few days but for months—six months or more, people are waiting to see somebody. And yet when the coalition puts forward ideas on how we can unlock more workforce, how we can look at ideas like releasing provisional psychologists to provide support for people who need it, there is simply silence from the government. We put forward legislation that would see an amendment of the Mental Health Act 2014 to allow counsellors to be recognised as mental health practitioners, and it was something that the government voted against.

That very same week the government announced that they were going to put funding towards mental health practitioners in schools. Now, you cannot on one hand say it will make a difference to get mental health practitioners in schools and then announce that you cannot put counsellors in a mental health practitioners in schools program. It just does not add up, and for people in my electorate, our schools need so much support. The teachers have been struggling, the parents have been struggling, but they have seen their kids struggle as well and in so many parts of my electorate schools do not have access to a mental health practitioner. There simply is not a mental health nurse or a psychologist available. There are no occupational therapists available. That is why we need to open it up and make sure that counsellors are there. We can ensure that they are properly registered and that they meet all of the requirements because more often than not counsellors have got bachelor degree qualifications or masters qualifications. They are extremely skilled and experienced and they deserve the respect of us all in making sure we have a well-supported mental health framework and all Victorians can access some level of mental health support that they need when they need it, and that is something we have not seen over the past two years.

We also need to see more places for psychiatrists. We have not seen any attempt by the government to put forward a workforce plan. I urge the government to bring forward a workforce plan or otherwise just take on the coalition’s ideas because the Liberal-Nationals are coming up with ideas on how we can enhance the mental health workforce, and we will not be able to provide that additional support in facilities like the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing if we do not have the staff to support them. We cannot have all of the mental health professionals. We know some of them will be soaked up into the big department to make sure that the royal commission’s recommendations are implemented, but we need a workforce there. The government must get going on this. I commend this bill to the house and I hope for its speedy passage.

Mr DIMOPOULOS (Oakleigh) (11:03): Thank you very much, Acting Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this extraordinarily important bill, one of the anchors of the new mental health system that we are helping to create through implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. It has been 238 days since that final report was released during that historic special sitting of the Parliament at the Royal Exhibition Building—238 days during which we have all got to see the work that we have already put in place to start implementing the recommendations. As we all know, but I think is worth repeating, the commission engaged in two years of detailed consultation. It is worth repeating because those thousands of Victorians that shared their stories are part of the legitimacy of why we are doing this—61 sessions in 21 locations in Victoria with over 1600 stakeholders, 12 500 contributions from individuals and organisations, an additional 3000 people surveyed, 100 working groups and eight formal panel hearings. As I have said before, it is the most engagement of any public inquiry in Victoria’s history. I want to share three of the many stories that stood out on that day and in the report. Rick, a support worker, says:

For me, at the point at which I had lost all hope and saw no future for myself, if a peer worker had said to me, ‘actually I was in your shoes twenty years ago and I had no hope and I never thought I would have a job or a partner and I do have these things now’, I think my recovery might have begun sooner.

A mother trying to navigate the system said:

As a single mother who had to work full time to keep a roof over my girls’ heads, navigating the service system has been so difficult. This has taken a huge emotional and financial toll on me as I have not been able to progress my career due to my caring requirements, which will severely impact the amount of super I have to retire on. Disconnected, poorly promoted services with overly tight eligibility criteria meant that only some aspects of my girls’ multiple and complex needs could be addressed.

Finally, Amelia Morris, a witness before the commission, said:

One of the main problems I encountered with the mental health system was that when I asked for help, it felt like there was nothing there. The narrative around mental health seems to repeat the same message—‘don’t be afraid to ask for help’. The problem comes when you ask, there doesn’t appear to be any answer. It’s so heartbreaking when you finally work up the courage to voice the horrible things that you’re experiencing, but there’s nothing there to help you.

What is significant about these testimonies is that they describe so well that the system was isolating the very people it was there to help. It treated consumers, or patients, but it did not listen to them. It was diatribe, not a dialogue. It was not collaborative. And that is a key part of why the royal commission called for, and I quote:

… the creation of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing to bring together expertise in lived experience, research and clinical and non-clinical care, disseminating the practice of evidence-informed treatment, care and support across the state …

That is exactly what this bill seeks to do, and I am pleased the opposition will not be opposing the bill. This bill offers a framework to ensure people with lived experience of mental illness or psychological distress are represented at every level of the collaborative centre, including at its top level, the governance board, as part of an innovative co-director model of executive leadership, and throughout senior management. Could you imagine that? Could you imagine even five years ago, let alone 10 or 20, that people who have had lived experience of mental health would end up running the very organisations at the centre of the system? Could you imagine? It is extraordinary if you think about that: if you think about the families and the consumers who have been battling the system, who would be waiting on the end of a phone line trying to speak to someone senior in the system—or anyone, sometimes, because they were so overworked. Now, through this bill and through our implementation of the royal commission recommendations, they will be at the very centre, at the board level, of these very instruments. It is extraordinarily powerful. We are destined to succeed in this new system with that kind of framework.

Located in Melbourne, this purpose-built facility will be conducting research and training and providing a full suite of mental health services to adults and older adults. The Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing will be a statutory authority, and in addition to the first recommendation of the interim report, it supports recommendations 23, 24, 48, 58 and 63 of the final report of the royal commission.

I just wanted to share—and this was referenced in the royal commission—that part of the model of this collaborative centre is based on the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, and I want to read a quick quote from the commission on this.

This novel approach is already changing the way we tackle cancer in Victoria. The VCCC’s success has been driven by commitment to a shared goal …

which is

to deliver better outcomes for Victorians. It is this collective focus that enables system level change and makes this alliance greater than the sum of its parts.

‘System-level change that makes the alliance greater than the sum of its parts’—such a relief to people who have battled the system for decades and to the people that love them.

There are eight functions of the collaborative centre, and some have been described both in the second-reading speech and by the previous speaker, but I will just recap a couple of them. The first is to provide, promote and coordinate the provision of mental health and wellbeing services; secondly, to provide specialist support services and care for persons who have experienced trauma; third, to conduct interdisciplinary translational mental health and wellbeing research, which is fundamental; and fourth, to establish links and service access pathways between mental health services and the centre.

And then there are a whole range of other coordinated activities to support continuing education, develop and implement research strategies, collate and disseminate best practice advice and guidance throughout the system and finally report to the minister and the secretary of the department on its functions.

But back to the previous point about whether you could imagine a system which has people with lived experience at the epicentre of the board and the governance arrangements of the system—well, the board will have four spots reserved for people with lived experience, two with a consumer background and two with a family or care and support background. It will also be tasked with partnering with a health service and with a research partner, again bringing research together with actual service delivery. This aims to reflect a range of entrenched issues and problems—systemic issues—that were found in the royal commission. Greater interaction and integration between research and service delivery are key to that. What I am most proud of is that we are committed to moving from the ‘us and them’ that exists in this system to ‘all of us together’. In this way we will do that not just through the governance arrangements but through bringing research together with service delivery.

Of all the recommendations of the royal commission—and there are many, and they are all important and they are all integral to the whole—there are a couple for me that are stand-outs because they embed future success and future innovation and they underwrite the system for the years to come. And this is one of them: a collaborative centre that embeds innovation. You cannot entirely design a system in 2021 which will be relevant in 40 years time or in 20 years time. So you have to embed within it a capability for it to be self-innovating and self-generating, and that is exactly what this collaborative centre will do. It is one of the markers of success of this system. The other one, for me, is the levy—the levy which the other side does not support. That is another recommendation which will see the success of this system into the future. These are enduring reforms, and I just want to thank the Minister for Mental Health, the Deputy Premier, his office and his department for their extraordinary work in hitting the ground running and getting a whole bunch of these recommendations implemented.

I have sort of run out of time. I wanted to address some of the propositions made by the Shadow Minister for Mental Health. Just quickly, she talked about regional Victoria. Over $800 million of that investment in the May 2020 budget of $3.6 billion in mental health for Victoria is going to regional Victoria. Kids Helpline, she said, did not receive extra funding. It absolutely received extra funding during the pandemic. This is a great bill, and I commend it to the house.

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (11:13): I rise to speak on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. I acknowledged the member for Oakleigh when he spoke about Kids Helpline. That would be a great lead-in to the start of my contribution, just to make sure we have got on the record some of the facts. I am not questioning the funding. I am not sure about the funding that is in there—I am not questioning that—but we had a 200 per cent increase in five-year-olds in the first six months of this year calling Kids Helpline. There has been an above 50 per cent increase in every age group across the whole spectrum calling Kids Helpline. I know that they have been struggling, and I know that the pressure on them is intense. They offer a fantastic service 24 hours, seven days a week, for, as they say, any time, any issue, so a young person can call. And some of the reasons that young people are calling are not just around their own mental health but might be for support in other areas as well.

I am very passionate about Kids Helpline, and I invite the member for Oakleigh. He will be pleased that we are running a fantastic event, a comedy event online, called Comedy Night In. This will be an event with Kitty Flanagan and Jimeoin. We have got Georgie Carroll. We have got some fantastic comedians locally to raise money directly for Kids Helpline. I was not going to do the big promo in here, but it is only $23 a ticket, and $20 of that goes directly to Kids Helpline to help them out. Our target is to raise $100 000 to support Kids Helpline just here in Victoria, so I invite all members of Parliament in a bipartisan way to please jump on board and buy some tickets for that. Or if anyone would like to buy a corporate sponsorship, I am open to that as well if you would like to jump on board with that one.

We all know mental health is something that is so important, and to have the recommendation come to us in our party room and obviously here today to support this, to me, is very important because I think there are some things that cross the partisan walls and go around—every person in this room has met, spoken to, dealt with or worked with someone in their community who has mental health issues. Every person in my electorate before I was elected probably had some idea of the consequences of what can happen around mental health—some more than others, maybe because it has been within their family, maybe it is something that they have known from friendships or work. It is something that is so important to all of us. Once you get into this role you really see the impact, when families come to you and they are genuinely lost and just do not know where to go. So anything that is going to be making changes and improving that for the future is always going to be welcomed. There have been some time issues in this, as far as how long it has taken. There have been some time issues in the mental health sector. Whilst I endorse the fact that there was a royal commission, you would also have to put into question that those that were running the system for such a long period of time must take some responsibility for the way the services are now.

I went down to Pakenham and met up with the psychology centre down there—with Michael, who is one of the psychologists—and had a very, very good discussion around what is happening in Casey and Cardinia. Now, I represent parts of Casey and parts of Cardinia, but we were speaking about them as wholes—the whole of Casey and Cardinia. We have seen an impact on mental health throughout our community through the COVID crisis, which many would be seeing I know in their own electorates, but down in ours it has got to the stage where there is nearly no help when people are reaching out. So people are contacting or getting a mental health care plan. We know they get their 10 sessions—20 during COVID. It is a great program to make sure people can get the support they need, but when they get out back into the private sector there can be times when there is no place to go. The circumstances of that are that we have actually seen locally where they have drilled into this and they have made phone calls to all of the centres between Warragul and the city—for those that do not know, Warragul is about an hour and a half out from the city, so it is a fair distance that they have covered—and there has only been one position, at a private practice, on the day that would take a new patient, and the rest have had waiting lists.

Waiting lists have got so out of hand at Pakenham that they have had to remove people from the waiting lists and change the structure of how they were doing it. It used to be that you would have them on a list, there was a specific number, and there would be a psychologist, a person, working in there to make sure they could see and attend to someone as fast as possible. However, that waiting list got so big that they found people waiting on the waiting list were not actively looking for other places; they just thought that was the end of the road. So they have reduced the size of those lists. But if you ring up quite regularly you will be updated; even if you are not on the waiting list you can call in and vice versa to make sure you can get treatment as soon as you can, but you are encouraged to go and look elsewhere. Michael was saying to me that one of the hardest things for his staff is to have to ring a family and say an 8-, 9- or 10-year-old with clinical depression in a really bad way cannot get any support—they just physically cannot fit them in. It is so unfair, when you see a family reaching out, that they cannot get the support they need.

We referred to Kids Helpline before. I know Kids Helpline would love to answer every call, every time as soon as they could, but sometimes it is not possible—but that is because the system has got to where it is now. Our system over time has been slowly but surely moving backwards, and I think that is a real concern. In the growth corridors, where we just cannot get that extra support, we need to find a different way.

Now, the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing may put some new options on the table. I hope that when it is up and operating it is taking into consideration what is happening through those growth corridors with the impact of what has happened with COVID, the impact on families, the impact on young people locally, because the impact is just massive. We all know that whilst you can recover from a mental health issue, some of the scars—like with any other health issue you have—can last with you forever, and the impact of that is added stress and anxiety. You see many people who have effectively recovered from a mental health issue but still face some anxieties of ‘What if it comes back? What do I do?’. Now they are hearing about increases in the numbers of people who are trying to get help. Their concern would be if something comes back and they need to seek that assistance, that assistance is not going to be there. I think that is something that all of us in this place—for many years, many decades—have to take some responsibility for and say that that service needs to be better. We need to make sure that every person who reaches out for help can get that support every time. It is all so important.

Federally funded we have got Headspace. We have got Headspace in Narre Warren. I have met with the team down at Headspace, and I know that the services they try and offer are good services. They try and make sure their community is heard. There are some reports around some of the services from Headspace which are peer reviewed, and it is really important that anything in there that could be looked at, adjusted and fixed for the future also suits what is happening within there to make sure when people go in there they do get the services and they are not coming out needing extra private services if they can get some of the services within Headspace and assist them better. I think that is something that needs to be addressed as well as we are moving forward.

The government has offered the psychologists in schools program. I am very lucky, proud and privileged to have that in one of our schools, at Berwick College. We have a mental health and wellbeing centre at the school, and it is a great, great facility. We campaigned on it in 2013 and 2014—we had an issue through Casey with suicides—and the government delivered it in 2018 and it was opened in 2019. It is a facility that allows students in that school to go down there and discuss some of the issues they are having at home—could be financial, could be anything else—so that whilst those issues place pressure on them the students can have that assistance so the issues do not lead into something that may have a major, major impact on their lives with their mental health going forward.

The staff there are absolutely topnotch. Every time I go there I hear from the kids about how they know they have got someone who cares, they know they have got someone who understands what they are going through. One of the newest—I think he is still the newest—down there is Travis Tuck. Most will know Travis Tuck. He was a great footballer in his time. He is a son of Michael Tuck and he was the brother of Shane Tuck. Tragically Shane Tuck lost his life just last year. Travis decided after that that it was his opportunity to give back to the community, to go out and explain what happened within his family as well. But it also gives him the opportunity to talk to kids firsthand about what they can do when they are facing some of the challenges and the demons, and saying to them, ‘You’ve got to reach out. You have to come and seek us every time. It doesn’t matter if it is 2 in the morning or 3 in the morning. You have to seek someone out whenever you need that extra support’. I think it is really important that that message continues.

I know, on behalf of the coalition, we are very pleased to support this bill. It is something that is super important to I know every person in this room. But I will say from my own perspective, through Casey and Cardinia, we need to make sure that our mental health services continue to improve, and let us hope this is the pathway to it.

Mr PEARSON (Essendon—Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Regulatory Reform, Minister for Government Services, Minister for Creative Industries) (11:23): I am delighted to make a contribution on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021.

I remember being on the floor of the Royal Exhibition Building for the handing down of this great report, and it reminded me of a similar journey that the nation went on in May 1901 when the community met on the floor of the Royal Exhibition Building and came here to formally commence proceedings as the national Parliament, the federal Parliament—because Melbourne until 1927 of course was the home of our nation’s Parliament. And in the same way that journey, which created a new nation, a commonwealth, symbolised the start of something new, something different, something better, something richer and something improved, I think that with what we did that day—as my good friend the member for Oakleigh said, something like 238 days ago—we are very much on a similar path, a similar trajectory. We recognise the fact that this is a significant, landmark reform. This is a chance for us as a community and as a government to look at trying to tackle one of the really vexing and challenging issues that we confront as a society. It is not just here in Victoria—it is an issue nationally, and it is an issue internationally as well.

One of the great things about getting older is that there are times when you start to pause—you reflect upon the life that you have led and the life that you have lived, and you think about people who you have met and who are no longer with us. At moments like these you are drawn to people who have committed suicide who you have known over life’s journey—as a student in high school, as a student at university, as a young worker, as a middle-aged person. You think about the lives that have been lost, the tears that have been shed and the grief and the loss that has permeated. A bill like this is important because it builds upon and it operationalises an approach to try and tackle and deal with these issues head-on in a thoughtful and considered way.

I welcome the comments from those opposite about supporting this bill because it is an important bill. It is also building upon some great work from the royal commission. I think that as a member of a government you have those opportunities to reflect upon your conduct, your behaviour and the initiatives that you have championed, and you recognise that in doing so, in applying yourself and being disciplined and focused, you are doing something and making a contribution which will last beyond your tenure in this place as a member. And you know that by doing this there will be a richer and a better experience for the community than would otherwise be the case. It is also important that there is funding that flows with this—that we have a dedicated fund, a fund which is being used to tackle these issues—because when you put a hypothecated fund against an initiative it sends a very clear signal that this is what this money is to go towards; this is what we are trying to do to ensure these issues are tackled and addressed.

The benefit of this centre is that it points to the benefits of clustering. The reality of clustering as an economic term or a theory is that when you have more people working together in a workplace you find that they will be more efficient and more innovative and more productive than those that have fewer people, because it is that benefit of networking—that benefit of feeding off each other and of working together collaboratively. I think some of the more inefficient workplaces can sometimes be where people are just pigeonholed in their pod and they do not talk to their colleagues, they do not collaborate and they do not work together. And sometimes it is through no fault of their own; it is just the nature of the work. But when we can encourage that level of collaboration and foster the ability to network and work together then we will start to see some significant, real, meaningful and tangible benefits as a result, because that is what we want. We want to be in a situation where we can start to understand what is new, what is different, what the things are that we are seeing and how we can improve. A centre like this I think will play a really important role, and it presents us with the opportunity to try and look at and tackle some of the issues that are confronting our society here and now.

There is talk about the impact that an app like TikTok can have upon body image for young girls. There has been commentary around: is there a correlation between high levels of viewing TikToks and being on that platform with eating disorders amongst young girls? I do not know; there might be. But a centre like this can look into that, go into the detail and think about what that looks like. And if it is shown to be the case, then are there things that we can do in a proactive way to try and support girls going through that difficult transition from being young girls to tweens to teenagers to women, and can we start to think about this?

I remember a few years ago I was talking to a friend who had written an article in the Atlantic. It related to iGen, the generation of young people who probably would now be in their early to mid-20s—it was a few years ago—and it talked about iGen in America. iGen have the lowest levels of teenage pregnancy ever in America, low instances of trauma from road accidents, low instances of drug use, low instances of alcohol abuse, but really, really bad mental health. They were looking at this conundrum—how can you have a situation where you have got these young people who are safer and, at one level, healthier than any of their forebears yet they are challenged and beset with really bad mental health? Parents think that kids are okay. The kids are upstairs: ‘My child is safe in this home, this home that I’ve created, that I’ve built. It’s a safe, warm, nurturing environment. Why would my child not be safe?’. The thesis that the Atlantic posited was the fact that it comes down to lack of sleep. I recall having a conversation with Major Brendan Nottle about this issue, about homelessness. I said, ‘What is it? Is it that people are mentally ill and that means that they become homeless or are they homeless first and then they become mentally ill?’. And Brendan said straightaway to me, ‘It’s the latter, because when you are homeless you are fearful for your safety and you don’t sleep. And when you don’t sleep you start to get mentally ill, and it becomes this downward spiral’. So the Atlantic’s thesis was that for young people what is happening is that they have got their phones in their room late at night and their phones are pinging, and they are messaging and they are not getting adequate sleep. As a consequence of that, that is leading to these really poor mental health outcomes.

Again, this is a theory. I know certainly at home we do not let our kids have their phones in their room of a night. They are downstairs on the charger. I note that that appears to be working well for us. Maybe there is something in that; I do not know. But a facility like this I think is really important, and it is really vitally important to try and highlight the benefits of collaboration and research and how we can try and improve ourselves.

Now, it is important, as I said, that there is funding allocated to this. You can talk about the importance of mental health and you can talk about how this is such a great thing, but it really comes down to the funding, because otherwise you are like Bono, really. I think all of us over a certain age would have heard Bono over the years talk about, ‘Governments must do more. Governments should do more. Government needs to tackle poverty. Government needs to tackle social unrest in Africa’. Bono does not pay any taxes or pays very little in the way of tax. You cannot turn around and tell a government they need to do more but then prevent the government from being able to raise the necessary funds in order to do that. This is inextricably linked with the funding that we want to provide with the levy. If you are serious about tackling this, you have got to put your money where your mouth is. It is like Joe Biden said:

Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.

This bill is really important because it will result in significant changes and improvements in mental health—and it is funded. And because we are funding it, it is going to happen.

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (11:33): I rise to speak on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. This bill will launch the collaborative centre as a new entity—an independent body corporate that will connect lived experience, leadership, innovation in service delivery and cutting-edge mental health research to form part of the foundational architecture of the transformed system. Now, I will always support initiatives that assist our state’s desperate need for better mental health services, but it is also my hope that this does not become a city-centric centre for bureaucrats. Given there isn’t any information in the bill on where the centre will be situated, or there is no funding in the budget to make sure this occurs, and given that the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System concluded two years ago and this initiative was the first recommendation from that royal commission, I find it disheartening it has taken this long to be able to put this legislation forward, which is clearly so urgent because we need to get services on the ground right now—not in another two years, when more planning is having to take place. We need services now, and in the regions it is absolutely desperate. We need more health professionals. We need more mental health beds. We need more services and funding, because those waiting lists are far, far too long. My hope is that the government understands that this centre needs to have a very big regional footprint.

I want to begin by reading what somebody sent me via my office. I get a lot of calls to the office from a lot of desperate people wanting some assistance with their mental health—getting services—and their mental illness, and there is a significant difference between mental illness and mental health. When we have a medical emergency, when somebody has a diabetic episode or a broken leg, we see that as a health emergency. When somebody has a mental illness breakdown, we do not have the same emergency services and people are left in desperate situations. I just want to read this one because of the lived experience aspect of this centre. My hope is that this really does get embedded, that we use people’s lived experiences. My constituent writes:

Today I am writing to … express major concern for the mental health services in Portland. As a person experiencing the receiving end of these services I can assure you that they are lacking. My whole youth I have been through multiple mental health plans, services and experiences … as soon as I turned 18 I was forced to leave the program—

which is child and adolescent mental health services—

as I was at the time now an adult. They encouraged me to seek additional help for adulthood with absolutely no guidance, referrals or information. So suddenly I am an adult with no support, still suffering mental illness with no place to turn. My gp … referred me to Headspace Portland, where the referral was rejected on the grounds of my complex needs and them not being equipped to deal with my mental illness. So another year with no public mental health support. Bring on the start of 2020 I experienced another trauma, at this point my gp would not rest until a service agreed to take me on, again headspace could not facilitate my needs. The Adult Mental Health services through Southwest Healthcare finally agreed to take me, now at the start of 2021 and not hearing from my worker in a long time I received a phone call to tell me they are too full with patients and as I am no longer Acute (meaning not a risk of harming myself or others) so therefore I need to find another service … I can not afford private counselling, and the 20 free sessions from medicare due to coronavirus just isn’t enough. The services I am talking about are my ONLY options, and they aren’t even an option for me now.

I hope by reading my experience you are able to understand just how hard it is to get consistent support let alone support in general. I know myself I am not the only one in this position … Portland does NOT have enough mental health support. Portland does NOT have enough mental health workers and right now I do NOT have access to the help I desperately need. I feel forgotten by the government, I feel forgotten from mental health services … please think of us not coping especially on top of Covid-19. We need help, there are a lot of mentally ill people suffering at the hands of lack of funding and support. We as the community are seeing no improvement, if anything it is getting worse.

That is really powerful, and it summarises exactly the situation in the regions. This young girl from Portland is over 4 hours from the city. That goes to my point about making sure the regions are given support under this initiative.

Just this week I met with Nicky Trussler, who is a social worker with 20 years of experience who started Possum House, a private organisation that receives very little, if any, government funding. She points out that many of the children, who we must start with—not leave them to get to adulthood and then have a problem that we have never really addressed—need to be serviced young. We have not got the services to do that, so she started this service, and it assists children through play therapy, which is a proven therapy and completely makes sense when you think about it: children are much more comfortable with play and drawing than they are with talking. It completely makes sense, but because it is not the accepted technology—counselling is usually through speech and talking in the adult world—she does not get the funding through government to assist. It is these sorts of lived experiences, these sorts organically grown from the bottom up, that are happening in the regions that need to be looked at by this centre so we can embrace them. As Nicky said to me, ‘The last thing we need is another layer of mental health that is not offering therapy and is not actually going to help the kids in our regions’.

There are so many teachers who have contacted me, but right now Michelle Kearney, the principal of Bayview College, comes to mind and the amount of conversations I have had with her about the challenges children are facing, and as an independent school she gets nothing. The teachers are left to try and deal with children who are in stressful situations, having mental health issues or mental illness challenges. It is not the role of a teacher who has already got a very full workload. It beggars belief that the private members bill that the member for Lowan attempted to introduce into this house a couple of weeks ago, which would have unlocked 4000 extra mental health workers and could have had an immediate effect, has been ignored by this current government, because it fits perfectly within this initiative and would have given something immediately, which is so desperately needed.

I look at the actions of the nurture room at Warrnambool East Primary, which Michelle Bickley-Miller, the principal, and Robyn Ledin, Tania Billington and Meredith Anderson were integral in beginning. Children, who are often traumatised, start the day in a special nurture room that brings them into a space to be ready to go back to the classroom and begin their day—a fantastic initiative which I have witnessed. It is a powerful, powerful program. We have got people like Matt Murray, who runs HIIT Nation in Warrnambool. Having seen the need for men’s support services in our region, he started a program called Grab Life by the Balls, and he funds the resources needed for this support group out of his own pocket. These are people who are doing things because the need is so great. We should be taking them and looking at them, and this centre gives us that opportunity.

I have too many people to mention here today—mums who often call me and say ‘My daughter is in a desperate situation’. The amount of conversations I had over the 15 years I worked in community health where GPs would say to me, ‘Roma, there isn’t anywhere I can refer your patient to’. I would say, ‘But they’re suicidal’, and they would say, ‘We understand. There is nothing’. We are in a position now, and it has been going on for way too long. This royal commission finished two years ago, and even when it started we knew there were things that needed to be done like workforce planning. I do not understand why with the many, many, many years we have been in this situation, and now with COVID just making it even worse, it has taken this long to get to here. I support the concept; I just want to be absolutely clear that it must be a statewide program. It must not be a city-centric bureaucracy; we must get more therapy to people—hands-on help.

Again, I think what I would say in my final comment is we have so much need for more professionals. Access to services in the regions is so dire. I hope this is not forgotten and that the centre will work towards getting more hands-on workers on the ground, rather than taking up valuable resources that will just be tied up in another bureaucracy. It must be that people are able to access people with mental health qualifications.

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (11:43): It is my very great pleasure to make a contribution today on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. Many of the bills we have in this place of course amend acts; this bill creates one. It creates one because we are delivering on the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, delivering, I must say, on every single one of those recommendations.

I have tired a little bit, I have got to say, of those opposite coming into this chamber and bleating about funding and resources for mental health when they will not accept the recommendation of the royal commission to have a dedicated, hypothecated funding stream for mental health services. You cannot have your cake and eat it too on this; you have simply got to decide. If you want the resource base for these important services, then you simply have to provide a revenue measure to deliver that, and those opposite have refused to do so. They continue to refuse to do so, and they come in here with forked tongues and try and pretend that they are all about delivering mental health services, bleating about resources when they will not deliver the funding mechanism that will provide those very resources. I find it curious at best.

I just want to go through some of the comments of the member for Lowan in her contribution about the way in which mental illness has been addressed throughout the course of this pandemic. We have delivered $247 million in incremental funding, additional funding, to the sector over the course of this pandemic. That is a very, very large commitment, a very, very large amount of additional funding, and frankly it puts the feds to shame. I notice in her contribution the member for South-West Coast, in reading an anecdote from one of her constituents in Portland, a place I am very, very familiar with, referenced a number of times Headspace. Headspace of course is a federally funded program. So her submission essentially said there is not enough funding, which was an attack on the commonwealth government and an attack on this government, but sitting at the heart of the attack is the refusal to take on a dedicated revenue measure to fund the changes she advocates for. That just makes a lie, I think, of the argument that we should somehow suddenly be doing more for mental health, in the submissions of the members for Lowan and South-West Coast, but refusing to pony up for the mechanism to actually pay for those things.

Another criticism she raised was in relation to the time it has taken to introduce legislation. Well, we have been going about this work diligently and comprehensively, and we have ensured at every stage that we have included the sector. We have included those with lived experience. I mean, if there is one bit of the royal commission’s recommendations—there are many bits that are genuinely, truly innovative, but one of those is bringing those with lived experience to the table, incorporating them in both the governance and the service delivery models of the new mental health system we are building. It takes time to get that right—of course it does. But we and only we are faithfully acquitting every single recommendation of the royal commission, and that is what we will continue to do.

Turning to some recent experience in my electorate, I am a father of four, I have spent plenty of time talking about mental health in this chamber and in particular in recent times about youth mental health, and I have facilitated a couple of really key online events for my community around youth mental health this year. In September I asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Mental Health, the member for Oakleigh, to join the Burwood youth round table. That is a group of young people who live or study or work in the electorate, and that gave them the opportunity to ask the member and me a range of questions about both the royal commission and the pandemic response and to talk about lived experience in mental health service delivery and about the support in schools and suicide prevention. There was also a lot of interest from those who participated in mental health pop-up services and area mental health service hubs.

Again, these are part of the innovative framework that we are putting in place with this bill and with other bills, with the budget commitments that are made and the budget commitments that are coming and the revenue measures in order to make sure that we deliver a mental health system that is fit for purpose and delivers for Victorians. It is worth noting that what the federal government spends on mental health nationally is less than what the Victorian government has committed to spending in the state of Victoria alone. I think voters can see who takes this issue seriously and who does not.

In addition to that youth round table I also convened a separate gathering with local youth mental health service providers for a focused youth mental health webinar, and again I was very pleased that the member for Oakleigh was able to join that in his capacity as the parliamentary secretary. The panellists included reps from Headspace and Access Health youth workers from across the three local government areas that intersect my electorate, and it was a great opportunity for those mental health service providers to walk webinar viewers through the typical experience of a young person potentially experiencing mental ill health—how to recognise when that might be happening, what preventative measures might be available and also what experience those young people will have once they come into contact with some sort of mental health service. Those matters might be much discussed in this place, but they are not necessarily readily available or easily comprehensible to people out in the broader community. And I think it is really important that we have those conversations and demystify to an extent what actually happens when you go and access a mental health service.

I know that people—and this is perhaps an irony of it—can feel anxious about accessing mental health services, and it is important that we all involve our constituents in the conversation about what those services look like, what the experience of the people accessing them is and also what the very important role is for parents and guardians and other adults who are very interested in or have an investment in the mental health of young people that they are in contact with.

There were some terrific questions from locals that were put to that panel, and there was a really good conversation about the value of being curious about how young people are feeling—actually putting it to them. The pandemic, if it has delivered one good thing, is that people genuinely ask one another now frequently ‘How are you doing?’, and they do not mean that in the generic vernacular ‘How’re you doing?’ casual way, to which the answer is always, ‘Yeah, good. How are you?’. It is actually the very specific ‘How are you doing? No, really, are you okay? How are you getting on? This is challenging for everyone. How are you doing?’. It can be a really challenging, difficult question to ask, there is no doubt about it, because the answer can sometimes be confronting. But if we move beyond answering that question with the glib socially acceptable phrase and instead answer it truthfully and meaningfully and in a heartfelt way, then we will all take important steps towards better addressing the mental health needs of those around us. Post that particular forum we have had lots of requests, which has been terrific, for people to receive copies of the recording, which of course we have gladly made available.

The centre itself is a very important component of the work that we are delivering in response to that royal commission. It has eight functions. I am not going to go through all of them in the 100 seconds left available to me, but I do want to focus on one element, which is the coordination of interdisciplinary mental health and wellbeing research. We have a set of circumstances, I think, at the moment where mental health intersects so many other health services but not in a way that is necessarily readily recognised, not in a way that is perhaps easily understood. Certainly there seems on my assessment to be a paucity of research into that intersectionality—into the impact, for example, that depression could have on one’s journey through a cancer diagnosis, or even perhaps more simplistically that depression might have if you break your leg or the depression that might result from that period of immobility if you break your leg. These are very, very important areas. They are areas that we need to understand better, and I am delighted that this collaborative centre will be addressing that.

Can I make a final point about the lived experience component. It is no secret that I have lived with challenges to my own mental health. Many members of this chamber I am sure have. It is so important that service response and service delivery is designed with the needs of the patients and the users of those services in mind, and the best people to bring that to bear are those who have that lived experience. That is an important and actually necessary component of the reforms that we are bringing, one of many reforms that will put this royal commission report into action.

Ms CRUGNALE (Bass) (11:53): I rise also with pride to speak to the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021—12 500 contributions, 3200 witness statements, the presentations of evidence, dozens of hearings, thousands of hours of work all leading us to the tabling of our nation’s first-ever royal commission into mental health report, with community at the heart of the report and every recommendation and our government’s commitment to implement them all and rebuild the mental health system in Victoria.

I have an absolute vested interest in mental health. I spoke to this in my inaugural speech in this place and I have spoken to it numerous times thereafter; it is all on the public record. My determination to bring about change and make the system work—with support for our community members struggling with mental ill health; their families, friends, networks, work colleagues; the support agencies; and all the fibrous threads that connect them all—is unwavering, and my determination sits at the core, really, of who I am. My reaction to our Premier’s announcement into the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System was tearful.

My gratitude that finally the system would be rebuilt was enormous—rebuilt, not fixed, because mental health impacts us all. We are all close to someone who has struggled—they may not be with us anymore—and so many of us have found it difficult to navigate the system, which is broken and can let us down at so many turns. Not surprisingly, the final report and recommendations sent to the Governor amounted to five hefty volumes and a summary.

While I talk about my commitment, this is not about me, nor my sister’s long and fraught battle—and 11 years on from her leaving this world, our family is still fractured. Solo tears continue to be wept in the quiet alone. It is about the fine crew at 101 St Kilda; the participants who I worked with in my past for over 15 years; the dedicated, selfless, all-heart support workers, like Mary, Mark and Leon, that are there day in and day out, always going above and beyond to support and care; the participants like Gianni, no longer with us, who still has a dedicated in-tray in my office—and his weekly letters are really missed; Chess; Ravi; and the list goes on. It is about the many that came to the workshops I held in 2019 in Pakenham and Wonthaggi—and I will speak to them a bit later—all informing our own submission to the royal commission. It is about my local community of all ages, all backgrounds and all walks of life across all social and economic settings, their families, their friends, their work colleagues and of course the services and support agencies all doing their best in a stretched environment. It is about also the commissioners beginning their reflections with the importance of compassion and how compassion resonated with them throughout their time—how compassionate care made such a difference in treatment. They also wrote about the hopes of many people they met for a system that works well, one that is built around compassion and hope, one where their voices are heard at all levels—all levels of service delivery, policy, research, evaluation, leadership and governance.

In 2009 the 577-page interim report began the process of rebuilding by making recommendations, and the first recommendation was contained in chapter 13, which was titled ‘Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing’. Our government pledged to implement all recommendations from the royal commission, which is why we are here today. This vital step in our rebuilding process will be done separately from the mental health and wellbeing bill to ensure that it comes online within the time frame that the commissioner has set down. The centre will house a statewide trauma centre to bring together those with academic knowledge and, importantly, lived experience to deliver the best possible mental health and wellbeing outcomes for people affected by trauma. Establishing the collaborative centre as a statutory authority allows us to set its functions and provide executive leadership, as wanted by the royal commission, and it allows us to ensure that the board includes those who have lived experience of mental illness or psychological distress. At least four dedicated positions will include two consumers and two family members or carers. Part of the proof of our caring is the 2020–21 state budget allocation of $2.2 million for the early design and establishment of the centre and a further $3.8 million in the current budget to support early operations, with a total of $18.5 million over four years. I cannot really imagine what reasons, if anyone disagreed with the legislation, someone would give for not supporting this with total commitment.

One saying is that if you do not have a target, you do not have a plan. We have a target, and the target is to ensure that all Victorians have access to the best quality of care, compassionate care, and this collaborative centre is a key part of the plan. It will enable research to understand best practice—best practice to drive what we do; a unified, holistic, person-centred approach to treatment; educating the mental health workforce through practice improvement, with training and professional development programs as well; and moving towards better models of care within the 10-year horizon provided by the royal commission.

Two key partnerships, academic and health service—in a radical leadership model, two co-directors will facilitate the centre’s operations. Rather than the traditional CEO, the co-directors will be a person with lived experience of mental illness and a person with an academic background, working together, jointly navigating a journey rather than one being the boss, signalling a united approach between theory and practice and provider and client, knowing why we are doing what we are doing, the guiding principles being sharing responsibility, respecting the dignity of people living with mental illness or distress, recognising the contribution of family members and loved ones, providing equitable care, collaborating and communicating and putting the person living with illness or distress at the centre of care, supported by the best resources available.

When we held the two mental health workshops in Bass—it feels like a long time ago—in 2019 we sought advice from a range of community members and stakeholders, and we asked questions that really needed answers: what they wanted to see, what worked and what did not. Time and time again the same themes emerged. It did not matter if it was a workshop in the outer suburban growth area of Pakenham and surrounds or the Bass Coast and South Gippsland areas, our people wanted accessible, reliable, person-centred care, compassionate care, care that understood how they felt and what they had gone through.

The collaborative centre is a key part of this plan too. For too long treatment has been disjointed and fractured. The centre will inform the central hub of excellence, combining research and practice, and what is learned and achieved there will radiate across our state of Victoria. My electorate of Bass forms part of the south-eastern spokes in the Victorian wheel, and what we learn at the collaborative centre can be brought home to our communities. We are not reinventing the wheel at all in disjointed, unlinked services; we are establishing a centre in more ways than one—a centre that will coordinate functions for statewide services, support service improvements, implement research strategies that address priority needs and disseminate best practice advice and guidelines.

This in no way denigrates the wonderful work that has been done by so many service providers over the years, and it does not tell them that they could have done better—they did the best they could with the resources they were given. The royal commission was tasked with finding a way, and it is not surprising that this was their recommendation: to create that central hub of the wheel, the centre, and to make it work for everyone in a collaborative way.

In the 59 seconds I have left I just want to also mention that I am very pleased that all our state schools in my electorate of Bass will have mental health professionals in their secondary colleges. Something I have been going on about for many years and which resonated really well at the election, speaking to people back in the day, is that we want to see those opportunities and services and supports in our primary schools as well. As of next year we will have that in the Bass Coast side of the electorate and the year after in our Casey-Cardinia primary schools.

There is a lot happening with our community pop-up clinics as well. There is so much happening in the mental health space that I will probably be reduced to tears talking about it, so I might finish on that note and totally commend the bill to the house.

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (12:03): I rise to make some comments on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021, and I am pleased that the opposition will be supporting this bill. Mental health is a very, very important issue for all of us. We have seen some of the ramifications of the pandemic and the lockdowns that many Victorians have experienced. Not that mental health was not an important issue before then, but it has well and truly been extended into each and every one of our lives since these lockdowns. I do not think there is anyone in the chamber who has not been hurt by it or been touched by it, and I am sure everyone knows somebody that has been directly affected by it.

Particularly I want to use my contribution to talk about young people and those at school. I know that in my electorate of Caulfield a number of kids, families and parents have experienced really, really difficult times. There have been lots of support programs that have popped up. Largely those support programs and community programs have popped up because they have not had the actual support services that have been there available to them. It is great that we are now talking about some of these services being made available. I would say to the government that it is very, very important to focus on grassroots, focus on a number of those organisations that have been working in this space for years and focus on people with lived experience, those that have gone through the traumas, the ups and downs of mental health issues themselves.

I want to specifically put on record an organisation, Grow Australia, which has an outlet in Caulfield. They have been out and about in this space. For over 60 years they have delivered programs right across Australia, and those programs have been adapted specifically for young people. They have set up a program developed around that which is called the Get Growing program. It is targeting young people. The Get Growing program has been running since 2014 in South Australia, the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Queensland, and it is now set to come to Victoria. After talking to Sue Brown earlier today I am pleased to report that the organisation, which has been doing a lot of its programs online, will be set to open up face to face as of next week, and it is really encouraging for a lot of my constituents to be able to have that face-to-face contact.

This is the kind of organisation who have pretty much done their work through fundraising and philanthropic support, with very little support from government. For every dollar in organisations like this that government contribute to, it extends fivefold; you see so many other dollars supported and raised through that. So it is a great investment for government to get involved at the grassroots. I was involved in Odd Socks Day, which is an awareness program that Grow has been running since 2013, and that was all about stamping out the stigma and discrimination which surround mental ill health. It was about wearing a different sock, doing a video of odd socks and talking about confronting the issues around depression and mental health and saying, ‘Let’s have the conversations’. That raised some great dollars for the organisation and most importantly raised awareness. I think certainly it is a great tribute to many of those organisations that they do all of that, but unfortunately a lot of them exist on the smell of an oily rag. They cannot just continue shaking the tin. They need the government support.

So we have had the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. We have now got this legislation. What I would say is, ‘Let’s get the organisations like Grow the dollars’. I am told that Grow could get the Get Growing program for kids up and running within a few months in Victoria, but I am also told that with the tender program that the government has put together it will take a long time before we start to see the rubber hit the road with these organisations. Particularly through the pandemic, young people and people that have suffered through extensive lockdowns need the help now, not in 12 months time. They need help now, so I would implore the government to take up these organisations and really support what is needed for these organisations to be able to do the fantastic work that they do.

I also want to note that Grow has the ability to run a residential support service—five units in their facility. Again I urge the government to look at that in terms of ways of being able to get that up and running. We have a real issue, again, in my electorate of Caulfield. A lot of rooming houses are unregulated, and a lot of people experiencing severe mental health trauma do not have support around those rooming houses, whereas at Grow they actually can provide all the services. They can do it in-house, and it would be a great model that we should be looking at extending to support the most vulnerable and to support the most needy.

I also want to just touch on some other programs that are done at the grassroots, and I want to particularly pay tribute to Stephanie Silver, who set up an organisation, I Am Mindful. This is a business established by her which provides a toolkit of evidence-based resources to help with emotional regulation and wellbeing for kids, and it is something that has been built with her university degree and her studies.

It was extended to run some modelling and some research to ensure that that could then be developed as an ongoing kit. Her I Am Mindful program runs for a number of schools throughout Victoria, but again it is not funded; it is literally bootstrapped. This was something that Stephanie did through initially lived experience. She is somebody that suffered a mental health illness, and she then looked at what was around and found there were huge gaps. So this I Am Mindful awareness toolkit that she put together was through lived experience and was through research. She did studies in psychology around this, and she has also worked with universities and with mental health providers in terms of the work that they are currently doing on conducting ongoing research in this space. So again, here is an example. She ultimately wants to create this as a community organisation. She is seeing it ultimately as not a for-profit experience but something that can be used ongoing as a community needs—to be able to fill that gap for a lot of kids. I have had countless numbers of families who have kids with mental health issues where—during the pandemic, during these lockdowns—their classroom has been their bedroom, and all of their mental health issues have followed from the extensive lockdowns. When a lot of these parents have tried to get mental health support for their kids they have again been told that there is a 12-month waitlist in some instances.

I have heard all kinds of really, really traumatic examples of what some of these parents and some of these kids are going through. I have mentioned in Parliament previously where a young person of 12 has hardly left her bedroom other than to eat and then return to the bedroom. She has absolutely been traumatised by all of this, and she cannot get any help—any counsellor, any psychiatrist, any psychologist, any help. These are the kinds of things that people are resorting to, because ultimately we see many Victorians that are desperate. We see that many Victorians are desperate, that they have not had that kind of support and that there has been a huge gap.

We are absolutely willing to do whatever we can to work with the government on this stuff. It is very, very important to be able to do this. But the government has had 18 of 21 years to work in this space. So it is all very well to be able to turn and say, ‘You didn’t do this’ and ‘You didn’t do that’—well, quite frankly, the government has been in power a long time to get this stuff right. We will work with the government to ensure that it does, and we will provide that support that is necessary.

As I say, it is all very well for a government to actually set up more bureaucracy, more government departments, more public sector to deal with this; I cannot talk highly enough of those community organisations, those not-for-profits and those volunteers—those volunteers that get up every day and do this work to help particularly those experiencing mental health issues, help our young people and give them the support that they need. That is where the focus should be, that is where the dollars should be and that is where the government’s emphasis should be to ensure we have grassroots-led support to ensure all our people experiencing mental ill health get that support that is needed.

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (12:13): It is with great pride and pleasure that I rise to speak on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. I acknowledge the member for Caulfield said at the outset of his contribution that the opposition are actually actively supporting this bill, and I commend them for that. They are not simply, as is the usual thing, not opposing the bill; they are actually actively supporting it. But what I did take from the member for Caulfield’s remarks was that there still is a lack of understanding from that side of this Parliament about this broken system that was revealed by the royal commission. We said up-front that this system needs a root-and-branch change, but still the other side does not understand that that costs money. What I took from the member for Caulfield’s remarks is that on the one hand he was saying that an organisation that sounds like a very good organisation in his electorate needs money now—but those on that side refused to support the levy which was to pay for these fundamental reforms to our mental health system, root and branch. Those on that side do not want to pay for it.

They decry and diminish and demean the people that work in this system as ‘another level of bureaucracy’. They are not a level of bureaucracy; they are highly trained people of integrity—the Pat McGorrys of the world—who want to make change.

A member: They are at the coalface.

Ms GREEN: They are at the coalface, and they should not be denigrated as ‘another level of bureaucracy’. It is not good enough.

As someone who has family experience, my whole life I grew up in a household with a parent with a significant mental illness in a regional area, as did my younger sisters, and when my mother was widowed there was no-one. I was in Melbourne. I was on the phone all the time, and to each service I would ring I would say, ‘Can you get help for my mother?’, and they would say, ‘Yes, yes, yes’, and then I would say where she was in a regional area, and they would say, ‘No’. We recognised as a government it was not good enough, but when those opposite were on the government benches they did not recognise that.

They try and rewrite history now. The member for Lowan tries to rewrite history and put Mary Wooldridge on a pedestal. I mean, they completely gutted community mental health. I grew up in Warrnambool and Mildura. I know the paucity of mental health resources there, and I was absolutely horrified that under the watch of Mary Wooldridge they closed services in Hamilton, in the member for Lowan’s electorate. She is silent on that. She was silent then, she is silent now, and those consumers were having to go to Warrnambool. With this reform we are not having that anymore. We are not having that. We are investing in a future. This piece of legislation will establish the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing with a high degree of fidelity to recommendation 1 of the interim report and recommendations 23, 24, 48, 58 and 63 of the final report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.

The member for Caulfield and others are correct: this pandemic has had a huge impact on the mental health and wellbeing of not only every human being on the planet but of every Victorian. No family in this state has not been touched by this. In listening to the Premier in his interview with Rafael Epstein yesterday, he fully acknowledged this. We know that this has caused pain. But how Victorians can be reassured is that prior to this pandemic we had initiated this action for a root-and-branch change to our mental health system and system of service delivery.

The member for Bass talked about all of her secondary colleges having mental health professionals within them now. That is the right thing to do. When those opposite are in charge they cut schools. They cut support services to schools. They do not expand them. My electorate was impacted by Black Saturday, and students in my schools are still impacted by that. There are more fire-affected students in schools in my electorate and in neighbouring electorates than there were at that time. We have recognised that. We were advised as a government in 2009 that under no circumstances should you withdraw individual support services to young people suffering trauma inside of five years. The government changed and they cut it to three. We are still dealing with that legacy.

There has been a suicide prevention task force, and I want to thank the Minister for Health, who in his previous role as the Minister for Mental Health funded that task force. But we have had to do more, and there has been a spike. There continues to be a need for support. I am really relieved that next year those mental health professionals will be rolling out into primary schools, because they are still very well needed.

Whether it is the impact of the pandemic, whether it is the impact of other trauma like Black Saturday, I have many, many returned personnel and serving members of the ADF who do not have enough services within that system—and the federal government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledging that—so it is the schools in my electorate that have been providing first-responder support to those parents and to the children of those parents who are struggling with those post-trauma issues. I see the member for Benambra at the table, and I know, having ADF personnel in his electorate and his own experience of service, he very well understands that.

So we need to take action and we need to do it in a collaborative way. I am really glad that the opposition is supporting this, but it has got to be more than words. Now that they have changed their leader, coming up to the next election in 12 months time they need to say, if they were not convinced by the royal commission, that they now are convinced by the impact of the worldwide pandemic on our community. They must commit to the levy that will fund and continue to fund innovations like the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing but also every other part of the new services that are being built, whether it is capital or whether it is recurrent.

I want to thank the federal government. They finally recognised that they need to provide some Headspace services to the City of Whittlesea. My colleague the Minister for Community Sport and Minister for Multicultural Affairs is sitting next to me at the table; we are neighbouring MPs. Hume and Whittlesea have had the most significant impact, a huge impact, from the COVID virus, and it has only been in recent weeks that for the first time the federal government has recognised they need to spend one dollar in the City of Whittlesea, one of the fastest growing municipalities in the country—not just in the state, in the country. There is a part-time outreach service from Greensborough. That is their response to the pandemic. They need to do more.

I am really pleased that the Deputy Premier is now Minister for Mental Health; having him have education and understanding our young people and mental health just means that this wicked problem is getting the absolute attention and the seniority in our government that it deserves. I want to thank him for his action in ensuring that my electorate, and the City of Whittlesea in particular, is one of the priority areas, that new mental health beds are under construction at the Northern Hospital and that services for our youth and adults have been identified in the City of Whittlesea.

This is a great bill. It is another great piece of legislation that enacts that most pivotal work that the royal commission had undertaken. I want to thank them. I want to thank the public servants that have prepared this. We are a government that supports our public servants and does not denigrate them like those opposite.

I also want to speak in memory of Robyn O’Gorman, who passed away overnight. (Time expired)

Ms HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (12:23): I also rise to make a contribution on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021, and I acknowledge the courage of previous speakers who have spoken of their personal experiences with mental health both as individuals and as family members and friends. I think it is true that all of us have been touched in many ways by loved ones who have experienced mental ill health and all the things that come with that.

But getting onto this bill, our nation has experienced ongoing loss and suffering over the last two years, with COVID-19 changing each and every one of our lives, yet in the middle of this global pandemic our government has still been 100 per cent committed and dedicated to rebuilding Victoria’s mental health system from the ground up. In fact earlier this year we saw the release of the final report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, which provided a glimpse of hope for a transformational new system and a fundamental restructuring of mental health care.

Unlike those opposite we did not waste a minute in jumping up to say on the release of the final report that our government is committed to implementing every single one of the royal commission’s recommendations. And yet 238 days, give or take a few, since the final report was released we still have not received any commitment from the Liberal-National parties to implement all recommendations, nor have they proposed any credible alternative to fund the billion-dollar reform that is so desperately needed for Victorians.

We should not be shocked by the lack of commitment shown by those opposite, because their track record really is disgraceful. In fact they recently voted against the mental health levy recommended by the royal commission. Under that levy, businesses that pay more than $10 million in wages nationally will pay an additional 0.5 per cent surcharge, and this levy will only affect less than 5 per cent of employers in Australia, many of whom have made super profits during this pandemic. A levy is really the only way that we can guarantee to continue the reform and guarantee ongoing, more and better services. It is appalling to see that the opposition weaponises mental health for their own political gain during this pandemic. They always put politics over people, and they should be ashamed. I could continue to talk about the Liberal and National parties’ flagrant disregard for the mental health and wellbeing of our state. But it is not worth it, and I do not want to waste my time. Instead I would rather talk about this bill.

We are here to discuss one of the most pivotal or most important parts of mental health support reform in Victoria and one of the most fundamental recommendations of the royal commission, which was of course commissioned by the Andrews Labor government. This will deliver one of the biggest social reforms in Victoria’s history and is at the heart of Victoria’s reformed mental health system. The bill will launch what is called the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing as a new independent entity that will connect lived experience, leadership, mental health research and service delivery to form the foundation of transformational reform. The legislation realises the very first recommendation of the mental health royal commission in its interim report. It is the foundation stone for the reform and the complete overhaul of the mental health system in our state that we know is terribly broken.

Although there are a range of fantastic organisations and workers across our state providing incredible research and evidence on mental health and mental illness, there has not yet been a dedicated knowledge-sharing institute in Victoria that has been able to bring together the latest thinking on how to deliver systematic-level change. Today that changes. Today we are legislating to enshrine a one-of-a-kind collaborative centre. Today we place lived experience at the heart of our mental health system. The purpose-built centre will provide comprehensive services to adults and the local community, including community-based and mobile home treatment, outpatient clinics, crisis responses and inpatient care. The establishment of the collaborative centre will see the provision of world-leading translation services, workforce development and best practice mental health and wellbeing care delivered in collaboration with people with lived experience of mental illness or psychological distress. Additionally the collaborative centre will function to deliver specialist support services and care for people who have experienced trauma. As such, this provides for the establishment of a statewide trauma service determined to improve mental health and wellbeing outcomes for people of all ages experiencing trauma.

It will also integrate the participation of people with lived experience across all functions and governance levels through dedicated board positions and a joint executive leadership model. The legislation that we are debating today sets up the structure and the mechanisms to establish the collaborative centre, and it clearly defines its objectives and guiding principles, its functions and powers and its governance, a governance structure that most importantly includes people with lived experience, placing their knowledge and expertise at the centre of the response to mental health care in Victoria. The centre will encourage innovation and support groundbreaking research, working alongside service provision within the centre, and ensure research priorities are set by mental health consumers, carers and practitioners. Nobody knows our mental health system better than the people and their families who have experienced it firsthand, and it is time we ensure that those Victorians are at the forefront of this change. The Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing is not only unparalleled—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! If I could interrupt the member for Thomastown, the house will now pause for half an hour for a cleaning break.

Sitting suspended 12.30 pm until 1.04 pm.

Ms HALFPENNY: In concluding my contribution and summing up, the current mental health system is not geared for the ever-changing advances in therapy, research and treatments, and it cannot meet the needs of individuals and societies. The royal commission had a vision that we will now realise for a modern, sustainable system that adapts and responds to Victoria’s needs into the future, and today we ensure that that vision is enshrined in legislation.

The proposed Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing will boost the foundation of an adaptive mental health and wellbeing system and meet the gaps in translational research into treatment, care and support so we can really with confidence look forward to a mental health system that is going to be so, so much better for all.

Before I sit down I would like to do a shout-out to the workers at the hospital outreach post-suicidal engagement program that is based at the Northern Hospital—the people that work there. This is a program, again initiated by the Andrews Labor government, which is for outreach and support for those who have attempted suicide. The staff there are working so hard, they are so committed, they are so caring, and it was really nice to see that we were able to just recently—just as a little tiny payback for the service they provide and the work they do—advocate for the local council to withdraw some parking tickets. Those fines were waived and some other alternative arrangements were found in terms of their parking needs. It is really good to see in areas like the northern suburbs that we do try wherever we can to help, support and show the value of those that work and live in the area and that give so much back to the community.

Ms KILKENNY (Carrum) (13:06): It is my pleasure to rise today to contribute to today’s debate on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. This piece of legislation is yet another significant milestone in the Andrews Labor government’s commitment to fixing and reforming Victoria’s mental health system. We all know it was the Andrews Labor government that promised Victorians that it would hold the first ever Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. It is the Andrews Labor government that has committed to implementing every single one of the recommendations from the royal commission, and of course it is the Andrews Labor government that is delivering the biggest social reform in our state’s history by investing in the mental health system that Victorians need and that Victorians deserve.

All of us, as we have heard today, know someone who has struggled with mental health, yet if we compare historical investment over time with investment in other physical health problems, whether it is cancer or cardiovascular disease, we know that mental health funding historically has been significantly less and that it attracts less investment in research. Something needs to be done about that. All jurisdictions have a role to play. Of course we welcome the federal government’s recent commitments in the area of mental health and suicide prevention, but if we are really going to address this issue, if we are really serious about it, then long-term sustainable funding is required, it is warranted and it is needed nationally. Here in Victoria we are committed to fixing our system, and that is starting with the royal commission and delivering on all of those recommendations.

I just want to tell a really quick story. Back in 2018 it was election day and I was standing at the polling booth. I recall a woman coming up to me. She pulled me aside and wanted to talk about mental health. It related to her 13-year-old daughter. For her, the mental health of her daughter, the investment, the commitment that we were going to make to reforming mental health here in Victoria was the single biggest issue facing her. It was the single issue that she voted on at the election, and for her it was her life. It was such an extraordinary moment to see this woman in tears and to see someone so compelled by this government’s commitment to fixing the system that you realised just how profound an investment this was for all of Victoria.

In 2019 a year 6 student entered my Carrum writing competition—I run it every year. She wrote about mental health and the impacts on young people and the need for more direct engagement with young people and specialised services for young people and how important that was. I did not know then but I found out later from her mum that she in fact had been suffering, and continues to suffer, from mental illness herself. I thought, ‘How extraordinary—this very young woman, grade 6, writing about this issue, wanting to see change, wanting to be a voice for that change’. That was another really profound moment and, again, something so compelling and just so important when we know we are on this path now to fixing this broken system.

That is obviously why the Andrews Labor government has committed to reform our mental health system and build it from the ground up. This year in the 2021–22 budget we invested a record $3.8 billion towards this just well-overdue reform. We are delivering more community-based services, more help for those with acute needs, more early intervention and of course a new dedicated system to really support kids and young people. All of this obviously will be underpinned by a boost to our mental health workforce, because we know that it is the people who will deliver the support, the services and the care to the Victorians who need it.

Of course this change—this enduring change—needs to be protected as well, and that is why the royal commission in its report recommended the introduction of a new revenue mechanism to protect the long-term funding and future of Victoria’s mental health system. It is why this government legislated to do just that when it introduced the mental health and wellbeing levy earlier this year, a levy that will apply to businesses which pay more than $10 million in wages annually. That will be introduced from next year. We did this to make sure that we can continue this critical work to reform and rebuild Victoria’s mental health system and to protect the system for Victorians for generations to come.

We know those opposite opposed the levy at the time we sought to introduce it. It says something about the commitment to mental health reform in this state from those opposite. I think it also says something about their priorities. I will continue to remind people in my community that the coalition opposed this levy; they opposed this long-term protection for our mental health system here in Victoria. On the flip side of course it says something about this government’s priorities, and that is that this government wants to change lives. We want to fix lives and we want to save lives. The bill before us is an important part of this.

The bill before us will deliver on the first recommendation of the interim report of the royal commission, and that is to establish the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing. This is a really significant development. It is positioning a centre right at the centre, if you like. It is the beating heart of our reform in mental health and wellbeing here in Victoria. It will bring people together—people with lived experience, researchers, experts in multidisciplinary clinical and non-clinical care—to provide adult mental health services, to conduct research and to distribute and disseminate knowledge, awareness and expertise, all with the overarching and very clear aim of delivering the best possible outcomes for people living with mental illness here in Victoria, and that is not only for consumers of those services but also the families and carers of those people.

This centre will be the foundation, if you like, the bedrock of our reformed system, and it will deliver I think what has really been missing, and that is that collaborative and extensive research that involves people with lived experience and then translates that research into real practice, clinical and non-clinical services that are going to make a difference in the lives of Victorians. Of course it will be a process of continual improvement, continual adaptation, because that is what mental health reform needs, and it will ensure that clinical and non-clinical practice is relevant, is effective and is going to make a difference. It is cutting edge, and it will also ensure that our workforce is evolving and adapting. It will coordinate learning and professional development. It will build culture and capability. So again, it is looking towards the future, looking to implement something that is adaptable, that is sustainable and that is going to meet the needs of Victorians for years and years to come.

Just briefly, it will be established as a statutory authority and will be accountable to the Minister for Mental Health. It will have its own purpose-built facility. It will provide clinical services. It will support community outreach. It will also include a statewide trauma service to deliver the best possible mental health outcomes for people living with trauma, and that is in line with recommendation 23 of the commission’s final report.

This is a really significant milestone as we move forward with our reform of the mental health system in Victoria. I want to acknowledge the work of the former Minister for Mental Health and the current Minister for Mental Health for their commitment to reforming Victoria’s mental health and wellbeing system for generations to come, and I am delighted to commend the bill today.

Mr TAK (Clarinda) (13:16): I am extremely proud to join the member for Carrum to speak on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. I am so extremely proud to be part of this Andrews Labor government, a government that is totally committed to addressing the serious and widespread mental health challenges that we face here in Victoria and across the country. We saw this steadfast commitment when the last budget came down, with the once-in-a-generation investment to rebuild our mental health system from the ground up. It was amazing—some $3.8 billion to transform the way mental health support is offered in Victoria, with early intervention, a dedicated stream of care for kids, the recruitment of thousands of new workers and an investment of $954 million to deliver 22 reform areas of mental health and wellbeing services to replace current services. These services will give more capacity to treat and support Victorians experiencing severe and complex mental health issues, including in our own community.

Young Victorians are right at the heart of this investment, with $842 million in mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people. That investment sees two separate streams of care created, one devoted to infants and children and one devoted to young people. Allow me to say that, just on that point, last week a close friend of mine and his partner delivered a beautiful baby girl, and in circumstances beyond their control she had to be admitted to the Mercy Hospital for Women neonatal intensive care unit. It has been an extremely tough week, and I understand that they have been provided the most amazing care from everyone there at the Mercy NICU, as well as the maternity and emergency departments at Peninsula Health in Frankston and Rosebud. I would like to say thank you to all of the doctors, the nurses, the midwives and others there for the amazing work that they do and to all of our healthcare workers across Victoria. We are truly blessed and truly grateful for all of you.

Again, I encourage everyone in my community to continue to come forward and get vaccinated to protect those that protect us—our healthcare workers, the frontline workers—to protect the ones that we love and to keep us moving forward towards normality. We are doing well. It is an amazing achievement, and it has to keep going. As I have said before, this government is committed to our mental health system. We have committed to delivering more early intervention, more intensive support for those who need acute care and more help for local communities.

I am extremely proud of this truly once-in-a-generation investment to rebuild our mental health system, changing the way that we view and respond to one of the greatest challenges of our time: protecting and promoting the mental health of all Victorians. We see that commitment here again today in the objectives of the legislation, which are as follows. The first is to provide for world-leading translational research, workforce development and best practice mental health and wellbeing care, delivered in collaboration with people with a lived experience of mental illness or psychological distress; deliver the best possible outcomes for all people living with mental illness; and improve people’s experience of care through the establishment of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing, the collaborative centre. The second is to establish the collaborative centre with a high degree of fidelity to recommendation 1 of the interim report and recommendations 23, 24, 48, 58 and 63 of the final report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, the royal commission.

It is a proud day, and I am proud to stand here with my colleagues and support this bill. So much has taken place in the lead-up to today. The interim report of the royal commission, delivered in November 2019, identified critical shortcomings in the integration of practice, research and education in the mental health and wellbeing sector. As a result, recommendation 1 of the interim report was that:

… the Victorian Government establishes a new entity, the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing.

And here today we are debating this important recommendation. So I am very proud to support the bill and to support the establishment of the collaborative centre as per recommendation 1 of the royal commission.

The bill is also intended as a piece of establishing legislation that will provide an overall structure for the collaborative centre, set out its key functions and objectives and prescribe a small number of key activities as provided for by the royal commission. This enabling legislation will be repealed on commencement of the new mental health and wellbeing act, with provisions relating to the collaborative centre to be re-enacted as part of the new act, subject to any consequential amendments required for its incorporation into the new act.

One of the major themes of the centre seems to be a real focus on lived experience—bringing people with lived experience together with researchers and experts to develop and provide mental health services—which I think is a fantastic thing. Lived experience is one of our greatest resources, and if we can use and find a positive purpose for some of our deepest and darkest challenges and experiences, that is an amazing thing. So it is great to see lived experience at the forefront of service development as well as research and other initiatives aimed at delivering the best possible outcomes for people living with mental illness or psychological distress.

The cooperative centre will work with a network of partners including service and research organisations in rural and regional areas, and I thank all of the wonderful support organisations in Clarinda—in my electorate—and across Victoria that work within that scope. I would just like to say thank you all.

In developing the bill there were extensive consultations—which is one of the best parts—with many of the stakeholders, including the Lived Experience Advisory Group; a time-limited advisory group of eminent experts with skills in health service delivery, health research, collaborative processes, health governance and commissioning; Industrial Relations Victoria; Fairer Victoria in the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing; and Aboriginal Victoria within the Department of Premier and Cabinet. So it is an extensive consultation process with broad support across stakeholders, and I understand that the department will conduct further targeted consultations during the establishment of the collaborative centre to ensure that all stakeholder interests are thoroughly considered.

Victorians’ mental health is more important than ever. I know the last 18 months have been incredibly tough for everyone in our community. Every family and every individual has had their own really serious challenges to deal with across the pandemic. The effects on our mental health are going to be felt long after the pandemic, and this government will continue to respond. Almost $250 million has been provided so far in response to mental health challenges associated with the pandemic, and that support will continue to flow to wherever it is needed. This government has demonstrated its commitment to the public health and mental health of Victorians, and I am extremely proud of that. I am extremely proud to support this bill here today, and I commend the bill to the house.

Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (13:26): I rise to speak on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. The findings of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System were tabled this year, and I well recall the sitting of Parliament at the Royal Exhibition Building and the really momentous occasion where the government announced that it would accept all the recommendations of the royal commission, so it is pleasing to be standing here today to see one of the recommendations being taken up and really implemented in this bill with the establishment of the collaborative centre.

I think one of the things that really struck me about that day was the two regional people who got up and spoke about their experiences with the mental health system. One was a farmer from Western Victoria who had presented at a hospital with serious mental health issues and ended up at his car in the car park; that was the level of service that was able to be provided for him. He spoke with considerable passion and distress about that absolute lack of service in a regional centre that was available to him. A young woman who presented at Goulburn Valley Health in Shepparton really had quite a similar experience, so it just highlighted what we all know and what really strongly came out of the royal commission, and that is the lack of services everywhere, and certainly in regional areas.

I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the member for Altona sitting opposite, who was the Minister for Health in my first term in this Parliament when we saw the establishment of stage 1 of the redevelopment of Goulburn Valley Health. This is now drawing to a close, and we will be coming to the government very shortly with an ask for stage 2. That stage 2 will include a completely new mental health unit in Shepparton. It will look towards receiving 20 additional beds on top of the 15 that are there and the provision of services in a modern way that we simply do not have in our region. There is also an ask for a short-stay section adjoining the emergency department in Goulburn Valley Health that is not there at the moment but is really so important to deal with people when they come in in that state of distress to an emergency department. They are not really capable of sitting in a waiting room for hours waiting to be processed. To have a separate short-stay unit to assist, with mental health workers being able to be there and deal with their issues separately to all the other issues that people in an emergency department are experiencing, is really important, and that came out time and time again in the consultations during the royal commission—the importance of that sort of separate psychiatric care unit attached to an emergency department.

This particular collaborative centre that is proposed will offer a really fresh and new way of looking at mental health, and no doubt the royal commission really started that journey. The leadership that is proposed and the governance that is proposed for this organisation is very much about engaging with people who have had the lived experience of mental health, and I think that is something that is really important, but I would also be urging the government not to overlook the importance of having people from regional areas involved as well. There will be committees. The tasks are around research, around education and a range of things that all really strongly pertain to the Shepparton region.

There is certainly a great opportunity for more research and work to be done in the mental health field. During the course of the royal commission Shepparton had representatives who made submissions, who participated, who gave evidence. Two of those were from Goulburn Valley Health, and the leaders from that organisation pointed out the strong need for the services that they provide to focus on early childhood and families but also on our First Nations people and our culturally diverse community members, especially refugees and asylum seekers. It also addressed the issue of the workforce shortages, which we all know about and which I often speak about in this place, because it is absolutely critical. Our health services in our regional areas are simply not able to manage with the resources that they have. I am understanding that some of the overseas people who will be coming to relieve the pressure on our health services will in fact be coming to Shepparton, because it is well recognised that the pressure on our services there is great.

The Rumbalara Aboriginal Co-operative also made a submission to the royal commission and highlighted that there was an over-representation of Aboriginal people using mental health services and that their mental health needs were simply not being met. In his witness statement to the royal commission, Goulburn Valley area mental health service divisional director Dr Ravi Bhat said that Indigenous men were more than three times more likely to report suicide attempts than non-Indigenous men, and refugees were likely to have higher rates of mental distress, including really serious mental health issues such as schizophrenia. He said such marginalised groups were less likely to access the services that might be there and, given the needs and a sense of a requirement for cultural safety, that these things really presented barriers to accessing that sort of support. So despite limited resources for rural health services, the need for the provision of much more is great. I have to say it is very pleasing to just recall that the government has invested $3.8 billion through the Victorian state budget. We will be not only looking for capital from that fund but also, again, working hard to find the people we need to move to and live in regional areas who are professionals who are able to provide the level of care that is required.

The ongoing shortage is a cause of great distress. I have many people contact my office in relation to mental health issues. Very often the complaint is from a family member or family members who express their great concern at the fact that they do not feel included in the care process of their loved one, in the discharge process, in understanding what will happen to that person when they go back into the community—to understand what medications they are on, what appointments they may have, what just their basic needs might be. I think this is really concerning and really then goes back to that issue of the importance of having people with these lived experiences engaged in the system, engaged on this collaborative board that is being set up, but also being heard and listened to throughout the whole system as we really are moving towards a very significant reform process.

In the Shepparton district we see an annual increase of 15 per cent of mental health patients presenting in the emergency room year on year, and this would indicate that more people with mental ill health are not receiving the care they need. So there is this constant returning as well. Without Goulburn Valley Health having a psychiatric assessment and planning unit, it really is hamstrung in terms of being able to deal with these emergency needs as they present at the front door at the hospital.

The bill states, again, that family members and carers must be seen as important and put at the heart of these processes as we go through, and I do hope that there will be some capacity to measure the extent to which this is happening. It is an integrated model, but we do need to have the oversight to understand that these recommendations really are being put into place, are being followed and will actually create change.

In closing, I have to say that I have been around a long time and have been involved with the mental health system through family members working in it and the like, and it is very apparent to me that the need is great. We went from a time when there was a very drug-orientated system to having large psychiatric hospitals with a range of services. They were closed down and people were put in the community, but ultimately I think we see those people in prison and on the streets. They are homeless, and it is simply not good enough that as a society this is what we have done with people with mental health conditions. So I welcome this move towards reform and I support this legislation.

Mr HALSE (Ringwood) (13:36): Acting Speaker McGuire, it is good to see you in the chair and, as always, attentive to the contributions of people in this chamber on a particularly important piece of legislation that is being debated this afternoon. It is a privilege to talk about mental health in this place, and it is a privilege to follow on from many fine contributions. I was listening to the member for Clarinda and his passion for this area of public policy and his work with his constituents in his electorate.

As has been noted, the bill will launch the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing, the collaborative centre. The centre will be established in line with recommendation 1 of the interim report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and recommendations 23, 24, 48, 58 and 63 of the final report of the royal commission. This government, as has been the mantra of the last 18 months, has said that it listens to the experts, and it has done so on this occasion in the establishment of the collaborative centre. It has been guided by their advice, by their research and the need for reform within our community with respect to our mental health system.

In November 2019 the interim report of the royal commission into mental health was released, as we know, and its first recommendation was to create the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing to bring together expertise in lived experience, research and clinical and non-clinical care, disseminating the practice of evidence-informed treatment, care and support across the state. It is really important to note the integrated nature of this centre, and at the very forefront we are talking about integrating the lived experience of people who have suffered from or who experience mental ill health or mental distress.

The final report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System tabled earlier this year at the Royal Exhibition Building paints a detailed and comprehensive picture of a reformed mental health system in Victoria and what that could achieve for the citizens of our state and those who are in need—a reformed system in which people living with mental ill health or distress and their families and carers can be at the forefront, where they can be listened to and valued as active, as opposed to passive, contributors and leaders within this centre. Central to this reform is of course the purpose-built collaborative centre for mental health and wellbeing, and it is wonderful to see the term ‘wellbeing’ attached to this centre as well. It is not simply a case of addressing the very real issues of mental health, but we increasingly—as a society and as a community as we move out of the pandemic’s acute phase—need to talk about wellbeing within our communities and within our families and school settings and all of those settings within our local districts.

The centre will provide comprehensive mental health and wellbeing services to adults over 26 and older adults in its local community, including home-based and community-based treatment services provided in outpatient clinics and inpatient care and other non-hospital settings and crisis responses.

I want to touch on the importance of having access to community-based and in-home care. It is a very confronting thing for so many people to access the hospital system when they are dealing with mental health issues. It is testament to the way in which mental health has been managed and dealt with over generations, but we need to increasingly look at innovative and evidence-based approaches to care, and care in the home often is the very best way of addressing and supporting people with mental ill health. People living with mental ill health or distress, their families, their carers, will have access to comprehensive treatments, care and support delivered by a skilled and diverse workforce through this centre. They will have access to a system that responds to the changing needs of those who live with mental ill health and distress and those who are closest to them and care for them, because it is not just the case that we address the individual with mental ill health. We know that there are more than 60 000 people who are caring for an individual, often a family member, who is experiencing and has been diagnosed with mental ill health. They will have access to a system that responds to the changing needs of those who live with mental ill health and those closest to them. They will have also the opportunity to join the collaborative centre as board members, co-directors or staff. They will be able to get involved in a range of ongoing co-designed activities through the actions of and design of this innovative centre. The new system is a broad-based system, one that is based on connection and collaboration, and this bill enshrines this mantra, this theme of care into legislation.

I note that a number of my colleagues have gone through the historic commitments that this government made in the previous budget with respect to mental health service provision. The recent budget allocated $2.2 million for the early design and establishment of the collaborative centre. A further $3.8 million was allocated in the budget to support the early operations of the collaborative centre, with a total of $18.5 million over four years. Since the start of the pandemic, as the member for Clarinda has just noted, nearly $250 million in additional funding has been provided to support our mental health services across Victoria.

I just want to conclude by reflecting on October being national Mental Health Month. Mental health month encourages all of us to stop, pause and think about our own mental health and wellbeing regardless of whether we may have had a lived experience of mental ill health or not. It also gives us the opportunity to understand the importance of good mental health in our everyday lives and encourages seeking help when needed. It does not matter if you are a politician, it does not matter if you are a schoolteacher, it does not matter what profession you might be in, it does not matter your age—you could be young, you could be old—we are all in some way touched by the widespread issues of mental ill health.

We know that in any given year one in five people will have experienced or been diagnosed with a mental health condition. We know that during the course of an individual’s lifetime nearly 50 per cent of people will be diagnosed with a mental health illness. It is imperative upon us as politicians to make sure that we continue this grain of reform that we have set ourselves on, led by the Premier and this government, to make sure that we have the best mental health system that we can create, and that is a system that is going to set us up for generations so that more people can receive the care that they need when they need it. It would be remiss of me in the final few seconds not to send a particular shout-out to our mental health workforce and the ongoing work that they do to look after us, to look after those in our community, and I thank them for their work.

Mr J BULL (Sunbury) (13:46): I am pleased to have the chance, have this opportunity, to contribute to the debate on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. This is an important bill, a significant piece of legislation that builds upon this government’s investment—sustained and sound investment—in mental health. As noted by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and noted by many in this house, the royal commission made a significant, generational report that was of course presented to all members of this house and to the people of Victoria. The report specifically looked at all of the systematic deficiencies and all of the issues from a broken system that we in this chamber and indeed the other chamber know certainly does not do what it should do and does not do enough to support those within the Victorian community.

Over the past decade huge leaps, large steps forward, have been made and taken around simply having the conversation about our community’s collective mental health and a person’s mental health and wellbeing. In many ways it may be easy to forget or easy to disregard the history that has been associated with mental health and the mental health of our collective communities through the journey over many, many decades: how mental health is portrayed, how it is addressed, the stigma that is associated with mental health—all of these areas I know many members that have spoken on this bill, including the member for Ringwood and the member for Clarinda and many others, have touched on in their contributions. Thankfully though, due to a significant amount of research, of community campaigning and of people asking for help and support when and where they need it, as a community and as a collective society we have indeed taken significant steps forward.

Acting Speaker McGuire, as you know, this is a government that does not shy away from those big issues within our community—in fact the opposite. We lean into those issues, and that is exactly what a good government should do: lean into the tough issues. We set up a royal commission to have a detailed analysis and a conversation with the entire Victorian community, and many members have spoken about the depth to which the royal commission went and the sustained level of work that was done to present that historic report. What we indeed have is not just the $3.8 billion that is a once-in-a-generation investment in the system but of course bills before the house, including this one, that are actually going to make a difference to the lives of Victorians.

As I said, we absolutely lean into these issues, and we know that what the royal commission has done is set out a framework, those policies, those areas to invest and all of the initiatives that we need to do as a government to make sure that we are supporting the collective mental health of Victorian communities. We know of course that in November 2019 the interim report of the royal commission into mental health was released, and within the interim report recommendation 1 was the creation of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing to bring together expertise and lived experience, research and clinical and non-clinical care, disseminating practice of evidence-informed treatment, care and support across the state.

This bill will provide for world-leading research, workforce development and best practice mental health and wellbeing care, delivered in collaboration with people with a lived experience of mental health issues or psychological distress, to deliver the best possible outcomes for people living with mental illness and improve the experience of care through the establishment of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing. Others have mentioned recommendations 23, 24, 48, 58 and 63 in the final report in reference to this bill. When the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System interim report was tabled it described a vision for a reformed mental health system. In the new, redesigned system people living with mental illness or psychological distress, their families and their carers will be at the forefront of this significant initiative—listened to, valued. Contributions from those who have experience within the system are fundamentally important. They will have access to comprehensive treatment, care and support delivered by a skilled and diverse workforce. They will have access to a system that improves over time and responds to the changing needs of the many people that it serves, a new system that is based on connection and, importantly, collaboration.

There is a whole range of measures and detail within this bill that go to the heart of creating the centre and redesigning the system, but I did want to speak quite briefly on this government’s significant investment—and I mentioned it earlier—of $3.8 billion plus. This is a government that is not about words but is about sustained and sound investment that will always deliver in each and every budget, and every time we have the opportunity to come into this house that is exactly what we deliver. We cannot say the same for those opposite, who, with the greatest of respect, do come into this place I think from a position of wanting to improve mental health within this state. Surely as members of Parliament responsible for our own local communities that is something we should not disagree on. But what is very hard to believe is not supporting the process, the system, the way that mechanism is funded for that once-in-a-generation reform; you simply cannot do it.

It is this government, with the $3.8 billion investment into mental health, that is starting the 10-year reform agenda to build a new mental health system from the ground up. In the most recent budget there is $842 million to rebuild mental health and wellbeing supports for children and young people under the plan set out in the royal commission’s final report. The package includes $136 million to reform our 13 infant, child and family area mental health services across the state, delivering a drastic improvement to the care options for children and their families—fundamentally and critically important; $173 million to provide increased hours of care through our youth area mental health services; $141 million to build the five brand new youth prevention and recovery care units and upgrade three existing sites; $41 million to establish three brand new infant, child and family wellbeing hubs; $16 million to establish four hospital outreach post-suicidal engagement sites specifically designed to deliver for children and young people who have self-harmed or are at risk of suicide; $16.3 million to expand our existing mobile targeted assertive outreach teams; and $6.4 million to Switchboard’s Rainbow Door, including increased support for young LGBTIQ+ Victorians, as well as the Satellite Foundation to support our younger carers.

There is a long and comprehensive list. What that goes to is exactly what I mentioned earlier in my contribution: the investment from those on this side of the house, leaning in, taking on the big issues within this state, understanding that our collective mental health is indeed a matter for all of us, that we should all be wanting to find and work with the experts to design an approach that puts people first.

I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the contribution and the work of the former Minister for Mental Health and the current Minister for Mental Health, their entire teams and all of those that were involved with the work of the royal commission and the significant and landmark report that was delivered and of course all of those Victorians who participated in the royal commission’s work. I want to also acknowledge Pat McGorry and many others. I remember a meeting I had with Pat McGorry where he came to a Zoom meeting and he had a picture of the world map which was upside down. I said, ‘Pat, your picture is upside down’. And he said, ‘No, it’s not. Australia is at the top, and that is exactly where I want us to be, world leading, leading the world in mental health research’.

I think that is exactly what this government is all about. It is exactly what this bill delivers: real change, life-saving, life-shaping reform that is going to make a fundamental difference to Victorian communities. The Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing is a landmark and important reform. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms SULEYMAN (St Albans) (13:56): It is a delight to follow the contribution of the member for Sunbury and the many speakers that have contributed today on this side of the house. I rise also to speak on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. As many would appreciate, this is critically important legislation for Victorians. We all know and have been impacted one way or the other by mental illness or the stress in our lives—we know someone, or we can be that person as well.

When the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System’s final report was published in February this year it had a very lasting impact on all of us. It really did demonstrate that we need to change and invest in an area that is so critical for our community. Those changes to the health system are to enable a high quality of care and a system that works for all Victorians regardless of their faith, culture, religion or English capacity. It needs to be mental health reform that targets everybody in addressing the problems.

Our government has not wasted a moment in implementing the recommendations of the royal commission. We have seen so much investment, delivering a record-breaking $3.8 billion to build a new mental health system from the ground up and in every area across Victoria. With this bill we are getting on with the important work of implementing these monumental reforms in our state. The bill will enshrine the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing, a purpose-built facility for research, training and delivery of a full range of mental health services for Victorian adults across Victoria.

In the limited time I have I want to briefly discuss the investments that have been made in my electorate of St Albans. Just recently there was $12.2 million for Westside Lodge in Sunshine to provide mental health and drug and alcohol services to the community. We have already seen Brimbank being one of the first priority regions to receive the first 20 new local mental health services centres for adults and older adults, acting without referral for anyone who needs treatment and support in the community. These great announcements were topped by 52 additional acute mental health beds located at Western Health’s Sunshine Hospital as part of the state’s 10-year mental health plan, and of course I cannot go without mentioning the great work of all our frontline health workers at Western Health during the last 18 months. It has absolutely been challenging for every single person, and they have done a stellar job to make sure that our health and wellbeing are being protected and are safe.

We have also seen, at Sunshine Hospital again, 12 short-term mental health beds to support patients with accompanying dependents. That is really important for mothers that require support but have children. They are able to stay together during that treatment, and I think that is really important to note. We know that the work we are doing is working, and we need to continue delivering and putting mental health front and centre in all that we do, and we certainly do that.

Business interrupted under resolution of house today.

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021

Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:01): My question is to the Minister for Health. Why is the government giving itself the power through new pandemic legislation to usurp the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 on the basis of attributes and allowing itself the ability to discriminate according to age, gender identity, disability, political belief, pregnancy, race or sex?

The SPEAKER: Just before calling the Minister for Health, it is important for members to be aware of the rulings around anticipation of debate. Members should know that they should not anticipate matters that are on bills on the notice paper. However, there is a previous ruling from Speaker Andrianopoulos, who outlined:

Where a bill has been first read, and the second reading has not yet been moved, the bill is not yet public. Therefore the Chair, and the House, are not in a position to know exactly what is contained within the bill and whether members are anticipating debate. However, the minister should not divulge the bill’s contents but may discuss the issues generally.

I just provide that ruling for the house in case these matters come up in question time today.

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:02): Can I thank the honourable Leader of the Opposition for his question, and can I also thank you, Speaker, for guidance on the issue of anticipation. I do look forward to the question in more detail once that anticipation issue is dealt with, because of course the honourable Leader of the Opposition could not be more wrong in his approach to this matter.

The honourable Leader of the Opposition knows that he is scraping the bottom of a very deep barrel if he thinks that a virus pandemic description is going to offend the principles of the Equal Opportunity Act. It is the features of the virus—that is the issue that does not discriminate. For instance, we know—looking backwards, not forwards, hence dealing with the issue of anticipation—that over the course of this global pandemic this virus has affected different age groups differently. We know that it is disproportionately deadly when it comes to the issue of its impact on those with chronic health conditions. We know that if you are an old person or a senior person with both chronic health conditions and the risk of exposure because of your experience in life, be that a CALD background or indeed an Indigenous background, you are disproportionately at risk. On that basis public health orders take account of those arrangements.

Now, I am not anticipating what might be the case. If we look backwards, the human rights and equal opportunity charter that currently applies to the current act requires us to take account of those issues and requires the chief health officer to in a proportionate manner deal with those issues. Any suggestion from those opposite otherwise is scraping the bottom of a very, very deep, deep barrel of desperate politics on their part. These people are meant to the inheritors of Edmund Burke’s history and philosophy. These people are a disgrace—that they would even raise these issues as a serious public policy issue in 2021. I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to do his office greater respect and to really go from the position where just a few short weeks ago he was calling for this very thing, a bill that would give the politicians and those accountable to this Parliament and through it to the people of Victoria accountability. This is the bottom of a very deep barrel.

Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:05): Noting all the minister has just said, what is the basis and justification, then, for the government to suspend all discrimination protections such as political belief and race for Victorians simply to enforce virus pandemic restrictions?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:06): Again acknowledging the issues in anticipation, I do look forward to the opportunity where the honourable Leader of the Opposition can ask his question again after the anticipation issue is dealt with. The simple response is: you could not be more wrong. That is just a nonsensical, desperate attempt at muddying the waters to deflect the view that you called for this very thing and you are now in a position where you cannot support what you called for.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! I ask the minister not to debate the question.

Ministers statements: COVID-19 vaccinations

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (14:06): I am delighted to rise to update the house and all Victorians on the amazing progress that Victorians are making in getting vaccinated. Whether it be pushing through the 70 per cent double-dose barrier and being able to end lockdowns across Melbourne or, on Friday night this week, fast approaching the 80 per cent double-dose threshold where we will be able to move to the next phase of Victoria’s road map to deliver the national plan, it is all based on Victorians doing exactly what we have asked them to do—to go and get vaccinated. So we say thank you so much to every Victorian who has come forward and got the first dose and the second.

To those who are awaiting a second dose, please try and bring that appointment forward, and certainly make sure that you turn up for that second-dose appointment. It is critically important to keep you safe and to make sure that others are safe and that our community and our economy are open. If you are on the fence, if you have not made a decision yet, if you are still a bit in two minds about whether to get vaccinated, I simply and with the greatest of respect say: please go and get vaccinated. It is free, it is safe, it is effective and something like 96 per cent of people in hospital who are gravely ill are not fully vaccinated. It is about keeping us open, it is about keeping us safe and it is about making sure that we do not put more pressure on our nurses and our hospital system.

Victorians have done an amazing thing, getting vaccinated in record numbers and in record time, and that is why we were able to confirm not only the 70 and 80 per cent steps over recent weeks, but to confirm that on or about 24 November when we reach 90 per cent double dosed—and perhaps even more than that—we will be able to move to a set of rules with no density quotients, no caps and no more lockdowns, instead enjoying the freedoms that Victorians have earned because we have a vaccine and because Victorians have got vaccinated in record numbers in record time. Thank you to every single one of them.

COVID-19

Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:08): My question is to the Minister for Health. Why is it government policy that in 2022 if a cafe, pub or restaurant owner accidentally allows an unvaccinated person onto their premises fines could apply to them of $108 000?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:09): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, and I am pleased to advise the Leader of the Opposition and the house and any such accidental cafe owners that the Leader of the Opposition is wrong. That is not the government’s policy.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Deputy Premier! The Deputy Premier is warned.

Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:09): Why is it government policy that a Victorian who fails to wear a mask could soon be fined up to $22 000?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:09): Again I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The Leader of the Opposition is seeking to conflate in his own mind a whole series of arrangements that do not apply in the real world. The Leader of the Opposition actually has form when it comes to this. The Leader of the Opposition is very keen for people to like him. He can tell one thing to one group of—

Ms Staley: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister is debating the question, and I would ask you to bring him back to answering it.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. The minister is to come back to answering the question.

Mr FOLEY: I thank the member for Ripon for her interjection to bring me back to order, and I of course abide by your ruling, Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition is attempting to conflate government policy with how particular arrangements are applied by independent, arms-length enforcement agencies in whatever the circumstances are. I do not wish to go to the issue of anticipation that you referred to earlier, Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition is yet again wrong, and I respectfully ask the Leader of the Opposition to stay within the bounds of reality.

Ministers statements: Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence

Ms HORNE (Williamstown—Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Fishing and Boating) (14:11): I rise to update the house on the Andrews government’s response to the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence. This morning I tabled the commission’s report along with the government’s response, and the government accepts all the recommendations of the royal commission. The commission found that Crown is unsuitable to hold the licence. It engaged in conduct that is nothing short of disgraceful. It was, to quote the report ‘illegal, dishonest, unethical and exploitative’. At the same time, the commission found that the immediate cancellation would significantly harm innocent third parties, the thousands of workers at the largest single-site employer in the state and the Victorian economy. The commissioner has been clear that Crown, having been found unsuitable, should not be left in charge. Equally, the commissioner says the reform process must be supervised. That is why the royal commission recommends appointing a special manager. As the report puts it:

… Crown Melbourne will not be in control of its own destiny …

It will only operate under the ‘watchful eye’ of the special manager. This role and level of oversight that it will provide are the most stringent conditions in Australian corporate history, and I would like to thank the commissioner, Ray Finkelstein, for the incredibly thorough job that he has done uncovering a number of issues with Crown, including their blatant disregard of the regulator.

This government has acted swiftly to ensure what the royal commission uncovered can never happen again. In just eight months we have called for the royal commission, we have received the final report, we have responded to the report and we have proposed legislation. We have not wasted a minute. We are acting in the best interests of all Victorians, and we have done so in record time.

Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence

Ms RYAN (Euroa) (14:13): My question is to the minister for gaming. The Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence has recommended that no person shall have a stake of more than 5 per cent in Crown Casino. Today the minister said that James Packer’s 37 per cent holding in Crown was a matter for Crown and not one for the government. Why is the minister refusing to enforce this key royal commission recommendation into the ownership of Crown Casino?

Ms HORNE (Williamstown—Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Fishing and Boating) (14:14): I am conscious of your ruling around anticipation as well, Speaker. The government has accepted all the recommendations of the commission. That includes obviously the shareholding component as well. So I am sorry, but the member for Euroa is simply wrong.

Ms Ryan: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister is misleading the house. She stood out the back of Parliament earlier today and she said that.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Members on my right will come to order. The member for Euroa knows that is not a point of order.

Ms RYAN (Euroa) (14:14): If the minister is willing to let the Packers determine the size of their shareholdings in Crown in—as she said earlier, this morning—a direct contradiction of the royal commission’s recommendations, how can Victorians have any faith that the Andrews government will fully deliver on the reforms recommended by the royal commission?

Members interjecting.

Ms RYAN: She said it. She said it.

The SPEAKER: Order! Without the interjections from the Minister for Health.

Ms HORNE (Williamstown—Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, Minister for Fishing and Boating) (14:15): I will refer the member for Euroa back to my substantive answer, which was: the government is accepting all the recommendations in the report—and that is exactly what we are doing.

Ministers statements: COVID-19

Mr PAKULA (Keysborough—Minister for Industry Support and Recovery, Minister for Trade, Minister for Business Precincts, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, Minister for Racing) (14:15): I rise to update the house on the benefits to tourism, to hospitality, to the events sector and to business more broadly of the Premier’s announcement on Sunday regarding the setting for 80 and 90 per cent double dosed. The most significant aspect of the 80 per cent milestone is when it commences, because 6.00 pm on Friday means that Melburnians can hit the road for regional Victoria after work on Friday, they can make a Melbourne Cup long weekend of it, they can lavish millions of tourism dollars on our regions. That, combined with crowds at Derby Day and right through the Flemington carnival, means that this will be the biggest week Victoria has seen in a very long time. On top of that, the full opening of retail and the removal of the 150-patron cap in venues, replaced by a simple density quotient, mean that more businesses can welcome more customers and more patrons, earn more income and get more Victorians back to work.

At 90 per cent it gets even better. All patron caps, all density quotients, all rules—apart from the need to be vaccinated—come off. Live music will be back with a vengeance. People will be standing at the bar. They will be dancing in nightclubs. They will be going back to the office without having to wear a mask. Business events will be back on—conventions and conferences and trade shows. It is why I was so pleased to see the very positive responses from the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Victorian Tourism Industry Council and the Victorian Business Events Reference Group, and it is why the opposition to vaccine mandates is so disappointing, why footsies with anti-vaxxers is such a bad idea and so short-sighted and so marginal—because business has been calling for these mandates, it has been begging for these mandates. Why? Because business knows that it is those mandates that make outcomes like this possible.

Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) (14:17): My question is to the Premier. The royal commission into Crown Casino recommended that despite Crown being unfit to hold a casino licence; despite being in breach of the law; despite being in breach of their contract; despite engaging in conduct that is disgraceful, illegal, dishonest, unethical and exploitative, it could not tear up its licence because of the risk it would cause considerable harm to the Victorian economy and innocent third parties. Surely this demonstrates the decision by government to set up the biggest casino in the Southern Hemisphere and give them special treatment is a failed experiment that has created a corporation that is too big to fail. Will the government now scale back the size of the casino, the number of pokies and the gaming floor and implement strong harm minimisation measures to protect the Victorian community and prevent this from happening again?

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (14:18): I thank the member for Prahran for his question. I take it he is not having a go at the royal commissioner, who has actually done his job well. He may be having a go at former Premier Kennett, I think. But in any event we will let that one go—he can defend himself. The last part of the question is the most important part: what will you do, essentially, to make sure this does not happen again? Well, we have had a process. As the minister has indicated, we will implement all of the recommendations that the royal commissioner has provided to us. And in fact, for the benefit of the member for Prahran, we have gone beyond the recommendations that have been made by the royal commissioner. So Crown’s licence has been cancelled.

Mr Hibbins: On a point of order, Speaker, for the benefit of the Premier, the substantive question was actually about scaling back the size of the casino. The Premier it seems in his answer has reframed the question. The question was about the size and the scale of the casino.

The SPEAKER: I thank the member for that point of order. I heard the question, but the Premier is being relevant to it.

Mr ANDREWS: Thank you very much, Speaker. It was a very wideranging question. I am sure that the royal commission was mentioned, and that is what I am going to now. We have gone beyond the recommendations of the royal commission. Crown have essentially lost their licence, and unless and until they can establish, to the benefit and the confidence of the special manager, former IBAC Commissioner O’Bryan, reporting to the regulator over these next two years, then their licence will end in two years time.

That is what we have done today. What is more, we have repealed some very generous compensation—or we will, I should say, repeal some very generous compensation arrangements put in place—

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: And we know by whom they were put in place. I will not anticipate debate, Speaker. I am conscious of your guidance.

The third area of course is we will go beyond the recommendations of the royal commission and increase fines by something like tenfold. What has occurred at Crown is not only shameful, it cannot be allowed to occur again. By establishing the royal commission, accepting the recommendations, going beyond them where that is warranted, we will make sure that this cannot and will not happen again.

Crown are more than on notice. Their licence will be terminated, and it will be terminated in two years time unless and until they can demonstrate that they are fit and proper to hold such a licence. It is unique. It is the only one of its kind in our state, and with that comes responsibility and obligation, and I intend to make sure on behalf of all Victorians—our government intends to make sure and I hope this Parliament intends to make sure—that Crown not only complies with the letter but also the spirit of their obligations. There is a matter of public trust here. It should never have come to this. Crown should not have behaved the way they have, but we are determined, all of us, to make sure that it never occurs again.

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) (14:21): Supplementary question. The Premier referred to accepting the royal commission’s recommendations. Now, the royal commission stated:

… the most damning discovery by the Commission is the manner in which Crown Melbourne deals with the many vulnerable people who have a gambling problem.

The government’s response has been to say that in relation to minimising gambling harm they support these recommendations in principle, subject to further detailed analysis and consultation. Can the Premier give a clear answer, and a commitment: will the government implement a mandatory precommitment regime for pokies at Crown that is as strong as or is identical to what is recommended by the royal commission?

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (14:22): I would simply refer the member for Prahran to the government’s response to the royal commission. We are not about doing tick-and-flick stuff just for the happiness of the member for Prahran, although one does doubt whether he might ever be happy about anything really. We are not about doing some tick and flick to keep the member for Prahran happy. We will do it properly, and that means some things you have to accept in principle and then go and do—

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: This is a foreign concept for some who have never had a day in government, and let us hope they never ever do. We will go and do the hard work to make sure that it is not just words, that it is in fact action. It is not just policy, but it is about outcomes. With the greatest of respect to the member for Prahran, the government’s response is where we can agree completely, we have. Where there is more work to be done, we have agreed in principle, and be in no doubt that work will occur, ably led by the minister. I look forward to updating the member for Prahran and all members once we can speak a little more freely about some of these matters later during this sitting week.

Ministers statements: Play On Victoria

Mr PEARSON (Essendon—Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Regulatory Reform, Minister for Government Services, Minister for Creative Industries) (14:23): I rise to update the house on a stellar line-up of live music to come this Melbourne Cup weekend as we stage Play On Victoria right across our state. Victoria will soon become one of the most vaccinated places in the world, and our state is on a path back to normal living resembling our pre-COVID lives.

Thanks to the millions of Victorians who have turned out to get vaccinated in recent months live music is on its way back. Almost 4000 fully vaccinated punters will experience the joy of live music returning to the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Saturday night as part of the Andrews Labor government’s vaccinated economy trial. Tickets sold out in 2½ minutes. We have an extraordinary line-up to get the party started—King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Baker Boy, a personal favourite of mine Amyl and the Sniffers, Grace Cummings and Vika and Linda Bull. Music lovers attending the concert will be able to show they are fully vaccinated with a COVID-19 digital certificate displayed through the Service Victoria app or a digital wallet.

Our regional venues are playing on too, with more than 20 regional Victorian artists set to take the stage at eight outdoor events across the state this weekend. This massive outdoor series will include a laneway party in Ballarat and outdoor shows at Bendigo, Geelong, Archies Creek, Halls Gap, Warrnambool, Avenel and Castlemaine. I know that my regional parliamentary colleagues and their communities will love the vibe at these gigs as part of these live music trial events. Regional ticketholders will also show that they are fully vaccinated with the Service Victoria app. Play On events are supporting Victorian artists who have been unable to perform during the pandemic as well as helping regional music venues. The live music sector has done it tough, and we stand with them on their way back to the stage. Vaccination is our ticket out of this pandemic, and it is our only way to get back to enjoying the things we love. Play on, Victoria.

Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021

Mr T SMITH (Kew) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Health. When did the government first engage the upper house members Ms Patten, Dr Ratnam and Mr Meddick to negotiate new pandemic legislation?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:26): Can I thank the member for Kew for his question. And can I take this as an opportunity to thank those members of the Legislative Council who took the opportunity to constructively engage with the government and members of the lower house. And there was no—

Members interjecting.

Mr FOLEY: And I can recommend to the member for Kew that there is much to be gained when you constructively engage with members of the Legislative Council. Abusing members of the Legislative Council gets you very little way in this world, I have found. What I have found is that recording members of the Legislative Council probably does not do you much good either. What I have found is pretending to subscribe to positions that you hold one day and then pretending you have another position the next day does not get you very far in this world—

Ms Staley: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, the minister is going around the world but not attacking the question at all. Perhaps he could come to it.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. The minister should come back to answering the question.

Mr FOLEY: Thank you, honourable Speaker. So returning to the substance of the issue, I want to take this as an opportunity to thank all of those members of the Legislative Council who took up the government’s offer to all members of the Legislative Council to constructively participate in a process—a process that was shared in the regular monthly briefing that this government offers to all legislative councillors as a result of tabling every month the report to the Parliament on the state of emergency.

In one of those meetings, in which I joined the chief health officer and participated, which I am pretty sure, if my recollection is right, went something along these lines: it was after the Legislative Council extended the current state-of-emergency arrangements in the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 to 15 December, and I am pretty sure that the honourable Ms Crozier, as shadow spokesperson, was there, as were a range of other members of the Legislative Council. The legislative councillors shared very strongly their view, as indeed I understand it was a part of the resolution of that house when they extended the state of emergency, that they did not want to see the state-of-emergency bill extended any more, that what they wanted was a pandemic-specific provision inserted in the legislation. As part of that, an offer was made by me to any member of the Legislative Council who wanted to constructively engage in that process. So can I thank the representatives of the Animal Justice Party, the Reason Party and the Greens political party for the constructive way that they engaged in that process. It shows that with appropriate support, instead of abusing people, instead of being nasty all the time and making stuff up as you go along and denying the real world and disappearing into the endless rabbit holes of self-perpetuating nonsense, you can achieve a few things. (Time expired)

Mr T SMITH (Kew) (14:29): Emails from Mr Meddick’s office show that the minister has been engaging these three crossbench MPs since early March this year. What commitments—

Mr Merlino interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Premier has already been warned.

Mr Merlino interjected.

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Premier! The member for Kew has the call.

Mr T SMITH: What commitments has the government given these members to secure the passage of this controversial legislation?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:30): I think I indicated in my substantive answer that following the Legislative Council’s determination on the extension of the state of emergency in March this year I did in fact reach out to members of the Legislative Council, so it does not come as a great revelation that an offer to discuss these matters in March might be on the record. But of course those who put themselves outside that process by wanting to make everything political when it comes to the virus response, unlike oppositions around the commonwealth who have constructively engaged, put themselves on the outer of these things. So too do people who one day call for politicians and members of the executive to be accountable for these processes, and then, when they are confronted with that very reality, deny it, put themselves beyond this. There is nothing extraordinary in the honourable member for Kew’s revelations.

Ministers statements: COVID-19

Mr MERLINO (Monbulk—Minister for Education, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers) (14:31): I rise to update the house on the return of school students to their classrooms. Our aim has always been to get students to return to onsite schooling as soon and as safely as possible, to follow the national plan and always, always base it on public health advice. At every opportunity we have brought the dates forward in line with vaccination rates increasing and public health advice. Rural and regional students returned full time—

Members interjecting.

Ms Allan: On a point of order, Speaker, I draw your attention to the numbers on the other side of the chamber and note that the member for Lowan has walked in, exceeding the numbers for the opposition members in the chamber, and has immediately started interjecting and hurling comments across the chamber in a disorderly way to the Deputy Premier. I ask that you bring her back to order.

The SPEAKER: Order! I remind members about the resolution of the house around numbers in the chamber. I ask both sides of the house to make sure that they adhere to that requirement—I have not had a chance to check—and also ask members to refrain from shouting across the table, which has occurred from both sides of the house during today’s question time.

Mr MERLINO: Regional and rural students returned to school full time last Friday, all students across the state are back at school this week—all 1 million—and next week, from 1 November, all metropolitan students will be back at school. I am delighted to advise, also from this Monday, students will see the return of graduation ceremonies and school assemblies; camps, excursions and incursions; interschool activities like sports and debating; music and performance; most importantly, transition programs for kinder to prep and from grade 6 to year 7; and fully vaccinated visitors back onto school sites. This is all supported by a new process for schools to manage COVID-19 cases, where the majority of schools will close and reopen within 24 hours. It also means that in most cases only specific students—for example, an individual class—will need to isolate as primary close contacts, instead of entire schools over a long period of time. On top of all this is the biggest investment in ventilation, extraordinary vaccination rates, tutor learning and student mental health. While those opposite fight amongst themselves like naughty kids in the schoolyard, we are getting students safely back into the classroom.

Ms Kealy: On a point of order, Speaker, I have a number of questions which remain unanswered: question 5823 to the Minister for Health and 5869, also to the Minister for Health; question 5989 to the Minister for Industry Support and Recovery; and question 6021 to the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change.

The SPEAKER: I thank the member for raising those. We will follow those up with the relevant ministers.

Ms Kealy: On a further point of order, Speaker, my most overdue question goes back to 3 June. I have raised these before with you, and you said you would take up the matter. I ask you as the Speaker to inquire to the ministers why they are not responding in an appropriate time frame and whether they are disobeying your directive to ensure that they do actually respond to questions within the time frame, particularly after you have raised this issue with them on multiple occasions.

The SPEAKER: I thank the member for raising that point of order. I will follow that matter up for the member.

Mr Morris: On a further point of order, Speaker, I also have a couple of unanswered questions, both constituency questions: 5990 to the Minister for Health, which was due on the 9th of this month; and 5925 to the Minister for Industry Support and Recovery, which was due on 23 July.

The SPEAKER: I thank the member for Mornington for that. We will follow that matter up as well.

Ms Vallence: On a further point of order, Speaker, I will just draw your attention to unanswered questions: constituency question 5901, to the Minister for Health, which was asked 138 days ago on 10 June 2021 and still is unanswered; constituency question 5994 also to the Minister for Health—I am not sure what he is up to—asked 47 days ago on 9 September 2021; and an adjournment also, 6028 to the Premier, sought 40 days ago on 16 September 2021. I would really appreciate you following those up for my constituents.

The SPEAKER: I thank the member for Evelyn for raising those matters. We will follow those matters up with the relevant ministers.

Constituency questions

Evelyn electorate

Ms VALLENCE (Evelyn) (14:36): (6086) My question is to the Minister for Education on behalf of the Rolling Hills Primary School community in Mooroolbark. Will he provide much-needed funding under the current Minor Capital Works Fund round to enable Rolling Hills Primary School to construct barrel vault overhead covers to create all-weather outdoor learning areas? Currently the school has no outdoor covered areas, even between the school buildings. With a resumption of onsite learning after the COVID-19 pandemic, Rolling Hills Primary School needs funding to provide covered areas outdoors for learning, sport and assemblies. There are 380 students at Rolling Hills Primary School. They, along with their families, the teachers and the staff, will significantly benefit from this funding after the disappointment of missing out on funding last year. I have seen the project plans, and these vault covers will protect students and staff in rain, hail or hot sunshine as well as provide ventilation, which is so important in the context of the COVID pandemic. I commend to the government Rolling Hills Primary School’s grant application and look forward to the works commencing.

Buninyong electorate

Ms SETTLE (Buninyong) (14:37): (6087) My constituency question is for the Minister for Public Transport and Minister for Roads and Road Safety. I ask the minister if he could give me an update on the progress of the upgrade of the Grant Street and Main Street intersection in Bacchus Marsh. Bacchus Marsh is one of the fastest growing regional areas in Victoria, and this rapid growth in Bacchus Marsh has brought an increase of residential housing and industry, which in turn has seen an increase in demand placed on the road network in the area. The existing single-lane roundabout at Main Street, Grant Street and Gisborne Road often has extensive queueing and traffic delays, particularly at school pick-up and drop-off times. The busy roundabout is dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists to comfortably cross the intersection. $4.1 million under the Victorian government’s Infrastructure Planning and Acceleration Fund and school and community safety program will replace the existing single-lane roundabout with traffic lights and dual-lane approaches and departures. Traffic signals will reduce congestion— (Time expired)

Lowan electorate

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (14:38): (6088) My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister intervene to fix the delivery of public pathology services to the Horsham community via the service agreement with Wimmera Health Care Group? For at least two years the Wimmera community have been waiting for hours in the laboratory collection centre at the Horsham hospital. For people who are fasting and particularly for those with underlying health conditions, including those who are pregnant and the elderly, this is simply dangerous, and their health is being put at risk. As an example, I was recently relayed a situation where somebody was waiting for so long while they were fasting that when they finally got into the collection room they were asked about how long they had been fasting for, and they had been fasting for too long and had to come back and wait again the following day. This is simply unacceptable, and I therefore ask the minister to urgently intervene.

Narre Warren South electorate

Mr MAAS (Narre Warren South) (14:39): (6089) My question is for the Minister for Mental Health, and it concerns mental health support throughout the global pandemic. Minister, could you please provide any information on state government mental health support for my electorate of Narre Warren South during the pandemic and beyond? October is Mental Health Month, and over the last 18 months most people have been tested in ways they never imagined could happen. The restrictions have been necessary to reduce movement to reduce the spread of the virus and save lives. However, these measures have reduced people’s face-to-face communication with friends and family and interactions with community groups, sporting clubs, work and education. There have also been stresses upon people’s financial situations. Opening up brings its own challenges as people readjust their lives once again. I would appreciate any further information on previous and upcoming mental health support for my constituents as we come out of lockdown.

Ferntree Gully electorate

Mr WAKELING (Ferntree Gully) (14:40): (6090) My question is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. On behalf of local residents I have contacted the minister seeking an answer to constituents’ questions about whether or not they are entitled to any relief in the registration of their motor vehicles given the fact that they have been unable to use their cars during lockdown. These constituents had raised this issue initially with VicRoads, and VicRoads had encouraged them to contact their local member of Parliament and have the issue raised directly with the minister. The constituents are still waiting for a response, so my constituency question is: when will my constituents be receiving a response to their request as to whether or not they are entitled to any relief in their car registration given the impacts of lockdown?

Nepean electorate

Mr BRAYNE (Nepean) (14:41): (6091) My constituency question is for the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. The Victorian government recently announced that applications for the multicultural seniors support 2021–25 grants program have opened. This government has been committed to supporting Victoria’s multicultural communities, and this grant is another important step in providing multicultural groups with the funds that they need to reduce isolation, foster social connections and build stronger connections within the community. I know that in my electorate of Nepean we have several multicultural seniors groups who have already been notified about funding they will receive as part of this program. Clubs like the Greek Orthodox church in Red Hill hold an important status in my community, bringing the community together on the peninsula at holy times of the year. Clubs like the Rosebud Italian Club are pillars of the southern peninsula as well; their warm hospitality greets you at the front door like a warm hug. My question for the minister is: how can multicultural seniors groups apply for funding from this program, and how will this funding benefit these groups and help to build strong community connections in Nepean?

Mildura electorate

Ms CUPPER (Mildura) (14:42): (6092) My constituency question is for the Minister for Housing. Could the minister please provide an update on his consideration of Robinvale’s levee bank reconstruction project and how it could help address the current housing shortage? Works are currently underway to upgrade and reconstruct the levee bank stretching from Higgins Road to Smythe Road in Robinvale. While the main focus of the project is to enhance flood protection, the works will also see parts of the surrounding land subject to rezoning. At present the land adjacent to the levee bank is a mix of general residential, low-density residential and farming zone lots, but the council has said that these farming zone lots have long been dormant and are extremely unlikely to be used for agriculture for the foreseeable future. The council has long campaigned for more rural residential land options to be provided in Robinvale to meet the desires of the local housing market. An update would provide us and the town with confidence that this is being considered to help address the desperate housing shortage.

Hawthorn electorate

Mr KENNEDY (Hawthorn) (14:43): (6093) My question is for the Minister for Small Business in the other place. The pandemic has been tough on many businesses, including in my electorate of Hawthorn. Crucially this government has matched talk with action, with more than $10 billion in direct economic support being delivered to businesses across Victoria over the course of the pandemic, including $4.2 billion in cash grants paid to more than 145 000 businesses since the May–June restrictions period. Some of the emails I have been receiving relate to support provided to local businesses during the current lockdown. My question is: how have small businesses in Boroondara, which covers my electorate of Hawthorn, benefited from Victorian government support? I look forward to the minister’s response.

Mornington electorate

Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (14:44): (6094) My question is for the Minister for Industry Support and Recovery. Minister, the government has repeatedly trumpeted the financial support it is offering to businesses and particularly to small business. Despite those claims, rarely a day passes when I do not receive communication from multiple businesses that their applications have been rejected for no obvious reason or that they have been accepted and then apparently disappeared down a black hole. The mental health impact right across the community, as we know, has been huge, but the government is simply adding to the anguish of small business owners by leaving them waiting for weeks and months to have their applications for financial support processed. Minister, as of today’s date how many applications under the Small Business COVID Hardship Fund initiative are yet to be finalised?

Pascoe Vale electorate

Ms BLANDTHORN (Pascoe Vale) (14:45): (6095) My constituency question is for the Minister for Housing, and the question I ask is: what is the current status of the Lyndall White housing redevelopment in Coburg, a project that the Labor government is delivering in partnership with the Peter and Lyndy White Foundation and Wintringham? The government has committed $3 million of the $14 million partnership, which will build 14 brand new homes and refurbish 35 of the existing apartments on the site. This is an important project, which when completed will deliver and provide safe and stable housing for Victorian people who are aged over 50 and who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. This certainly helps address the homelessness problem that we have amongst older Victorians—and in particular I am concerned about the homelessness problem that we are experiencing in our community for older women as well. This redevelopment will play an important part in addressing the issue of homelessness among these people as well as the increasing challenge for the community—one that we as a government need to ensure that we have a targeted response for.

Bills

Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Ms SULEYMAN (St Albans) (14:46): Just before question time I was talking in relation to the investment in my electorate of St Albans when it comes to mental health care, and in particular the investment that we have made at Western Health at Sunshine Hospital, which includes 12 short-term mental health beds, but also in particular Brimbank being nominated as a priority local government area, with 52 additional acute mental health beds that have been invested in in this year’s budget. We know the tremendous work of Western Health healthcare workers, so again I do want to thank each and every frontline healthcare worker. Whether it is the cleaners, front staff, reception or administration, everyone at Western Health has played their part during this 18 months of quite challenging and tough times for us all in the community. They have done a tremendous job in making sure that they continue to provide the best level of care and most importantly making sure that we have remained safe during this difficult period.

I am also extremely proud of our record in government. From day one we have not stopped investing in health care, whether it is in mental health care or health care in general, and this year we saw the new multilevel emergency department, which was built by our government, opened at Sunshine Hospital. Our state has a long history of investing in the social services sector and, more importantly, providing these services and support in those postcodes that need it most. The record as previously stated—$3.8 billion in mental health funding—is further proof that not only are we putting forward the policies and legislation but we are also investing. And there are many areas across Victoria, including my electorate of St Albans, that are receiving that much-needed funding and resources so as to be able to meet some of the demands. I understand. I hear this every day in my electorate; most times we see it firsthand. Living locally you hear the stories of teenage kids and those that are of mature age—mental health issues affect everybody in our community. We know someone, or we have been affected ourselves by some form of distress in our lives. It does happen, and it is so important that our government puts forward the right policies and the right investments to make sure that we are able to not only be treated but also get that preventative treatment as well.

I do also want to thank local GPs, because they do come across a lot of the issues as first point of call, and they need to be prepared and ready to forward on a patient to the right, appropriate health care. So again, as many speakers on this side of the house have said previously, the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing is critical to our government. It is extremely important in making sure that our mental health system is collaborated. Most importantly, we acknowledge that there needed to be change, and we have begun making those changes across the system. It is very complex, but we have begun those changes. A purpose-built facility for research, training and the delivery of a full range of mental health services for Victoria is just what we require, on top of many, many other services.

Again, I want to acknowledge the hard work of the minister, and in particular the minister’s work when it came to the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, making sure that we deliver these critical reforms that Victorians need, more now than ever. Mental health is a priority for our government, and this bill before the house makes that very clear. It is not just this bill; there have been many other pieces of legislation and investments, as I have previously spoken about, in relation to mental health and how integral it is for our government. This bill is for all Victorians who have experienced or who may experience mental ill health—we never know—or some form of distress or even perhaps a little bit more than distress. Whether it is your carers or those of your loved ones—your daughter, your son, your aunt, your sister—you know that you are going to get that level of care and support when you need it most. There is nothing worse, when someone is in distress and anxious, not seeing anything before them and not having that service there.

I really do thank the minister in making sure that mental health is really at the centre of this government. Health and wellbeing are so important, more now than ever. I do echo the sentiments of previous speakers, again acknowledging the hard work by everybody in this area. This is very complex—mental health is complex—but we have begun that process of making sure we repair the system, making sure that the support is there for those who need it most. I commend this bill to the house.

Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support) (14:52): I am pleased to speak today on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021 supporting the establishment of the new centre into the future. It is clear that mental health impacts us all—it is not only our own personal experiences but those of loved ones. As the previous speaker, the member for St Albans, said, it is our partners, our parents, our children, our neighbours, our friends.

Before discussing the specifics of measures that are implemented by this bill, I just want to remark on how in my ministerial responsibilities I see the devastating effects that mental illness can bring about in the lives of those it plagues. Indeed mental ill health has a real effect on the offending of those who are in incarceration, particularly those young enough to be in the youth justice system. In fact 68 per cent of children and young people in youth justice custody and 52 per cent of those under community supervision have mental health problems. On top of this, 42 per cent of those in youth justice custody and 28 per cent of those in the community under supervision experience cognitive difficulties that affect their everyday functioning.

There are many similar needs as well in the adult system. Nothing was more confronting for me than doing a tour of Thomas Embling Hospital earlier this year, late last year, and seeing particularly those who were there as offenders—just the intensity of work that needed to be done by the specialists there to rehabilitate and work with those in that facility.

Last week I was really privileged to meet with the team from North Richmond Community Health, who this government has funded to run a pilot program based on a successful checkpoint model developed in the UK that we are trialling here. It really focuses in on those who have fallen into offending based on offences that are related to both mental health and drug and alcohol addiction. What it looks to do is embark on a restorative justice process to address the factors that led to that sort of offending. This is designed to stop those who have started with lower levels of crime from escalating their offending. But crucially staff told me that they cannot help someone get back on track without the availability of mental health services. Without that help being available in the broader community it is hard to keep anyone away from the system when they have had contact and to help them build a better life. Can I thank Patricia and her team at North Richmond Community Health for welcoming me and telling me about the transformation their project is making, outlining the importance of a holistic support system.

As Minister for Victim Support I see that there is an absolute strong link between mental ill health and those effects that make someone more likely to be a victim of crime. People living with a mental illness are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators. Contrary to many people’s preconceptions, they are more likely to be victims of crime than people without a mental illness. They become very, very vulnerable and in some cases they become homeless, and that puts them in a high-risk category. These are just some of the many reasons why we must treat mental illness with the seriousness it deserves. From a victim’s perspective, particularly victims of violent crimes and victims of repeated family violence offences, they also develop their own mental illness challenges.

This bill will help us to really take on these challenges by establishing the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing as a statutory authority to deliver upon the recommendations in the interim report and specifically recommendations 1, 23, 24, 48, 58 and 63 of the final report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. The recommendations from the royal commission show a vision of what mental health provision could be like here in Victoria—world leading. In a redesigned system people living with mental illness or psychological distress, their families and carers will be at the forefront. They will be listened to and valued as acting contributors and leaders.

Unfortunately over the 11 years that I have been a member in this place I have had many families come into my office absolutely at their wits’ end with family members who desperately need treatment and care and support, and there have been too many stories of people spending too long in emergency wards only to have their loved ones assessed and then released without proper care and being put on a waiting list. We know that through this new centre they will have access to comprehensive treatment and care. We will have a better skilled and diverse workforce. They will have access to a system that improves over time and responds to the challenges of many with mental health needs, a new system that is based on connection and collaboration, one that respects the inherent dignity of those living with mental illness or psychological distress and ensures comprehensive mental health treatment is provided on an equitable basis across our communities.

This government has committed to implementing every single one of the recommendations of the royal commission, something that makes me extremely proud to be part of this government. We will do everything in our power to change the story for those who live with poor mental health, whatever their needs are. This is one of the very many important steps that we are taking to realise the challenges of mental health across our state and to implement the royal commission’s findings. This bill will launch the collaborative centre as a new entity, an independent body corporate that will connect lived experience, leadership, innovation in service delivery and cutting-edge mental health research to form the foundation, architecture and transformation of this system.

Can I say a special thanks to Orygen youth mental health, to the professionals there, to all of the staff there, to the mental health unit at Footscray Hospital, particularly the youth mental health unit who deal with many of the kids that come in and out of our justice system that unfortunately at times need to spend quite a bit of time in hospital before they come back into custody or are released. I want to pay my particular thanks and respect to Professor Pat McGorry for the fantastic work that he has done. We have certainly had many a discussion about the mental health needs of young people in the youth justice system.

The centre will provide specialist support and care for persons who have experienced trauma. Especially, it will establish a statewide trauma service which will improve mental health outcomes for those who have lived with trauma. Unfortunately that is many of the people that I see in the justice system, both victims and perpetrators. This is complemented by a momentous investment, a huge investment, by this government: $3.8 billion to build a new mental health system from the ground up. We can see exactly the impact that that will have. In this state, every government, secondary and specialist school will have funding to employ a mental health practitioner by the end of this year. This is an absolute game changer in supporting the future of mental health by addressing the needs of our young people, giving the support that young people need in a timely manner.

These are just a few examples of how this government is undertaking the biggest social reform in our state’s history to treat mental health with the same esteem as we treat physical health. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr EDBROOKE (Frankston) (15:01): It is an absolute pleasure to rise this afternoon and speak on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. Can I just give a massive shout-out to the mental health workforce: those people who have gone above and beyond in very, very trying circumstances during this COVID crisis to ensure that they look after people in our community who are really having a hard time facing some of those challenges and their own challenges as well. But also, that workforce is the key to any plan or rollout or rebuild of our broken mental health system, so a big shout-out to them. Without them I would not even like to guess where we would be, and I will give an example of that fairly soon.

Of course it is only fitting that the first recommendation of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System is that we establish a Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing. In that final report from the commission, the collaborative centre cemented its place at the heart of the transformation of Victoria’s reformed mental health and wellbeing system. This shows, obviously, this government’s commitment to those reforms as well. When the royal commission recommendations were released, it was a big announcement and, understandably, for a lot of us it is very hard to picture how these recommendations will play out. It is a huge document. Now people are seeing that we are delivering the biggest social reform in our state’s history; indeed we invested $3.8 billion in the last budget to start us on this ambitious, 10-year reform agenda. That is what this is—it is a reform agenda. It is a generational and cultural change. It is community business, it is government business, it is union business, it is our business. Everyone in this chamber who walks through this chamber should be representing their community in getting up on their feet and ensuring that they are on the record as supporting not only the royal commission recommendations but also this bill.

The previous speaker, the Minister for Crime Prevention, very eloquently outlined some of the very dramatic statistics that really alarm us all in regard to mental health. It is across all communities, all strata, all socio-economic backgrounds. None of us in this chamber I think would be without a story that is close to us. In telling you this I am not after any platitudes or sympathy or empathy. I just want to put a little bit of meat on the bones, so to speak, as far as these statistics go, and also put on the record why we are taking these actions. Obviously everyone in this house has probably been inundated with mental health inquiries and issues in their electorate offices, and some will have those issues within their own families. I am one of those people. Throughout the last couple of months I have had to play a very tiring game of assisting a sibling in Queensland who had to be involuntarily admitted to a hospital there. I was slapped in the face. It was very obvious that it is not just Victoria that has a broken mental health system; it is nationwide. From the voices and the suicidal thoughts, from the police arresting and finding this individual within 24 hours of going missing, from the paranoia to the non-consumer-based service that seemed to speak more to, I guess, issues that were 50 years ago and the way we treated people 50 years ago and not how it should be today—we are talking about someone who is very well educated, with many degrees, with an inability to gain work, huge harm to relationships and experiencing that community stigma, and COVID only made that worse. In essence trying to get this loved one assistance interstate—and I will just lay it out there—was as difficult as a few years ago when I was doing the same thing in our state of Victoria. That I think says a lot—that the system here is broken and it needs fixing, and that is what we are doing. But nationwide these reforms are leading the way, and there will be a lot of people looking at how we are doing this, because obviously we have taken those recommendations from the royal commission. And we have heard people say, you know, that consultation was not a big thing—I would vehemently say that there is no bigger tool for consultation than a royal commission. That is the biggest tool we have to ensure that our state and our community are heard, and this is what they said they needed.

But the most powerful thing that comes from that, I think, to do with this bill is the powerful statement that we will have four people with lived experience at the heart of responses to mental health in Victoria, and that is in the leadership and the inclusion of people in the centre we are speaking about today. The governance board that I am speaking about has four positions for people with lived experience—two with a consumer background and two with a family, carer or supporter background—and these positions aim to reflect some of the diversity that exists across people with a lived experience of mental illness and psychological distress and to promote their active and full participation at all levels of the mental health and wellbeing sector. And it is my experience—and I can only speak from my experience—that this is dramatically needed. This is what has been missing. There are no voices from the people, the consumers, the users of this service, and this, again, I have in common with many people who made their contributions to the royal commission.

I should go on record here again, and it might be the fourth or fifth time I have ever said this in this house but I will say it again: thank you to the people who came forward and gave their stories to the royal commission, who went through that trauma again, who went through that vicarious trauma again, who experienced that lateral trauma once again to make sure that we change the system. The fact that it is a 10-year plan means that we need people on all sides of politics to stand up, to grow a spine and to make sure that we hear loud and clear from them that they will support every single recommendation of these royal commission findings, because that is what Victorians want, that is what Victorians voted for.

This, as the previous speaker said, is an absolute game changer. This is a piece of legislation amongst a raft of royal commission recommendations that people have been working themselves to the bone for many years for. We have heard the name Professor Pat McGorry—he is but one. And there have been people, many people that have been burnt out because they have been butting their head against a brick wall for so long—but no more. I have had the pleasure of speaking to quite a number of these people, most of them carers who have now seen the light at the end of the tunnel. That light at the end of the tunnel, as one person said to me, was usually the train coming to get them. They certainly have felt that they have been listened to and they have been supported and that for once in their life a government is listening to them and will put what they say and what they vote for into a system for them to change that system from the ground up, as we have guaranteed we will do.

Once again I would say that you cannot help but be overwhelmed that there are, I think, two opposition speakers on this bill. There should be everyone—everyone in this house should be up on their feet supporting this bill and telling their communities, telling Victorians, that whatever happens, they will back in, they will support each one of these royal commission recommendations that Victorians got out there and relived that trauma for, because Victorians have put it on the line for this, and we are delivering. We need Victorians to know that it is not just government. Everyone in this Parliament read that document, and everyone in this Parliament will come to the party no matter what happens. They will roll this out over 10 years, and that is crucial.

Once again can I just say that, yes, this is a game changer. This is a generational change. It is also engendering cultural change in a way. But this is community work, it is union work, it is government work, it is business work and it is the work of all our community. And it is this government that took this to an election and has invested already $3.8 billion in the previous budget, and now people are starting to see the tangible benefits of this rolling out with things like this bill today. This is what we need. This is what Victorians asked for. This is what Victorians, again, relived that trauma for—and for some people that has come with significant consequences—and we are paying them the respect of making sure that we roll out every single one of these royal commission recommendations. I certainly commend the bill to the house, and I hope everybody in the Parliament does.

Ms HALL (Footscray) (15:11): I am enormously proud to contribute to this debate and this piece of legislation, the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. It is an exciting day to be making real and meaningful change for Victoria’s mental health system, a system that for too long has been broken and has let people down. We often debate matters in this place that perhaps are a bit administrative or abstract in the everyday lives of people, but this piece of legislation delivers something transformative, something that will save lives, and it is also very special that we are creating a new piece of establishing legislation for this very important reform.

In November 2019 the interim report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System was released, and the very first recommendation of that report was the creation of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing to bring together expertise in lived experience, research and clinical and non-clinical care, disseminating the practice of evidence-informed treatment, care and support across the state. As the minister noted in his second-reading speech:

When the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System tabled its Interim Report, it described a vision for a reformed mental health system. In the new redesigned system, people living with mental illness or psychological distress, their families and carers will be at the forefront, listened to and valued as active contributors and leaders. They will have access to comprehensive treatment, care and support delivered by a skilled and diverse workforce.

This establishing legislation will create a centre where lived experience expertise will be front and centre of the treatment.

I would like to focus on the importance of lived experience work as we rebuild the mental health system from the ground up. As the member for Frankston noted, the board of this centre will include four people with lived experience—lived experience both as consumers within the system and as those who support loved ones—and they will be embedded in and at the heart of this centre and at the centre of our reforms of the mental health system more broadly. For people experiencing mental health issues the support work of people who have been through it before is an invaluable aspect of best practice care.

My friend Joe is one of those lived-experience workers and supports patients as part of the highly regarded team at Royal Melbourne Hospital. I asked Joe this morning if he was happy for me to relay his experience today, and of course he generously said yes. He said his mum would be proud. But I want to say from the outset that I am also proud of you, Joe. Your friends and your family are proud. Joe did not always work in mental health. When I first met him about a decade ago Joe ran his own business working in the film industry. Around five years ago Joe experienced a breakdown. Joe lives with bipolar and has been hospitalised twice. Both times he was placed into seclusion, which he described to me as being very traumatic. He had an alcohol addiction, and we lost him there for a little while. Joe managed to beat his addiction. He is enormously strong and intelligent, and with the right treatment for bipolar and addiction he recovered and came back to us sober and well. It is a testament to his character that he wanted to use his insights of treatment and experience of being unwell to support others.

In January last year Joe answered a job ad to become a lived experience peer support worker at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, part of the multidisciplinary team within the psychiatric unit. Joe uses his understanding and empathy to listen to and support others, not to tell them that what they are experiencing is not real. He described peer work to me as being all about making genuine connections. Being truly understood by another human can be incredibly therapeutic. Peer workers are there for people at what is often the most difficult time in their life, not to diagnose or try to fix them but just to meet them wherever they are and genuinely connect.

I think it takes a very strong person to take the worst moments of their life and use them to help others in their day-to-day work. Last week Joe told me on one of our very long and rambling walks around Footscray during lockdown that he had just applied to study a master’s in addictive behaviour at Monash University. What an asset to our health system my friend Joe is. We are all proud of him, but he should be absolutely proud of himself.

So today we start the important work of creating a collaborative centre for mental health and wellbeing where lived experience will inform all aspects of its work and design. It will be the foundation stone of a reformed system, a system that is properly funded. In May this year the Andrews Labor government provided the largest single investment into mental health in Australian history, $3.8 billion, to build a new mental health system from the ground up.

Throughout this debate I have listened carefully to those opposite complain about the mental health system but refuse to commit to all of the recommendations about the mental health system. They have complained about funding but refuse to support a dedicated funding stream. There is no credibility for them on this issue as we embark on the largest social reform in Victorian history. They could join us, but they choose not to.

This bill establishes the collaborative centre as a new entity, an independent body corporate that will connect lived experience leadership, innovative service delivery and cutting-edge mental health research to form part of the basis of a transformed system. The centre will be based in Melbourne. It will be a statutory authority. It will deliver better mental health outcomes for all Victorians, with world-leading research, workforce development and of course best practice treatment. It will also host a statewide trauma centre. This bill sets out the guiding principles of the centre and the functions of the centre and stipulates governance arrangements that embed collaboration and lived experience leadership within the board at executive levels.

There are eight functions of the collaborative centre as described in this bill. First, it will provide, promote and coordinate provision of mental health and wellbeing services. Secondly, the establishment of the statewide trauma service will improve mental health and wellbeing outcomes for people of all ages with lived experience of trauma. It will deliver best practice guidance for practitioners across the state and be a leader in research. It will connect up pathways between mental health services to ensure people receive the best coordinated care. It will also deliver professional development for service providers and workers, and it will implement research strategies that address priority needs in Victoria’s mental health system. Finally, it will report to the minister and secretary on its functions. This is real action and meaningful change, and I think this is why all of us are here.

As a state we have made real progress in mental health not just with treatment but in the way we speak about mental health. So today in commending this bill to the house I would like to thank my friend Joe and all of his colleagues throughout the mental health system, who work tirelessly always but particularly during this pandemic, day to day, in full PPE, in work where human connection is so vitally important. I would like to thank their brilliant union, the Health and Community Services Union—the organisers and the leadership at HACSU—who strive for change and innovation always, in this system and for their members. It has been such a difficult two years, but these workers provide extraordinary care in such challenging circumstances because they choose to commit their working lives to helping others. I commend this bill to the house.

Mr KENNEDY (Hawthorn) (15:20): I am very pleased to be speaking on the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. I have noticed over many years the gradual recognition of the reality of mental health issues and so on. In fact it takes me back, really, 30 years to when I was first beginning as a school principal, and the issue came up about engaging a school counsellor. At the time there was some opposition to it. There was a lot of discussion about it. I was personally quite convinced of it but really needed to bring people along within the teaching staff and parents and so on. Amongst the things that we discussed was that any kind of genuine counselling service has to have at least three components: one, that it is voluntary; secondly, that it is non-judgemental; and thirdly, that it is confidential. And you can imagine that in a school situation that can be problematic insofar as some parents or some teachers or some students would be concerned in at least one or two of those aspects. However, we worked it through, and I am pleased to say that the counsellor became a part-time then full-time employment role. I think at the school—I have not been there for 10 years—there are now two people employed there in that role, albeit with an increased school population.

I offer that because it is just a very small part of this picture that is really being engaged with in this particular bill. I think it is terribly important, though, that we do not just give lip-service to it but that we put money into it and guarantee funds for this. If we say, ‘Oh well, it’s really important’, we have got to be careful that it does not become a version of nimbyism—not so much ‘not in my backyard’ but rather ‘not in my balance book’ or ‘in my balance sheets’—but that we put in money of a regular kind, a guaranteed amount of money and so on. I think that is as obvious as can be. If you have got to fight this fight every year and it is not connected to something, it is a waste of resources and energy. So I just say that right from the very beginning about any kind of venture into enhancing or improving mental health.

Now, this particular bill, to be more specific, gives effect to a principal recommendation, with ancillary recommendations, of the long-overdue Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and puts people with lived experience of mental health issues at the centre of the overhaul of Victoria’s mental health system. As we have seen, it is a bill of which the government, and I hope others in this place, can be justifiably proud. Now, we have heard this before, but we have got to make sure that in the way we are and what we do and what we put as priorities—back to spending, I am sorry I have to say—we have to authenticate that particular notion.

The purpose of the bill is to establish the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing. You know the numbers of the recommendations; I do not need to tediously go through that again. The bill provides an overall structure for the centre, sets out its key functions and objectives and prescribes a small number of key activities as provided for by the royal commission. So to say then what the objectives are, a key one is to ensure the centre embodies the characteristics of responsiveness, collaboration and continuous improvement that epitomise Victoria’s transformed mental health and wellbeing system. The centre will support continuous improvement and learning and will draw together expertise, not just from across Victoria but from around the world, to research, to develop and to disseminate effective practice so large-scale crucial changes across the system can be implemented effectively.

Crucially, and an important aspect of the government’s response to the royal commission’s recommendation, the centre integrates the participation of people with lived experience of mental health across all functions and governance levels. As noted in the second-reading speech:

The proximity of cutting-edge research with innovative service provision within the Collaborative Centre will ensure research priorities are set by mental health consumers, carers and practitioners and ensure new knowledge is relevant to and translated into practice.

I will just pause there. I know it was very important, just in the small microcosm of the school, that when we had a counsellor it was not just their job to have that kind of acuity but also to be preventative in looking at the structures of the school and what was happening and so on to make recommendations to me then as the principal and so on, and it is the same here. It is not something that can be just limited in one way or another.

In delivering on the objectives the centre will be held to the following guiding principles. The first one is that mental health and wellbeing are shaped by the society in which people live, whether it be social, cultural, economic or environmental, and they are a shared responsibility of society. The second one is the inherent dignity of people living with mental illness or psychological distress should be respected, and it is to ensure their full and effective participation in society that the necessary holistic support is to be provided. Thirdly, the contributions of family members and carers of people living with mental health should be recognised and supported. Fourthly, comprehensive mental health and wellbeing treatment, care and support services are to be provided on an equitable basis to those who need them and as close as possible to their communities. Fifthly, collaboration and communication are to occur between services within and beyond the mental health and wellbeing system and at all levels of government. The sixth is ensuring that responsive high-quality mental health and wellbeing services attract a skilled and diverse workforce. The seventh is putting those living with mental health, their families, carers and local communities at the centre of the planning and delivery of mental health treatment, care and support services. Eighthly, mental health services are to benefit from continuing research, evaluation and innovation in order to respond to community needs now and into the future.

The functions and powers of the centre provide, promote and coordinate the provision of mental health and wellbeing services, and this includes a comprehensive range of multidisciplinary services to adults and older adults in their local community. It includes providing or arranging specialist support services and care for those who have experienced trauma. This provides for the establishment of the statewide trauma service, which is designed to improve mental health and wellbeing outcomes for people of all ages with lived experience of trauma. It will conduct, promote and coordinate interdisciplinary mental health and wellbeing research, including developing and implementing a broad research strategy, disseminating knowledge through a formal statewide network and developing a clearing house for research, output and best practice guidance.

The centre will establish links and service access pathways between mental health services and the centre by means of a coordination function for statewide services to support service improvement. The centre will collate and disseminate best practice advice and guidance to be applied across mental health and wellbeing settings. For one of the important things really about all of this I come back to the funding, but also to the funding from the point of view of continuity, so you do not just give somebody a particular counsellor one week and then say next week ‘Oh, no, they’re not available’ and therefore they get a different person.

It really needs continuity and stability, and you will only get that if you have got the human resources to support programs and what have you so that there is continuity—it is not chopped and changed, cancelled and so on and so forth. Much has been said about the governance of the centre. I think it is pretty good in the sense that it is not too large and unwieldy. I have great hope for this bill. But once again—sorry to be harping on this—we have got to get proper financial support.

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (15:30): It is indeed a privilege to rise in this place and speak on such landmark reforms in our state in delivering better mental health and wellbeing outcomes for all Victorians. If it was not for the pandemic and the challenges that we have faced in confronting a one-in-100-year impact, this would be the most landmark piece of reform that we would be experiencing in this Parliament at this moment.

It is quite humbling to think of the journey towards this Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System recommendation, the interim recommendation 1, and then the interaction with recommendations 23, 24, 48, 58 and 63, because in the journey up to announcing a royal commission there was a substantial increase in funding for services in mental health and wellbeing. I vividly remember the Minister for Mental Health at the time, the member for Albert Park, describing a system that was continuing to see record funding but was not lowering the substantial toll that we face in suicide and mental ill health. It takes a courageous government and a leader in the Premier, the member for Mulgrave, to not only say that are we giving hundreds of millions more to this but say that the system is broken and that we need to address some systemic failures. I truly believe that this will save lives into the future. And measuring each and every year the progress of this royal commission is very much like the prevention of family violence space, where not only are we making those announcements up front and committing to those recommendations up front but we are not forgetting along that journey. We see that in contrast to other governments and jurisdictions, where the day of the media release is the big bang—it gets all the media hype and all the attention—and then the policy grunt and the intention fall away over time and, really, we do not get a changed outcome. This royal commission changes that forever. That accountability and the investment that go with that will indeed save lives.

I really love what is put forward in this bill. Under the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing this approach of bringing people with lived experience to the heart of decision-making and accountability is truly inspiring. It makes sure that along that journey of reform we are putting the treatment and the outcomes of individuals at the forefront of everything that we do and not losing sight of that important support for individuals in a big bureaucratic process that brings $3.8 billion in investment from the recent budget. That can be a substantial amount of pressure to get that right, a lot of pressure when we know the toll that has been taken on Victorians during this pandemic. It has highlighted what we already know around the substantial challenges that we face in mental health and wellbeing. At any given stage one in five Victorians is facing mental ill health and needs that extra support, care and comfort, right up from the initial stages—those early challenges, whether they are situational or they are experiences through life or evolving over time—all the way through to that emergency department presentation and the acute risk stages. We need to be there with Victorians every single step of the way, and the more than 65 recommendations and their subparts provide that story and provide that journey.

Now, members in this place are in that moment in time passing through this place—they might have one term, or they might have five in the representation of their community—and in that moment and as bills come through in this time we have an obligation to stand up on behalf of our community and speak passionately about the bills that come forward. The member for Frankston said before that the lack of cross-party engagement on this topic, particularly around the important recommendation around the funding of royal commission recommendations and building in a sustainable funding source into the future, is really disappointing. Time will be telling on that into the future in terms of those that made contributions and stood up for their communities and fought for better mental health and wellbeing support into the future as well. We need to quarantine the funding and make sure that there is an expansion of services as our population grows into the future and that we build those reforms in to really support people through those difficult times.

I am really excited about what this bill puts forward and some of the key objectives around the characteristics of responsiveness, collaboration and continued improvement—really important guiding principles for the centre as well, how that is established with its objectives in shaping all those elements of social, cultural, economic and physical environments in which people live, and a shared responsibility of society. It is a real showpiece for not just Victoria but also the federal government, who have said a number of things about their policy intent as well to look towards Victoria as a jurisdiction as an example of a reform piece through there.

Something that I think is so telling for people that live with mental ill health or know someone close to them, a friend or family member, who has experienced mental ill health is the royal commission brought to light the challenges that people live with each and every day, which should be normalised and should be part of who we are as people—that we confront different challenges, whether it is an acute or ongoing maintenance of our mental health and wellbeing throughout time. The royal commission broke down that stigma around mental ill health. It says that this is a challenge that we face as a community together.

I remember representing the Deputy Premier at an education briefing. Martin Seligman is described as a patriarchal figure in positive psychology and sees psychology on a spectrum from negative 10 through to positive 10 and says that everyone is effectively on that spectrum, and I love that as an analogy in breaking down the stigma—that it is not the haves and have-nots in mental health and wellbeing. We all have a role to play in supporting not just ourselves and our own wellbeing but also those around us. That is truly reflective of being a community and supporting one another in everything that we do. I love that notion of all of us having a collective purpose to make sure that the mental health and wellbeing of ourselves and our fellow community members, friends and family are always at the forefront of what we do, because the toll is just so substantial that to not act is doing a disservice to everyone that we love and cherish in our lives and in the communities that we are privileged to represent. That is what this piece of reform is so inspired about, and this is why the collaborative centre is such a wonderful way of bringing together really an overarching focus on that policy intent as well.

It would be remiss of me in my capacity as Parliamentary Secretary for Schools to not acknowledge the incredible work of our students, our teachers, our education support staff, our principal leaders and our school council members, who through the last two years have shown incredible resilience in mental health and wellbeing support. We have provided that extra funding—many millions of dollars—to support the health and wellbeing of our students. As they transition back to going on site, we are seeing our school Facebook pages and emails light up with optimism and positivity about kids getting back on site. But we know for the coming months, indeed years, we have got a lot of work to do to support our kids through this time after such an unprecedented event—a global pandemic—and the impact that has; to fund mental health and wellbeing in our schools; to see mental health and wellbeing practitioners, counsellors, providing that support, but not only to provide that one-to-one support that is really important but also to help bring that cultural change inside the school gates , to break down stigmas indeed in our schools around mental health and wellbeing; and to be innovative in how we deliver education outcomes or how we resource our education programs. One really positive thing was to see the Minister for Education announcing the therapy dogs as well. They are an absolute plus and something that I reckon every single school should be looking towards for the benefit they will provide for our kids into the future.

This is a long-running reform agenda. It goes back to the interim report and the first recommendation around a collaborative centre bringing together lived experience, bringing together people who have experienced mental health and wellbeing challenges, bringing that policy expertise on that journey into the future as well. This bill will really make differences into the future. It is part of a long journey of reform that should sustain any government and should be a landmark for future parliaments that are accountable into the future, because there is nothing more important than supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our community, and that has been shown and showcased substantially during the coronavirus pandemic. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr TAYLOR (Bayswater) (15:40): It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. I would first like to start my contribution by sincerely thanking and acknowledging not just the work of the Minister for Mental Health and his team but particularly the member for Mordialloc, who is leaving the chamber now. I acknowledge his contribution and acknowledge the part of his contribution where he obviously thanked the policy grunt and the work behind the announcements and the media release and everything else that comes from it—the exciting work which we are here to discuss today—and all of the people in the department, all of the people who are doing this fantastic work and supporting this significant piece of reform, a piece of reform that is obviously part of a bigger package that I will get to in a tick. But I want to thank each and every single one of them.

Of course it is with great pleasure that I rise to speak on this bill. It is also a really great honour to be in this place to be able to hear not just the insights from the previous speaker and member for Mordialloc and how they pertain to his role as Parliamentary Secretary for Schools but also from other speakers, and not just from our side. And, yes, there are some differences—

A member interjected.

Mr TAYLOR: Yes, lacking whilst they are, it is heartening to see broad support for this piece of legislation and for most things that support mental health reform. But, of course, we know there are some significant and major differences that we have discussed, and we have discussed them on this side. But importantly, as well, I want to acknowledge all of those people who spoke up and who shared with us their lived experiences, their stories, as part of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. I think to not acknowledge them, at least personally for myself, when we go about acquitting the recommendations from the final report, at least on this occasion as we really start to build up a head of steam in acquitting these recommendations, just would not sit right for me. So a massive thankyou to each and every single one of them. A number of them are in my community, including Julia, a local from Heathmont, a really brave young woman with a really tragic story and one of the hundreds, indeed thousands, of Victorians who spoke up and shared their stories—no doubt it was an extremely difficult experience for many if not all. I thank them for helping us to shape the future of our health system, indeed our mental health system, that Victorians rightly deserve.

We know in mental health there is a statistic that you hear repeated often. Often in politics and in life you hear statistics and they sometimes lose meaning, but I think when we talk in this debate, we must talk about the fact that one in two Victorians in their lifetime will experience a mental health illness. That is an absolutely stark reminder as to why we are going about the crucial, critical work we are doing now in terms of acquitting all the recommendations of the royal commission into our mental health system, because too many lives have been lost, too many Victorians have been let down.

It is important, given our privileged position in the community, to hear from parliamentarians, to hear from leaders in the community—not just politicians, but people with the opportunity to lead a conversation, to share their personal stories. But everyone has got a personal story. Indeed we know everyone has got a personal story, and it is just a sad and constant reminder of why we need to take action. It is something that I reflect on in this place. I remember before I was in this Parliament and before I was even a candidate for Bayswater hearing the Premier announce before the election in 2018 that we would call a royal commission into our mental health system and that we would boldly—I mean, it seems bold but it is absolutely the right thing to do—listen to the experts, listen to the professionals, and that we would acquit every single one of those recommendations. We would act on them, and of course fund them, and that is exactly what we are doing here today.

The cracks in our mental health system have certainly been laid bare over recent times and over recent years, and particularly the mental health of Victorians has of course been a significant talking point during this pandemic. We know that the COVID pandemic has left no stone unturned and has had a profound impact on many Victorians—on all Victorians—and of course on Victorians’ mental health. That is why it has been so critical that we have continued to invest record amounts into mental health, not just at the time of the budget, not just when we have said that we would rebuild our broken mental health system from the ground up, but during this pandemic. I have been really proud that we have continued to support people when they have truly needed it most—and that is with $247 million of support during this pandemic. Something that I am really proud of this government for is that we committed to rolling out mental health practitioners in every single government secondary school across this state, and of course we have got our world-first pilot on mental health practitioners in primary schools. We moved forward the rollout of that to ensure that we are now well on the way and will have mental health practitioners in every government secondary school I believe before the end of this year.

In my local patch I have been really proud and honoured to meet mental health practitioners already on the ground providing that direct support to young people and many young people who absolutely have struggled during this pandemic. It has been absolutely pleasing to hear of those supports from schools like Bayswater Secondary, where I met the mental health practitioner out there, and Wantirna secondary college. They are doing amazing work, and I am extremely proud of each and every single one of them, not just in my local patch but right across this state.

We know we are here to start the work on the first recommendation of the royal commission, and that is to provide for world-leading translational research, workforce development and best practice mental health and wellbeing care, delivered in collaboration with people with lived experience of mental illness or psychological distress; to deliver the best possible outcomes for all people living with a mental illness and improve people’s experience of care through the establishment of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing; and to establish the collaborative centre with a high degree of fidelity to recommendation 1 of the interim report and recommendations 23, 24, 48, 58 and 63 of the final report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.

It makes me reflect on the day that the report was handed down. I would just like to take a moment to reflect on something the Premier said in his response to the report. I will paraphrase. This is part of what the Premier had to say:

Over the course of this commission it has become clear that, for many Victorians, talking about mental health continues to carry with it a burden of pain and stigma and shame. But the truth is that shame does not belong to them. Instead that shame should be shouldered by a generation of policymakers—those who saw the problem but failed to rise to the challenge. That includes our government, my government. Today—

on that day—

we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity, an opportunity to reach across the divide and set right those many wrongs, to rebuild our mental health system from the ground up, and reform. Of course it will not be simple, it will not be fast and it will not be easy; important work never is. But—

the Premier said, as he stood there that day, he was—

… certain that that work will save lives and change lives, and there is not a moment to wait. This is the time to get this done.

The Premier could not have been more right in his assessment. It is indeed a great shame that governments of all political persuasions, including this government, have let down Victorians for far too long. To right those wrongs is the critical work that we are undertaking, not just through this legislation but through the commitment not just to acquit the recommendations but to fund them and to guarantee that funding well into the future.

I must say, the Premier spoke about reaching across the aisle, and reaching across the aisle is an important thing on issues like this. When we talk about mental health, it should not be a political football, it should not be up for debate, it should not be up for conversation. Our commitment is profound, and so it should be. We will acquit and we will fund every single recommendation. It is decade-long reform. I will reflect on the fact that I am very pleased to hear of the broad support for this legislation, but all I ask is for those opposite to stop worrying about big business and their needs because we have got Victorians who have to have the mental health system that they deserve, and part of that is making sure it is funded well and properly into the future. That it is not a political football today and into the future. This legislation is starting that work in earnest. We will commit and we will acquit all the recommendations and fund them properly. I commend this legislation to the house.

Mr McGHIE (Melton) (15:50): I rise today to contribute to the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021. I know that the time is running out fast to the end of the day, so I will cut my speech a bit shorter today and allow my friend and colleague to—

Members interjecting.

Mr McGHIE: No, no, no—I am going to continue to go. I thought my colleague from Box Hill was going to finish after me.

Anyway, I would like to begin my contribution by thanking the Minister for Mental Health for this important legislation that we are debating here today and thank his predecessor, the current Minister for Health. At the start of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, which this government commissioned, the former minister joined me and my constituents for a mental health forum out at Melton. Earlier on that same day I had the pleasure of touring with the minister a facility in Sunshine that cares for and supports those that are in crisis in their mental health journey. These two events helped solidify in my mind the importance of responding to the mental health crisis that exists in our community. My constituents in Melton who attended the forum were teachers, parents, healthcare professionals, emergency services workers and mental ill health sufferers. They shared the same message that came through loud and clear in the mental health royal commission’s recommendations: they wanted their leaders and their government to take mental health seriously, and they were looking for their government to take action. They were looking for the reform of a broken system.

Over the last 21 months Australia and Victoria have seen pressure on mental health as well as our health services as we have battled this terrible pandemic. Our health workers and emergency services have done an amazing job, and many of these workers have been the first call or interaction for many people having mental health challenges. So too have our electorate officers, as they take phone calls and emails and of course deal with social media interactions. I noticed the Premier recently sent his thanks out to our electorate office staff, and I think all of us are appreciative of the work of our staff, all those healthcare workers and emergency services workers and any volunteers that have assisted through this pandemic. It has been a terrible 20 months. I would like to extend my thanks to my electorate office staff, Dianne, Greg and Nathan—they do a great job.

Back in November 2019 the interim report of the royal commission into mental health was released, and recommendation 1 was the creation of this Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing to bring together expertise and lived experience—and that is important—research and clinical and non-clinical care, disseminating the practice of evidence-informed treatment, care and support across the state. The objective of this recommendation is to provide for world-leading translational research, workforce development and best practice mental health and wellbeing care, delivered in collaboration with people with lived experience of mental illness or psychological distress. Of course that lived experience is one of the most important things that we need to learn from.

I want to pick up on the contribution from the Minister for Government Services and Minister for Creative Industries. He referred to some teens in the US from iGen, and one of the things that stood out was that these teens were obviously getting on with their lives and accomplishing things in all factors of their lives except mental health. One of the things that came out of some of the research over there in regard to these teens was poor sleep; they are on their devices during the course of the night. I have been raising for years that fatigue is one of our major causes of mental injury, and I have seen it with paramedics when I was at the ambulance union. What rectifies fatigue is good sleep or proper sleep or lengthy sleep, and I am wondering whether during this pandemic, because people are fatigued, there has been an increase in mental injury. That is why lived experience is so important and why we should listen to people and try and reduce the fatigue status of people. The centre will integrate the participation of people with lived experience across all functions and governance levels, and this is so important. The proximity of cutting-edge research with innovative service provision within the collaborative centre will ensure research priorities are set by mental health consumers, carers and practitioners and ensure new knowledge is relevant and translated into practice.

It has been nearly eight months since the royal commission’s final report was released during a historic joint sitting of Parliament up at the exhibition buildings. Since then we are yet to receive any commitment from those opposite that they will implement all recommendations just as we have been committed to doing since the moment we established the royal commission. On 20 May the Andrews Labor government put its money where its mouth is, providing the single largest investment in mental health in Australian history—$3.8 billion to build a new mental health system from the ground up. It was a momentous day. Those opposite shed crocodile tears for their mates in big business, who were being asked to put their hands in their pockets and contribute to one of the greatest social issues facing our community. They went on to vote against legislation to enshrine a mental health levy as recommended by the royal commission. Of course in their last term from 2010–14 their entire spend on mental health was a measly $609 million, and we have invested $869 million just to start the reform journey. Peak mental health bodies have called on the Leader of the Opposition to commit to each and every one of the royal commission’s recommendations immediately. We are not wasting a minute. We are getting on and implementing these monumental reforms, and today we are here to discuss one of the many reforms we have already got up off the ground—legislation to enshrine the Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Victoria.

The centre has eight functions. It provides, promotes and coordinates the provision of mental health and wellbeing services. It provides for the provision of specialist support services. It also promotes and coordinates interdisciplinary translational mental health and wellbeing research. It establishes links and service access pathways between mental health services and the centre by performing a coordination function for statewide services. This collaborative centre will collate and disseminate best practice advice and guidance to be applied across mental health and wellbeing settings. It will report to the minister and secretary on its functions, and these functions will help to complement wider reforms in the mental health sector and support the government’s commitment to implementing the recommendations of the royal commission in full.

My career as a paramedic and in representing paramedics taught me that our mental health system was in desperate need of reform. Those suffering mental health issues often included my own union members as they struggled to deal with mental health trauma following horrific circumstances. We need to learn from our community’s shared experiences. We need to make sure that mental health is given the same level of emergency response as experiences of physical trauma. We need to understand someone suffering from mental health better, and I think at times we lack compassion in regard to that understanding towards someone that may have suffered a mental health injury. I have an example of that. I represented a graduate paramedic who had sustained a serious mental health injury. In fact he was suicidal at one stage. He returned to work from a WorkCover claim without achieving his milestones and was about to be disciplined by a manager. I requested of the manager that due to his mental health injuries they should not discipline him. The manager said, ‘But he has a clearance to return to work’. That was true, but of course you can have a clearance to return to work from a mental injury and it does not mean to say that the mental injury is resolved. In fact, as everyone here would know, people that have suffered mental injuries fluctuate on a daily basis as to whether they are having good days, bad days or any other type of day that they might have. In his wisdom the manager still disciplined the graduate paramedic, and what was the outcome of that? It set him back again on that negative pathway in regard to the flare-up of his mental injury.

We need to support our paramedics, our firies, our police, our teachers, our nurses, our doctors and all our health professionals. We need to support the parents and family members, but, most importantly, we need to support the sufferers and we need to have a greater understanding of what they are going through and how we can support them even more. We need to hear those experiences and learn from them to develop the best response possible. This legislation seeks to do that, and it does that by addressing the royal commission’s first recommendation. I support this bill and I commend this bill to the house.

Mr HAMER (Box Hill) (15:59): In the 15 seconds that I have I just do want to express the importance of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2021, a really signature achievement that symbolises—

Business interrupted under resolution of house today.

Adjournment

Healthcare workers

Mr HODGETT (Croydon) (16:00): (6096) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health. The action I seek is for the government to allow the non-emergency patient transport industry to be eligible for the hospital surge support allowance. The Premier’s press release dated 12 October 2021 states that:

The new ‘Hospital Surge Support Allowance’ will be paid to patient-facing healthcare workers, providing direct care in public hospital services and Ambulance Victoria …

If that is the criteria, then I cannot fathom why patient transport officers and ambulance transport attendants working in the non-emergency patient transport industry are not eligible for the allowance. They have been transporting COVID-positive and suspected COVID-positive patients to and from hospitals, homes and aged-care facilities on a daily basis. They have been undertaking this work for public hospitals such as the Northern, Austin, Monash and Alfred, just to name a few, to provide direct care in public hospital services. So on what basis are these Victorians being left out of the category of hardworking healthcare workers celebrated in the Premier’s media release?

My office was contacted by a constituent, Ngaire Bennett, who is a patient transport officer in the non-emergency patient transport industry. She and many of her colleagues are shocked and disheartened that their industry has been overlooked and under-acknowledged. The reality is that without the support of the non-emergency patient transport industry the Victorian healthcare system would have suffocated and collapsed under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic. The healthcare system is just that: it is a system, meaning it is made up of a number of connected items that work together. The non-emergency patient transport industry works in tandem with other healthcare workers such as Ambulance Victoria, nurses and doctors to keep the health care system functioning.

For Ngaire and many other workers for companies like St John Ambulance and Paramedic Services Victoria, much of the work they do is contracted to them by public hospitals. To separate the system into those who are and are not eligible for the hospital surge support allowance is just so distasteful. For many in the non-emergency patient transport industry the issue is not about the money. Many could go without the allowance but feel hurt and angry that despite fitting the criteria of patient-facing work which provides direct care in public hospital services their hard work is going unacknowledged. Having said that, the financial aspect must also be considered. With 000 calls being inundated and ambulances being ramped for hours, patient transport officers like Ngaire in the non-emergency patient transport industry face an increased workload, not to mention the stress of dealing with COVID-positive patients every day.

The Premier’s media release refers to healthcare workers and hospitals and ambulances as the ‘health system’s backbone’. It goes on to say that we need to support them so they can continue to deliver the very best care when Victorians need it most. The non-emergency patient transport industry is part of that healthcare system, Minister. Ngaire and her colleagues are part of the health system’s backbone. The hardworking Victorians that make up this industry deserve to be acknowledged for their contribution as frontline workers, and they deserve to be rewarded for it through the hospital surge support allowance.

Ivanhoe Public Golf Course

Mr CARBINES (Ivanhoe) (16:03): (6097) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Community Sport, and the action I speak is the completion of the 2018 Andrews government election commitment to upgrade the clubhouse at the Ivanhoe golf course. I am certainly not teeing off on the minister; I understand Banyule City Council are the manager of the Ivanhoe golf course and custodians of the $130 000 grant to refurbish the club rooms at one of Melbourne’s premier public golf courses, nestled along the banks of the Yarra River. I love my golf and I have played many rounds at stellar courses around the Ivanhoe electorate and nearby, including Heidelberg Golf Club, Rosanna Golf Club, the Strathallan Golf Club, the Latrobe Golf Club, the Bundoora Park Golf Club and a cheeky nine over at the Northcote Golf Club from time to time. And there is nothing quite like it, wherever you go around Victoria, as you well know, Deputy Speaker—at Axedale golf course and a cheeky nine at Quarry Hill golf course. I am looking forward to getting back there across the long weekend, and hopefully at Anglesea Golf Club, where I am also a member, and I will declare that to the house.

Can I say also that you never want your golf to be too good. That means you are not working hard enough at your day job. But I do really welcome that announcement that we made at election time. Ivanhoe residents and constituents are big golfers, and they enjoy the fact that right along the banks of the Yarra there are many great opportunities to play golf.

As I said, wherever you travel, as we open up for more opportunities across Victoria, golf courses wherever you go are great places to get together with mates or compete against yourself. The other aspect of golf—and while some may take the view that it ruins a good walk—is that it is a great challenge. I do note as well that the government pointed out that in Victoria golf contributes something like $883 million to the state’s economy, supporting some 6900 jobs. More than 300 000 Victorians—that is three MCGs—play golf at more than 350 courses across the state. It is a great sport, a great recreation, a great part of getting outdoors in Victoria, and I am really keen to see the upgrade of that public course that provides access to all Victorians, and particularly people in my electorate at Ivanhoe golf course. I am keen to get Banyule underway on that work, I am keen for that update from the minister on the action that has been taken to conclude the works at Ivanhoe golf course and I am keen to be teeing off there again very soon.

Victorian Homebuyer Fund

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (16:05): (6098) My adjournment matter is to the Treasurer, and the action I seek is that he reopens the Victorian Homebuyer Fund to applicants previously excluded due to the government’s unfair and discriminatory location limitations. The homebuyer fund was opened in early October and it closed not long after, and it provided eligible Victorians with a contribution of up to 25 per cent towards the purchase of their property. That reduced the minimum required deposit to 5 per cent. It was a way to get people into home ownership, and of course the Liberals have been champions of home ownership for many decades. Sir Robert Menzies was a huge supporter of home ownership and spoke about it over and over. It is absolutely in our DNA to support home ownership, and in fact it is pleasing that in this program the Labor Party has belatedly recognised the benefits of home ownership after we saw ongoing federal and, can I say, state Labor attempts to tax the family home.

The Treasurer in his announcement was saying he was proud to play his part in helping Victorians get to this long-cherished goal, and they announced this fund. But then, lo and behold, there were a couple of towns in Ripon that were able to access this fund but there were many more that could not. Ararat, Stawell, Avoca, Beaufort, Charlton, Donald, St Arnaud and many, many more were locked out of this fund. The reason this fund exists and its criteria are not otherwise location based. They did not work with any local government areas. They did not have providers. You put in an application to the State Revenue Office. So there was no reason to exclude the residents of Ripon who absolutely were trying to get their first foothold into home ownership. Of course we have got severe housing price pressure now in Ripon because we have got so many people wanting to move there. We have large housing price inflation, and so many young families have been priced out of the market. This sort of fund would have been really useful to them, yet the government for inexplicable reasons excluded so many people in Ripon from being able to apply to this fund.

Now, because the fund was popular it closed really quickly, and that means that unless the government steps in and reopens it for the people that it unfairly and discriminatorily excluded, they have got no way of getting into this fund. They have got none; it is over. So I am calling on the Treasurer to act.

Blind Creek

Mr TAYLOR (Bayswater) (16:08): (6099) I wish to raise a matter for the Minister for Water. The action that I seek is that the minister provide my community with an update on the work Melbourne Water and the government are doing in relation to the potential future daylighting of Blind Creek around Lewis Park in Wantirna South. Some of the best and most exciting projects I have been involved with in my time previously as a local councillor and now as state member of Parliament for the area have been daylighting parts of waterways, bringing them back to life. For too long, since way back when in the 1960s, our waterways have been tucked away in pipes and of course their potential hidden. So I am proud to say this government has got on with and done some incredible work along the Dandenong Creek area around HE Parker Reserve and the very popular project at Blind Creek around Fairpark Reserve in particular that saw 600 metres of waterways brought back to the surface and gorgeous and new and enhanced open space given back to the community and delivered. This new revitalised Blind Creek in Boronia is an absolute beauty, and I was stoked to help get the job done and create a fantastic local spot for locals to enjoy for years to come. Particularly during COVID this has been an incredibly popular spot, may I say. But of course there is more to do, and to that end I have been working with Melbourne Water, the minister and the community on more opportunities to bring our waterways to life.

As many locals may know, Knox council have prepared an ambitious master plan for the site of Lewis Park and the surrounding precinct. It would completely transform the area into what I believe would be the single most significant parcel of open space in the outer east, and its designs have been compared to Central Park in New York City, USA—a grand comparison, I will give you that, but I think it could be our version of it in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

The redevelopment aims to create the green heart of Knox, an expansive space complete with lush vegetation, tree canopies, parks, open space and associated infrastructure, and the most pivotal part of all this work would be a project to look at daylighting a section of the creek from Scoresby Road through to around the Knox City shopping centre. It would be a massive project, but it would help create what is being referred to as the green heart of Knox, where an entire community would have a new open space area to come, connect and keep active in a safe way. The project would also be a significant jobs maker, creating dozens to help deliver a project of this scale. I am proud to report I have been working away on this for some time now to keep the candle burning on the potential that does absolutely exist. Of course these are incredibly important projects, and I thank the minister for her consideration of my request and of these important projects that help to support our local environment and create great spaces for locals to enjoy.

COVID-19

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (16:11): (6100) My adjournment is for the Premier, and the action I seek is more resources for COVID response. I am particularly talking about the very hard workers at the COVID hotline and the COVID contact tracing department. The fiasco that is the COVID hotline continues, and this is not a reflection of the hard workers in there. I have great sympathy for them, and I know they are working hard. But due to the lack of support they are given, the anomalies in the advice that is provided continue. It is just incredible how often people—my staff included, in my electorate office—are given conflicting advice: people being told they can travel to New South Wales free of exemption, when that is not the case; businesses being told staff had to be double vaccinated to open, when they could remain at the old levels and not be double vaccinated; and businesses being told staff only needed one vaccination to open at the new levels, when they could not. I could go on and on and on. So I ask that support in both numbers and information provided be given to these people so that they can do their job properly and provide accurate advice to our communities. So much traffic through my electorate office of recent times has been from the incorrect advice that is given from the COVID hotline and indeed conflicting advice depending on who you get on the other end of the phone. It is just ridiculous.

On the COVID contact tracers: the Paynesville Wine Bar nine days ago was declared a tier 1 site. They read it online, and talking to the owner last night no-one from the department or the government—no-one—has been in contact with them. Fortunately Jo, who runs the wine bar, has done a fantastic job in keeping her records and keeping her contact tracing completely up to date—and full credit to her. But this ‘no contact’ is exactly what happened in Lakes Entrance last year when these businesses were not contacted at all to tell them what their requirements were around cleaning, the steps that they had to take to reopen and just general support for these businesses. They hear nothing. We need better support for both the COVID hotline to get the information accurate and the COVID contact tracers in relation to supporting those businesses that are declared COVID hotspots. These are areas that need obviously a lot more resourcing and a lot more accuracy of information being provided.

Broadmeadows electorate mental health funding

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (16:14): (6101) My request is to the Minister for Mental Health. The action I seek is for the minister to provide a report on how schools in the electorate of Broadmeadows will benefit from the $200 million landmark School Mental Health Fund. Schools will be able to pick the mental health tools that best match the needs of their students. This is a critical application, and it is vital now more than ever as we respond to the world’s worst pandemic in a century.

The fund delivers on a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, which calls for support in schools with evidence-based initiatives for students’ mental health and wellbeing. Schools will be able to select programs and initiatives from an online menu, and there are three types of intervention. Tier 1 is positive mental health promotion, including initiatives like active schools, mental health first aid, anti-bullying programs—which are especially important—and therapy dogs as whole-school investments to help create a positive, inclusive environment, as well as mental health literacy training to ensure mental health issues are addressed early, which is critical.

Tier 2 is early intervention with tailored initiatives, including cross-cultural responsiveness training, arts therapy or trauma-informed care, ensuring programs cater to all students, and that is the way you want to do it; you want to have everybody in, everyone getting a fair go. Tier 3 features targeted support for students experiencing mental health concerns, such as additional mental health professionals, Headspace counselling or suicide-related support. So the fund will be implemented in all schools across regional Victoria by the middle of next year and throughout the state by 2024.

I just want to add that the Victorian government is also delivering $60 million for the new Broadmeadows Health and Community Centre of Excellence. This is really important locally, and it will deliver courses in high-priority industries, including mental health, nursing, allied health and healthcare education services. This really wraps up how we can bring these themes together. It is vital in securing local jobs for local people where they are needed most and also in training the next generation, particularly of nurses, prioritising mental health services for the benefit of the community.

COVID-19

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (16:16): (6102) My adjournment is to the Minister for Health, and the action I seek on behalf of my constituent is for a clear and defined set of advice for patients who have recovered from COVID-19 to be published like in other states. Minister, my constituent has recently recovered from the virus and has raised with me this issue because there is a large amount of confusion about what her obligations are in terms of workplace testing and vaccination. In terms of regular workplace testing, in other jurisdictions in the country people who have recovered from the virus are exempt for six months post recovery and they are exempt from isolation requirements. This does not seem to be the case in Victoria, and my constituent is concerned that she may return a false positive and be forced into another period of isolation, which would be incredibly disruptive for her and her employer. In terms of the vaccination, she is mandated by this government to be fully vaccinated and will not be able to work unless she has her second dose. Again, there is conflicting information on whether someone should wait for a period of time to have their first or second dose post recovery from COVID.

Published advice from NSW Health says routine COVID-19 testing when you do not have symptoms, such as workplace surveillance testing, is not recommended for six months after you have recovered. This is because tests for COVID-19 may continue to give a positive result for a while after infection even though you are no longer infectious. It also says the person does not have to have a COVID-19 vaccination even if they are required to by an employer or NSW Health and that they do not have to self-isolate if identified as a close contact after the date on a medical clearance letter. New South Wales requires people who have recovered to keep their medical clearance certificate and present it when required. Minister, my constituent is being given a mix of information and is rightly confused about her obligations, as is her employer. If this is the situation for a recovered patient in New South Wales, why isn’t it the case for a recovered patient in Victoria? Why isn’t there a clear set of guidelines for Victorians that take the issues mentioned into account, and if such advice exists, why isn’t it readily available?

This is another situation where the government’s mixed messaging is making it difficult for people, be it confusion about hospitality workers and hairdressers needing to be vaccinated by a date different to what the mandate orders, say, or families in my electorate being forced into isolation and not being able to get in contact with anyone at the department to provide them advice or support when they believe they have been mistakenly identified as close contacts. So, Minister, I ask on behalf of my constituent: will you publish a clear and defined set of guidelines for people who have recovered from the virus, like New South Wales has?

Mordialloc electorate schools

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (16:19): (6103) My adjournment this afternoon is to the Minister for Education and Deputy Premier, and the action I seek is an update on the progress of school building projects in my electorate at Yarrabah School, Chelsea Heights Primary and Chelsea Primary. As we come out of restrictions and our students return to onsite learning, there is a lot of hope and optimism for their future, and I am really excited to look towards the future with the progress of these amazing school builds. Of course Yarrabah School is a specialist school in our electorate of Mordialloc, located in Aspendale on Mill Street. We committed to completely rebuilding this school for the future to make sure that, regardless of the school that you go to, every single school student gets the very best opportunities. We are so excited for that date when we can finally come together and officially open Yarrabah School.

We also have recently seen the almost completion of the Chelsea Heights Primary School upgrades: $4.5 million for improved classrooms and outdoor learning spaces. For a couple of decades Chelsea had not seen significant state funding. They were growing; they continue to grow. They are led by a fantastic school community. Jane Satchwell does an incredible job as principal. We are really excited to see the progress there. And finally Chelsea Primary School recently completed their Inclusive Schools Fund project—an amazing outdoor inclusive learning space. They also have $3.8 million towards improving their classrooms, really stage 1 works in the more than 110-year history of that school. Taylor Irish, the principal there, does an extraordinary job and we give him a big shout-out.

I should have mentioned as well Matthew Harris from Yarrabah School, who I fondly remember, as a candidate many years ago, asking me why Yarrabah School was not getting funding. Why couldn’t we rebuild this school and make sure that kids, regardless of their circumstances, got the very best education? We committed to that. The Premier and Deputy Premier have visited that school on a number of occasions. We actually piloted the after-school program for students with additional needs. That was part of a pilot with Yarrabah School. There is a really great history, even through to the hydrotherapy pool that was established there. There is a great amount of optimism around the projects and builds that we are doing and also around our kids getting back on site.

I wanted to give a big shout-out to our education leaders. They have not missed a beat. I do not know how they are still up and about. From the conversations that I have had, they are still filled with so much optimism, so much commitment. They are just not fatiguing at all. I give them a big shout-out and thank them for their service. And to our teachers and education support staff and students, on 1 November we are allowed to get back out to schools and see everyone. We will be back out and we will be saying hello to the amazing communities that we have the honour of representing. I cannot wait to see them all at Chelsea, Chelsea Heights, Yarrabah and across the Mordialloc electorate.

Polwarth electorate emergency services

Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (16:22): (6104) I note that the Minister for Roads and Road Safety is here—how often I do an adjournment debate for the minister for roads, and I have not got one this afternoon! That is disappointing; I will have to get my timing better next time. But my adjournment matter this afternoon, sparing the minister for roads, is in fact for the Minister for Education, and the action I seek from the minister is that he instruct his department to work with the Timboon community to establish some safety protocols for helicopters landing at the school. The Timboon school site is a very large one. It is in the heart of what is otherwise a very wet and fairly tree-rich area that does not have a lot of clear and safe landing sites for an emergency helicopter.

Of course the government will be familiar with the fact that the south-west community relies heavily on the support of the Warrnambool base air service that will get people very quickly to Melbourne in times of emergency. Timboon is pretty much the home of emergency services for all the visitors that go to the Great Ocean Road and the Twelve Apostles and Port Campbell. It is a very self-sufficient hub of a community. It is very important. To date the helicopter has often landed at the footy ground, which is very problematic because for much of the year it is very wet. It is unsafe. It is not easy to transport people from the ambulance across to the helicopter.

The school is a perfect site because it is actually next door to the hospital. There is plenty of space there. The community likes it. The other thing that is important to remember about the health services provided in Timboon is not only does it have a great community board at the hospital but the ambulance services across that southern part of the Corangamite shire are largely provided by volunteer ambulance drivers, volunteer paramedics and community emergency response teams that work together with the paid professional Ambulance Victoria people to keep that area safe. That ambulance service, both volunteer and professional, has had a very, very busy time over the COVID period simply because of the backlog in health services and people not getting the health care they necessarily need. That has more than doubled the amount of ambulance call-outs, and that is without any tourists and the tourist accidents that generally keep those ambulance services very busy.

The one thing that is holding up this being a better service and a safer service for that community and for visitors is the fact that the education department just will not talk to Ambulance Victoria and it will not talk to the local ambulance service providers who need to have safety protocols. They need a set of rules that they can engage with the school on so the kids can be safe, the school can be safe and the community knows where the helicopter will land, when it will land and how it will land. This is not rocket science. It is a simple problem for the minister to solve: it is two departments talking collaboratively together.

Northcote electorate social housing

Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (16:25): (6105) My adjournment is to the Minister for Housing, and I seek his action to ensure key social housing developments in the electorate of Northcote are completely free from gas. The Northcote electorate currently has two significant Homes Victoria projects underway to transform dilapidated housing estates at Walker Street in Northcote and Oakover Road in Preston. These projects are delivering more social housing that is modern and accessible to the tune of 200 new homes across both sites. They are two of the three projects currently underway in partnership with HousingFirst and developer MAB, with the third being in North Melbourne. As chair of the community consultative committee for Northcote and Preston I have worked to incorporate the views of residents and the community in the plans, and I am very pleased to share that our new homes will achieve a 5-star Green Star rating and exceed 7-star nationwide house energy rating scheme ratings. They will have all-electric appliances, heating and cooling.

However, I have been concerned that these projects still contain plans for gas hot water. In May this year I rose in Parliament to ask the minister about ensuring our $5.3 billion Big Housing Build is delivering energy-efficient and gas-free homes across Victoria. The minister was able to confirm that the new homes will have all-electric specifications and solar systems as standard—truly homes for the future. Yet because the Northcote, Preston and North Melbourne projects were instigated much earlier and are much further along in terms of design, planning and approvals than our recent Big Housing Build projects, there have been significant challenges in terms of altering the specs.

The Andrews Labor government has acted strongly to transition Victoria to clean energy and set ambitious targets for zero net emissions. A key lever is reducing our reliance on household gas, something I have actively pursued within government. It is my strong view that before we move wholeheartedly into construction of these inner-north sites we have a unique opportunity to do more, to go further and to deliver truly gas-free homes. To that end I have worked closely with locals, Homes Victoria and the developer to explore opportunities to install central electric heat pumps rather than gas hot water. In August I wrote to the minister to make the case for removing gas from these sites and sought his support to get it done. Moving to a gas-free project would not only help reduce our local reliance on gas but also help futureproof our social housing and deliver long-term cost-of-living benefits for residents.

Making the most of opportunities like this is exactly what Labor is all about. I am immensely proud to be part of a government that takes climate action seriously and does the work to integrate sustainability into the core of our projects. Residents of Northcote share my commitment to a sustainable future and strong social justice values. This is an opportunity to reduce emissions and reduce household bills. I would greatly welcome the minister’s support in removing gas hot water from these new homes.

Responses

Mr CARROLL (Niddrie—Minister for Public Transport, Minister for Roads and Road Safety) (16:28): No doubt there was a very important theme tonight of building back better post the pandemic. I do want to begin with the member for Croydon, who had an adjournment matter for the Minister for Health concerning the non-emergency transport system and the industry, particularly coming on the back of the hospital surge and the work that needs to be done to support non-emergency transport. The member for Ivanhoe, with his lived experience of being a keen golfer, had an adjournment matter for the Minister for Community Sport in particular around the clubhouse at the Ivanhoe golf course and where that upgrade is at, and he wanted to get back to his community on that. The member for Ripon had an adjournment matter for the Treasurer concerning excluded applicants from the Homebuyer Fund—previously excluded applicants in her electorate—and whether they could be considered for a future fund.

The member for Bayswater had an adjournment matter for the Minister for Water concerning the daylighting of Blind Creek. The member for Bayswater outlined the work he has been doing with the minister and Melbourne Water to bring waterways to life, which he continues to do, as well as Reimagining Your Creek. I will pass that on to the Minister for Water. Can I also say the member for Gippsland East, in relation to the COVID response, had a matter for the Premier, particularly for contact tracing and the hotline and information being accurate and correct. The member for Broadmeadows had a matter for the Minister for Mental Health, and it did deal with the $200 million Schools Mental Health Fund, which goes up to 2024. The member for Broadmeadows outlined how important that is to his electorate and where that investment will soon take place. The member for South-West Coast, for the Minister for Health also, identified a constituent in her electorate who had recovered from COVID, which is all very good, but in particular she had a matter in relation to the publication of information and clarification in relation to the rules and how they can get back to having the life they lived and want. She did highlight the New South Wales example of guidelines for the minister and the Department of Health to please look at.

The member for Mordialloc had a matter for the Minister for Education on the progress of schools in his electorate, including Yarrabah, Chelsea Heights and Chelsea Primary School. The member for Polwarth was seeking for the education minister to work with the health department, particularly Ambulance Victoria, for the Timboon community school about where helicopters can safely land. The member rightly identified the Great Ocean Road, which we are pleased to be upgrading, and other things like that in his electorate that are so important to the local community, but in particular the importance of the emergency responses required in his community. The member for Northcote outlined very succinctly for the Minister for Housing that the future is electric without a doubt, and having social housing developments in Northcote and Preston and identifying the community development reference group that she chairs, she wanted to ensure that the 200 places of housing that are going to be invested in there for residents will be electric and will be a real game changer for tackling emissions in her community. I will ensure that all of those adjournment matters are attended to by the relevant ministers and responded to.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The house now stands adjourned until tomorrow.

House adjourned 4.32 pm.