Wednesday, 11 November 2020

The SPEAKER (Hon. Colin Brooks) took the chair at 10.03 am and read the prayer.

Announcements

Acknowledgement of country

The SPEAKER (10:03): 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.

Bills

Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment Bill 2020

Introduction and first reading

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (10:04): I move:

That I introduce a bill for an act to amend the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 in relation to the supply of hypodermic needles and syringes and the supply, possession and administration of naloxone or other schedule 2 or schedule 3 poisons for the treatment of opioid overdoses, and for other purposes.

Motion agreed to.

Mr WELLS (Rowville) (10:04): I ask the minister to provide a brief explanation, please.

Mr FOLEY: I will happily do so. This is an amendment which will ease restrictions on supply and access to naloxone for the purposes of responding to opioid overdose and will legalise the subsequent distribution of sterile injecting equipment obtained by a person as a Victorian needle and syringe program.

Read first time.

Ordered to be read second time tomorrow.

Business of the house

Notices of motion

The SPEAKER (10:05): I wish to advise the house that general business, notices of motion 38 and 39, will be removed from the notice paper unless members wishing their notice to remain advise the Clerk in writing before 2.00 pm today.

Petitions

Following petitions presented to house by Clerk:

Marong public transport

TO THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF VICTORIA:

The Petition of

Residents of Marong

Draws to the attention of the House

Marong is situated 15 kilometres from Bendigo. The population of Marong has doubled in the last five years and it is planned to have a population of 8000+.

The community requests a public transport service to:

* Allow seniors within the community to access medical services, participate in daily shopping practises and engage in appropriate social activities.

* Allow students to access all educational facilities that are only available in Bendigo.

* Allow young people to access employment opportunities that are mostly available in Bendigo.

* Allow young people to participate in sporting and other personal development activities that are available in both Bendigo and Marong.

* Allow community residents (with only 1 or no car) to access all services, including medical, educational and social, in Bendigo.

* Allow community residents (with only 1 or no car) to access the closest supermarket and chemist (6.5 km away.)

* Promote environmental awareness and develop healthy attitudes towards caring for the place in which we live.

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Assembly of Victoria

The community of Marong, 15 kilometres from Bendigo, request an extension of the Bendigo public transport (bus) to Marong to meet the immediate needs of the community.

By Ms EDWARDS (Bendigo West) (476 signatures)

COVID-19

This petition of the residents of Victoria draws to the attention of the house, the State Government’s disregard for the Mornington Peninsula in its inclusion as part of Metropolitan Melbourne. Geelong was excluded, even though there were some active cases. From 8 July until 4 September, Geelong had experienced 290 new cases, and the Peninsula only 123. Yet Geelong remains outside the metropolitan area.

The Mornington Peninsula has suffered severe economic loss because of the constraints imposed on it in comparison with the Geelong region. There is no justification for continued differentiation between the two regions.

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Assembly require the Premier to immediately reclassify the Mornington Peninsula as non-metropolitan and end the lockdown.

By Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (1675 signatures).

Bushfire preparedness

TO THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF VICTORIA:

The Petition of

Residents in the Warrandyte electorate draws to the attention of the House, and notes—

That the government has neglected to proactively manage the Warrandyte State Park, and surrounding public land, which has led to an excessive build-up of fire fuel loads.

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Assembly of Victoria—

Ensures that the Andrews Government commits to the residents of Warrandyte, Warrandyte South, North Warrandyte and Wonga Park that in the months leading to the 2020/21 fire season a greater focus will be given to the build-up of these excessive fire fuel loads and, further, ensure those fire fuel loads are cleared through a proscribed burning program, slashing and/or any other methods the government deems fit as a priority in order to keep residents safe.

By Mr R SMITH (Warrandyte) (115 signatures).

Tabled.

Ordered that petitions lodged by member for Warrandyte today and on 10 November be considered next day on motion of Mr R SMITH (Warrandyte).

Ordered that petition lodged by member for Bendigo West be considered next day on motion of Ms EDWARDS (Bendigo West).

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

Documents

Documents

Incorporated list as follows:

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

Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978—Order under s 17B granting a licence over Knox Community Gardens Reserve

Land Tax Act 2005—Report 2019–20 of Land Tax Absentee Owner Surcharge Exemptions under ss 3B and 3BA

Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008—Report to Parliament on the Extensions of the Declaration of a State of Emergency

Subordinate Legislation Act 1994—Documents under s 15 in relation to Statutory Rule 121.

Bills

Safe Patient Care (Nurse to Patient and Midwife to Patient Ratios) Amendment Bill 2020

Council’s agreement

The SPEAKER (10:07): I wish to advise the house that I have received a message from the Legislative Council agreeing to the Safe Patient Care (Nurse to Patient and Midwife to Patient Ratios) Amendment Bill 2020 without amendment.

Announcements

COVID-19

The SPEAKER (10:08): Just before calling on members statements I want to remind members about the wearing of masks in the chamber. I thank members for their adherence to this public health and safety measure. There have been just a few instances where members have taken their masks off at the wrong time or slipped them down and had them only covering their mouths. So just a reminder and a request for continued cooperation from members on both sides of the house.

Members statements

Altona College

Ms HENNESSY (Altona—Attorney-General) (10:08): I rise today to acknowledge some really important community organisations in my electorate. I would like to begin by congratulating Altona College, which has been recognised in the Hobsons Bay Rotary teacher awards for its efforts in transitioning from a P–9 to a P–12 school in just two years. This has been a really important issue in our local community. Principal Julie Krause and her senior team and all of the staff and students have done a spectacular job, and I want to congratulate them.

Lumen Christi Catholic Primary School

Ms HENNESSY: Lumen Christi Catholic Primary will receive $2 million in state government funding from the Non-government Schools Capital Fund. We are really delighted to get that support. I want to thank and acknowledge the Minister for Education for his support for our local schools in the Altona electorate.

Altona electorate sports and recreation clubs

Ms HENNESSY: There has also been some fabulous funding for local sport and active recreation clubs. I am delighted that my colleague the Minister for Community Sport is with us as well. The successful organisations in my constituency are the Kai’Opua Outrigger Canoe Club Australia, Laverton Bowling Club and Archery Victoria. They are really important grants. They are going to help our local sporting communities get back to some form of COVID normal, and they are really delighted to receive that funding.

Remembrance Day

Ms HENNESSY: At the risk of indulgence, in the remaining time today, the 11th of the 11th, I would like to acknowledge Remembrance Day. It is also an important day in my family. My grandmother was born on this day, she got married on this day and she gave birth to my Aunty Margaret on this day—so happy birthday, Margy.

Kangaroo Ground Primary School

Ms McLEISH (Eildon) (10:10): I renew my request for the Minister for Education to make a significant investment in the coming budget for Kangaroo Ground Primary School to rebuild their main building and car park. This work has been on the drawing board for quite some time. The coalition committed to this school prior to the last election, and I raised the matter in Parliament in February this year. It is extremely disappointing for the primary school, its students and staff that no action or assessment has since taken place, despite the minister saying it would. There are concerns that the school is becoming less and less suitable to meet base expectations for a contemporary education institution. Conditions have continued to deteriorate. The car park was partly restored by volunteer school community members. Roadworking equipment, including tip trucks, a woodchipper and more, was donated by the volunteers, who gave up a Saturday to expand the car park and lay some stone in a bid to improve safety measures. Although admirable, they should not have had to do this. Funding support needs to be provided now.

COVID-19

Ms McLEISH: Homeschooled children have certainly been forgotten during COVID restrictions. Many parents contacted me as they were concerned for their children’s wellbeing under the lockdown restrictions. Unlike children who when they returned to school were with friends, homeschooled children remained isolated. This is incredibly concerning for growing children, who need peers for social interactions and stimulation to learn to play. Zoom sessions do not offer the same benefits as face-to-face communication. If it is safe for kids to be back at school, it is safe for homeschoolers to hold small catch-up and education sessions as well.

Hume City Council

Ms SPENCE (Yuroke—Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Community Sport, Minister for Youth) (10:11): I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the many Hume City Council candidates and our new councillors. In Aitken ward Carly Moore was returned with great support from local residents, recognising her strong leadership as mayor. Joseph Haweil, a passionate advocate for our diverse multicultural communities, was also re-elected. In Meadow Valley ward Naim Kurt and Karen Sherry were both returned after being keenly engaged with local issues throughout their time on council, and they will be joined by fresh voices in Chris Hollow and Sam Misho. Congratulations also to Jarrod Bell, who will be a terrific new voice in Jacksons Creek ward, joining longstanding councillor Jack Medcraft.

There were also many candidates who were not successful on this occasion. In particular I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Chandra Bamunusinghe, Ravinder Kaur, Guri Singh, Paskal El Ali, Yasemin Yigit and Mikaela Sadkiewicz, each of whom worked incredibly hard and ran energetic and enthusiastic campaigns. Likewise, this term of council will not be the same with the absence of Geoff Porter, Drew Jessop and Ann Potter. These councillors have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment and passion for our community over many years, and their enthusiasm and wisdom will be greatly missed. I served with all three on council and can attest to their unwavering commitment to the betterment of our community. I wish all Hume councillors and staff all the very best for the term ahead, and I look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with all of them to achieve positive outcomes for our terrific local community.

Mick Simpson

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (10:13): This Friday I will be joining Michael Simpson for the end of Mick’s memory walk into Kyabram from Sinclair Road. This is the second year Mick has done his walk for dementia, and I congratulate Mick for doing that. This year he is actually excelling. He is doing 90 kilometres from Cobram via Strathmerton, Nathalia and Wyuna to Kyabram, and he is very much thankful for the support of the Lions Clubs along the way for what they are doing in helping him raise this money. Mick does suffer from dementia, and he wants to raise the awareness of it and actually raise $10 000. I would encourage those people in my electorate along that walk to contribute to Mick’s memory walk.

Country Fire Authority Shepparton station

Mr WALSH: The other issue I would like to raise is the issue that the member for Shepparton is actually talking about at the moment, and that is the fact that the CFA volunteers look like they are not going to get sheds for their vehicles at the new CFA station in Shepparton. I would remind the people of Shepparton and particularly the member for Shepparton that she actually voted with the government for the fire services amendment bill that led to the restructure and to the CFA volunteers being disenfranchised and disadvantaged in examples like the new shed at Shepparton. We are seeing examples right across Victoria where career firefighters are not doing the right thing by volunteers in new infrastructure and in access to vehicles, and I think it is important to remind the people of Shepparton it was that vote that led to this issue.

Djakitjuk Djanga grants

Ms EDWARDS (Bendigo West) (10:14): Last week I was pleased to join the Minister for Agriculture in the other place in Harcourt to announce the 13 recipients of the Djakitjuk Djanga grants to help Aboriginal Victorian-owned businesses expand their production of native foods and botanicals. Congratulations to Nalderun Aboriginal Services in my electorate who received funding to establish a commercial native garden in Harcourt on land donated by Michael Henry of Henry of Harcourt. This project will see edible Indigenous plants and native foods grown, sold and used as an important tool for education and local Indigenous youth employment. Congratulations to CEO of Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Rodney Carter, Aunty Julie McHale, Michael Henry, Kat Coff and all involved for their vision to create a program combining connection to country, education and prioritising a sustainable local food industry. It seems fitting to reflect on the importance of this project during this week, NAIDOC Week, with its theme, ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’, which recognises the important role of our First Nations people in occupying and nurturing our land for over 65 000 years. Rodney Carter captured it well during his welcome to country whilst launching the Nalderun project last week by saying, ‘What better way to heal our land than by planting edibles that are native to our soils’.

Remembrance Day

Ms EDWARDS: Today is Remembrance Day, and I would like to congratulate the successful recipients of veterans grants in my electorate. Mount Alexander shire received $25 000 to restore the Harcourt Avenue of Honour, Bendigo District RSL sub-branch received $20 000 to provide critical mental and social support to veterans and the Legacy club of Bendigo received $9600 to provide a heating allowance and newsletter.

Sandringham electorate schools

Mr ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (10:16): I am thrilled to announce that $1.7 million has been secured for St Patrick’s Parish Primary School in Mentone, being a state government coinvestment towards their $3.4 million classroom and learning space development. One of my first acts as the member for Sandringham was to advocate on behalf of St Patrick’s to seek coinvestment funding for this important project. I now look forward to this government investing in Mentone Girls Secondary College, Beaumaris North Primary School and Blackrock Primary School in this year’s state budget. To principal Tim Noonan, the staff, students and parents of St Pat’s, congratulations.

Sandringham electorate small businesses

Mr ROWSWELL: Earlier this week I launched my first ‘shop local’ Christmas competition. This competition is all about injecting confidence and cash back into local shopping strips. As prizes, I have personally purchased fifty $50 gift vouchers to be spent at local businesses this Christmas. Every dollar in prize money goes straight back into the tills of local traders. Until 4 December residents can nominate their favourite local business and they will go into the draw to win one of these 50 vouchers. Since launching this competition my inbox has been absolutely inundated with entries, and each entry acknowledges and supports the hard work that every local business in the Sandringham district puts in day in, day out. As a local MP I am humbled and privileged to play a small part in showcasing the extraordinary businesses which call our local area home.

Box Hill electorate sporting clubs

Mr HAMER (Box Hill) (10:17): Sporting clubs are the lifeblood of many local communities, and the restrictions on community sport for much of 2020 have created unique challenges. Today I want to recognise the many individuals in our community who have gone above and beyond in their club roles to keep their sporting club connected during this pandemic. Whether it has been through organising online training sessions, checking in on player welfare, taking responsibility for COVID-safe plans or simply keeping club members informed, these club champions have demonstrated the true meaning of team spirit. I would like to acknowledge Campbell Olorenshaw from the KBH Brumbies; Daniel Napoli from the Box Hill Hawks; Matt Clark and Tony Hollamby from the Box Hill Rugby Union Football Club; Ian Girvan from the Surrey Park Football Club; Simon Hickey, Maggie McCarthy and Sean Ludekins from the Blackburn Vikings Basketball Club; Helen Spurr from the Kallista Dance Academy; Paul Harman from the Blackburn junior football club; Phil Kong from the Surrey Park Swimming Club; and Laura Gonsalves from the Eastern Christian Hockey Organisation.

VCE exams

Mr HAMER: Year 12 exams started this week, and I want to give a huge shout-out to all the year 12 students attending one of our fantastic local schools: Blackburn High, Box Hill High, Box Hill Senior Secondary College, Koonung Secondary College, Nunawading Christian College and Our Lady of Sion College. Year 12 is a tough year at the best of times, and year 12 in 2020 has been like no other. The class of 2020 has shown enormous resilience and determination throughout the year. Good luck with your exams.

Remembrance Day

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (10:19): Today we observe Remembrance Day, and it is a day where we pause and reflect the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. It marks the time just over 100 years ago when the guns fell silent on the Western Front. Whilst it is a day we pause and commemorate all of those who made the ultimate sacrifice, we also recognise all those who served, and this place here has a very significant connection with our services. It was here that the federal Parliament sat when war was declared, with the Great War. But there are also many individual connections with this Parliament to those who served. The individuals include Lieutenant-Colonel Murray Bourchier of the Country Party. He led the Light Horse charge at Beersheba and returned to become Deputy Premier of this state and received the Distinguished Service Order. Fred Forrest was the Liberal member for Caulfield. He served with the 7th battalion at both Gallipoli and Passchendaele and was awarded the Military Cross. Arthur Hughes, a Labor MP from the then seat of Grenville and a schoolteacher, served in Egypt and France before he was wounded and invalided. He too received the Military Cross. These are some of many who came from all backgrounds and all political parties, and it is these men that we remember today.

COVID-19

Ms THOMAS (Macedon) (10:20): Congratulations, Victoria. For the first time in many months families on different sides of the ring of steel will reunite, and we look forward to our friends and near neighbours in Sunbury, Diggers Rest, Melton and Toolern Vale being able to return to the Macedon Ranges, Moorabool and Hepburn shires to join us for lunch, shopping or a walk through our parks and forests. As the ring of steel comes down, I want acknowledge the police and ADF team on the Gisborne South checkpoint. Thank you for supporting and protecting our community through the last few months. I know that the entire Macedon community is very grateful.

Of course we are expecting many visitors from Melbourne, and we look forward to welcoming you all back. But a reminder: please respect our communities and abide by the rules. Make sure to leave your details when dining in. Keep your distance. Do not crowd, or if you see a crowd, make sure that you walk away. Practise good hand hygiene, and of course wear your mask. We must stay safe to stay open. Our local businesses, especially our local hospitality and tourism businesses, have really done it tough this year. Our cafes, our restaurants, our bars, our pubs and our wineries employ thousands of people across our region, and visitors will bring jobs back to our community. This is particularly important for young people who need to get back to work in these sectors.

When planning your trip to Daylesford and the Macedon Ranges you will find yourself spoiled for choice. We look forward to welcoming you back, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

COVID-19

Ms CUPPER (Mildura) (10:22): From the outset of COVID-19 Mallee Tough has been a theme to show the fight and resilience of the people of north-west Victoria. The impacts of lockdowns and restrictions have been exacerbated by border closures. Mildura is the only electorate to be bounded by both the New South Wales and South Australian borders, and being locked out of those states has not only impacted our day-to-day lives but has adversely affected business, our economy and in many ways our social fabric. Now we are headed to a COVID normal, having defeated the second wave, but our fight in many ways is just beginning. Statistics show that between March and September payroll jobs in the north-west fell by 8.8 per cent. It was the biggest fall in regional Victoria and was only behind two of the six Melbourne regions, which were on stage 4 restrictions at the time. For a region which already has low socio-economic indicators, the harsh reality of COVID-19 is stark.

We will keep fighting—it is what we do—but now more than ever we need the Victorian government to fight with us and alongside us. The budget on 24 November is the first opportunity to invest in our recovery and our future. The Victorian government has invested more than $23 million in infrastructure stimulus spending in the Mildura electorate since the pandemic started, including $5.5 million for the Mildura riverfront, $4.4 million for TAFE and $4 million for the Buloke shire streetscapes, but we need more, and I urge the Victorian government to consider these issues on 24 November.

COVID-19

Mr KENNEDY (Hawthorn) (10:24): COVID has been a challenge, but challenges have a knack of bringing out the best and, I am sorry to say, worst in us. I have been buoyed by the generosity shown by many of my constituents—the ‘Hawthorn heroes’, if you like. People like Ricky Kuruppu—armed with typewriter he has been leaving tiny pieces of paper around the area with grabs of his poetry and uplifting messages of support with the purpose of injecting positivity into the world. During the pandemic people who have found these notes have expressed the joy brought to their day in trying times. Then there is early childhood educator Lucille Kent from Hawthorn Early Years. During the pandemic Lucy went about creating wellness packs for fellow childhood educators whose work is vital. In Lucy’s words, one of her goals is to:

… connect further with the wider community …offering our … support and kindness where we can.

Thirdly and finally, there is year 11 Scotch College student Ben Garson, a conscientious young man who recently won a Victorian Parliament Prize for his 90-second members statement, which might just be even better than this one. I congratulate these three Hawthorn heroes.

Rosemaur Gallery

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (10:25): Down in Casey we all know we have had issues with planning and the Labor Party and with some of the structures that have gone on, some of the reports in the paper and obviously some of the things before IBAC at the moment, which will be quite interesting; I am looking forward to hearing from the member for Cranbourne. But the Minister for Planning would be pleased to know that I have been out there doing his job for him when it comes to a new development in Casey. We have got an issue in the green wedge zone, and the one thing this government failed to do was consult with the community. Now, I understand the people in this part of the community were not attending the fundraisers and they were not walking around with their credit cards and handing money over in the thousands of dollars to the Labor Party, these are just genuine people who do not want their green wedge area torn up.

We have heard the minister in the past talk about the protection of the green wedge area, and now all of a sudden he has got something on his desk and he will not come out and speak publicly. There is a $50 million construction project wanting to go on in the area and no-one down there will stand up for the local community and say to them it is so important that their voice is heard. We have got a developer who wants to put in place two new dwellings as well as an art studio and an art gallery at Harkaway—a beautiful part of the world. We have gone out and consulted, and the response so far has been that 90 per cent of people do not support the development in the area it is in and 96 per cent of the people said they have not been consulted by the government. I say to the minister: he needs to come out and speak to these people. I know they will not go to the fundraisers and they will not be part of progressive Labor, but they are genuine people who want to protect their green wedge zone.

Help 3095 and Surrounds Facebook group

Ms WARD (Eltham) (10:27): I will continue from my members statement from last sitting week: Loren Elizabeth, Loretta Marazzato, Louise Sherwin, Lucas Jarred, Luvlin Cutler, Lyn Hosking, Madison James, Mandy Vis, Maree Quinlan, Marg Innes, Marnie Roth, Maureen Doyle, Maya Horne, Mel Anderson, Melanie Coffey, Melanie Maree, Melanie Schols, Melissa Ann, Melissa Jasch, Melissa Paine, Mia Jones, Michael Wilson Diamond Jewellers, Michelle Davies, Michelle Hegarty, Michelle Kirkpatrick, Michelle Maloney, Naomi Pickford, Natalie Duffy, Natasha Teagle, Nathan Gunn, Neil Carswell, Neil Conlan—Uni Mitsubishi Pencil, Nic Laszczuk, Nic Ricardo, Nicole Horne, Nicole Peake, Nillumbik Lions, Nillumbik Youth Services, Ollie Murray, Owen Swift, Pam Wakefield, Paul Murray, Penny Atk, Penny Hopping, Pinchapoo, Platform 3095, Rachel Buchanan, Remy Azmy, Rhonda Fitzgerald, Risk Heaney, Robyn Menzies, Robynne Tongue, Rochelle Van Der Merwe, Ruth Lennie, Ryan Swift, Sally Harris, Sally Mason, Sandra Baguley, Sandra Davies, Sarah Kilpatrick, Sarah Leach, Sarah Linssen, Sarah Olsen, Sean Swift, Sharon Leeson, Sharon Swoboda, Shayne Egan, Simon Jones, Simone Hosking, Smart Bag, Sophie Roth, Sophie Summers, Stacy Reichstein, Stef Wagner, Strive Myotherapy and Remedial Massage, Stuart Callinan, Sue James, Tammy Crupi, Tara Sandie, Tess Paoli, the Happy Snack Company, Theresa Hunt, Thornbury Minuteman Press, Toni Munforte, Tracy Scott, Trevor Kennett, Triumph Tutoring, Vanei Kealey, Vick Baggio, Vicki Huggins, Vicky Jones, Violeta Madireddi, Warrick Menzies, Wendy Keenan, Xue Ling Ericson and Ye Ling Ericson have all done a fantastic job in my community. The amount of community support they have gathered, the community interest they have created, the sense of community and the connectivity has been fantastic during the months of lockdown, and I congratulate and thank them with all my heart.

The SPEAKER: Order! Before calling the member for Prahran, I ask the member for Warrandyte to wear his mask properly.

Mr R Smith: I have already told you that I am having trouble keeping it on. I am overheating, and I cannot breathe properly.

The SPEAKER: Okay. Well—

Mr R Smith interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order! I have a responsibility in the chamber to ensure that members are wearing masks based on health advice—

Mr R Smith: In the upper house there are members who do not wear them at all.

The SPEAKER: and I am happy to have this conversation and work out a solution for the member, but I am not going to have members in this place without masks on properly. If we need to suspend the sitting of the house to resolve this matter between the Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Warrandyte and myself—

Mr R Smith interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr R Smith: I know you are saying ‘Order’, but can you explain?

The SPEAKER: Order! I am going to suspend the sitting of the house. I ask the Manager of Opposition Business to meet me in chambers.

Sitting suspended 10.29 am until 11.22 am.

Local government elections

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) (11:22): I just want to firstly congratulate everyone across Victoria who put up their hand and stood in our local government elections. It was obviously a very tough year to be a candidate, but it is so important that people have taken an interest in our local government and people have put their hand up to represent their communities, so congratulations to everyone who put their hand up and especially to those who were successful.

For the Greens it was a very successful local government election, with a record 36 Greens councillors elected right across the state—in the city, in the suburbs, in regional areas. There are new Greens councillors in areas like Boroondara, Manningham and Shepparton. We got a majority of councillors in the City of Yarra possibly for the first time ever. In my patch it was good to see Mike Scott and Polly Morgan elected to Stonnington council, where I was previously a councillor, and Sarah Barton ran a really strong campaign too. Kat Copsey and Tim Baxter succeeded in re-election in Port Phillip and Olivia Ball and Rohan Leppert in the City of Melbourne—really strong campaigns pushing for local climate action, for reviving our local shopping strips and for protecting our local public services against austerity.

Mannibadar Soldiers Memorial Hall

Ms SETTLE (Buninyong) (11:23): Next year, May 2021, will mark the centenary of the first returned soldiers from World War I taking up their blocks in the parish of Mannibadar on the Mount Bute estate to the south-west of Ballarat. Mount Bute was a large pastoral station owned by Lady Sarah Spencer-Churchill, an absentee landowner residing in England. It was for this reason the property was acquired for soldier settlement in 1921. The property stretched from south of Linton to Mount Bute and almost to Lismore and comprised some 48 000 acres. Following acquisition it was subdivided into 123 allotments ranging from 279 acres to 789 acres. A large memorial plaque will be affixed to a boulder outside the Mannibadar Soldiers Memorial Hall and three information panels will be installed inside the hall thanks to a $10 000 grant from the Victoria Remembers minor grant program. The memorial plaque and panels will be in place by May next year to be unveiled on the centenary of the first soldiers taking up their blocks. I visited the town of Mannibadar on Sunday to meet with the committee and to announce the grant and see their plans. In an interesting connection my great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather were managers of the original Mount Bute estate and my grandmother was born there. Today, 11 November, is a time to reflect on veterans’ stories and the importance of homecoming while remembering the thousands who never made it home.

University funding

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (11:25): Victoria has an exceptional education system, including some world-class universities. However, this year our university students, whilst dealing with a pandemic, have seen repeated attacks on their education by the federal government. The commonwealth’s refusal to allow universities access to JobKeeper has had a devastating impact on all our university students and staff, and with Deakin University right in the heart of my electorate the impacts could not hit closer to home. Two hundred jobs will be lost at Deakin, with hundreds more going at Melbourne, La Trobe, Swinburne, RMIT, VU and my alma mater, Monash. Class sizes are increasing and courses are being merged and units dropped as universities struggle without proper support from the commonwealth. On top of this, the federal government has increased the cost of university for our students. This means students are not getting the same access to education that many members of this Parliament and the federal Parliament were so privileged to receive. It is a blow to diversity and a blow to the intellectual health of the nation.

In the face of these cuts, the importance of student unions cannot be overstated. As a former student union president I know the role they play in fighting for students’ welfare, but right now they are seeing funding cuts of up to 50 per cent, crippling their ability to support students through these changes and through the pandemic. The specious argument being led by uni administrations is that student unions have had less to do as students have not been on campus. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. The Andrews government has played its part. It is time for the federal government to stop playing games with our university campuses and stump up the support they need.

Frankston electorate schools

Mr EDBROOKE (Frankston) (11:26): It is an absolute pleasure to get up today and celebrate two new schools that are opening new buildings in Frankston, and they are Derinya Primary School, who are currently building their new school, and also Ballam Park Primary School.

Remembrance Day

Mr EDBROOKE: Of course today we note that Remembrance Day is a little different this year, but it did not stop us ensuring that at 11 o’clock, as we did, we stopped and remembered with a minute’s silence those who dedicated their lives and died fighting for our nation. Remembrance Day of course allows us to take 1 minute from our lives to stop and contemplate the sacrifices that were made for us to live in a very lucky country. To the members of my community that travelled to different jungles, deserts, skies or oceans across the world and sacrificed their youth, leaving friends behind to ensure that we could live in peace, a million thankyous will never be enough. I will instead tell you that our community are fully aware of our debt to you and that we must never, ever forget. Lest we forget.

NAIDOC Week

Mr EDBROOKE: Also there is a good celebration because of course it is NAIDOC Week, a time where we acknowledge the traditional owners and the thousands of generations that came before them. As was noted to me a little while ago, if the history of Australia was a book and every page was 1000 years, we would have a 60 000-page book and our generation might be the last couple of words on the last page. We have got a lot to appreciate and we have got a lot that we need to recognise in a better way, and treaty is part of the way we do that.

Marian Pawlik

Mr DIMOPOULOS (Oakleigh) (11:28): I would like to join the member for St Albans in placing on the record my sincere condolences and deep sadness at the passing of a good friend and great Victorian, Marian Pawlik, OAM. Marian dedicated his life to helping others, especially in the Victorian and Australian Polish communities. For more than 20 years Marian served his community tirelessly through the Polish Community Council of Victoria, including as president. It is no surprise that Marian was awarded significant honours for his work, including the Order of Australia Medal, the Henryk Sławik Award and the Commander’s Cross from the President of Poland.

But it goes without saying it was never about awards. Marian was as humble a person as you could meet. It was never about him; it was about what he could do for others. I worked at the Victorian Multicultural Commission for eight years while Marian was a leader in his community some 15 years ago, but when I really got to know him was when I was elected to Parliament in 2014. His office was in the same building as mine. It was always a delight to speak with him and to be around him. He had such a good grasp of community, policy and how things around us could be improved. But perhaps his greatest attribute: he was a genuinely nice person, a good person. He was real. He was concerned for others. He cared. He had the most engaging smile and an open personality. The last time I saw him he was getting out of his car outside the office in Oakleigh, and he was as positive and full of warmth as always, even though we were in the middle of COVID.

I know there are many in this place whose lives have been touched by Marian. My deepest and heartfelt sympathy to Marian’s wife, Barbara, his son, Dominik, his family and all his many, many friends, particularly in the Victorian Polish community. Vale, Marian Pawlik, OAM.

Eynesbury Primary School

Mr McGHIE (Melton) (11:29): Families in Eynesbury are another step closer to having a new school thanks to the Andrews Labor government and in particular the Minister for Education, with construction of Eynesbury Primary School in my electorate now complete. Students will be commencing in term 1 next year. I headed down there recently to take a look, and wow, what an amazing resource for the families and community of Eynesbury.

The school’s facilities include a modern art, science and food technology building and an administration building. Students will be able to stay active with outdoor play courts, a performing arts and physical education building and a sports field. Eynesbury Primary School will have a kindergarten next door, ending the dreaded double drop-off for local families—that too is looking fantastic.

These two brilliant facilities really have local families excited. I spoke to the principal, Phillip Coloca, and deputy principal, Linh Nguyen, who are really excited with engaging the new staff and families who will be calling Eynesbury Primary School home next year. This is an exciting step for Eynesbury families, with local students set to attend a new school in 2021 and receive the world-class education they deserve. We are investing in Victoria’s future. It is essential our schools evolve to inspire students and to equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. This new school helps relieve the pressure on other schools in my electorate as the growth of Melton sees more and more families make Melton their home. I cannot wait to see teachers, students and their families enjoy their new facilities early next year.

Following statement incorporated in accordance with resolution of house of 10 November:

Renewable energy

Mr EREN (Lara)

It was a great pleasure to announce last week that my electorate would be home to one of the world’s largest lithium-ion batteries.

The battery will be built at the Moorabool terminal station to boost the state’s energy reliability, drive down electricity prices and support Victoria’s transition to renewable energy—as well as creating local jobs as we take steps towards a COVID normal.

Thanks to the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, who announced that she has directed the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to sign a contract with renewable energy specialist Neoen to deliver a new Tesla battery to transform Victoria’s energy system and improve reliability.

The Victorian Big Battery will create more than 85 local jobs and deliver over $200 million in investment into the Geelong region.

With climate change resulting in hotter summers the demand for electricity is rising at peak times.

At the same time, Victoria’s ageing coal-fired generators are becoming increasingly unreliable, creating a need for additional capacity to safeguard the state’s power supply.

The Victorian Big Battery will address these issues.

The 300 megawatt battery will be ready by the 2021–22 summer.

It will help reduce wholesale prices—and people’s power bills—by storing cheap renewable energy when it’s plentiful and discharging it into the grid when it is needed most.

Neoen will pay for construction of the battery, as well its ongoing operation and maintenance.

Consumers will pay for use of the battery through their power bills, but the reduction in wholesale energy prices delivered by the battery will mean that Victorians pay less for their power—with independent analysis showing that every $1 invested in the battery will deliver more than $2 in benefits to Victorian households and businesses.

Victoria is on track to meet its renewable energy target of 25 per cent by the end of 2020 and the battery will make an important contribution to its targets of 40 per cent by 2025 and 50 per cent by 2030.

I am proud that Moorabool will host Australia’s largest battery. Not only will it support local jobs and investment, but it makes an important contribution to Victoria’s clean energy future.

Members

Member for Murray Plains

Personal explanation

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (11:31): In my members statement this morning I said the member for Shepparton supported the government’s fire services legislation. That was correct for the bill in June 2017, but when it was recommitted in this Parliament the member for Shepparton voted against the fire services legislation in June 2019.

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Inquiry into Early Childhood Engagement of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities

Ms SULEYMAN (St Albans) (11:31): I rise today to speak on the report of the inquiry into early childhood engagement of CALD communities. On 17 September 2020 the Legislative Assembly’s Legal and Social Issues Committee tabled its comprehensive report from the inquiry into early childhood engagement of culturally diverse families. As chair of the committee it is my pleasure to speak to this report today, a topic so close to my heart in relation to cultural diversity and multiculturalism in Victoria. I strongly believe that Victoria’s strength is within its multicultural community, an integral part of Victorian communities.

The committee explored a broad range of services relating to early childhood engagement such as kindergartens, playgroups, maternal and child health, mental health and disability services. We heard about various integrated and place-based services models that provide families with the appropriate support. We also explored the importance of expanding workforce diversity, not only to provide more welcoming spaces for culturally diverse families but also to create meaningful employment opportunities for individuals from culturally diverse backgrounds. There is no doubt that our workforces need to better reflect our communities.

Now, on the purpose of the report, we actually made 49 recommendations to address these barriers and ensure that services are inclusive and support families and their children. I was extremely pleased with the recent Victorian government announcement of funding of $169 million towards the school readiness fund and of course the fantastic announcement yesterday of a further $169 million for free kinder for 2021. There is no doubt that families need to not only belong in their community but also belong in kindergartens and schools. It is critical to successful engagement. There needs to be continued support in relation to children’s wellbeing and development that can help parents and caregivers build social connections, reducing social isolation.

Some of the key recommendations of the report are continued funding of community hubs—and we were able to see firsthand the fantastic work of community hubs—as well as establishment of evidence-based models for engagement with culturally diverse communities, and of course a number of recommendations are around continuing to include culturally diverse speech therapy workers to ensure speech and language delay assessments can be conducted in a child’s first language.

Can I take the opportunity—we had a number of public hearings—to thank everybody for our visits in Melbourne and in the regional towns of Ballarat, Geelong, Bendigo and Shepparton. The committee was grateful to everybody that generously provided their stories and submissions during those public hearings.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank my fellow committee members—and I note the member for Geelong is in the chamber here today, the member for Buninyong, the member for Brighton, the member for Caulfield and the member for Clarinda—for all their work, support and contributions during this inquiry. We really did hear so much about people’s experiences in relation to early childhood services for them and their children.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank our amazing secretariat for the hard work that was done during this inquiry. Yuki Simmonds, Raylene D’Cruz, Rachel Macreadie, Richard Slade and Cat Smith—thank you so much. We would not have been able to prepare this report without their hard work and commitment during this time and in particular during COVID. They have done some amazing work, our secretariat and my fellow committee members, in presenting a report that I think really is setting the foundations for better early childhood engagement by our CALD communities. We are already seeing some of the work being done, but there needs to be some more work done in this space and I am confident that some of these recommendations will be adopted.

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2019–20 Budget Estimates

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (11:36): In statements on committee reports today I will be making a contribution in relation to the current Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report into budget estimates. I initially would like to refer to page 212 of that report and the reference that is made on that page by the Minister for Agriculture in relation to—I think the term she used was—the ‘ever-changing aspect of agriculture’, and that included animal welfare and also a number of on-farm issues that are experienced. In line with that I want to make some comments on the preparation of a new animal welfare act for which feedback is currently being sought by the government. We are told that this new act will replace the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986, which goes to the heart of the minister’s reference in that PAEC report. Submissions are being received until 14 December.

What we all want to see is sensible improvements to animal welfare. I do not think there would be any member of this chamber who would argue against that. But I would also add that the changes need to be reasonable and the changes need to be workable, and I do not think that anybody could argue against that either. What we certainly do not want to see is more protections in any way, shape or form for those activists who have been illegally invading farms. We do not want unnecessary restrictions on our hunting fraternity, and we also need to ensure that our farming community are allowed to go about their lawful and legal business. Rural communities need to be aware that this act is being revisited and that changes will no doubt be made. They certainly will be made, but we want to make sure that rural voices are well heard as part of this consultation process and that it is not driven by, I guess, city folk who in some cases perhaps do not have a great understanding of the country way of life. It is very important that our farmers who are involved in animal-based industries and our hunting fraternity take the opportunity to protect both their livelihoods and their way of life also.

In my contribution on the PAEC report I also want to talk about the racing industry, and I refer to page 221 of that report and the outline given by the Minister for Racing, which is a very, very accurate commentary around the importance of the racing industry to the Victorian economy. In particular we have the Spring Racing Carnival, which makes a very, very important contribution to the economy of rural and regional Victoria. I know that a number of members in this chamber, including me and probably the minister as well, enjoy our racing industry. But in this current COVID situation what we need is a clear pathway forward to get our owners and our racing club members back on tracks over the summer period. We have a number of country cups coming up that are very important to those communities.

All we have seen so far is—and the minister did backtrack and admit the stupidity—the announcement to allow crowds back on Cox Plate day when Melbourne businesses were still shut down. How that was ever going to be well received is beyond me, but moving on from that what we need is a plan for the racing industry. The road map that has been released by the government specifically mentions the racing industry. On 22 November, when a whole lot of industries and sectors are seeing change, it says for the racing industry ‘No change’. That has left a lot of country and city racing club members and a lot of racehorse owners up in the air as to whether they will be allowed back on track. There is also the issue that a number of our racing clubs are also entertainment venues. They host wedding receptions. They host birthday parties. There is no clarity on when they will be able to get back to running those functions, and for a lot of our racing clubs that is a very important part of their income and their balance sheet that at the end of the day makes them viable propositions

So what we need is not only some clarity around returning the racing industry back to having, initially, owners and club members on course but also some details around when our clubs can host those activities from the social element perspective that they rely on so much.

Electoral Matters Committee

Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2018 Victorian State Election

Ms SPENCE (Yuroke—Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Community Sport, Minister for Youth) (11:41): Today I am pleased to rise to speak on the Electoral Matters Committee report on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2018 Victorian state election, and I do so as someone was incredibly pleased with the outcome of that election, which delivered an outstanding result for the Andrews Labor government. But I also want to speak on this report as the former chair of that committee, as I held the role for the majority of the time that the inquiry was conducted. As such, there are a few comments that I would like to make.

Firstly, I want to note my thanks to the committee members who participated in the inquiry while I was chair: the deputy chair, Bev MacArthur in the Council, the members for Pascoe Vale, Footscray and Brunswick, as well as Cesar Melhem, Bruce Atkinson, Wendy Lovell and Tim Quilty in the other place. I do note that since that time the member for Bulleen has taken the place of Mr Atkinson, so I acknowledge his contribution also, and of course I acknowledge the current chair, Lee Tarlamis in the Council, and congratulate him on his appointment. During my time as chair I was really pleased with the cooperative and collaborative approach of all members, and I thank them for that. There is no doubt that the committee work undertaken by members in this place can be some of the most rewarding and it can often be where our best or at least our better selves can be seen.

I also want to acknowledge the support that was provided to the committee by the committee secretariat and give my thanks to Christopher Gribbin, Joel Hallinan, Maria Marasco and Bernadette Pendergast. To each of you, your support was greatly appreciated, especially as we entered the challenging and uncertain times of working from home. A couple of special thanks: to Maria, for waiting outside in the stifling heat during the CALD community forum just in case any other committee members arrived, and to Bernadette, for always checking that there was a peppermint tea in case I wanted a hot drink. Your efforts were always noticed and greatly appreciated.

I also want to thank those who made submissions and presented evidence to the inquiry, enabling the committee to consider a wide range of views and issues that were put to the inquiry. There were 106 submissions and evidence was received from 13 organisations or individuals. As well, there were two additional community forums with members of CALD communities in Box Hill and Melbourne. Post my time on the committee there were virtual interstate meetings held with electoral bodies, parliamentary committees, community groups and academics. All of this consultation and engagement culminated in this really well-considered report, which makes 76 findings and 49 recommendations. These range from inclusive election indicators of enrolment turnout and formality, to trustworthy, transparent and competitive elections and reforming the upper house electoral system.

Many of the issues raised during this inquiry were not new—members will have heard frustrations about them over time—such as the need to address high levels of voter informality and low levels of voter turnout, particularly with regard to young people and communities with large populations of CALD voters, and the need to find more suitable voting centres, more accessible voting centres and indeed more voting centres in regional districts. And the report also considers other issues, such as the most recent changes to the Electoral Act 2002 that were first implemented in this election.

So in closing I just want to return to where I began. I speak on this as someone who is really pleased about the report but also pleased about the outstanding result. It is not often that you see an incumbent government get a 5 per cent swing, and I want to congratulate the 10 Labor members that won seats and joined this government, making it 55 out of 88 members. So congratulations to the members for Bass, Bayswater, Box Hill, Burwood, Hawthorn, Mount Waverley, Nepean, Northcote, Ringwood and South Barwon. They all make terrific additions, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.

I did also just for a few moments want to acknowledge that this is the second inquiry into a Victorian election that I have worked on as a member of that committee. The first was in 2014 when I was deputy chair and Louise Asher was chair. It was during that inquiry that I came to know Louise’s husband, Ron Best, a former member of the Legislative Council and an all-round really good bloke. He passed away recently, and I just want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to Louise, to Ron’s family and to Ron’s friends and colleagues in The Nationals and the Liberal Party. He will no doubt be very widely and sadly missed.

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Inquiry into Early Childhood Engagement of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (11:46): I rise to speak on the inquiry into early childhood engagement of culturally and linguistically diverse communities. I do follow the chair, the member for St Albans, who made a very good contribution about the committee’s work, and I also want to recognise the deputy chair, the member for Brighton, and the member for Geelong, the member for Lowan, the member for Buninyong and the member for Clarinda for their work on this report. Now, I have to say from the outset I only joined this committee at the end of this report, so I cannot take credit for the work that was done. However, I did sit in on the final meetings that put the report together and I made some observations. I just want to share those with you today.

I think this area is a very, very important area. We talk about a lot of things in this Parliament, particularly about people from different backgrounds and certainly how this Parliament and this state absolutely support multiculturalism—people from all different backgrounds. I think it is one thing when we talk about celebrating multiculturalism but it is another in terms of what we can do to support those people that have come from different backgrounds into this state. What this report does is particularly recognise those at the earliest possible levels, because there is no doubt that we have lots of issues in this state. We are one of the best in terms of how we embrace people and how we celebrate diversity; however, we could always do better—we could do a lot better—and I think it would be fair to say that a lot of people are falling through the cracks and a lot of those people falling through the cracks are doing that at the earliest possible years.

I have spoken a number of times in this Parliament—it has been an area of passion of mine—in terms of early intervention. It is about, you know, really looking at people at the earliest possible point and using education as a leveller, because that is what education does. We on this side of the house support opportunity. We support those that strive and work hard to ultimately be rewarded for that. But it needs to start with a level playing field, and education is that leveller. Education is that point where we say, ‘We’ll give you the skills, we’ll ensure that you have all those tools necessary, and then once you have that it’s up to you what you do with those skills’. And the fact is we have so many young people dropping out, particularly those from different backgrounds, and we cannot go past those people from different backgrounds—particularly in my portfolios, the corrections and the police portfolios—that are turning to a life of crime.

Now, many of those are young people, as young as 12 and 13, that are not staying in school, that are finding issues at the earliest possible age and that are getting connected with people that quite frankly they should not be getting connected with. I know we have skirted around issues when we have talked about gangs and violence and all these types of things, but you only have to look at the recent reports on murder and the number of young people from the age of 12 upwards that have been charged with murder as a result of forming a group together and getting themselves in trouble. That should never happen.

We need to ensure support for those who come here, many of whom come here from war-torn countries in very, very different circumstances from those that we have and quite frankly need to have different supports than many of us as well. Education is not one size fits all. You cannot turn around and say that what is good for one is good for everybody. We need to tailor it and we need to ensure that the support mechanisms are in place. Every dollar invested in the early years saves $5 at the other end—and that is where we need to be.

We need to have a look at our youth justice system. You only have to look at Malmsbury and Parkville prisons to see that they are full of those people that quite frankly should not be there in the first place. We need to ensure that there are programs in place to make sure that does not happen. That is what a lot of this report is talking about: those early interventions to support the kinds of work all the way from preschool upwards, the kinds of things in terms of health, in terms of disability, in terms of a whole lot of different barriers, even playgroups—in how people are welcomed and supported when they first meet others in playgroups. Mental health, disability—all those things need to be supported.

I want to thank Yuki Simmonds and the support around us who did some great work in making sure this report— (Time expired)

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Inquiry into Early Childhood Engagement of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities

Ms COUZENS (Geelong) (11:51): I am really pleased to rise to speak about the report on the inquiry into early childhood engagement of culturally and linguistically diverse communities undertaken by the Legal and Social Issues Committee and tabled in September this year. The 39 submissions and the nine public hearings were overseen by the chair of the committee, the member for St Albans. I acknowledge and thank her for her commitment to this important inquiry. I also acknowledge the contribution of other committee members from this place. I also want to acknowledge the fact that we have the Minister for Multicultural Affairs in the chamber listening to the statements on these committee reports. I thank her for all the work that she is doing as well. I want to acknowledge and thank the secretariat: Yuki Simmonds, the committee manager; Raylene D’Cruz; Rachel Macreadie; Richard Slade; and Cat Smith. It has been an absolute pleasure working with them on this report. They are a really dedicated team.

Importantly, I sincerely thank all those individuals and organisations who provided written submissions and those who attended the public hearings. The public hearings and site visits gave committee members the opportunity to meet many community-based individuals, local government representatives and organisations, and in particular those from multicultural backgrounds. We heard their stories, we heard about the programs and services they use and offer and the variety of activities offered in their communities. It was clear that there is some great work going on in these communities, and it was wonderful to hear about the services that are being provided.

The public hearings and site visits were undertaken across the state. They included Melbourne metro, Bendigo, Shepparton, Geelong and Ballarat. The committee used a variety of strategies to engage the CALD communities: an easy English guide, translated brochures, an e-survey in plain English, videos in other languages and consultation workshops with multicultural playgroups. These strategies were really important to engage the multicultural community.

The committee considered evidence on key elements across the services that included what is reported in chapter 2, which is about barriers to participation and data collection and how important accurate data collection is to ensure that we are dealing with the disadvantage, loss and trauma for people from CALD communities. The barriers to effective early childhood engagement were a common theme, and it is essential to reduce the conscious and unconscious bias of teachers, educators, children and the broader community to build social cohesion. Chapter 3 is about integrated and place-based responses. The findings highlighted the complexity of navigating service systems across various early childhood services as a key barrier to engaging with culturally diverse communities. Chapter 4, which focuses on the early childhood workforce, identifies a need for the early childhood workforce to be responsive to the needs of culturally diverse communities.

Chapter 5 focuses on language services, and it was a common theme amongst those who gave evidence that language is a significant barrier when accessing and engaging with early childhood services. Barriers for families include not being aware of the availability and benefits of services. Chapter 6 focuses on maternal and child health services, and the evidence was clear that it is essential to engage women from CALD communities in the early stages of their pregnancies. Chapter 7 focuses on mental health and disability, and the evidence provided that there is an increased likelihood of many children and families developing poorer health and mental health outcomes due to isolation, trauma, grief, socio-economic disadvantage and settlement challenges. Chapter 8 focuses on awareness of the importance of early learning, chapter 9 on playgroups, chapter 10 on early childhood education and care, chapter 11 on school education and chapter 12 on COVID-19.

This has been a really rewarding inquiry to be involved in and to listen to people from CALD communities about the challenges that they have. I have been really pleased that I had this opportunity to hear from the CALD community. We know that these committee reports are often what sets our government policy and direction for the future, so I encourage all members in this place to take the time to read this report. I think there is a lot in it that we as a government can implement, and a lot of it we are already doing, particularly with the announcements around early childhood. I commend the report to the house.

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) (11:56): I rise to speak on the interim report of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee’s inquiry into the Victorian government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been an extensive inquiry. We have heard from ministers and a number of groups across a wide range of areas in terms of the impact of and the government’s response to COVID. It is an ongoing inquiry as well. The interim report was tabled and the evidence was heard largely prior to the onset of the second wave. We have had subsequent hearings to that and there will be a further round of hearings, as has been announced by the committee chair. From this report and from the subsequent evidence we heard at subsequent hearings and in subsequent submissions, I want to touch on a range of significant areas that my Greens colleagues and I have been focused on, really wanting to play a constructive role in assisting our communities and our constituents and also in holding the government to account where need be.

From the outset we have really been concerned about the impact on renters, particularly now that we have got a whole group of people who are facing economic, employment and now housing insecurity with the potential for eviction. We certainly welcomed the legislation to place a moratorium on those evictions. However, during the hearings stakeholders did raise concerns that should that moratorium expire, which it was due to do in September, then we would find a number of people in rental stress, unable to pay the rent and facing eviction. We were really pleased to be able to work with the government to see that extended to March 2021, and importantly that includes commercial renters as well. So many of our commercial renters, our traders on our high streets, were facing eviction, and this was a really important protection. But from submissions we also heard that a lot of people in need are just not getting the help that they need. They are not able to access rent reductions or negotiate rent reductions and are not able to access grants. Services have been overwhelmed, and whilst there has been a lowering of the savings threshold to get a grant or funding for services, I think certainly the government will need to continue to monitor this to make sure that those who are most in need get the support they need.

I am really pleased that digital devices and internet access have been provided to tens of thousands of students. Schools sourced their own, but the government had a scheme as well. Numerous witnesses spoke of the need for this to be ongoing beyond the pandemic. It has exposed that so many students were without access to a computer or internet at home in the first place. That is not acceptable in normal times. In questioning the Minister for Education about this, I was really pleased with his positive response, and I hope that he will soon make an announcement regarding making sure that those who were provided with a laptop and device and are in need should be able to keep them and that this will be something that is ongoing in the future. On the lack of PPE for healthcare workers, certainly the AMA in their evidence raised:

… a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline health workers and a continuing issue with fair distribution across the state. This has been one of the most important issues for our members and a significant source of stress for them.

There has been significant transmission amongst our health workers, frustration about the lack of disclosure about where and how they acquired COVID and inconsistent statistics coming out of government. There has been a lack of N95 masks, a lack of fit testing—the member for Brunswick has raised this on numerous occasions. There have been hospitals in some parts of the world that have achieved low or zero rates of health worker infections, and while it is improving here it has gone too slowly.

I am really pleased that we have been able to provide or advocate for support for our public housing tenants, particularly during the lockdown, when residents were not given the food, the medicine, the support that they needed. They were not given information in the appropriate languages. The member for Melbourne supported her community through that, really pushing for public housing tenants to get the information, the mobile testing, the extra cleaning for those tenants on those estates.

We heard numerous pieces of evidence in support of a bubble system being put in place, and we welcomed that that was finally put in place to help reduce isolation amongst single people. It did not quite match up with intimate partner rules, it had someone unworkable requirements, but that was a welcome development to help reduce isolation. This inquiry is continuing. It will continue to play a constructive role and continue to hold the government to account when required. There have been many positive developments out of it.

Bills

Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment Bill 2020

Statement of compatibility

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (12:03): In accordance with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 I table a statement of compatibility in relation to the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment Bill 2020.

Opening paragraphs

In accordance with section 28 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006, (the Charter), I make this Statement of Compatibility with respect to the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment Bill 2020 (the Bill).

In my opinion, the Bill, as introduced to the Legislative Assembly, is compatible with human rights as set out in the Charter. I base my opinion on the reasons outlined in this statement.

Overview

The Bill amends the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 (the Act) to exclude noise or emissions from wind turbines at wind energy facilities from the application of Division 1 of Part 6 of that Act. That division is administered by local councils, and sets out a framework in relation to nuisances which are, or are liable to be, dangerous to health or offensive.

Human Rights Issues

Human rights protected by the Charter that are relevant to the Bill

Right to recognition and equality before the law

Section 8 of the Charter provides that every person is equal before the law and is entitled to equal protection of the law without discrimination, and has the right to equal and effective protection against discrimination.

Division 1 of Part 6 of the Act provides an important legal protection against nuisances which are, or are liable to be, dangerous to health or offensive. Offensive is defined to mean noxious or injurious to personal comfort. Any person who believes that a nuisance exists may notify the relevant council, being the council in whose municipal district the alleged nuisance exists, and the council must investigate. A council has a number of enforcement options available to it, including issuing an improvement notice or a prohibition notice, or issuing proceedings in the Magistrates Court. It is an offence to cause a nuisance, or to knowingly allow or suffer a nuisance to exist on, or emanate from, any land owned or occupied by that person.

Clause 4 of the Bill engages the right to equal protection of the law without discrimination, as it amends section 58 of the Act, with the effect that the nuisance provisions do not apply to nuisances arising from or constituted by any noise or emission from a wind turbine at a wind energy facility. Therefore a person who is affected by noise or emissions from wind turbines will not have the protection of the nuisance provisions, unlike a person affected by other nuisances, including as noise or emissions from another source. Clause 5 of the Bill inserts section 246F, a transitional provision, into the Act. New section 246F provides that, from the commencement day, a person cannot make a new notification or complaint about noise or emission from a wind turbine at a wind energy facility under Division 1 of Part 6 of the Act, regardless of when the nuisance arose.

This removal of wind turbine noise and emission from the operation of the nuisance provisions is not discriminatory, in that it applies equally to all Victorians. While it is likely to have more impact on those in the rural and regional areas where wind energy facilities are located, geographical location is not an attribute protected by the Equal Opportunity Act 2001. However, it is also worth noting that the nuisance provisions in the Act are not the only applicable legal framework and those in rural and regional areas affected by wind turbine noise have other avenues of complaint.

Wind farm planning approvals are the responsibility of the Minister for Planning, under the Planning and Environment Act 1987 (Planning and Environment Act). The Victorian Government has updated planning provisions and guidelines to require pre- and post-construction noise assessment audits for wind energy facilities, effective from 4 October 2018. Post-construction noise assessments need to be subject to an audit conducted by an EPA appointed auditor, and provided to the responsible authority. This introduction of audits provides greater assurance that noise assessments are high quality, and will give the community increased assurance that wind energy facilities are being designed and operated within relevant noise standards.

Once a wind energy facility is approved, councils are responsible for the enforcement of the planning instruments. The regulatory framework includes specific requirements within Clause 52.32 (Wind Energy Facility) of the Victoria Planning Provisions, which has also been recently updated, and the Department of Environment Land Water and Planning’s (DELWP) (October 2018) Policy and Planning Guidelines for Development of Wind Energy Facilities in Victoria.

Thus the Bill will not result in lack of legal protection for a person affected by a nuisance arising from noise or emissions from wind turbines at a wind energy facility. Instead, it will prevent duplication by clarifying that a complaint about wind turbine noise to a council may be made under the Planning and Environment Act, rather than under the nuisance provisions of the Act (or both).

In addition, a new general environmental duty (GED) will be brought into law in 2021, when the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018 commences in full and includes this duty in the Environment Protection Act 2017. The GED will apply to all Victorians, including operators of wind energy facilities, and requires them to reduce the risk of harm from their activities to human health and the environment, from pollution and waste.

The Environment Protection Act 2017 is enforced by the Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA), who will set standards, monitor compliance and enforce the new duty. That Act sets out a reasonably practical test, which requires the operator to have done everything reasonably practical to minimise risks to human health and the environment (which is influenced by the state of knowledge). A breach of the GED has significant penalties, including being an indictable offence. The EPA can issue improvement notices, prohibition notices, notices to investigate, environmental action notices or non-disturbance notices.

The Bill is intended to commence on the same day as the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018—both have a forced commencement date of 1 December 2021, but may be proclaimed to commence earlier.

Thus on the day the Bill commences, the GED will apply in Victoria. A person who is affected by noise or emissions from a wind turbine at a wind energy facility will have the option of notifying the EPA, who will be able to investigate a possible breach of the GED. The EPA has more technical expertise than councils to respond to noise complaints, more resources to pursue compliance and enforcement and a pool of appointed auditors for wind farm noise assessments.

Right to privacy

Section 13(a) of the Charter provides that a person has the right not to have his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence unlawfully or arbitrarily interfered with. A person’s home may be interfered with by a nuisance caused by noise or emissions from wind turbines at a nearby wind energy facility, which is dangerous to health or offensive.

Clause 4 of the Bill engages this right as it amends section 58 of the Act, with the effect that the nuisance division does not apply to nuisances arising from or constituted by any noise or emission from a wind turbine at a wind energy facility. Therefore a person whose home is interfered with by a nuisance consisting of noise or emissions from wind turbines will not have the protection of the nuisance provisions.

However, as set out above, a person who considers their home is unlawfully or arbitrarily interfered with by wind turbine noise or emissions will be able to pursue this with the council under the Planning and Environment Act, or the EPA under the strengthened environment protection laws.

Fair hearing

Section 24 of the Charter provides that a person charged with a criminal offence or a party to civil proceedings has the right to have the charge or proceeding decided by a competent, independent and impartial court or tribunal after a fair and public hearing.

Clause 5, which inserts a transitional provision into the Act, engages this right, as new section 246F has the effect that no new nuisance complaints about wind turbine noise can be made to a council from the commencement of the Bill, regardless of when the noise comprising the nuisance occurred. Thus a person who is affected by this type of nuisance immediately before the commencement day will not be able to access the remedies available under the Act after commencement.

However, as explained above, a person affected by wind turbine noise will have other fair hearing remedies available, by notifying the council under planning laws, or the EPA under environment protection legislation. As the commencement of the Bill will be aligned to the commencement of the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018, from that day all Victorians will be bound by and have the protection of the GED. From 12 months after the commencement of that Act, a person will also have third party rights to take action directly against duty holders, an important new tool that gives the general community broader access to justice. Third party rights apply if the courts find that EPA has not acted where it should have. The court can order EPA to act within the scope of its powers if the third party applicant is successful.

In addition, the transitional provision section 246F, ensures that a nuisance complaint about wind turbine noise made to a council under the nuisance provisions before the commencement of the Bill will not be affected. That is, notifications and complaints about noise or emission from a wind turbine at a wind energy facility that were made under Division 1 of Part 6 of the Act before the commencement of Part 2 of the Bill are to be resolved under that division as in force immediately before the commencement of Part 2 of the Bill, with no loss of protection to the complainant.

Are the relevant Charter rights actually limited by the Bill?

The relevant Charter rights are not limited by the Bill. Although the nuisance provisions of the Act will no longer apply to noise or emissions from a wind turbine at a wind energy facility, legal protection will be provided by the strengthened environment protection framework, including the new GED which specifically includes protection of human health. Any interference with a person’s home arising from noise or emissions from wind turbines at a wind energy facility will be able to be pursued under the planning or environment protection regulatory frameworks. Equivalent enforcement remedies will be available under these frameworks, including a fair hearing by a court or tribunal in appropriate cases.

Martin Foley MP

Minister for Health

Minister for Ambulance Services

Second reading

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (12:03): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I ask that my second-reading speech be incorporated into Hansard.

Incorporated speech as follows:

The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 to exclude nuisance complaints about noise and emissions from wind turbines at a wind energy facility. Under Part 6 of this Act, which is administered by Councils, all nuisance complaints must be investigated, and currently this includes complaints about wind turbine noise from wind energy facilities. However, the nuisance provisions were not made with the scale of the wind industry in mind, nor the technical complexity of wind turbine noise and emissions.

Nuisance laws are very old, but it is to the early nineteenth century where one must look for the antecedents of today’s laws. At that time, nuisance laws were commonly applied for things that could possibly cause hurt, inconvenience or damage and were not limited to dangers to health. Today, Victoria’s Public Health and Wellbeing Act defines a nuisance as being something that is liable to be, or is, dangerous to health or offensive. The nuisance provisions in the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 are administered by councils, as they typically relate to local matters such as noise or odours, that do not fall under any other regulatory framework.

The introduction of this Bill supports the new statutory objective of the Victorian Environment Protection Authority under the Environment Protection Act 2017 in protecting human health and the environment from the harmful effects of pollution and waste. Protecting human health from pollution and waste is a key objective in its own right for the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), along with protecting the environment.

The Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018 will amend the Environment Protection Act 2017 to introduce a modernised risk-based regulatory scheme that focuses on preventing harm to human health and the environment through proactive measures. The cornerstone of this new environment protection legislation is the general environmental duty. From the commencement in full of the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018, anyone conducting activities that pose risks of harm to human health or the environment from pollution and waste will be required to understand the risks and take reasonably practicable steps to minimise those risks. Pollution, under the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018, includes noise.

The framework the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018 introduces will apply to noise from wind turbines at wind energy facilities. The EPA will bring a consistent state-wide approach to the regulation of wind turbine noise from wind energy facilities, including the way that complaints about wind turbine noise are investigated and handled. The EPA will have strengthened powers under the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018 and has the expertise and capability to support compliance and undertake enforcement.

The involvement of the EPA has already improved the system with their pool of appointed auditors being used for auditing pre- and post-construction wind farm noise assessments. These audits have been mandatory since October 2018. Beyond the duties introduced under the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018, the EPA and the Department of Environment Land Water and Planning are working together with local government to further strengthen the regulatory framework.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of wind energy facilities in Victoria to mitigating the impacts of climate change and achieving the Andrews Labor Government Renewable Energy Target of 50 per cent by 2030 and net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The World Health Organization has said that climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st Century. Action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions plays an important role in protecting the health of the community, as recognised by Victoria’s Public Health and Wellbeing Plan 2019–23, which has tackling climate change and its impacts on public health as one of its four focus areas.

The Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018 will have commenced by 1 December 2021 at the latest and the commencement of this Bill will align with the commencement of that Act. With the introduction of a stronger more appropriate regulatory framework for noise and emissions from wind turbines at wind energy facilities, it is appropriate that this now be excluded from the nuisance provisions of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2018.

This will bring clarity, certainty and consistency to the industry, and the community.

I commend the Bill to the house.

Mr R SMITH (Warrandyte) (12:04): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (12:04): I move:

That the debate be adjourned for 13 days.

House divided on motion:

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until Tuesday, 24 November.

Register of opinion on motion

Ayes

Ms Addison, Mr Andrews, Ms Blandthorn, Mr Brayne, Mr Bull, Mr Carbines, Mr Carroll, Ms Couzens, Ms Crugnale, Ms D’Ambrosio, Mr Dimopoulos, Mr Donnellan, Ms Edwards, Mr Eren, Mr Fregon, Ms Green, Ms Halfpenny, Ms Hall, Mr Halse, Ms Hennessy, Ms Kairouz, Mr Kennedy, Ms Kilkenny, Mr Maas, Mr McGhie, Mr Merlino, Ms Neville, Mr Pakula, Mr Pallas, Ms Richards, Mr Richardson, Mr Staikos, Ms Suleyman, Mr Tak, Mr Taylor, Ms Theophanous, Ms Thomas, Ms Ward, Mr Wynne

Noes

Mr Hodgett, Mr Newbury, Mr Northe

Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms D’AMBROSIO:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr R SMITH (Warrandyte) (12:11): I rise to lead debate for the opposition on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020. This bill allows the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change to vary licence conditions for electricity and gas providers, and where the licence conditions imposed by the minister are in opposition to those made by the independent agency, the Essential Services Commission, then the minister’s orders will prevail over those made by the ESC. These orders can target individual licensees or classes of companies, and the scrutiny for the minister’s acts is in very broad terms that: the orders must be published in the Government Gazette; the government must allow affected parties to make representations to them prior to making a proposed order and after giving them notice of the intention to make that order; it sets a time period of 14 days notice or any other time line that the minister sets to have those representations made to the minister; and the minister must have regard to those representations, but those provisions that govern that particular part do not in any way compel the minister to actually do anything about those representations. In addition, the minister must notify the Essential Services Commission of the orders, and the minister also must consult with the Premier, the Treasurer and the minister responsible for the Essential Services Commission Act 2001, which is in this case the Assistant Treasurer, before her orders can be implemented—and that I guess shows some level of maybe a lack of confidence in the minister’s ability that she has to have those three of her cabinet colleagues actually tick off on what she wants to do.

Now, licences broadly, for the house’s benefit, are ones that allow the electricity and gas suppliers to operate. Those licences can have any terms put on them that the ESC provides for, and obviously the distributor cannot operate without having a licence as such. This bill has been brought in specifically because there has been a problem as laid out by the Essential Services Commission in their document Timely Negotiated Electricity Connections: Decision Paper, which was released publicly on 14 October. This report lays out the problems that are currently in existence. I will just quote from the document:

Problems remain, despite many improvements made by distribution businesses over the past two years to their negotiated connections processes in new residential developments in greenfield areas. The remaining problems are a lack of:

effective working relationships between distribution businesses and developers to resolve issues causing delays

accountability and transparency from distribution businesses about the times to complete certain stages in the negotiated connections process.

Indeed these issues that the bill seeks to help reach a solution for, these delays, are actually costing developers. On average, as the report sets out, a 100-lot development would be wearing the cost of around $49 500 for each week that a distribution company delays in actually connecting those greenfield sites.

The decision paper put forward by the ESC puts forward a number of options to fix these problems. It says that it is going to put out a customer service standard, which is called the greenfields negotiated electricity connection customer service standard, which comprises three elements. I am quoting from the document, and I will be quoting extensively from this document, because it is actually very comprehensive. It deals with the issues that are at hand and, as I said, I will be quoting from this document quite extensively. With its new customer service standard the elements of that standard will be:

An overarching customer outcomes statement setting out what a distribution business expects to deliver over the next two years in relation to negotiated connections.

A requirement to form a consultative committee that meets quarterly to discuss improvements in negotiated connection processes.

A performance reporting framework that distribution businesses are to report against every six months.

This document is an example, may I say, of the ESC doing its job and, in my opinion with the release of this particular report, doing it quite well. The report talks about the customer service standards that I mentioned taking effect from March 2021, and it goes on to say that the ESC also put out four approaches in an issues paper in June of this year. The four approaches are:

A. Allowing distribution businesses to continue voluntarily reporting publicly on their performance relating to negotiated connections.

B. Placing specific obligations on distribution businesses to publicly report their performance.

C. Placing a general requirement on distribution businesses to regularly review and improve the way they manage the negotiated connections processes.

D. Regulating the timeframes to undertake stages of the negotiated connections process.

I will reiterate that the time frames are put forward in this paper, a paper which, I must say, also shows us that there have been improvements in the discussions and the options that have been put forward by the ESC to the distributors. The paper goes on to tell us that CitiPower, Powercor and United Energy reported that the average time they are involved in connection processes had decreased from 66.5 days—I think we can all agree that is a long time—in 2019 to just 23 days in 2020. That is still probably a bit long, but they are taking steps, I understand, to make sure that that is going to change. AusNet also reported reductions in time frames to connect new developments.

Further on in the paper, under the heading ‘Developing and implementing the customer service standards’, we can see that with the decision paper being brought forward in October there has been a commitment for the distribution businesses to consult on and develop their customer service standards by 4 December this year, with the distribution businesses submitting those proposed standards at that date as well. The proposal by the Essential Services Commission is actually to move quite quickly. I think in many cases we find stakeholders say that the processes that are put in place by government agencies and government departments can sometimes be a bit long, but in this case there are some very particular time frames with even the distribution businesses reporting on their performance every six months starting from 2021. After February 2021 the distribution businesses have to report to the commission on their performance against that proposed customer service standard. Again, the ESC is putting forward a proposal to move quite quickly to deal with the issues at hand and, as I will talk later on, the ESC does a fine job in this area. With the bill actually giving the minister the powers that the ESC are proposing to put forward, there seems little point, I guess, in the minister taking the powers that she is intending to.

I will also talk about the principles that the ESC has put forward. Many of these issues go directly to the heart of the developers’ issues. The reports that need to be put forward will include progress against commitments in the customer outcomes statement and a copy of the minutes of their consultative committee meetings. And I know something the government does not do a lot of is be transparent about the kind of consultation it does do with stakeholders on a range of issues. The report also includes the performance measures included in the customer service standard and the reason why any performance measures were not achieved. Again I say that the ESC is putting a pretty comprehensive reporting mechanism in place so that distributors are held directly accountable for the service that they provide to greenfields developers.

With the reporting, as I have already said, there are several issues around that that will make the whole process very transparent. The approaches, as I said earlier, have been put forward to the distributors to see if they agree, and largely they did. We got feedback from the providers, being AGL, AusNet, CitiPower, Jemena, the property council, Red Energy, Lumo Energy, the Urban Development Institute of Australia Victoria and Wyndham City Council. All came forward with their views of the approaches put forward by the ESC, and all of them unanimously agreed that one or more of those approaches or a hybrid of same are ones that they would be happy with moving forward.

As I said, I am quoting quite extensively from this document because I want to demonstrate the work that the ESC has done. It is comprehensive, it is timely and the results, as I said, have been there for stakeholders to see. And as I said, AusNet Services, as a result of the early conversations that they had with the ESC, have been consolidating the oversight of new medium-density housing processes, they have reviewed the audit processes that they have got in place and they have implemented an online portal that enables customers’ visibility, and the other energy companies have done exactly the same things.

In saying that the ESC has put forward a great example of dealing with an issue that developers are having, I want to also talk to the house about the reasons why I am supportive of the ESC in this particular instance rather than giving their powers over to the minister. I also want to quote quite extensively from another document, which is the second-reading speech that was made by Candy Broad then in the other place when she was the Minister for Energy and Resources back in 2001. It is worth going through this document because I am not sure if members opposite have actually read what the intentions of the government were when they formed the ESC. I guess the point that I am trying to make here is that the ESC was put up for several laudable reasons. Their remit was to service Victorian consumers when it comes to essential services and, to make the point, I see no reason why the minister should be usurping some of those laudable aims and objectives of the ESC. Again, as I said, I am going to quote quite extensively from the second-reading speech.

And can I also say members opposite, particularly those who have not been here for very long, should look at this second-reading speech as a good example, as are many second-readings that I have seen since I have been here in 2006. They are comprehensive, they go through quite extensively each section of this bill, but also other bills; they detail each section; and they explain what the government is trying to do, and it is a stark contrast to the sorts of second-reading speeches that we see coming into this chamber now, which are pretty much flimsy offerings when you compare them to the sorts of second-reading speeches that were far more comprehensive. What we see in second-reading speeches now is that the bill titles are generally lifted from a press release, they are full of rhetoric, they are full of political commentary and they actually spend a fair bit of their content hiding the actual purposes of what the government is trying to do. I think if you got any second-reading speech—in fact if you got the one for this particular bill, the one we are debating now, the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020—and compared it to something of this nature in the ESC bill, then you would see a significant difference in the quality and the content of that second-reading speech. But again, let me go back to quoting from this particular second-reading speech so members of the house can get an idea of why the ESC was set up. Minister Broad, at the time, said:

The establishment of the Essential Services Commission is a critical component of a suite of reforms made by this government to the essential services sector … The aim of these reforms is to protect the interests of all consumers …

I just want members to reflect on that particular sentence:

The aim of these reforms is to protect the interests of all consumers … A well-planned, competitive, efficiently managed and regulated essential services sector delivers benefits to all Victorians.

The Essential Services Commission (ESC) will promote a certain and stable regulatory framework conducive to longer term investment and the financial viability of utility industries.

This important initiative will also ensure that regulation of utilities in Victoria is consistent with the government’s key policy pillars, in that it:

… fosters more accountable, transparent and inclusive decision making …

It goes on to say that as one of those pillars that it:

… ensures that the ESC operates in a financially disciplined and responsible manner; and protects the interests of utility consumers by enhancing customer advocacy arrangements.

The second-reading speech also talks about the ESC ensuring there is:

… enhanced accountability and transparency of regulatory decision making.

It goes on to say that:

An essential prerequisite for effective economic regulation is that regulatory decisions are not influenced by the government of the day.

And we should reflect on that too. The reason why the ESC was set up in the manner that it was was so that regulatory decisions were not influenced by the government of the day. And:

Accordingly the Essential Services Commission will be established as an independent economic regulator. The ESC’s determinations, reports and inquiries will not be subject to ministerial direction or control.

And:

The commission’s primary objective will be to protect the long-term interests of Victorian consumers with regard to the price, quality and reliability of essential services. In emphasising long-term interests, the government recognises that the interests of all present and future consumers are best served through regulatory arrangements that promote an optimal environment for investment in essential utility services infrastructure.

… Taken together, the primary and facilitating objectives will encourage a well-planned, competitive, efficiently managed and regulated essential services sector that delivers benefits to all Victorians.

Now, remember it was a Labor government who brought this in, who was spruiking transparency and outcomes that would be in the best interests of the consumer. It is worth noting at this point that the minister is seeking to take those powers away from the ESC. The minister at the time went on to say:

What this legislation does is effectively hard wire the decisions of these regulators into the commission’s regulatory approach, by requiring the commission to consult with other bodies, including specialist regulators, in order to achieve a more closely integrated approach to regulation and to avoid regulatory duplication.

…

The government considers it vital that the ESC undertake its regulatory processes in a transparent and inclusive fashion. This is achieved, firstly, through a requirement for the commission to develop a charter of consultation and regulatory practice—

again something that the government is not always demonstrative of its ability to do likewise.

This charter will not only ensure that the commission embraces a consultative and inclusive approach to regulation, but also that this approach is presented in a fully transparent and accessible manner.

Finally, in closing, the minister said:

In establishing a new and improved utility regulator for Victoria, this bill embodies the government’s commitment to delivering triple bottom-line outcomes within a regulatory climate that pushes the boundaries of world’s best practice. It will provide greater consumer protection and access to decision-making processes and provide greater certainty and predictability for long-term investment in viable utility infrastructure.

Again I make the point that members opposite should understand that when members of their own government are trying to take powers or circumvent powers from these regulatory agencies, those regulatory agencies were set up for the sole reason—in particular the ESC in this instance—of making sure that the consumer had a fully transparent system that was informed by proper consultation, informed consultation, consultation that was transparent and reported against. I think we can all agree that in establishing the ESC the aims as I have put forward by former Minister Broad were laudable.

Now, this bill is allowing the current minister to dismantle and sideline those laudable aims. If we did that on this side of the house, if we were in government as Liberal-Nationals in coalition, those opposite would be screaming about taking away accountability and taking away transparency, but the reality is that those opposite on their own side are doing exactly that. You have to ask yourself, as you vote on this bill: where are my principles? You either believe in good governance, oversight and transparency or you do not. Now, we on this side of the house will be opposing this bill because we completely agree with the laudable aims put forward by the former Minister for Energy and Resources in establishing the ESC originally. The minister of the day is clearly not of that same mind.

Now, we can see over the course of this year that there is a pattern being formed. In the minister’s own portfolio and indeed in the Minister for Resources’ portfolio, in three of the bills that those two ministers have put forward, there have been several examples of those two ministers and indeed the government more broadly trying to bypass oversight. In the three bills that we have seen come into this place, the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020, the Petroleum Legislation Amendment Bill 2020 and the National Energy Legislation Amendment Bill 2020, the government has sought to take regulatory oversight and accountability away from the Australian Energy Market Operator and the Australian Energy Regulator, and now it is seeking to do the same with the Essential Services Commission. In fact through those three bills that I mentioned there have been 33 new regulatory powers placed at the minister’s disposal with almost no oversight at all.

Now, that is a trend that we have seen. We are seeing the sidelining of good governance. There is a culture that has permeated through government, and the results of removing that oversight are not always obvious. If you mandate certain requirements for licences, the effects might not be entirely obvious to anyone other than a stakeholder, but if you demonstrate a lack of governance and accountability in something that affects more Victorians—like, if I can give the example, hotel quarantine, where ministers, the Premier, bureaucrats and statutorily appointed commissioners have no idea apparently of what is going on because there is that lack of governance; there is a point where ministers do not know what their departments are doing, supposedly, allegedly, and bureaucrats have no idea of which minister they are supposed to be keeping informed—and if you have that kind of lack of oversight, whether it starts in a little bill about licence conditions or it is overlayed on issues of more import, then you do have these problems. Some of them, as I said, result in small impacts; others result in hundreds of deaths, thousands of transmissions of virus, job losses, depression, suicides, escalating issues of—

Ms Thomas: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the issue is around relevance. I cannot see that the comparisons the member for Warrandyte is drawing have any relevance to the bill that is being debated in the house at the moment. I ask that you ask the member to return to debating the bill, which is an energy legislation bill and has nothing to do with the matters that the member has raised or the points of comparison that he is seeking to make.

Mr R SMITH: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, I can understand where the member for Macedon is coming from. But if the member for Macedon does not understand that this bill is about good governance—that is what it is. It is effectively taking oversight away from a government agency and giving it to the minister. As lead speaker, I am quite entitled to draw comparisons, I am quite entitled to make the house aware that this is an escalating trend and that there are examples where the diminution of good governance can have minor effects or it can have major effects. So in speaking to the bill, which, as I said, is about governance, then I am quite entitled, particularly as lead speaker who has a broader range to discuss than perhaps other members might during the course of the debate, to make comparisons about the effects of good governance on government.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr McGuire): The lead speaker is entitled to leniency on the breadth and scope of the discussion. I just ask the member for Warrandyte to continue on the bill.

Mr R SMITH: Thank you, Acting Speaker. In speaking further about governance issues, and I have talked about the other bills that have been brought to this house that relate to my shadow portfolio which also have examples of governance being sidelined and diluted, we can also talk about a question we had to the minister in particular about a $500 000 payment to a company that soon went into liquidation. Without good governance, taxpayers money is not used well. There was a further example of $500 000 being sent to the Sands golf resort in Torquay for quarantine purposes, where not one quarantined person ever went. That organisation also went into liquidation. Without good governance, we find issues which have in some cases, such as the hotel quarantine issue, dire effects, and in some cases, as I said, the effects will only be apparent to the immediate stakeholders, which is probably more an example of this particular bill.

There is a problem that needs fixing. It does take too long for distributors at this point to connect to new developments and it is costing the sector, as the Essential Services Commission pointed out. That much is very clear to anyone who understands why this bill has been put into place. But what is not clear is why the minister has to take control and usurp the powers of the Essential Services Commission. What is not clear is why the minister wants to ignore the good work of the government—sorry, not of the government; it is not a phrase I would usually use—the good work of the Essential Services Commission, which has put forward a considered, timely and consultative approach to dealing with the problem. We are not clear why the minister wants to ignore that work. When the Essential Services Commission has put forward options to take this matter forward and indeed the stakeholders, being the distributors, have actually agreed with the ESC’s approach, which would require them to report more extensively and to be more transparent and to be more efficient in what they are doing with regard to connecting these greenfield developments, it is not clear why the government is sidelining the ESC’s work. As I said, it is a very comprehensive paper from an agency that was established under a Labor government for laudable reasons.

What is also not clear is why the minister and indeed any member of this chamber would want to ignore the principles that were put forward by former minister Candy Broad in the establishment of the ESC. It seems a little bizarre to me to have a shadow Liberal minister standing up and supporting those laudable objectives while the minister herself, Ms Broad’s successor, is actually seeking to dismantle them. We are actually supportive of what the former government put into place. What we have is a continued diminution and dilution of government oversight and transparency. It is a trend that is apparent in this Labor government which, as I said, can have dire consequences resulting in some cases in deaths. The trend has ultimately in this particular pandemic response actually circumvented the usual cabinet processes. It has actually made those cabinet processes obsolete—as I said, we are getting ourselves into a situation where we have seen demonstrably that bureaucrats just apparently have no knowledge of anything that is going on in those dire circumstances.

I know the member for Macedon might think it is a very long bow to draw between this bill and the hotel quarantine fiasco, but the commonality, for the member for Macedon’s benefit, is this diminution of good governance by this government. I have got a firm belief that in seeking to continue to grasp power from these agencies—as I said, the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Australian Energy Regulator and now the ESC—it puts no checks and balances on ministers and puts no checks and balances on this government, and it is to the detriment of Victorians that that is the case. So I oppose this government’s dictatorial approach to their responsibilities to the Victorian people, I oppose the government’s view that less transparency is better, less accountability is better and less oversight by established agencies is better. In condemning the government for that demolition of what the Victorian public would deem as proper standards I oppose that approach and in doing so I oppose this bill.

Ms THOMAS (Macedon) (12:36): I am very pleased to rise to speak on this bill, and I will first put on the record that the opposition have indicated that they will be opposing this bill because of its ‘dictatorial approach’. Apparently this bill is a dictatorial approach to ensuring that more people are able to have their homes connected to electricity sooner. Apparently we are taking a dictatorial approach to ensure that the construction industry can continue to build the homes that people need to live in and to have their power connected.

This is a really important bill, and it comes off the back of a range of bills—indeed 13 bills—that this very productive minister, the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, has brought into this house in her time as energy minister, because indeed this is a market and a policy area that has been in need of a great deal of reform. I want to congratulate the minister for all of the work that she has done. Of course on this side of the house we are fundamentally driven at all times by fairness, and we want to ensure that we have an energy market that works for the environment and that works for our consumers—that is, ordinary everyday Victorian families who need access to affordable energy—and of course we are committed to increasing the security of our energy system.

What I would have to say is that Liberals have shown, both in opposition in this house and indeed in the federal government, that at every step of the way they are incapable of formulating a fit-for-purpose energy policy for the 21st century. Australia is really missing out as a consequence of this and indeed is an embarrassment on the international stage. One can only hope that, with the election now of the Biden-Harris team in the US, a Democrat government, and a commitment by the President-elect to a Green New Deal, our own Australian government will see fit to deliver a 21st-century energy policy as they no longer have Trump to hide behind.

If we look at the bill, when we came, as I said before, to government in 2014 Victorians were in desperate need of a fairer energy market and our government has worked resolutely to deliver that. The legislation that is before us is a reform to help alleviate the pressures that Victorian households and businesses face, especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Energy is an essential service, and access to a reliable, sustainable and affordable energy supply is vital to the wellbeing of all Victorians. That is why this new legislation will ensure, as I said in my opening remarks, that housing developments are connected to power quicker, helping homebuyers move into new homes sooner, boosting construction and driving Victoria’s economic recovery from the coronavirus. I am pleased that the bill will ensure we can bring the homes that people need more quickly onto the market, and of course in light of the coronavirus this is more important than ever before.

The Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020 will enable the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change to set conditions that energy companies must meet, including time lines for connections. With this bill we are cutting red tape so that people can move into new homes in Victoria’s growth areas sooner, supporting the construction industry and of course our economic recovery. The government is also overhauling and significantly increasing penalties for energy companies that do the wrong thing as part of its energy fairness plan, as well as strengthening the Essential Services Commission’s enforcement powers so it is able to more effectively regulate the energy sector.

Across my electorate there are many pockets of deep disadvantage, and it has been my privilege to serve those members of my community who often struggle the hardest to pay their bills. I am eternally grateful for the reforms that our government has made to ensure that energy is more affordable and that people are not threatened with energy disconnections. As you would all know, my electorate is very cold in winter, and of course what we know is that some of the poorest people in our community have some of the most inefficient appliances. It is always my privilege to work with those members of my community to ensure that they are not getting ripped off by energy retailers, and this is where the Victorian default offer comes into play and is a very significant part of what the government has achieved in terms of ensuring fairness in the energy retail market.

Another point that I wanted to make is that key to driving energy prices down is ensuring that we are bringing more energy into the market at all times. Again, I really want to congratulate the minister for the work that she has done here. I do not know that it is always as well understood as it should be. It is certainly not appreciated by those on the other side who, as I have said, have no real interest in energy policy and certainly are ambivalent at best when it comes to renewables. But under this government what we have done is set certainty for the market, certainty for the distribution companies and certainty for business about our commitments to renewables. We have legislated targets for renewable energy, and we are backing in our targets with bringing more energy into the market.

So I wanted to congratulate the minister for a couple of recent very big and very exciting announcements. I note the member for Buninyong is in the house, and so it is great to be able to talk about Victoria’s Big Battery. Whilst not in the Shire of Moorabool, it is at the Moorabool terminal station. She and I both represent communities very committed to renewable energy, and the Big Battery, which is going to store 300 megawatts of energy, is a really exciting announcement in terms of improving our capacity to store renewables and for renewables to play a more agile role in the energy market.

Now, not only has the minister announced the purchase of the Big Battery but she has also announced the second Victorian renewable energy target auction. This is a fantastic initiative. We have gone to market and said, ‘We need from you 600 megawatts of renewables’. I might remind the house that we have done this previously. In fact in 2017 the minister went to the market and said, ‘Give me 650 megawatts’; we got 928 megawatts of renewables. So again, I am really excited about this initiative.

Just as a point of comparison, how much will 600 megawatts power? As a regional MP, I am really delighted to tell you that 600 megawatts would power every home in Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat—that is 390 000 homes—for a year, so this is serious business.

I want to talk about the generation of renewables because, as I said, it gives certainty to industry and business, but it gives certainty to the distribution companies. I would like to also call on the distribution companies to ensure that they are keeping their infrastructure at pace with this transition to renewables. In my own electorate we have many people who are committed to generating their own power. We have had a huge take-up of course of our fabulous Solar Homes package. Again, this bill is about ensuring that our relationship with those distribution companies is in the interests always of the Victorian people, making sure that we are getting power to the people when they need it in their homes, making sure that the families that are arriving in the new estates—in Gisborne, in Romsey and in Riddells Creek—are able to move into their homes sooner and begin to make their lives anew in the beautiful Macedon Ranges. This is a fantastic bill. I commend the minister on all of her hard work and I recommend the bill to the house.

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (12:46): I rise to speak on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020. I follow on from our lead speaker, who has given us a lot of detail and understanding of what this bill actually does. Overarchingly we are opposing the bill and overarchingly the reason we are doing that is that this bill is actually another example of how the government is taking away powers from agencies and putting too much power sometimes—and in this case that is certainly the situation—in the minister’s hands when it is completely unnecessary given the fact that the Essential Services Commission, from whom the powers are being taken by the minister, have put forward a recommendation to address the issues that were of concern to customers. We have seen this before with this minister where she has taken powers away from AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, and the Australian Energy Regulator, so here we go again with the Essential Services Commission.

The reason it is so concerning is that the Essential Services Commission was set up to protect and assist the customer, with that in mind. The commission’s primary objective was to protect the long-term interests of the Victorian consumer with regard to price, quality and reliability of essential services. It is on that note that I would like to discuss my disappointment at receiving a letter recently which said that a project in my electorate, the Tyrendarra three-phase power upgrade, would not go ahead. The rationale given was that it was not valid to treat gross regional output as an economic benefit. This is really disappointing, but it does provide an opportunity, as it says in the letter rejecting the project, for the community members there to seek other avenues such as through the Victorian government to progress these upgrades.

When we see that the rationale for not going ahead with that project is not understanding the importance of gross regional output, I find that that is a really disappointing statement. I know that Bruce Knowles from Tyrendarra, the community there and the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria, who are pushing for this project, have all been putting forward the potential for growth in the agricultural community, particularly dairy. Right now in COVID, when we have got the need for projects in the regions particularly to increase the opportunities for jobs, we need projects like this one, that will provide reliable access to three-phase power which is needed for industry, particularly the dairy industry. We have got opportunities for food production in Victoria as the demand for food continues to grow around the world. It has not gone away. It is a real shame for the community following all that work led by Bruce Knowles and the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria and the team out in western Victoria who represent them locally and who pushed that project.

The bill itself though is really about governance, and it is about the fact that the minister is removing the oversight that these agencies provide. And when we see this government, this is not the first time; we see it in all sorts of examples. One of those examples is another situation as a result of the COVID situation we find ourselves in, and that is the removal of the cabinet around the government. We have got the Premier who is doing exactly this again, just taking that almost dictatorial ‘my way or the highway’ approach instead of being able to have a process that protects. These processes that have been around in the Westminster system for many, many, many years protect us from having that situation. We see it written in the foyer in the tiles that talk about counsel. I cannot remember the quote, but it talks about how in many there is safety, with one there is danger. I have misquoted that, but the intent is similar.

We have seen it with hotel quarantine. We have that debacle situation where we did not just go through a second wave, we are not coming out of second wave, we actually were in a first wave because the decision was made to keep the virus, when it came over to Australia from overseas, in the hotels. Only in Victoria did it escape. I remember yesterday hearing the member for Gippsland South saying, you know, we need to not look overseas but we need to look at our neighbours here in Australia. In New South Wales there were 53 deaths. In South Australia, my neighbour, there were four deaths. In Victoria there were 800 deaths, and that was proven to be from hotel quarantine—the virus escaping because of mismanagement. I come back to the rationale that I am actually discussing, and that is lack of governance, lack of process, and here we see it again with this bill with the minister grabbing more power and removing the power from agencies which provide that oversight and protection.

It is a sign of this government, it is a symptom of this government I see a lot. In my electorate recently we had a project called the Mortlake Road development where a large amount of units were being constructed. Now, the community deserve the ability to have some consultation around what goes on in their neighbourhood, and the government has come over the top and taken away the council’s ability to actually go through that consultation process. The community members in that Mortlake Road area have come to me and said, ‘This is really unfair. Why are we unable to have our voices heard about this development that will affect us?’. Now, I am not saying they are against it. I am not saying I am against it. I am saying that that consultation process is the right of the community. It is why we come into the Parliament here to get debate happening, to make sure there is consultation. I see it too many times, and I could go on about some bills that have been put in and rushed through without consultation.

There is another example in my electorate of this where a bus stop was being put down on Beach Road. It is a very popular area and the community want to have access to public transport, but the members there were saying, ‘Just let us consult about where the best place is. Use the local knowledge. We live here and we want people to enjoy the precinct as well’. John Hudson called me and asked if I minded just trying to get some time so the discussion could take place with the locals. Whilst I made that representation to the minister, it was completely ignored. The bus stop just got built. No-one got to have any discussion about it.

I think we live in a democratic society. I think democracy is incredibly important, and when I see processes like what is happening in this bill I completely agree with the opposing of this bill because at the end of the day we must stand up for the importance of democracy. And there is no better example of where democracy has failed than removing that cabinet process around the Premier where he put his gang of eight around him. He obviously determined who he was going to have so he could control that, and what we see in Victoria is a debacle. It is not even a debacle, it is an absolute catastrophe. We are going to see the fallout from this for the next decade: the kids in my electorate who could not go to school, the teenagers who could not get their licences, the young year 12s who are sitting exams—English yesterday and their exams today—in masks. You know, in New South Wales and South Australia they are not sitting their exams in masks. They have not suffered like our Victorian students have suffered. They will have very different results because they have not had to stay home from school and try and manage the COVID situation in their lounge rooms. Particularly in my area and many regional areas—I am sure the member for Gippsland South would agree—many of the kids could not even get access to the internet reliably.

So how could they do their education and be competitive against our neighbours in New South Wales and South Australia, who they will compete with for university places? It is absolutely a big disadvantage to our kids. That is not to mention the elderly and the lonely, who were locked away and suffered mental health challenges. The ability of people to actually struggle through this—people who were possibly already compromised—is something we are going to see the effect of for many, many years.

Ms Edwards: On a point of order, Speaker, the member for South-West Coast has digressed considerably from the bill before the house today, and I ask you to draw her back to speaking on the bill.

Ms BRITNELL: On the point of order, Speaker, I do understand what the member is saying, but the fact is this bill is about governance. It is about taking away the ability to have oversight and putting that oversight into one person’s hands. I am using these examples of how that is a really concerning challenge for us as people who have tried to make sure we uphold democracy, so I am referring to that.

The SPEAKER: I ask the member to continue to relate her remarks to the bill.

Ms BRITNELL: I will conclude by saying that it is something I think every member in this place should really consider. When one person decides that they are going to take all the power, we end up with the example we are looking at of how Victoria is faring right now, and we will see this economically and we will see this emotionally for a very long time.

Ms EDWARDS (Bendigo West) (12:56): In the short time available to me I will commence my contribution on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020. It is unfortunate that those opposite are again opposing this very important piece of energy legislation. This is the ninth piece of vital energy legislation that has come before this house through this government since 2015, and we are very proud of our record investment in energy. I am reminded often of the four years that the coalition were in government, when our energy sector was failing abysmally because of their failure to invest in solar and renewable energies and of course their ban on wind farm development across the state due to an ideological opposition by the then Premier, Mr Baillieu. It was really disappointing. But this is about making sure that when we introduce this type of legislation we are keeping at the front and centre of our minds reducing the cost of energy for Victorian households and small businesses and always making Victoria’s energy market simpler and fairer and always ensuring that any changes are also about job creation.

This government stands on its record of investment in renewable energy and on its job creation agenda, and this will continue. We now have legislated targets, and we are getting on with building the energy system of the future. This bill builds on the existing reforms already delivered, making energy delivery fairer for every Victorian. It is another reform that will assist in alleviating the pressures that households and businesses face, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic has created new pressures and new challenges for everyone, and I think that is acknowledged broadly. Many people were working from home throughout the long winter months, and of course their energy bills were much higher than they would normally be. That is why we are addressing that issue through our fairness plan.

For an essential service like energy it is imperative that access to that energy is reliable and sustainable and also affordable. The Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020 in effect enables the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change to set conditions that energy companies must meet, including time lines for connection, effectively ensuring that new housing developments are connected to power quicker and enabling home owners to move into their new homes sooner. It will also remove barriers like red tape and boost the construction industry. This in turn will be a driver of Victoria’s economic recovery from COVID-19, something that this government is highly focused on and is a priority for this government. What it comes down to is recovery. It is about recovery. It is about job creation and economic stimulus— (Time expired)

Business interrupted under resolution of house of 10 November.

Members

Assistant Treasurer

Minister for Planning

Minister for Public Transport

Minister for Water

Absence

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (13:01): I rise to inform the house that today I will answer questions for the following portfolios: Assistant Treasurer, regulatory reform, government services, creative industries, planning, housing, public transport, roads and road safety, water and police and emergency services.

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Belt and Road Initiative

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (13:01): My question is to the Minister for Trade. The recent suspension by China of valuable exports, including Victorian wine, seafood and barley, is having a terrible impact on Victoria’s agriculture sector. Minister, how is the government’s commitment to the Chinese communist government’s dodgy Belt and Road deal helping Victorian farmers’ interests, given Victorian produce is sitting on Chinese docks, unable to be unloaded?

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) (13:02): I thank the Leader of The Nationals for his question, and my advice to those opposite is they should probably stop marinating in Sky News after dark, because frankly it does our exporters no favours at all. I would direct the Leader of The Nationals’ attention to the comments of one of Australia’s most eminent diplomats, Dennis Richardson, who just yesterday said that we should be steering a steady course, we should be avoiding gratuitous activity. And it does not end with Dennis Richardson. If the Leader of The Nationals is a watcher of Q&A—and I assume he is probably not, and I am not much either, I will say that—he might have heard the comments of the former West Australian Premier, Colin Barnett, only a couple of months ago, when he said that we ought to tone down the bickering.

What the Victorian government is doing is we are maintaining diplomatic channels with the Chinese government. As recently as last week when Brett Stevens, our commissioner in China, met with the National Development and Reform Commission to raise these very issues, I placed a call to the federal Minister for Trade, Senator Birmingham. I have also made contact with the Chinese consulate. We will continue to address these issues through appropriate diplomatic channels, using appropriate language, and I would say to the Leader of The Nationals—

Mr Walsh: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister is probably marinating in the ABC, or the ALP, depending on which channel you want to call it—

Members interjecting.

Mr Walsh: My community likes Sky News.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the House will come to order. The Leader of The Nationals has the call.

Mr Walsh: On the issue of relevance, Speaker, I appreciate the minister has set the scene, but the question was very specifically about how the Chinese communist government’s dodgy Belt and Road deal is actually helping Victorian farmers, given there has been produce stuck on the wharf in China. That is an absolute—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the House will come to order!

Mr Walsh: That is a fact, and I would ask you to bring the minister back to dealing with that particular issue, please.

The SPEAKER: Order! The substantive part of the question related to how the government’s commitment to the Belt and Road Initiative was helping Victoria’s trade, and the minister is being relevant to that question.

Mr PAKULA: I know it is clearly part of the talking points now for those opposite not to refer to the Chinese government but to refer to the Chinese communist government. I make the point that they have been a communist government since 1949. There is nothing new in that. They were a communist government during the period of your government when a range of coalition ministers, including the then Premier, travelled to China. They were a communist government when the federal Liberal government signed the China-Australia free trade agreement. I mean, I know it is part of the—

Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister is debating the question.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Members on my right will come to order.

Mr M O’Brien: On the point of order, Speaker, the minister is debating the question. There is a good reason his own federal leader will not have a bar of Belt and Road—it is because it is not good for Australia. We are asking him why it is not good for Victoria. It is doing no good to get our produce off those docks in China.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order.

Mr PAKULA: I am happy if the opposition wants me to provide examples of some of the export successes that we have had with China in recent times, whether it is Wattle Health—which exports milk to China and signed an MOU in November allowing it to access over 1000 baby and mother stores in China—or Momack or Ego Pharmaceuticals, all of which have been advantaged by the steady, respectful diplomatic relationship that we have with the Chinese government, and which will continue.

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (13:06): Minister, your government signed up to the Belt and Road MOU, which promised to deliver trade development and market access, especially for agricultural products. Given the Chinese communist government is now reducing market access for this state’s agricultural products, why won’t your government stand up for Victorian farmers and Victorian jobs and tear up the Belt and Road agreement?

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) (13:07): As I think I indicated in the substantive answer—clearly we have got a situation where the supplementary was written before they had listened to the substantive answer—we are standing up for Victorian exporters. I indicated in the substantive answer that our commissioner in Shanghai met with the National Development and Reform Commission last week. I have indicated the other diplomatic channels that are being progressed. I indicated a number of Victorian exporters which have signed agreements to export into China in recent times. And I will reiterate the point that I made in the substantive answer, that inflammatory, ridiculous language does actually nothing to help our exporters. In fact your—

Mr Walsh: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister is debating the issue. What Victorian farmers and exporters are looking for is a guarantee that the Victorian government will actually stand up for them and make sure their produce is not stuck on wharves, and the minister has not come anywhere near doing that.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has been directly relevant to the question asked and has concluded his answer.

Ministers statements: Remembrance Day

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (13:08): Today is a sacred day for all Victorians, indeed all people across our nation. At 11 o’clock this morning, in very different circumstances, we each in our own way paused to reflect on the service and sacrifice of those who gave their future so that we could enjoy ours. It has been a very different Remembrance Day, made necessary by this global pandemic and the wildly infectious nature of this virus. I want to put on record on behalf of the government, and I am sure on behalf of all members of this place, the respect, the reverence and the absolute gratitude that each of us feels deeply and personally for those who gave so much so that we could enjoy the quality of life, the values, the freedoms that we all hold dear.

To all of those for whom today was very different—and that may well have been painful for many, to not be able to come together to appropriately commemorate the service and sacrifice of their friends, their family members, their loved ones—I say that safety and dealing with this virus has got to be the first consideration. It always has been. But in a COVID-normal way, with the obvious restrictions in place, I want every Victorian to know that today is no less sacred a day; today is no less poignant and meaningful a day.

It is a special opportunity. In some respects, given the sacrifices that Victorians have made as a community across the board, with so many giving so much for so long, with this year’s Remembrance Day, how much we value the sacrifice of others who have got us to this position—those who gave everything so that we can enjoy our values and our quality of life. I think there has been an extra poignancy to what is a sacred time to remember, to reflect, to pause, to be grateful and to be sad but at the same time to respectfully celebrate all that they gave for us.

Sexual assault survivors

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (13:10): Before asking my question I would just like to echo the Premier’s remarks in relation to the importance of Remembrance Day this year on behalf of all members of this chamber.

My question is to the Attorney-General. Victims of sexual assault and survivors of sexual assault and their families have condemned the government’s attempt to gag them and stop them speaking out about their own experiences. Ashleigh Rae Cooper is a survivor of sexual violence, and she said on Monday:

Survivors deserve to be heard, especially when they work so hard for the right to their real name. My story could be erased if this law passes, while the perpetrator can go about his life as if nothing had happened.

Tracie Oldham is also a survivor of horrific sexual abuse and said on Monday:

I am absolutely disgusted that someone who has got the power to do so good is doing so much damage. Jill Hennessy is emotionally invalidating the victims and the survivors. That is psychological abuse.

Attorney, will you commit to genuinely listening to survivors of sexual assault and the Let Us Speak campaign before introducing any further bills that would restrict the rights of survivors to tell their own stories?

Ms HENNESSY (Altona—Attorney-General) (13:11): Can I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. Of course consultation and engagement with survivors of all forms of abuse, both sexual and other forms of abuse, is absolutely critical. That is a very important part of our future policy program. We have made that commitment. We always want to get better at it, and I have got absolutely no hesitation to give the Leader of the Opposition and those whom he has quoted the absolute confidence that we intend to and will continue to engage. In fact there are some processes being put in place by the Department of Justice and Community Safety this afternoon to commence those very processes.

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (13:12): Activists such as anti-sexual assault advocate Nina Funnell have been courageous in their relentless pursuit of the rights of survivors and victims to speak out despite this government’s attempt to gag them. Edith McKeon, Jill Meagher’s mum, said:

It is such a heartache on all of us who have lost our precious ones. I am effing furious that they have not even contacted any of the family.

Attorney, why didn’t you speak to Nina, Edith and others like them?

Ms HENNESSY (Altona—Attorney-General) (13:13): Again can I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, and can I give him and all others the assurance that there was indeed engagement with many victims and many victims’ families. There are a number of misrepresentations that are contained in the Leader of the Opposition’s question, but I absolutely accept the very genuine and authentic spirit with which he has put it. There has been engagement with many victim-survivors, and some of those people do not necessarily like their engagements to be known of, but certainly Ms McKeon was engaged with. We certainly have to continue to make sure that we are providing processes to engage with victim-survivors in a way that is not retraumatising, but we also need to accept that many people that have been victims of crime in all of its forms engage in different ways and in different forms, and we need to continue to make sure that we are engaging them in very important processes to make our laws fairer and safer for everybody.

Ministers statements: COVID-19

Ms WILLIAMS (Dandenong—Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) (13:14): I rise today during NAIDOC Week to update the house on the support the Andrews government is providing to Victoria’s traditional owners to develop an Aboriginal-led culturally safe recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. This morning I was very pleased to announce that the government will establish a $40 million fund for Aboriginal organisations to recruit new staff in the priority areas that they themselves determine. This will create jobs in the Aboriginal community health and family violence sectors to ensure it is Aboriginal people determining how best to meet their community needs. This brings our additional support for Aboriginal organisations to well over $60 million since the beginning of the pandemic.

Aboriginal Victorians know best what is best for their families and their communities. That is why we are delivering more support, but importantly, it is also why we are ensuring that Aboriginal people are the ones making the call on what, where and how that support is delivered. We know this approach works. For example, we have recently supported the Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation in Geelong to provide additional mental and telehealth support for Aboriginal children. We have also supported Elizabeth Morgan House to provide more emergency and long-term housing solutions for women in need.

During NAIDOC Week Australians celebrate the rich history, culture and language of the oldest continuing culture on our planet. It is fitting that the theme this year is ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’, which recognises that our First Nations people have cared for this country for over 65 000 years. And just as we celebrate this history and that connection, we look forward to forging a new shared future for us all. Whether through our historic commitments to treaty and truth or funding for new community-led service delivery, we are committed to Aboriginal self-determination and better outcomes for Aboriginal people.

Melbourne medically supervised injecting facility

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (13:16): My question is to the Minister for Mental Health. The City of Melbourne, including the recently re-elected Lord Mayor, Cr Sally Capp, oppose the Labor government’s proposed location of a second medically supervised injecting room near the Queen Victoria Market. The local traders are opposed to this location and local residents are opposed to this location. Will the minister listen to residents and market stallholders who have done it so tough this year and ditch this proposal to locate a drug injecting facility next to one of Victoria’s tourist icons?

Mr MERLINO (Monbulk—Minister for Education, Minister for Mental Health) (13:17): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. Before I answer it I should say: you have asked the wrong minister. The minister responsible is my friend and colleague the Minister for Health.

Mr Foley: It is just in the machinery-of-government announcement. Who will read that?

Mr MERLINO: That is right, it is just a small thing about machinery of government.

So in terms of the issue that the Leader of the Opposition has raised, we have made it quite clear from the very beginning that this is the preferred location, but there is a deep engagement and process not just with the City of Melbourne but with all stakeholders, with the broader community. If there is a better location, that will be considered. We said that very, very clearly from the very beginning, so I am not sure why the Leader of the Opposition is asking this question. A site has been identified, but we have made it very, very clear if there is a better location, that will be considered.

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (13:18): I thank the minister for his answer. I ask the minister: what other proposed sites is the government considering for a—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the House!

Mr M O’BRIEN: I ask the minister: what other proposed sites is the government considering for the North Melbourne medically supervised injecting room and will he release these locations to the public?

Mr MERLINO (Monbulk—Minister for Education, Minister for Mental Health) (13:18): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his supplementary question. He misunderstood the answer to the substantive question. A preferred site has been identified, but in engagement with the City of Melbourne and with medical services, mental health, drug and alcohol services, and the broader community, if there is a better location identified, then that will be considered. That is the answer to the Leader of the Opposition’s question.

Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister says ‘if another site is identified’ as though it is someone else’s responsibility. It is the government’s decision, and my question goes to what other sites the government is considering beyond the Queen Victoria Market for a medically supervised injecting room. I ask you to bring the minister back to the question.

The SPEAKER: The minister is being relevant to the question.

Mr MERLINO: Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Leader of the Opposition. I have already answered it. We have identified a preferred location. Can I say in the 20 seconds that I have remaining on my feet, this is about saving lives. That is what this is about. That is what the Richmond centre does and it is what a second centre will do in the centre of Melbourne. We have identified a preferred location. If there are any other sites nominated, they will be considered.

Ministers statements: recovery workforce funding

Mr DONNELLAN (Narre Warren North—Minister for Child Protection, Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers) (13:20): I rise to update the house on an announcement today made alongside the Deputy Premier and the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence: a $235 million investment to build the recovery workforce and create 500 new jobs and accelerate training pathways and internships for another 875 Victorians. It includes $106 million over four years for 239 child protection practitioners. This will include graduates and experienced professionals who will be placed around Victoria to protect our young people. This will actually deliver since we came to government 889 extra child protection practitioners. This is the highest amount of child protection practitioners ever seen in Victoria and the best allocation rates that have ever been seen.

I was also delighted to announce another $22 million to employ 48 administrative staff to support our marvellous child protection workers with admin support, working with children checks, transport and a centralised subpoena unit, providing the much-needed entry-level jobs for people to look at as a profession. Today’s announcement also includes $3.7 million for a student employment program. This will include 200 internship opportunities, providing future pathways to employment and financial support while they finish their studies.

I look forward to having much more to say on budget day about our commitment to children and families across Victoria, but I also want to highlight and recognise the incredible skill and hard work of our unpaid carers. We are providing $4.6 million for pathways into employment for unpaid carers in the community services, disability and aged-care sectors. Carers face unique challenges, balancing the work they do each day as unpaid carers and also trying to re-enter the workforce or actually work full-time or part-time. This funding will also include support for part-time work, studies and things like that. This government is very much about trying to support people back into the workforce and provide the support the community needs across the board.

Shepparton rail line

Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (13:22): My question is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. The Victorian state government has funded stages 1 and 2 of the Shepparton line upgrade at a cost of some $356 million. This followed a grassroots campaign calling for faster and better trains between Shepparton and Melbourne. In its recent budget the federal government committed $320 million towards stage 3 of the Shepparton line upgrade, and in the course of his announcement the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Mr Michael McCormack, stated that a further $80 million would be contributed by the Victorian government for completion of this stage of the works. Minister, when can we expect an announcement from the Victorian government for that additional $80 million investment to enable works to continue seamlessly through from stage 2 to stage 3 and provide the VLocity trains we have so long waited for?

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (13:23): I thank the Independent member for Shepparton for her question, but also I think it is worth putting on the record she has been tirelessly consistent, since her first days of walking into this chamber, in her efforts to make sure that there were funds secured to get better rail services for the Shepparton community. As the member for Shepparton pointed out in her question, we can only be talking about and pushing for funding for stage 3 because it has been the Andrews Labor government that has committed to stage 1 and stage 2 in upgrading the Shepparton rail services, with a generous budget allocation from the Treasurer of $356 million for those stages of work. I also remind the house that it was only an Andrews Labor government who made the commitment at the 2018 election for the nine daily return services that the Shepparton community had been campaigning for.

Now, when we were asked by the federal government ahead of their budget deliberations—and, can I say, I was really pleased with the positive interactions I had with the Deputy Prime Minister and the encouragement we had to put forward our priority list of projects for the federal government’s consideration in setting their budget—stage 3 works for the Shepparton rail upgrade were firmly on our list because we want to see this project delivered. And I was delighted on federal budget night to see that indeed the federal government had agreed to our request for funding of this project. I again commend the member for Shepparton for her efforts, because there is no doubt Shepparton has long deserved—

Members interjecting.

Ms ALLAN: I will get to that. There is no doubt that Shepparton has long deserved a better rail service, and I have been delighted to work since 2014 with the member for Shepparton to make this happen. I would like to congratulate that grassroots campaign that she talked about as well, because that community had to be loud and clear in their demands for a better rail service because they had been ignored for far too long—ignored even during a period of time when the Shepparton community had not one but two local members of Parliament sitting at the cabinet table able to make this sort of decision to allocate funding for better rail services. The Liberal and National government MPs failed to do that despite sitting at the cabinet table.

I also note—the member for Murray Plains has prompted me on this—that there has been a Johnny-come-lately to this issue. The federal member for Nicholls was pretty happy to come out and try and claim credit for this funding. I am pretty confident he did not do a lot of heavy lifting for this funding, but he was very happy to take credit for getting funds from his government. I am delighted; success has many mothers and fathers.

The most important outcome here is there is a firm commitment to nine daily services to Shepparton. It has taken the Andrews Labor government and the Independent member for Shepparton to bring this about, and we will have more to say about our contribution very, very soon.

Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (13:26): Minister, I was recently approached by an elderly constituent who asked me whether she would live long enough to see VLocity trains on the Shepparton line. I am keen to assure her that she will. Can you tell people in my community what the time line for delivery of this project is and when they can expect stages 2 and 3 to be completed?

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (13:26): In answering the member for Shepparton’s question and with all respect to her constituent, I am not entirely sure the age of her constituent. However, with the excellent health care she can now receive from the new Shepparton hospital—another great project delivered by the Andrews Labor government in partnership with the Shepparton community and with the strong advocacy of the Independent member for Shepparton—I really do hope that her constituent can see these trains running because we have already begun work. We have already added a daily return service to the Shepparton community because we have invested in the stabling facilities to allow this to happen. We have already got our rail experts and engineers out in the corridor doing the geotechnical work on key level crossing sites as part of stage 2, and track works will be commencing shortly. The member for Shepparton might want to tell her constituent that VLocity trains will be running on the line for the first time when these works are completed at the end of 2022. We do want to seamlessly transition to stage 3. However, we will have more to say about that shortly.

Ministers statements: community safety infrastructure grants

Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support) (13:28): I rise to update the house on the successful projects that have been proceeding through the community safety infrastructure grants. We know that the economic, social and health impacts of COVID-19 will mean that this government’s crime prevention agenda will be extremely important in supporting vulnerable individuals, communities and families going ahead as part of Victoria’s recovery. The Andrews Labor government is taking action on the root causes of crime by investing $5.6 million that will improve community safety. Thirty-one projects have been funded to improve security, provide better lighting and activate public spaces such as parks. This includes around 115 CCTV cameras across Dandenong, Pakenham, Sunshine, Warrnambool, Corio, Lara, Kerang and Trafalgar.

I recently met with three grant partners to learn more about how this investment will help their communities and help promote and protect community safety. The member for Melton and I met with Melton City Council, the member for St Albans and I met with Brimbank council and the member for Preston and I met with the Islamic Society of Victoria, and I thank them for their advocacy. This investment is part of a $2.7 billion building works package which has been established to create jobs all around Victoria and increase demand for local businesses. This is one way we are stopping crime before it occurs: by making our public spaces safer.

This program builds upon almost 800 community-led, evidence-based crime prevention projects to the value of $40 million that this government has invested since 2015. In addition to this, the Working for Victoria Fund has funded five local councils to work on graffiti removal, creating 30 full-time jobs. The Andrews government is focused on keeping up with our communities—keeping them clean, keeping them safe and boosting local employment.

Member for Cranbourne

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (13:30): My question is to the Premier. Yesterday IBAC heard that the Labor member for Cranbourne received an extra $20 000 in political donations from corrupt developer John Woodman in return for backing a dodgy land rezoning. Labor Party life member and lobbyist Philip Staindl confirmed in evidence that the increase in donations was directly related to the Labor member for Cranbourne’s support for the rezoning. Given her political support is for sale to the highest bidder, why does the Premier believe the member for Cranbourne is a fit and proper person to be a government representative on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee?

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (13:30): I am delighted to get a question from the Leader of the Opposition. I thought a pattern was forming here.

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: I will just have to compose myself and make sure I am ready to deal with the piercing line of inquiry from the Leader of the Opposition and his—

A member: I wouldn’t get too excited.

Mr ANDREWS: I am not getting too excited at all, as my honourable friend indicates. The Leader of the Opposition in his question has I think in essence answered the question. He has referred to evidence that has been led at a process that is not yet concluded. He may be of the view that it would be best practice to trample all over processes that are incomplete. That is not my view, it has never been my view, it will never be my view—never. On the issue though at the end of the question and the imputation and the fairly cheap commentary from the Leader of the Opposition, who is in no position to be lecturing anybody about standards—no position whatsoever to be lecturing anybody, anytime, anywhere about standards—let me inform the Leader of the Opposition that the honourable member for Cranbourne is not only an outstanding person but an outstanding advocate on behalf of her community. It is a community that, when given the chance to decide between the low road grubby stuff we get over there or a passionate advocate, elected the member for Cranbourne in unprecedented terms.

Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, it may be the case that the member for Cranbourne got elected because she had so many dodgy donations in her campaign funds.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier is to continue. There is no point of order.

Mr ANDREWS: Well, the member for Cranbourne was elected with a very, very strong show of support from her local community. That is a great disappointment to this one over here and his mates who traipsed up and down the streets of Cranbourne in their Burberry trench coats essentially bagging the people of Cranbourne—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition!

Mr ANDREWS: You need to go and have a lie down, I think. You are very excitable because fundamentally you are absolutely aggrieved that the good people of Cranbourne had their say on you.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! I ask the Leader of the Opposition for his assistance in the smooth running of the house.

Mr Walsh: On a point of order, Speaker, on the issue of relevance, the question was very much about the suitability of the member for Cranbourne to be on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, and the Premier started talking about standards. For someone who did not recall 27 times at an inquiry, I do not think the Premier should be lecturing Victorians about standards.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of The Nationals knows that is not a point of order.

Mr ANDREWS: For someone as forgettable as the once leader of a great party, I would not be lecturing anyone on forgetfulness if I was you. The Leader of the Opposition asked me about the member for Cranbourne. I am speaking directly to the outstanding character of the member for Cranbourne and the fact that the member for Cranbourne and the people of Cranbourne—

Mr M O’Brien interjected.

Mr ANDREWS: You can shout all you want, but when the votes were counted up they said no to you—no to you and the likes of you. You can throw as much mud as you like, but the member for Cranbourne—

Mr M O’Brien interjected.

Mr ANDREWS: You could not hold a candle to the member for Cranbourne. The people of Cranbourne had their verdict on you, and they showed you the door.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! I cannot have a situation where people are shouting across the chamber to such a degree that I cannot hear the answer that is being given. I do ask people for their assistance in the smooth running of the house if questions are to be asked.

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (13:34): The Premier has previously said that he is responsible for everything that happens under his leadership. Given the evidence of her accepting corrupt political donations, why has the Premier continued to tolerate the Labor member for Cranbourne in his government?

The SPEAKER: Order! That question contains a clear imputation. I will just ask the Leader of the Opposition to reframe the question.

Mr M O’BRIEN: Given the evidence of the Labor member for Cranbourne accepting political donations from a corrupt property developer, why does the Premier continue to tolerate the Labor member for Cranbourne in his government?

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (13:35): Well, this joker is a lawyer. And if you ever needed—

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier needs to refer to members—

Mr ANDREWS: If you ever needed any evidence as to why the member for Malvern, the Leader of the Opposition, is in here and not in court, it is questions like this. This is evidence that has been led, a process that is not yet concluded—

Mr M O’Brien interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition!

Mr ANDREWS: You are not the commissioner of IBAC. You can shout all you want, but (a) you are not the commissioner of IBAC, (b) you are in no position to cast aspersions on the character or conduct of the member for Cranbourne and (c)—

Mr M O’Brien: IBAC’s done that!

Mr ANDREWS: Well, has IBAC really? I do not think IBAC has concluded yet. Rumpole over here—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! I ask the Premier to resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition will come to order. I ask both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition to come to order and to follow the normal forms of the house.

Mr ANDREWS: I am indebted to the Leader of the Opposition for showing his galloping ignorance—no reference to the fact that one Geoff Ablett was his party’s candidate for Cranbourne the time before. You are a joke and a hypocrite.

Ministers statements: young Victorians

Ms SPENCE (Yuroke—Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Community Sport, Minister for Youth) (13:37): It is with great pleasure that I rise today to update the house on the Andrews Labor government’s work to develop a whole-of-government youth strategy. Last month along with the Parliamentary Secretary for Youth, the member for Sunbury, I launched the commencement of public consultation to inform the development of the strategy because there has never been a more important time to listen to young people about the challenges they face and the issues that matter to them. As we know, the coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on young people. It has impacted the way they work, the way they learn and the way they socialise, and the barriers confronting their generation have risen higher still. They need a plan for the short and the long term.

Our government strategy will put young people front and centre. It will inform the way government works with young people, the youth sector and the broader community. Importantly, this strategy is about unleashing the great potential of our youth. We are going into communities to hear from young people who would not usually have an opportunity to talk to government and to elevate the voices of these young people with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Young people will inform the content of the strategy at every step, and Youth Affairs Council Victoria is leading consultations alongside other partners in the youth sector.

We are already underway, and by the end of the year we will have concluded around 30 virtual forums with local communities and young people across the state, including in Ovens Murray and Goulburn, Gippsland, Bayside and Mornington Peninsula, Central Highlands, Golden Plains, the Mallee, Western District, Loddon and Barwon and forums all across metropolitan Melbourne. I look forward to hearing from young people all across Victoria and I hope that all members of this place will encourage young people in their electorates to share their views via the online consultation or at one of the upcoming virtual forums.

Mr R Smith: On a point of order, Speaker, on several occasions you have made the point that members should be referring to other members by their titles. You have made those calls off your own bat at times when other members have not raised those points of order. As the Premier ran a long list of name-calling on the Leader of the Opposition, I am curious as to why he was not once pulled up by you to say that he should be referring to the Leader of the Opposition by his title. The words that he was using were not parliamentary, not within the forms of the house, and it would be appreciated, I think, by all members if the rules that you put forward, the precedents that you have made during your time as Speaker, are maintained for every single member regardless of their position in this chamber.

The SPEAKER: Order! I agree there was a reference by the Premier to the opposition leader by not his correct title. At the same time the Leader of the Opposition was yelling across the chamber at the Premier, so I asked both the Leader of the Opposition and the Premier to come back to order to assist the smooth running of the house.

Constituency questions

Warrandyte electorate

Mr R SMITH (Warrandyte) (13:40): (4752) My constituency question is directed to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. Mitcham Road in Donvale is an extremely busy road used by thousands of motorists each day, especially now with life returning to normal for many people. I wrote to the minister in July this year after a resident, Mr Turner, raised with me the need for a safe pedestrian crossing near Shirvington Place, Donvale, coming off Mitcham Road. In correspondence from the minister in August he gave the commitment that the Department of Transport would undertake a traffic and pedestrian count once COVID restrictions were lifted to determine whether a pedestrian-operated signal crossing facility would meet the criteria for consideration under a future opportunity. I ask the minister: now that restrictions have been lifted, can he confirm if this count has taken place and the department’s findings, or if the count has not taken place, when will it, and will he provide the findings to me so I can convey them to Mr Turner?

Northcote electorate

Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (13:41): (4753) My question is to the Attorney-General, and I ask: what steps are being taken to ensure the crime of public drunkenness is abolished? As you are aware, the issue of public drunkenness was raised over 30 years ago as part of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, with a recommendation to repeal the offence. In August last year the Andrews government committed to decriminalising public drunkenness and replacing it with a health-based response. Attorney-General, I know you have been working hard towards this end. My community in Northcote is eager to know of progress towards this important reform. We have seen the devastating consequences of this offence in the death of Aunty Tanya Day. As many know, she died after being removed from a train and taken into police custody. Imagine how that series of events could have unfolded differently if a health-based response was put front and centre. We know Aboriginal people are over-represented in the justice system. We know that this reform is needed. I look forward to seeing this Labor government deliver it.

Brighton electorate

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (13:42): (4754) My constituency question is to the Premier, and I ask: when will the state government allow overseas Victorians, including many of my constituents, their right to return home? Thousands of Victorians are stuck overseas. Their lives are in limbo. In fact more than 29 000 Australians are registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as wishing to return to Australia. Victorians have a right to return home. As Blair has written to me:

I am … currently trapped overseas in Russia.

I have been here since March unable to obtain flights home …

Katarzyna has also written to me:

… I am currently stranded in Poland, unable to return home …

And Greer has written on behalf of her brother:

The financial and mental strain of the immediate situation my brother now faces … is enormous.

These voices are pleading. They feel stateless, and they know this Labor government has turned its back on them. The Premier must recognise that our fellow Victorians have a right to return home.

Tarneit electorate

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (13:43): (4755) My question is for the Minister for Early Childhood in the other place. Minister, how many new jobs in early childhood education will be created by the rollout of three-year-old kinder in 2021? The seat of Tarneit is home to one of the highest proportions of childcare workers in this state. In the suburb of Tarneit alone 4 per cent of people work in the child care and early childhood education sector. Unfortunately this sector has been hard-hit by the pandemic, not to mention the early winding back of JobKeeper by the federal Liberal government. I have spoken to many women this year who have expressed their keen interest in our free TAFE offering of the certificate III in early childhood education and care and the diploma of early childhood education, and I know these women are very much looking forward to finding employment in the sector locally. Thousands of families across Wyndham cannot wait for three-year-old kinder to be rolled out. What job opportunities might they find?

Gippsland East electorate

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (13:44): (4756) My constituency question is to the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers, and it is on behalf of families who have loved ones in supported accommodation houses who cannot attend day care at their local disability services or respite programs and the like. The information I seek is when the minister will release a plan for those who are in supported accommodation to be able to attend facility-based day care and facility-based programs post the COVID restrictions being lifted. At present if someone with special needs is living at home, they can attend a program but someone in shared accommodation is being denied that access, and it is causing a lot of social distress and a lot of stress on families of those with special needs. I ask the minister if he could please outline a clear pathway forward of when attendance can be resumed at those day programs.

Ringwood electorate

Mr HALSE (Ringwood) (13:45): (4757) My question is to the Minister for Public Transport. As Melbourne opens up to a new COVID normal and patronage increases on the public transport network, what is the government doing to ensure passenger safety on trains and buses in my electorate of Ringwood?

Morwell electorate

Mr NORTHE (Morwell) (13:45): (4758) My constituency question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Minister, my question is asked on behalf of the hardworking CFA brigades and volunteers in my electorate, and that is: what is the latest information with regard to their participation in fundraising activities? My understanding is that the current directive prohibits CFA volunteers from fundraising activities despite the recent easing of COVID-19 restrictions across Victoria. It is well known, the necessity for CFA brigades across my electorate and indeed regional Victoria to raise vital and necessary funds to assist with the upgrading of their skills, equipment and assets. Many brigades have already missed out on months of opportunities to raise funds, and this in turn has only further delayed this critical investment. It makes no logical sense that while CFA brigades and volunteers are required to turn out for an emergency event to support and protect their communities, they are unable to participate in a sausage sizzle. In my view this directive needs urgent review and overturning.

Eltham electorate

Ms WARD (Eltham) (13:46): (4759) My constituency question is for the Minister for Local Government in the other place. Minister, I am sure you will join with me in congratulating the new councillors elected to Banyule and Nillumbik councils within the Eltham district. I know that Liz Nealy, elected to Banyule for the first time, will be a terrific councillor, as will be first-timers Natalie Duffy, Geoff Paine, Frances Eyre and Ben Ramcharan in Nillumbik. I welcome Richard Stockman to Blue Lake ward and congratulate Cr Peter Perkins in Nillumbik and Cr Alison Champion in Banyule for their re-election. I also congratulate other councillors newly elected and re-elected across Nillumbik and Banyule councils outside of my district. Bearing in mind there are now many new faces on Banyule and Nillumbik councils, what support has the state government been giving to councils through the COVID-19 pandemic to assist their responses and recovery in our communities and importantly for the businesses in their municipalities? This is important information for new councillors, as is enhancing their understanding of the expectation of our government regarding actions councils can and should be taking to further progress and promote recovery.

Sandringham electorate

Mr ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (13:47): (4760) My constituency question is to the Minister for Health, and I ask: will the minister provide me with the chief health officer advice on which the Victorian Labor government bases its decision to maintain inequality between faith communities and hospitality venues? As of today, the maximum number of people permitted to attend a religious ceremony is 20 indoors and 50 outdoors, yet at the same time it is 40 indoors and 70 outdoors for hospitality venues. Whilst many Victorians will gather with family and friends at pubs and restaurants, hundreds of thousands of Victorians attain great comfort and connectedness from their faith community. Freedom of religion is enshrined in the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities, and it cannot be violated without just cause. It is on that basis that this Labor government owes it to all Victorians to immediately provide the advice which underpins these inequitable restrictions still faced by Victoria’s faith communities.

Narre Warren South electorate

Mr MAAS (Narre Warren South) (13:48): (4761) My constituency question is for the Treasurer regarding the Homes for Victorians strategy. Treasurer, what has been the impact of the Homes for Victorians strategy, especially in relation to stamp duty, on my area of Narre Warren South? Homes for Victorians ensures that first home buyer applicants do not pay any stamp duty at all on properties under $600 000 and receive a stamp duty concession for properties valued up to $750 000. This state government initiative helps reduce barriers for first home ownership and provides further support for those looking to get a foot on the property ladder. I would appreciate any information on how the Homes for Victorians strategy and reduction in stamp duty are supporting first home buyers in my electorate.

Bills

Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Ms EDWARDS (Bendigo West) (13:49): I am pleased to continue my contribution on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020. As I was saying on investment in energy, it is really important to be doing that right now, because it is about recovery, it is about job creation and it is about economic stimulus to ensure that our communities and indeed our economy recover from COVID-19. On top of this the Andrews Labor government is continuing to roll out its energy fairness plan, as well as enforcing the Essential Services Commission’s enforcement powers so it can more effectively regulate the energy sector. Energy licensees are currently subject to a very stringent compliance and enforcement regime overseen by the ESC. Our energy fairness plan is delivering the biggest regulatory shake-up of the energy sector in this state’s history and putting power back into the hands of Victorians.

In my electorate of Bendigo West there is a housing boom, as there is indeed across Bendigo more broadly and the region and across the whole state. New dwellings in the housing stock are a major driver of population growth in the region, providing opportunities for households to relocate from other areas. New housing estates on greenfield sites, subdivisions in existing residential neighbourhoods, the conversion of industrial land to residential land and the densification of housing by build-up are all contributing to the massive growth that the Bendigo region is experiencing. In fact data released by the City of Greater Bendigo forecasts enormous growth across all areas. Just to give you some examples of that, by 2036 the City of Greater Bendigo expects a 36.2 per cent increase in dwellings, in Golden Square a 17.1 per cent increase, in the Kangaroo Flat-Big Hill area a 20.9 per cent increase, in Long Gully a 9.3 per cent increase, in Maiden Gully a 140.3 per cent increase and in Marong-Rural West a 111.6 per cent increase. These are just some of the figures that give an indication of how these new homes are going to be established over the coming years. And of course these new homes across my electorate and indeed, as I said, across the state will require access to power. This legislation ensures the quick connection that home owners will need to enable them to move into their properties without the red tape that so often delays this process. Importantly, the government will work closely with Energy Safe Victoria to ensure any new regulation of connection time frames does not compromise compliance with relevant safety standards.

This month an exciting project commences in my electorate, and this goes to our investment not just in energy but in projects that enable the delivery of energy. Powercor will commence work on undergrounding the powerlines on Main Street in Maldon this month. Powercor has been assessing and getting ready to do that work, and it is about to commence. This is stage 1 of the $4.5 million Maldon streetscape revitalisation project that I was thrilled to announce a few months ago as part of this government’s stimulus package. The undergrounding of the powerlines will improve electricity network reliability, bushfire safety and views of the township along Maldon’s historic streetscape. And there is evidence of course going back many years that the push for this project may have started some 50 years ago, back in 1966, when Maldon became Australia’s first notable town. However, it has taken a real commitment from this government to get that project realised, and we are all very excited and a little impatient to see this work completed. I think this project is further evidence of this government’s commitment not only to our local regional communities but also to the needs of power consumers.

Last week there was an amazing announcement here in the state of Victoria—the announcement of Victoria’s Big Battery. It has received extraordinary support, and I note the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change is here in the house today, and I want to thank her and congratulate her and her team on the work that was done to make this become a reality. This is of course the biggest battery storage in the Southern Hemisphere, and it will give Victorians the assurance and confidence that not only will our power supply be assured but also that this will lead to lower power prices and, importantly, will create jobs. I think when you think about climate change, which is with us and resulting in longer and hotter summers; the demand for electricity rising, particularly at peak times; and at the same time Victoria’s ageing coal-fired generators, which are becoming increasingly unreliable, there is a real need for additional capacity to safeguard the state’s power supply, and that is exactly what this battery will do. Large-scale energy storage is a really important component in the transition to a renewable future, and it also helps to maintain network stability and energy security for Victoria.

This battery will unlock an additional 250 megawatts of peak capacity on the existing Victoria to New South Wales interconnector over the next decade of Australian summers. This is really important and very exciting. The Victorian Big Battery will help to modernise and stabilise the grid in Victoria and will be instrumental in helping the state reach its objective of 50 per cent renewables by 2030. Independent analysis shows that every $1 invested in the battery will deliver more than $2 in benefits to Victorian households and businesses. The savings that the Big Battery can provide to energy consumers are well known and well established, with independent reviews demonstrating that Neoen’s Hornsdale power reserve has delivered more than $150 million in savings in its first two years of operation.

I think this announcement is just another example of how the energy transition that this government is investing in will bring jobs to not just the Victorian economy but more importantly to regional areas as well. In summary I think this bill will improve the regulation of Victoria’s licensed energy sector. It will support the provision of reliable, sustainable and affordable energy, there is no doubt about that, and I commend the bill to the house.

Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (13:56): It is good to rise to speak on more energy legislation, which we have seen quite a bit of in my time in the Parliament, and to speak today on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020. I will take up a couple of things that the member for Bendigo West said and certainly some of the other previous speakers on the government side. It was her view that this bill would improve energy regulation, and unfortunately neither my view nor the member for Bendigo West’s view counts for that much, but the government certainly has not actually demonstrated that this will improve regulation of the energy sector, because what they are doing with this legislation is taking out the position of the independent Essential Services Commission and giving it to the political minister of the day.

As the member for Warrandyte indicated in his lead speech for the opposition, it was the Labor government minister Candy Broad who instituted those arrangements with respect to the Essential Services Commission and retail energy providers and did so for good reason—to have that independent oversight of the energy sector and the retail sector. To have the government now say, ‘Look, you know, we aren’t really comfortable with that. It just means we’re not in control’—which is a theme we have heard a lot of this year with respect to this government, that they are not in control and the minister wants to set the directions—is contrary to the previous policy. Indeed I think it was a bipartisan policy over the last couple of decades with respect to energy policy. That in itself might be fine if you thought that there was a competent framework, a competent policy and a competent government running energy policy in the state, but the evidence of the last six years unfortunately suggests the opposite.

We went in this state in 2014 from having the lowest wholesale energy prices in the country to in 2020 having the highest. And even with the recent pandemic-induced reductions in energy demand and as a result the drop in prices across the board, Victoria still has the most expensive wholesale prices, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator, looking ahead to 2021. That is the issue that is raised with me consistently when we talk about energy policy. The member for Bendigo West, again, talked about the biggest regulatory shake-up of energy in Victoria’s history. I suspect that perhaps Jeff Kennett and Alan Stockdale might have a bit to say about that, because what happened in the 1990s, particularly for me as a boy from the Latrobe Valley originally, would suggest that there was a fairly big regulatory shake-up back then. It started, I might add, and unfortunately the member for Essendon is not here to challenge me, under the Cainer government—there is a Freudian slip—the Cain-Kirner governments, which began the privatisation of the state’s electricity assets with Loy Yang B.

But yes, to suggest that this is the biggest regulatory shake-up might be pushing things. But no-one should be particularly grateful for that regulatory shake-up given it has also come with the biggest price stuff-up that we have seen, and I can tell you as a member of this place and as a rural member in particular the complaints I get consistently from businesses, from households and from farmers about the increases that they have suffered in the electricity prices under this government have been significant. I get them everywhere I go, and the situation is not getting much better.

Sitting suspended 2.00 pm until 3.01 pm.

Business interrupted under resolution of house of 10 November.

Grievance debate

Primary producers

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (15:01): Today I grieve for all Victoria’s primary producers, all those people in Victoria who produce the food that we eat, the fibre that we wear and all the materials that go into making the houses that we live in—the primary producers of Victoria, wherever they may be. I grieve because we have a Minister for Agriculture who seems unable or unwilling to be their champion in decisions made by the Andrews government. Too often our primary producers in Victoria believe they are on the losing end of decisions by the Andrews government, and they do not see the Minister for Agriculture actually sticking up for them in those decisions.

One of the first things that the Andrews government did when they got elected was actually get rid of the department of agriculture. There is no department of agriculture here in Victoria any more; it is only an agency within the bigger Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions. I think that has set the scene, set the tone for the last six years of how the Andrews government views those primary producers and views agriculture in Victoria. Effectively for all of Victoria’s history there has been a department of agriculture. There is no longer a department of agriculture; it is just an agency within a bigger department.

If you talk about the timber industry, a sustainable industry here in Victoria, it is an industry that if you talk about storing carbon is the perfect example of a carbon store for the future. Every tree that is cut down is replanted. The industry is very proud of the fact that it actually replants every tree that is harvested. The sawlog timber that is there goes into our homes: into flooring, into stairs, into doors—into the high-value parts of our homes. And that is there forever, that carbon is locked up and new trees grow. There is very good scientific evidence that a tree reaches maturity at 40 to 50 years and stores very little carbon after that, so by actually harvesting the trees and letting new trees grow we are storing carbon for the future. I think that is something that the Andrews government has actually lost sight of.

But the Andrews government made a decision that the native timber industry, the sawlog industry, would be closed by 2030. The industry has heard very, very little from the Minister for Agriculture as far as being a champion for that sector. The Minister for Agriculture has actually talked up plantations being the solution to the native timber industry, the sawlog industry, into the future. I remind the Minister for Agriculture that it takes something like 50 to 80 years to grow a sawlog tree. The industry is going to be closed down in 2030. That is 10 years. You are not going to grow sawlog trees in 10 years if they take 50 to 80 years to grow. So there will not be any sawlog timber at the end of this period, when the government talks about ‘It can be done from plantations’.

The other issue with plantations is that they are actually planting the wrong species if you are talking about sawlogs. I would encourage the Minister for Agriculture to actually go back and have a lesson in tree species. Planting blue gums, particularly planting blue gums at high density, is fine if you want to produce chips—just pulp for paper—but if you are going to actually grow sawlog trees, you need a different species and you need them widely spaced so the trees can actually grow in the right way to get sawlogs into the future. So that industry, all those direct participants in the industry and all those communities that rely on those jobs come 2030 are really at risk, and this has caused huge stress for all those involved in it.

At this stage the minister refuses to meet with the industry. The direct participants are very happy to meet—or want to meet—with the minister. The minister is refusing to meet with them—will not even have a Zoom meeting with the direct participants in the industry. If the Minister for Agriculture is going to be a champion for her industry, she needs to actually meet with them and understand what the issues are for that particular industry.

And we have had the issue with the bushfires, particularly in East Gippsland but also in the north-east of Victoria. There is a substantial amount of fire-damaged timber that could be available if it was opened up. This timber needs to be harvested within 12 to 18 months of bushfire, otherwise it is no good for sawlog, but again those coupes are not being made available to the industry, or what coupes are being made available to the industry are very low grade and will effectively only end up as pulp.

The other part of agriculture and food and fibre I want to grieve for is all those people who actually export, particularly those people who are exporting to China at the moment. They are very, very nervous about what is going on with China. I heard what the Minister for Trade said today. It is about the real and the perceived, and if you have high-value product like seafood, like table grapes, like stone fruit—like cherries, very high value—if there is risk at the Chinese end after sending these containers or sending this airfreight to China that that product may be stuck in the system and that product may never actually get to market, you are very, very worried about committing all that money to it. So I would like to see both the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Trade be stronger advocates on behalf of Victoria.

In a question to the Minister for Agriculture in the other place yesterday David Davis, a member for Southern Metro, actually asked a question about this, and the minister’s answer was:

In relation to Mr Davis’s question, conflating trade issues with the Belt and Road agreement, the agriculture sector is effectively one paragraph within the Belt and Road agreement, which is just a facilitation document to bring people to the table to have conversations.

That is not how it was sold at the start. The Belt and Road agreement the Premier and other ministers made great fanfare about was actually going to open up opportunities for Victorian agriculture. What we are seeing now is Victorian agriculture being disadvantaged potentially by Belt and Road, and the Minister for Agriculture is effectively walking back that commitment to the primary producers of this state and their exports. So we would like to see the Minister for Agriculture become a much stronger advocate not only on the issues of Chinese access but also on the issues of developing new markets for our produce. China is a good market and China has been a strong trading partner with Australia, but there are risks of having too much trade with one particular country, and that is the issue our people face at the moment. There needs to be more work, particularly put in by the Minister for Agriculture working with her federal colleagues, to help develop the protocols to get produce into other nations. There has been a lot of work done on getting stone fruit out of my electorate into Vietnam, but at the moment there are issues around protocols. That is where a state government with a well-resourced department of agriculture—which is a conjectured issue at the moment—with the technical ability to actually work on those protocols could very quickly find other markets than China for that particular product.

The last thing I want to grieve on today on behalf of the agriculture sector is the issue around harvest labour. Victoria has known for eight months now that with COVID there was going to be an issue around harvest labour come this summer. The backpackers—those with work visas who were in Australia and who usually do this work—have started to return home as fast as they can get air travel to do that. They are not being replaced with new people coming in for this summer because of the quotas on people coming in from overseas, and that is all dedicated to return Australians. So there is a major shortage of labour coming for this particular summer’s harvest to pick the fruit and the vegetables that we all enjoy. I suppose the issue around the failure of hotel quarantine in Victoria and the failure of contact tracing has meant there are no overseas travellers coming back into Victoria at the moment anyway, which actually makes that worse from a Victorian point of view.

I note the minister has been saying some things in the other place, where she is a member, and she talks about the issue around the Working for Victoria platform. She urges agricultural businesses needing staff to register with the Working for Victoria platform so they can connect with future workers. What horticulturists have explained to me is that if they actually register with the Working for Victoria platform to potentially access labour, they have to sign an agreement that they will allow the unions onto their property into the future. A lot of people feel very, very nervous about that particular situation. Effectively the government is using the resources of government, paid for by the taxpayer, to supposedly help farmers get labour but is actually using it as a membership drive for the unions. I do not believe that that is the appropriate use of taxpayers money. The minister, again in a statement in the upper house last sitting week, talked about it being an issue that actually is keeping her awake at night:

It is the issue that I am on the phone to my ministerial colleagues about.

She spoke to the Western Australian minister. She has spoken to the federal minister. She has spoken to her department deputy secretary at least five times a day on the topic. They are engaging with industry and trying to uncover every possible solution. Her commitment to farmers is that she will not rest until she has explored every opportunity, and she welcomes anyone else’s ideas. The minister said:

I am open to them all.

Minister, I went to Mildura a number of weeks ago following discussions with industry and met with industry participants up there. Industry and I have put forward a possible solution to this issue. The Vanuatu government is very keen to have their people come to Victoria and work. You could easily do that by having direct charter flights from Vanuatu to Mildura, because the airport at Mildura is large enough to take big jets. That would solve the issue around the quotas on overseas returned travellers. It would not take away any slots from Australians wanting to return from overseas, because they are not at the capital city airports. You could bring them directly into Mildura and you could quarantine them in Mildura for their two weeks and they could go directly to work. That has been put forward to the minister. The minister has announced a $17 million fund to assist with having more harvest labour. She has also announced a $50 million fund to assist with agriculture. But when our idea was put forward, there was no money to assist with that. There have been ideas put forward that have been squashed by the government.

The federal government, within about 24 hours, believe they could turn around all the paperwork to get an issue like that to happen, so there is no issue with the federal government on the issue of immigration. The Deputy Prime Minister of Vanuatu, no less, has written directly to the Victorian minister and to the Victorian Premier saying that the Vanuatu government would very much like to get involved in having their citizens come to Victoria to work. As far as I know, at this stage there has not actually been a response after a number of weeks from either the Premier’s office or the Minister for Agriculture to the Deputy Prime Minister of Vanuatu.

I suppose what I have just described from Victoria is in stark contrast to what is going on in other states around Australia. The Northern Territory led the way, and they actually had a pilot program subsidised by the government where they brought Vanuatuan workers directly into the Northern Territory and quarantined them there at Howard Springs. The Western Australian government has reached an agreement to quarantine 250 workers at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory. The Western Australian government will pay $5000 per worker and the balance will be paid by industry. The Northern Territory government have done their thing to bring Vanuatuan workers in to help pick mangoes. The Western Australian government is going to use that same system, and help to subsidise it, to bring workers into Western Australia to help with the horticultural industry. Tasmania has a program where they are going to have Vanuatuans coming directly into Tasmania to assist the horticultural industry there. The Queensland government have set up a pilot program to actually have the quarantining done on farms so that it reduces the cost, and there are four plane loads of Pacific islander workers coming in to do that.

I will finish where I started. If we had a Minister for Agriculture here in Victoria who cared about her industry and who was committed to her industry, we would actually get something done about having overseas workers coming into this state. Now, 1 December is the magic date when there will be huge demand, particularly out of the table grape and the stone fruit industries, and at this stage, despite all the rhetoric and despite all the announcements about funding for grants, there will be not one more worker coming into Australia to assist these people. I think the minister should stand condemned for her lack of action in assisting the industry that she purports to actually support.

Liberal Party performance

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (15:17): I rise today to grieve the insincere, politically expedient and very recent discovery of mental health as an issue by the Liberal Party—and just the Liberal Party. I am proud to be part of a government that has recognised that the mental health system is broken and that has resolved to do something about it through the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. My lived experience and the lived experience of many of my constituents and ultimately that of one in five Victorians at some point in their lives speak to some very large gaps in the system, in particular the chasm between primary intervention and acute care. For people seeking help early with mental ill health, the journey is often easier at that point. But for those who become more unwell, the earlier lighter touch interventions are not enough. Without a more substantial response they risk deterioration until they ultimately require acute care.

The good news is that this government from the outset has been getting on with the job of addressing these challenges. Indeed the mental health and wellbeing of Victorians has always been the priority of the Andrews Labor government. Whilst the previous Liberal government spent a dismal $609 million over four years when they were in government, we have already provided more than $1.8 billion for mental health—$1.8 billion. And we have been steadily investing in Victoria’s mental health system to make sure that those who do need support will get support. We have made some huge investments in a bunch of services that the Liberals neglected for years, such as the $57 million to respond to vulnerable children and families with trauma support and another $59 million for Orygen youth mental health. In 2017–18 we funded $41 million for forensic mental health reform, another $40 million to expand forensic mental health beds and another $24 million for the Victorian Fixated Threat Assessment Centre to help address the root causes of crime and to keep Victorians safe.

In 2018–19 we provided $344 million to reform clinical mental health services and another $48 million to do the same for facility upgrades, because we know that there is much more that can be done. This year we have invested $6 million in better mental health care for our emergency workers and another $24 million for mental health support in drought- and bushfire-affected communities. And this is all on top of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, which will result in one of the biggest mental health reforms in the history of our nation. These reforms will change lives; these reforms will save lives. The Andrews Labor government have already committed to implementing every single recommendation of the royal commission when its final report is handed down next year, and we have provided nearly $20 million to extend that royal commission because of the disruption of this year and in order to ensure that everyone who wants to contribute can contribute. The royal commission will report on 5 February 2021.

The urgency of this task was made clear by the commission when they resolved to hand down an interim report. Unbelievably that was nearly a year ago. But they did so in order that this vital work could begin and they did so in advance of a final report. So it was not a draft report; it was an interim report, and it was a signal that we needed to just crack on and get going on some of the glaring deficiencies in the system in order that we can make real and substantive and genuine and necessary change to that system. In all the interim report made nine recommendations. They include:

The creation of a Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing to bring together different skills and expertise to drive better mental health outcomes for all Victorians.

An additional 170 youth and adult acute mental health beds to help address critical pressures in areas of need.

Expansion of the Hospital Outreach Post-suicidal Engagement (HOPE) program into all area mental health services … as well as a new assertive outreach and follow up care service … to increase the availability of support and outreach—

for children and young people—

at risk of suicide.

The creation of an Aboriginal Social and Emotional Wellbeing Centre and expansion of Aboriginal social and emotional wellbeing teams across the state.

Establishing Victoria’s first residential mental health service—

a model that is often seen in the private sector—

as an alternative to an acute admission, designed and delivered by people with lived experience of mental illness.

That lived experience of mental ill health is such a critical element. The recommendations also include:

Expanding and supporting consumer and family-carer lived experience workforces …

obviously to support those services.

Addressing workforce shortages and preparing for reform including … more training and recruitment pathways to boost the number of graduate nurses and allied health professionals in public mental health services.

Work is underway to increase the number of graduate positions and postgraduate nurse scholarships on a yearly basis.

In a very welcome departure from some other royal commissions, the commission turned its mind not just to what needed to be done but also how it would be achieved. Specifically it recommended:

… that the Victorian Government designs and implements a new approach to mental health investment comprising:

• a new revenue mechanism (a levy or tax) for the provision of operational funding for mental health services

• a dedicated capital investment fund for the mental health system.

Now, unlike the Liberals, for whom I grieve today, the Andrews government welcomed every single one of the recommendations contained in the interim report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System—every single one—including importantly recognising the fiscal reality that an expansion and rebuilding of the mental health system will not be cheap and that it will require new revenue in order to be delivered. I note that in response to the interim report The Nationals, in a media release dated 28 November 2019, said the following:

It’s vital the Andrews Government starts work straightaway to fix a system which is letting people down when they are at their most vulnerable.

The Royal Commission is a vital foundation in developing a comprehensive plan to fix the crisis in Victoria’s mental health system, but vulnerable Victorians can’t afford to wait years for the Andrews Labor Government to implement—

all—

the recommendations made today.

I add the word ‘all’ because we are saying here ‘implement the recommendations made today’. There is no carve out; implement those nine recommendations. I have got good news for The Nationals. We did start the work implementing those recommendations straightaway, not because The Nationals called for it of course but because we understand the importance of those recommendations—all of them. Because unlike their coalition colleagues, this government agrees with The Nationals that vulnerable Victorians cannot afford to wait for years. Those recommendations included of course the need for a new revenue line, a recommendation that The Nationals sensibly say we should act quickly on. By contrast, the Shadow Treasurer said in response to the interim report:

People with mental health issues need support and care, (but) we don’t think the first thing to go to though is to tax every Victorian …

Well, apart from being a cynical misrepresentation of the commission’s recommendation, this is a fig leaf for what the Liberals really believe, a mere pretence of fiscal conservatism to disguise what many—not all, but many—Liberals really feel about people suffering mental ill health: that they are weak, that they are self-indulgent, that they are simply unable to manage their own affairs or that they deploy claims of mental ill health to disguise other problems.

There is no greater evidence for this than the current Leader of the Opposition’s attempt today to have a crack once again at medically supervised injecting rooms. It was just a cynical, politically motivated, cack-handed nod to the Liberal base and a rejection of the science—an all-too-familiar rejection of the science. Those opposite remain vehemently opposed to this important health and mental health measure—vehemently opposed. Addiction is first and foremost a health matter, but the absolutely disgusting material produced by the Liberals for the last election on that topic speaks to a greater truth. It speaks to an entitled, nasty and deeply patronising view perpetuated by many of those opposite that drug addiction is entirely the fault of the person suffering that addiction, and the demonisation—

Mr Newbury: What absolute rubbish!

Mr FOWLES: Well it is not absolute rubbish. It is not absolute—

Mr Newbury interjected.

Mr FOWLES: Well, I take up the interjection by the member for Brighton. It is not absolute rubbish, because the material produced by the Liberal Party at the last election absolutely sought to demonise those seeking treatment. The demonisation of the facility and the consequential demonisation of the people using medically supervised injecting rooms, people often seeking help with their addiction, is entirely consistent with the treatment I have received and others have received, both in this place and elsewhere, when speaking about their own mental health challenges. My hope is to use my experience to contribute to the important discussion around mental health.

Mr Newbury: And politicise it! That’s what you’re doing. You’re seeking to politicise it.

Mr FOWLES: Well, I note the interjection of the member for Brighton. He suggests that I am politicising these matters. I can assure him that bringing these matters into public view is very challenging, and I do so only to try and help destigmatise them. Destigmatisation is what is required, because the stigmatisation by some members of the member for Brighton’s party is there for all to see. My hope is to help people take that first step towards treatment.

We know that this year has been very challenging. We have had generalised anxiety right throughout the community. We have had new pressures—financial pressures, familial pressures. We have had learning from home and working from home, or perhaps living at work is a better description. We recognise on this side of the house that the mental health effects could well outlast the pandemic, and we say so not just to score a few political points but because we understand the importance of this as an issue, and we have always understood it and we have always resourced it.

That is why the Andrews Labor government has invested $220 million to help meet demand for mental health support, including nearly $60 million for clinical mental health services to meet immediate surge demands resulting from the pandemic and further progress the interim recommendations of the royal commission. There is $28.5 million to support vulnerable students’ mental health and engagement with education by increasing workforce capacity, expanding existing services and introducing new support to respond to the increase in students’ mental health issues and disengagement from education, which of course has all been compounded by this pandemic.

We spent $26 million to help address the mental health needs of sole traders and small and medium business owners and their workers. This funding was provided to help Victorian businesses doing it tough, to provide help for them in dealing with the stress and emotional impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. We have invested nearly $2 million for additional mental health support for communities under extended restrictions in the early stages of the second wave of the pandemic and $20 million, as I mentioned, to deliver the essential reform recommendations and help flatten that second curve of mental ill health, including money for critical workforce shortages and to support the continued rollout of suicide prevention programs and to help in the continued engagement of Victorians with a lived experience of mental illness.

For suicide prevention, that extra resourcing has resulted in a suicide rate that has not changed from previous years, and as much as every single suicide of course is an unspeakable tragedy, we are just so pleased that the investment in this space has helped what many were anticipating would be a really difficult change in circumstances in suicides.

We have spent $21.3 million to ensure ongoing COVID-safe operation of NGO mental health and alcohol and other drug sectors, very important service providers in that space, including Aboriginal-controlled community organisations providing those services. We have provided a huge package—nearly $60 million—to support the mental health, wellbeing and social connectedness of Victorians in response to the totality of the pandemic, and it was designed to assist people living with a mental illness already, their carers and their families, as well as people experiencing mental ill health for the first time. We are also working closely with the commonwealth government on the 15 newly established Head to Health mental health clinics designed to support Victorians during the coronavirus pandemic. These measures will ensure Victorians get the care they need well beyond this pandemic. It is important care, it is important work, and it is an important time in the history of mental health services in our state and in our nation.

This is generational change that this government is embarking upon, and in my submission it should be a bipartisan manner and it should be a science-led matter. I grieve today that it is not, because the relentless, cheap political pointscoring be it around suddenly discovering mental health as an issue during the COVID crisis; be it around demonising users of medically supervised injecting rooms; be it around demonising any process in support of medically supervised injecting rooms just belies the outrageous and shallow cynicism being deployed by members of the Liberal Party in furtherance of their naked political objectives. I grieve for them, and I grieve for Victoria for having to put up with it.

COVID-19

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (15:32): I am a proud Victorian. I love Victoria, but this Premier has shafted Victoria and shafted Victorians. This great state has been let down by this Premier. We have been locked down and let down by a Premier that does not care. Melbourne used to be the most livable city, but under this Premier it is the most ‘leavable’ city. People have been leaving. People have been absolutely left high and dry by a Premier that does not care—the most arrogant Premier that we have ever seen, somebody that picks and chooses when he uses the chief health officer’s advice, when it suits his narrative.

I grieve for all Victorians today. I grieve for all Victorians that should never have been locked up in the first place under the second wave. Now Victorians have been let out on parole for a crime they never committed. We now have a government that is patting themselves on the back and saying, ‘Look at the wonderful job that we have done. Look what we have done to wrestle down the numbers and to ensure that we got down to zero cases’.

Now, I am very, very happy that we are at zero cases. I am ecstatic that we are at zero cases. I am ecstatic—like all Victorians—that the 25-kilometre zone has been lifted. I am ecstatic now that we can go into a cafe. But we must remind all Victorians we should never have been locked up in the first place. We should never have got into this mess, but we got here because of an incompetent government that allowed a second wave to happen that should never have happened in the first place and that had contact tracing that was an absolute joke. And then when other states used the likes of police and the ADF to manage the hotel quarantine process, the Premier decided to use an alternative, the private security firms that ultimately led us into the disaster that we are in.

We must remind and we will remind and I will remind Victorians each and every day of the 800 lives that have been lost under this Premier—800 lives lost—800 lives of members and their families that will not be there at Christmas time to share with their loved ones, thanks to an incompetent government. That is what it is—an incompetent government.

Now, this is a tale of two cities—a tale of two cities of the likes of those in New South Wales and Victoria. This government like to compare themselves across the water to the United States and say, ‘Look at the United States and look at Victoria and how well we’ve done’. Let us not look across the water—let us look across the border. Let us look across the border at the other states and how well they have done. How well has New South Wales done?

Mr Fowles interjected.

Mr SOUTHWICK: What are they doing, member for Burwood? He talks about mental health today; you should talk about, member for Burwood, each and every one of your constituents that has suffered because of your lockdown of 111 days. You should be disgraced. It is a disgrace in terms of how you have let down your constituents. Each and every one of you has let down your constituents—111 days locked down. Homeschooling—the confidence ripped out of each and every one of those students, each and every one of those young kids. Year 12 students are doing VCE at the moment—they will never get that back in terms of lockdown. Year 6 students—they will never get that back in terms of their graduation. Many of the young people—I talk to them. They were confident at the beginning of this year and are not confident now. Member for Burwood, you talk about mental health; I can tell you I know about mental health. I know it very, very well. It is not a joking matter—‘The Liberal Party just discovered mental health!’. Well, you guys have caused a massive, massive, massive burden on Victorians because you locked them down and you let them down. You are an absolute disgrace.

I grieve for Victorians today. I do grieve for Victorians, and that tale of two cities is such that on Remembrance Day, for those people who stood up and fought for our country, we cannot go out there and commemorate Remembrance Day like we should. No, we cannot.

Members interjecting.

Mr SOUTHWICK: Well, there was no-one in the government that was out the front today. You were all hiding in your offices. I was very proud to be out there today on the steps of Parliament, member for Burwood, but we cannot do it in our constituencies. Why can’t we? Because, again, the government have let down Victorians. And in the tale of two cities with New South Wales there were 100 people at a Remembrance Day service in New South Wales but 10 in Victoria. So there you go. That is the tale of two cities on Remembrance Day. You are a disgrace. It is a disgrace on Remembrance Day that you cannot have the most holy day—

Mr Fowles: On a point of order, Speaker, I would ask that you remind the member for Caulfield of his obligation to refer to members of this place by their proper titles and to direct his comments through the Chair.

The SPEAKER: I do ask the member for Caulfield to direct his comments through the Chair. I should also ask members on the government side not to interject while the member is making his contribution.

Mr SOUTHWICK: I take the point, Speaker, that no-one interjected about the disgraceful commentary by the member for Burwood talking about mental health when they have caused the amount of issues that they have under this government. I remind him of that, and we will remind him each and every day until 2022—if he gets there and is a candidate going forward. That would be questionable.

But let me tell the tale of two cities. In Victoria, where we pat ourselves on the back, where the Premier pats himself on the back, look at a situation: there were 800 lives lost in Victoria; in New South Wales there were 83. There were 20 000 active cases of people who tested positive to coronavirus in Victoria; there were 4000 in New South Wales. Now, the current restrictions are as follows. You have got Victorians walking around wearing masks outdoors and indoors and even around the park. When there is no-one in sight you are wearing a mask—when there is no-one at all. Do you see a mask anywhere else in any other state, anywhere at all? I do not think so. For outdoor gatherings we have got up to 10 people in Victoria. Households can receive two different visits from an adult in Victoria—two people. You have got to pick and choose. In my electorate during the Sabbath on a Friday night you pick and choose whether you are going to have your mother or your father or your aunty or your sister or your brother. Who is going to come and visit? You pick and choose. In New South Wales it is up to 20 people. There are no limits on interstate travel in other states; here no-one will let you get out of Victoria and you cannot cross a border.

And it goes on. It goes on in terms of the difference. Up to 10 people at a wedding outdoors—you have got 150 in New South Wales. A tale of two cities. We are doing really well, aren’t we? A hundred and fifty at a wedding. Anyone wanting to celebrate a wedding at the moment, the wedding and events industry is completely shot in terms of them trying to recover. In New South Wales they are back to business with 150 people. Here: imagine having a wedding with 10. Pick and choose who is going to be at your wedding. Twenty people in terms of a funeral. Pick and choose in terms of a funeral. Inconsistencies: 20 people at a funeral but you could not have 20 people out for Remembrance Day. How does all that work?

It goes on and on. In terms of 40 000 people, let us talk of a tale of two cities. State of Origin: 40 000 people at a State of Origin game. How many can we have? Carols by Candlelight is cancelled this year on the 24th. On the 26th this government wants 25 000 at the Boxing Day test—25 000 for Boxing Day but Carols by Candlelight is gone. There have been so many inconsistencies in what this government has done.

Before I go on to police, let me finish by saying faith-based communities I know in my electorate can only have 10 people in a group indoors, with a total of 20. In a cafe you can have 40 and up to 50 people outdoors and 70 people in a pub outdoors. So again this government values pubs and clubs versus the faith-based communities. All of my faith organisations—Christian, Jewish and other faiths—are all struggling at the moment because this government picks and chooses who they back. Ultimately they should both be supported. The numbers should be consistent. We should not have to pick and choose.

In my last 5 minutes I would like to grieve for members of Victoria Police, who have been thrown into the front line by this government to act as the Premier’s own private army when it comes to enforcing these lockdowns. That is what they have done. What they have done is they have set back the reputation of Victoria Police, the great men of Victoria Police, by 10 years.

Back in May 2019 the Herald Sun and Neil Mitchell launched a Respect the Badge campaign, because members of Victoria Police were treated horribly. In my electorate, in St Kilda we had a Victoria Police member’s head pounded into the ground. We all said, ‘Enough is enough’ and we worked together to restore that reputation. With Wayne Gatt and the Police Association Victoria we had the now former Chief Commissioner of Police, Graham Ashton, come out. He said very clearly that we need to change the perception.

Now what do we have? We have a situation where community confidence in Victoria Police is at a decade low and well back from 2014 under the Liberal-Nationals simply because Victoria Police have been asked to enforce the lockdown at all costs. On the Victoria Police badge it says ‘Uphold the right’—uphold the right of every Victorian. Now, I have spoken to members on the front line of Victoria Police.

Mr Richardson: How many?

Mr SOUTHWICK: Many, many, many, member for Mordialloc. They have told me that they have had to pick and choose, instead of actually chasing the bad guys, to enforce the Premier’s lockdown. They have told me that during a Black Lives Matter protest they stood back to let the protest go ahead. In the current protests—and I do not condone any protests at all, certainly not in a pandemic—it is to corral, enforce and lock down. I have been told that members of Victoria Police get in a car and when they hear something come over the radio of an actual incident that they should be investigating, if they are going to a COVID response because a neighbour has said, ‘Betty’s got an extra person over’, they ignore the radio and have to go and deal with their COVID response team. That is what those members have been told. They have said to me they pull on that uniform every day and that is not what they signed up for.

Mr Richardson interjected.

Mr SOUTHWICK: That is not what they signed up for, member for Mordialloc, you know that. That is not what they signed up for, and these members of Victoria Police have now had to deal with those people. And you look at the commentary, member for Mordialloc. You look at the commentary from people that have been attacking the good men and women of the front line because they are not catching the bad guys, they are going out there enforcing Andrews’ past 111 days of lockdown and of inconsistencies, where Victorian police members do not even know the rules themselves because they change so much.

Have a look at the fines. Four per cent of fines have been paid—4 per cent. There have been record fines in the nation. We have fined the most in the nation. We are trying to balance the budget by fining people. That is what this government does: balance the budget by slapping more fines on people. But guess what? No-one is going to pay them. They are not going to pay them. Why would you pay them? Because today you can go fishing and tomorrow you cannot. Today you can take a daughter on a driving test, a learner; tomorrow you get fined. There is so much inconsistency in this government, not backed by science or health. Only when they want to claim it do they say it.

And do you know what? There is a real reason why this government had selective amnesia about hotel quarantine. There is a real reason why not one of the ministers stood up. Firstly, they would have been captured by their own industrial manslaughter laws for killing people. That is why. That is the first reason. Secondly, we know very well why the Premier did not want the ADF or Victoria Police out there in the first place. Why? Because it would have shown that he had lost control of his own state. He did not want boots on the ground. Instead it was, ‘We will give a $30 million tender to Unified Security without any due diligence at all to cause a second wave and kill people’. What a disgrace. And this lot, all of you, should be ashamed of yourselves. You get up and pat yourself on the back, ‘Look how good we are compared to Europe and everyone else’. You are all a disgrace, and we are going to hold you to account.

COVID-19

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (15:47): I would like to say that I am here to grieve the actual impact this pandemic has had on my local community, but I do have to start by saying I could stand here all day and grieve the lack of faith that the member for Caulfield has in the Victorian spirit and courage to tackle this virus head-on, drive it out of our community street by street, suburb by suburb, and get on with their lives. The lack of faith that you have in our community, well. I digress, but I do have to put that point on record.

Mr Southwick: On a point of order, Speaker, I do ask the member to be relevant in terms of what I said, because there was nothing about the community. It was about this government being accountable for the mess. So I would ask her to be factual when she is actually making a comment.

The SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order.

Ms CONNOLLY: Like I said, I digress. I actually rise today to grieve the impact that this pandemic has had on my local community across the Tarneit electorate, and as we successfully begin to emerge from lockdown and into a COVID normal it is absolutely imperative that we take stock of the challenges that this virus has presented for our communities. In my community of Wyndham there is a story of loss. Over the last couple of months we have heard of the immense struggles of our constituents and loss and sacrifice, but there was also one of hope and those opposite fail to ever, ever mention one story of hope.

At the peak of this pandemic Wyndham had the highest number of coronavirus cases here in Victoria with 942 infections across the community. This also made us the largest hotspot in Australia—not something we were particularly proud of. But thanks to the efforts of our government and our determination and our community’s determination to beat the second wave, things have turned around and the strategy has worked. We know it has worked because what the member for Caulfield might not know is that last week Wyndham hit zero. We hit zero active case numbers there in the outer west. We had gone from having the highest number of cases to zero.

That has taken months. It has taken months of hard, hard work. This would not have been possible without the efforts of everyone in my community—every single person who, as I have again and again said in this place, has been on the front line of this pandemic. They have been trying very hard to do the right thing, by staying at home when they needed to—staying at home even when they did not want to—by wearing a mask when they left the house and by socially distancing in public. It has not been perfect. We all know in this house that not everyone is following the rules, and I think we saw that earlier this morning with the member for Warrandyte. But we have worked—we have worked hard. We have worked from home and we have been teaching our children from home, and for a lot of people that has not been easy. This has been a very, very challenging time—a challenging time for our families, for our children, for businesses and, yes, for the people living in aged-care facilities. For some people this has meant not seeing their loved ones or not being able to see friends or family.

Over the last couple of months I have spoken, like so many people in this place, to hundreds of constituents if not thousands. I have read every single email and spoken to people who have shared with me their experiences under this pandemic and the challenges that they have faced again and again and again on a daily basis. What we have created through this pain, however, is truly remarkable. With only four active cases remaining in Victoria we now embark on a road, a new road, to our new COVID normal. As we reach this new COVID normal it is now time for us to look forward to the recovery of our wonderful state. It is time to start rebuilding. That is what makes me feel very hopeful, because our government continues to deliver its vision to transform our state.

In the outer west this vision to transform our patch means everything, because this pandemic has not changed the need in our community for significant investment, and that is investment that we saw in spades before this virus hit Victoria. Even during this pandemic this Labor government has continued to deliver for Tarneit and for Melbourne’s west. When it comes to schools and education our government has not stopped. Despite the pandemic we have continued along with building our newest school in Truganina, which was recently given the wonderful name of Garrang Wilam Primary School and which will finish well in time for 2021. This is a huge celebration for my community, because when finished this school will feature state-of-the-art learning facilities and outdoor sporting amenities. In the last couple of months I have been able to see how the school has come along. I have to say I am very much looking forward to checking it out in the coming weeks—hopefully before Chrissie—and I cannot wait to be there to welcome the first round of students for this local primary school and cut a ribbon.

Now, this is the third school to be built in the Tarneit electorate in this term alone. With Davis Creek Primary School opening this year and Dohertys Creek P–9 opening last year, of the 100 schools promised by our government—the 100 schools that we are going to build—45 of those are being built in this term of government. Of those, seven have been built in Wyndham. It is not said often enough here in this chamber that no other municipality has received more schools than Wyndham. Let me say that again: no other local community here in Victoria has received more schools than Wyndham. In contrast, do you know how many schools those opposite planned to build if they were elected in 2018?

A member: A donut.

Ms CONNOLLY: No, it was four. It was four in the state, and I think it would be pretty right of me to say here that none would have been built in my electorate. Now, this is not surprising considering when they were in government they spent the same amount of money on schools in Tarneit in one term as what ours has spent in one year. When it comes to schools this is the difference. This is the difference I tell my community about every single day. This is the difference between Labor governments and a coalition government. Under a coalition government the west gets nothing. And we are not just building new schools in Tarneit, we are also upgrading and we are modernising existing schools. This is really important, because if you have not been to some of these older schools you would not know about some of the classrooms that the kids have to learn in.

Now, very close to my heart was an announcement we made in 2018 of $9.5 million to upgrade The Grange P–12 College in the heart of Hoppers Crossing, a working-class suburb with working-class families. Those kids deserved a better classroom facility to learn in. This is not the only major school funding we have received this year—this year while this pandemic has been happening—as Dohertys Creek P–9 College was fortunate to find out. I so proudly made the phone call to principal Ian Wren. They are going to receive $11.3 million as part of the building works package to begin stage 2 of the school’s construction master plan. For the community at Dohertys Creek—I can tell you they are really happy—this means they are going to be able to open their doors to students in years 7 to 9 at the beginning of 2022. This is a really big achievement for my local community. I have worked very closely with principal Ian Wren and the school community over the last two years to make this happen, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their hard work, for their passion and for their relentless advocacy in getting stage 2 up. It is incredible to know that our Labor government will deliver this kind of support for my local community.

We have also seen just in the last month support for our non-government schools from the Non-government Schools Capital Fund. This is the only capital funding support for non-government schools that our government is providing, and there are 50 projects and six new schools being supported by this fund, creating over 800 jobs. We need jobs at the moment. I think there is no-one in this state, including those opposite, who would deny that—800 jobs. My electorate, I am very pleased to announce, was allocated $9 million for two projects: $5 million for Good News Lutheran College in Tarneit, a great local school, and $4 million to build a new Catholic primary school in Tarneit North. People in this chamber might not know where Tarneit North is or the type of community it is, but let me tell you: houses are going up there so fast. These estates are being built before our very eyes. This local Catholic primary school will very much be a welcome new school to my community. There should not be any doubt that when it comes to schools and when it comes to education, as I tell my community every day, Labor will always have your back. And for those of us in Melbourne’s west, including young families with school-age children, this makes a world of difference.

Perhaps the biggest win for our community this year has to be the two new bus routes that have been delivered to Tarneit and Truganina. If you have heard me at all during this year’s sittings, you would know I am here in this chamber all the time talking about buses. My community loves their buses, and for thousands of commuters our buses make the difference between driving to work and crossing the West Gate Bridge or catching a train at one of our local stations. That is why it is so important that we deliver new routes and deliver new services to areas like Tarneit, so that our transport network is accessible to all growing communities. After what I would say was a very loud and vibrant community campaign, we were very lucky to receive not just one but two brand new bus routes set to commence operation next year. Route 152 will travel between Tarneit and Williams Landing stations through Truganina, bringing bus coverage to the estates and to the wonderful communities and families living in Allura, whose community has been so passionate and unrelenting in their advocacy for this route. I say to that community: we did it, and you deserve it. Then there is route 182, which will travel between Tarneit and Werribee stations, linking up all the new estates in Tarneit’s west along Leakes and Davis roads to the Wyndham bus network. This would not have been possible without the groundswell of support from the local community, and I am very, very grateful for their advocacy.

Of course the added benefit of buses in my local community is that they will free up parking space at Tarneit train station. I have spoken at length in this place about Tarneit station and the need for additional parking spaces, which is why it is so important to see our government plan the construction of an additional 500 parking spaces. This is a big train station, the second-busiest outside of Southern Cross on the V/Line, with already around 1000 existing car parks. Another 500 are going to make a huge difference for an additional 500 families in my electorate.

Now, building these spaces makes the station more accessible for people travelling to work in the morning. It gets people out of their cars and onto public transport, and when we have more buses and when we have more car parks the station becomes more accessible for Tarneit commuters. It will get them out of their cars and off that West Gate Bridge. I know this need is recognised by the Minister for Public Transport, which is why I am so looking forward to having him visit Tarneit next week. I cannot wait to show him Tarneit train station and take him to estates like Allura to have a look at the growth in this area and the incredible, incredible change these new bus routes will make.

I could go on for a very long time talking about the incredible benefits that we have had delivered to our local community and in the west in general. I do grieve the hardship and the sacrifice and the many, many challenges that my community has faced and is likely to continue to face as part of our COVID recovery. But what I have is absolute faith and absolute hope that because of our past commitment to people in Melbourne’s west, our past commitment to the families across Tarneit, Truganina, Hoppers Crossing, Williams Landing and Laverton North, our government’s commitment will ensure that we have their backs. We will not let them sink because of this virus.

This pandemic has not stopped us from building the things that matter in my community, and in a post-COVID world we will still very much need the services and the infrastructure—just a few of which I have been able to highlight today. As we get back to normal it is time—I say it is time in this place—that we get on as a government talking about our vision and what we are doing for Melbourne’s west and the ambitious infrastructure projects that only an Andrews Labor government can deliver.

Green New Deal

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) (16:02): I rise to join this grievance debate to grieve for all those Victorians who have become unemployed, who have lost work or who have had reduced hours who are now facing both financial and housing insecurity brought on by the COVID economic crisis. It is an understatement to say that 2020 has been a difficult year, but getting through this pandemic is only the first step. We now have a massive opportunity to recover, to rebuild and to build back better than ever before, and we know that the Victorian government, like governments right around the world, are going to be spending billions of dollars in budgets—in Victoria the upcoming state budget—to get us out of this recession.

The big question is: how is this money going to be spent? Are we going to use this money to solve the big issues—climate, environment, inequality, poverty—or is it going to be business as usual? That is why the Greens have put forward our plan for a Green New Deal for Victoria. It is our economic recovery plan for Victoria. At the heart of our Green New Deal for Victoria, it is about creating jobs, it is about protecting our environment and it is about looking after people most in need.

The movement for a Green New Deal is gaining momentum all around the world, including here in Victoria, and those bells that members will have heard ringing recently were actually our Green New Deal motion passing in the other place. The Green New Deal takes its name from the New Deal implemented in the United States by FDR to recover from the Great Depression, and today we are facing yet another global recession—just a decade after the last one, I might add—and it will have generational impacts. This is a generational responsibility that we have—to seize this moment, not to squander it.

What is in a Green New Deal for Victoria? Well, it means a renewables-led recovery, getting us to 100 per cent renewable energy over the next decade. We have just come off the back of the biggest climate disaster in our country’s history: last summer’s bushfires and the devastation that they caused. There were lives lost, people fleeing their homes in the middle of the night and smoke covering our city. The climate emergency is here. It is real. It is exactly what the science predicted, including when we would experience it. In case people were not aware, burning coal is causing climate change, and here in Victoria we are burning a lot of it. Half of our emissions come from coal—a million tonnes a week. That is more than the proposed Adani coal mine would produce. In a renewables-led recovery we need publicly funded big solar, big wind and big batteries. Certainly it was good to see the government announcement for the Big Battery recently.

A Green New Deal means putting energy efficiency for our homes back on the agenda. So many of our homes, particularly those that are being rented, are just not up to scratch. They are not well insulated—too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer. Funding home energy upgrades will make our houses, our homes, more livable. It will cut bills, cut emissions and create jobs for those in trades.

A Green New Deal for Victoria means a big build of public housing that will help end homelessness. Homelessness is the number one social justice issue facing this state. Thousands of Victorians are without a safe place to call home, sleeping rough in unsafe or unsecure accommodation. More than 100 000 people, including children, are on the public housing waiting list, and it is just unacceptable in a wealthy society like ours. The best way to solve homelessness is quite straightforward: build homes for people. That is why we are calling for a big build of public housing—100 000 over 10 years—to help end homelessness, cut the public housing waiting list and create jobs in housing and construction, which are much-needed as we face a downturn in the housing sector. We also need to rebuild and upgrade our existing public housing homes. Some of them are just not fit for purpose—run-down, poorly maintained. It is not good enough.

A Green New Deal for Victoria means employing more teachers, nurses, carers and social support workers in well-paid, secure jobs. Our Victoria Cares initiative would fund thousands of jobs in caring professions. This is a really, really important initiative for a few reasons. Number one, people are going to need a lot of help, particularly due to this pandemic, from mental health support and housing services, as more and more people are pushed to the margins of economic security. We are going to need to employ more people to care for people. We certainly welcome the government’s announcement today to employ more people in areas like child protection, Aboriginal-controlled organisations and mental health and certainly the funding to further subsidise kinder.

Another reason why this is so important is that investing in people, health care, education and social services is actually the most effective way of creating jobs, as the vast majority of funding would go to wages. There is a role for sustainable infrastructure, renewable energy, housing and public transport, but an economic recovery just cannot be photo ops for politicians in hard hats.

Women have been hardest hit by the fallout from COVID-19. They are experiencing here in Victoria higher rates of unemployment but also, let us face it, carrying more of the burden at home with unpaid work. So there does need to be a gender focus on the economic stimulus to make sure that there are jobs created in female-dominated industries. Those industries within the caring economy—childcare workers, community sector workers—are often poorly paid. It is insecure work, and for the very reason that historically it has been seen as women’s work it has not been valued. I think throughout this pandemic we now do have a new appreciation for the work they do—the frontline workers, nurses, childcare workers, disability workers.

A lot of us have been saying thank you to our essential workers. Well, I think the best way to say thank you is to create more well-paid jobs and to improve pay and conditions. That should be our way of saying thank you. Tipping money straight in now to community services, to social services, to health and to education should create jobs but also be a stepping stone for those further long-term reforms like universal kinder, like implementing the mental health royal commission reforms or like fully funding our public schools, which are some of the lowest funded in the country.

A Green New Deal for Victoria means supercharging the recycling industry. We have had some really big wins in our campaign for a recycling revolution: the ban on single-use plastic bags and the container deposit scheme announced. And when the waste crisis hit, when other countries stopped taking our contaminated recycling, we saw thousands of tonnes of recycling sent to landfill. This was because we did not have a big enough industry here in Victoria. So we have got to build up that industry, build the waste recovery factories, right here in Victoria. And we are going to need them, because once the ban on exporting materials comes in, if we do not build up the industry here, they will get dumped in landfill yet again. We need to make sure that there are products at the end of the day and make sure that we can recycle those products through the manufacturing industries—wastepaper, tyres, glass, plastic. We need to have a requirement that recycled materials are used in infrastructure projects, and we need to get rid of those even more problematic and just pointless single-use plastics, like when you go into the supermarket and you have wrapping on bananas and fruit and whatnot.

A Green New Deal for Victoria also means a nature-based recovery, restoring our environment—not just protecting our environment but restoring our environment. You know, our plants, our animals, our insects are experiencing an extinction crisis made all the worse because of this summer’s bushfires. So helping people restore the environment is a really good way of creating jobs, as is planting trees right across Victoria, including in our cities. So many people in my electorate have raised with me the need for more greenery and more street trees. It comes up time and time again as more development occurs. It would be such a huge improvement to make on our streets, making them much nicer places to live but also reducing the heat-island effect and providing a whole range of benefits for biodiversity and for nature.

A Green New Deal for Victoria also means reviving our local shopping strips. We love them; they are so much a great part of our communities: Chapel Street is just one in my electorate, Sydney Road in Brunswick, the CBD in Melbourne, and right across Victoria. They are the social and economic hearts of our communities. They make them great places to live, and they also employ so many people, particularly young people, in hospitality and retail—the service sectors. So we want to see the government set up a dedicated unit within the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions to work with local governments to really take some leadership in delivering and supporting our shopping strips by supporting new entrants to set up pop-up shops and seeing if they can have long-term leases and fill those empty shops, supporting artists to set up studios to help reinvigorate areas, investing in making sure our high streets are good public spaces and supporting more festivals and events to bring people back into our communities. We have welcomed the parklets that have been popping up around our communities and we acknowledge the government’s support in that, and I think that is a really good model going forward in the range of measures that can be used to support our shopping strips.

A Green New Deal for Victoria means an investment in sustainable transport. One of the big changes due to lockdown has been the lack of cars on our roads, and every time that I have been out in my electorate I have been seeing people using our streets as public spaces—kids playing, skateboarding, riding bikes. I think that is something we really want to keep, and to do that we are going to need separated bike lanes. Now is the time to do it. More and more people are choosing to ride; bike sales are going through the roof. If we do not do it, the big risk is we are going to face a congestion crisis after this. It is something governments are doing around the world in response to COVID, and I am glad to see finally that the government has now provided some funding to pop-up bike lanes here in Melbourne.

Similarly with public transport it is going to take some time for patronage to recover, and it will, but what we need to see now is an immediate increase in operational funding to make a more people-friendly public transport network—you know, employing more train drivers and maintenance staff to increase train and tram services, particularly during the off-peak hours and weekends, and employing more customer service staff that will help you, actually sell you a ticket and help you on your journey. That will help so many people who are infrequent public transport users or people who do not necessarily commute into the city every day. Perhaps their day might involve dropping the kids off at school, some paid work, some caring duties and doing the shopping.

That will make sure that we have a public transport network that actually serves everyone, not just people heading into the city and back. But we still do need to invest in big infrastructure for public transport, in making sure that we have got a world-class metro rail system for Melbourne, in making sure that we have got a modern tram network. There is no future in Melbourne that does not need a metro rail system on par with something that you would see in London or Paris. Of course not only do you get the benefits of jobs but you get the reduced congestion, the reduced air pollution and the cuts in carbon emissions. So to conclude, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. To build back better, to create jobs, to look after people, to look after our planet Victoria needs a Green New Deal.

Education system

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (16:15): You caught me off guard there, member for Prahran. I am up and about, there we are. I will wake everyone back up after that. A bit in the slow lane, but I rise today to grieve for if the coalition or the Greens political party ever had a chance to get anywhere near our education system again. I am going to take people through the contrast between the major political parties and the Andrews Labor government on investment in education, because it is a fundamental right and something that is enshrined in everything that we believe on this side of the house—that every child, every student, regardless of their circumstance and regardless of their postcode, their upbringing, their heritage, deserves the very best education. It is indeed a fundamental right.

I wanted to place on the record our great appreciation and respect for our incredible educators across all sectors: our amazing teachers, who have been doing an incredible job this year, and our education support staff, who do an incredible amount of work for our kids—the one in five with additional needs in our school system have been doing it tough—and they have been doing the best they possibly can during the COVID period. They are extraordinary people. To the principals who have been keeping their community together to get through this year, it has been extraordinary effort. And thanks to the parents and guardians, carers and grandparents who have done so much in supporting their students in remote and flexible learning. Unlike those opposite, despite the challenges this year we have seen the best of Victorians and the best of our education system. Those values have come together in the support and care that comes with only a Victorian response to a crisis and a pandemic.

If you were listening, though, to another prominent Victorian, you would be forgiven for thinking that they were not supportive of the efforts of teachers, and that is none other than the Victorian member for Kooyong and our federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who recently said children have lost six months of schooling. How insulting. How insulting to the teachers who have been up until midnight each and every night and to the education support staff who have been differentiating the education for the students who need that care and support most. It is out of touch. It goes to the heart of perceptions that the coalition has, from the federal Treasurer all the way down to the newest member of the coalition that has come into this place.

Those opposite will say, ‘Well, you’ve been in government two decades, we had it for four years’—but goodness me did you stuff up the place when you had it for four. What you did to the regions, what you did to the education department and system by gutting those regions, by taking away so much funding—just the brain drain that happened in the education system when you gutted the funding through the cuts that occurred—was extraordinary. Do not worry, though, the Minister for Education and Premier came back and fixed it.

But on the juncture of the 2018 campaign we then had a contrast. We had the education minister, the member for Monbulk, putting forward the real building blocks of our future education system, the Education State targets, that underpin the foundations of the future assessments, the future needs of our students across 10 critical areas, from numeracy and literacy to happy, healthy and resilient kids, inclusivity and diversity—all those elements. What did we have from those opposite coming into 2018? We had a policy that said they were going to abolish Safe Schools, we had a policy setting that said they were going to restore Australian values—whatever that meant—and then we also had an anti-bullying policy. Only on the coalition side could you have a policy that says, ‘Get rid of Safe Schools, all the elements about protecting people and stopping bullying in our schools’, and at the same time commit to a policy on anti-bullying, the absolute vexed opposite. But that was not all, because I remember sitting up on this side of the chamber and I remember some of the questions coming from the member for Kew at the time. Remember when he asked the question about the long-drops in our schools? Not only was he in the weeds, he was in the loo.

You know, the policy nous of those opposite was so deficient in education it was insulting. It was insulting because we run the education system here. It is not just, ‘Leave it to go. Leave it to the private sector to run’. We support our educators, we support our teachers and we support the education system. It was vacated. I remember the member for Forest Hill at the time, he was lobbing budget comments through various speeches that he made, and I remember a comment that he made in this place about, ‘Well, it’s not all about infrastructure investment. It’s not all about putting funding in’, and those comments were made by other members on that side as well about investment in capital and infrastructure. Well, it does matter. You cannot have second-rate facilities for our students—you cannot. We have had record infrastructure investment that is bringing pride and confidence like no other to our education system. It matters. It matters to fund those investments.

Now, we had a non-government schools capital fund program—we started that. It was the first major investment in our Catholic and non-government school sector. It was a great program that my community benefited from as well. Both parties had similar commitments going into the 2018 election. But what was gapingly absent in theirs was capital infrastructure investment in our government schools. It was not there. If you looked through the ‘Get back in control’ website—you had to put the ‘au’ on, otherwise you went to an incontinence site—you had incompetence from the Liberals, and if you got their website wrong, you had incontinence. I mean, that is how bad their policy setting was in 2018—an absolutely vacant policy setting. They had no infrastructure investment agenda leading into the 2018 election.

I am really concerned if they ever get back into government about the impact they would have on education. Because I thought, ‘With a once-in-a-generation pandemic, what would be the change in some of their policy settings?’. I went through their Back in Business document, and I reckon they were struggling to get a number of coalition members to sit next to the current Leader of the Opposition. They were struggling to find people to sit next to him. They had two: the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, the member for Eildon, obviously was obligated, but they also rushed in the Leader of The Nationals. That is how vacant it was. Not only does the current Leader of the Opposition enjoy 15 per cent support out in the public, out in the real world, but he must only have 15 per cent in the coalition, because they have only got, what, a handful, 20 on that side, so if you do 15 per cent he was getting less in that policy document than before. It is an extraordinary outcome.

Mr Angus: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, on relevance, the member is going all over the place and is not talking about a grievance. He is just giving random thoughts and criticisms of the opposition. Can you draw him back to the matter that he raised as his grievance matter and away from a whole lot of attacks on the opposition?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The grievance matter is very far ranging and there are lots of comments made around a whole range of different things.

Mr RICHARDSON: Well, the member for Forest Hill clearly did not get a call up for the policy document. But there it is. That may be one element of the 15 per cent. We might have just had a call there. If you are listening, Leader of the Opposition, the member for Forest Hill has got your back. It is all right. It is okay.

But we were just going through some of the policies that this government has set that were not matched by those opposite. Three-year-old universal kinder—that is a landmark policy. Now they have gotten on board. The now Leader of the Opposition is saying, ‘Oh, well, we should do it faster’. After having a policy that absolutely vacated this space in 2018, now they are saying, ‘Oh, now we’re sort of half supporting it, and you should do it faster’. Well, this is a landmark policy like no other. We are leading the way because those first thousand days are so critical in the development of young minds. As the Department of Education and Training has said to me in briefings, you can see the benefit that is derived later on in life from kids who have early childhood education from ages three and four. It is so very fundamental to their learning and development.

I mentioned the $400 million that has been given to our Catholic and independent schools and the billions of dollars of investment in our schools across Victoria that is really transforming our learning environments and our spaces for the future as well. It is exciting to see that transformation. I had the absolute privilege and honour during last year and earlier this year to travel around some parts of our state and see that investment and see the pride and confidence that comes from getting a first-class education in Victoria. It is a fundamental right of all Victorian kids, and to see the pride that those kids have and how it is transforming their education is so very exciting.

You hope as well over time that those opposite might understand that benefit. Rather than talking down our teachers, they might learn something. The federal Treasurer is saying that our students have missed six months. He is clearly not talking to any teachers in his electorate about the effort and the work that has been put in. It is a significant amount of work as well. The current Leader of the Opposition is now doing a bit of, ‘Oh, I’ll support that policy too’, and there are, I think, four dot points on education in their back-to-business policy document. It fails—

Mr Angus: Have you read it?

Mr RICHARDSON: Well, I have read it, member for Forest Hill. It takes about 13 seconds, and by the time you get through all the flashy pictures of the standard stock images there is not much content to it. But on this side there is substantial investment in support for our teachers, mental health and wellbeing support for our students, a $250 million investment in 4100 tutors. And I tell you, the pride in Victoria—if you want to teach in Victoria now, in early childhood education, in teaching, we want you to get on board. If you want to shape the future generations in our state, the people that will lead our communities into the future, in education, we want you to get on board, because we are having an absolute drive for more teachers, more tutors and more early childhood educators like never before. It is an exciting time.

But I worry if we go back. At the moment I am looking through this. There has been a bit of coaching from the media. I have seen a couple of reports on the current Leader of the Opposition. I had a bit of an occasion to go back and think about his policy setting and what that would mean for Victoria. What about the former Leader of the Opposition, the member for Bulleen, or maybe the member for Kew? You know, he is the young gun. He has obviously gone back to pre-Victorian colony days—he is hoping for an end to the leadership—when Victoria was not a state; we were just New South Wales at one stage. He is hoping to take over Sydney and then gradually creep across the Murray and into Victoria, and that will be the leadership challenge. It is a slow burn, but you have got to give it to him. He is starting from 2GB in Sydney and he is gradually coming down the Hume, just gradually coming down the Hume. He will be in Swan Hill soon. He will be on Swan Hill radio soon.

So you have got the member for Kew coming down the highway and then you have got the former Leader of the Opposition, the member for Bulleen. He went viral with that video. He was fired up. I think the member for Ringwood had played him into form a bit. It got hundreds of thousands of views. It got his ticker up again.

The Leader of the Opposition’s reach on Facebook the last time I checked, for the last two years, was I think 1 million. The current Leader of the Opposition—about 2 million views in that frame at the moment. I remember in the Herald Sun at the time Matt Johnston wrote a piece titled, ‘Invisible man must become action man’. It was a call to arms in 2019. It was a call to arms and the quote was:

I hate the lazy question “what does he stand for?” but some kind of clear vision must be articulated.

That was a rallying call to the invisible man. You go then to a year later, you know, and the report card comes through and we have another article that says Liberal insiders say the member for Kew would not have the numbers to contest but the member for Bulleen is getting a bit of steam. He is getting a bit of momentum. If he is interested, if he is willing to put in a CV, he will be the lone applicant and he will go straight through to the keeper; he will be in. At the same time the Australian Financial Review assessed that the current Leader of the Opposition cannot inspire anyone and has no impact. He is the ultimate faceless man. The camera is bored of him. That is what they are backgrounding on that side.

The alarm bells are going off. We have got about 700 days until the next election. We have got a couple of sitting weeks to go, and you look at that and you go, ‘They are more interested in fighting amongst themselves than setting up such a key pillar in policy development in our state, critical investment in our education system’. How could you put together four dot points for a COVID recovery? That is what tens of thousands of educators in our state are worth—four dot points on a policy document and this kind of drivel of leadership speculation. That is the most we get. We do not get any questions from the opposition on education in question time. We do not get any visits, no engagement on education policy. They ask about toilets. They ask about nothing of substance, about the future generational direction of our education system.

Then the ultimate this week was the YouGov poll. The coalition I think are averaging around the 30s and 40s in their primary vote. But amazingly, out of that, 25 per cent of those do not support the current Leader of the Opposition—15 per cent. If you cannot even win your base over, what hope have you got? What hope have you got of inspiring? Remember the faceless man, the lack of vision? Well, we saw that play out completely in the last six years of opposition education policy. They had absolutely nothing. They were opposing, undermining our investment, undermining key critical infrastructure that our teachers absolutely need to give the first-class education that our kids deserve, not even going anywhere near three-year-old kinder and then later on having a haphazard ‘Us too’.

When you are more fixated on squabbling over opposition leader positions and shadow frontbench positions than doing the hard yards of policy work and truly being an opposition, challenging and contesting the ideas in the education policy space, what hope and confidence do our kids have that they would be supported if a coalition government ever came back to the Treasury bench?

On this side, education means something. It means transformational outcomes for our kids. It means that generational change, that hope of a better future. And it is a fundamental human right in Victoria that every student, regardless of their circumstances and background, gets the very best education. It is not just words, because every time we have fronted up in the last six years of budgets we have made record investments in our kids, because they deserve the best and we will never leave them behind. I wish those opposite would join us in a bipartisan position on this.

COVID-19

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (16:31): I rise to grieve for the people of Victoria because Labor has crippled our great state. Throughout the pandemic their decision-making has lurched between paralysed and frenetic. It led to directions that were contradictory. It also led to hundreds of thousands of Victorians being damaged financially and mentally. But worst of all it led to tragic deaths. The net result of Labor’s vandalism is an economic basket case that this government will never fix, a swathe of people who have been emotionally and mentally scarred, and a government that has done untold damage to our institutions and undermined the community’s trust in it. Make no mistake: when the history books are written, they will record a Labor government crippling our state.

Despite restrictions being lifted and only four active coronavirus cases in the community, this government is still mismanaging the pandemic. The community is no closer to this government having a plan for the important future challenges facing our state. The community has a right to know what COVID normal is, how we will live with this virus without ripping away freedoms and crushing our economy, and what the plan of hope is to rebuild both economically and in our institutions. Labor has kicked out foundation bricks in our economic engine room and in the structures that bind us as a community. These are the key challenges facing the future of our state and they are challenges the Premier is yet to acknowledge, let alone solve.

Throughout the pandemic we have been promised COVID normal and had promises of life and freedoms that are close to normal, a life where mums and dads can open their businesses with certainty and we can live free lives. Instead Victorians have no certainty beyond frenetic decision-making by press conference. Even their own road map has been ditched. So what is the plan for our state? What is COVID normal?

There are just four active coronavirus cases in our state, yet millions of Victorians are forced to wear face masks even when they are alone. The blanket rule is wrong, especially when we know that health experts do not agree with the rule. They have confirmed that mandatory mask wearing is not beneficial. Peter Collignon, professor of infectious diseases at the Australian National University, has said ‘wearing masks outside is not going to make a difference’. And Catherine Bennett, Deakin University chair of epidemiology, has said mask wearing when out on your own is a confusing message. So why is the Premier forcing himself into people’s lives in this way? We know why. The Premier has admitted it. The Premier has admitted the mask-wearing rule is not in place for health reasons. The rule is in place because, as he said, ‘Simple rules are always best’. This decision is not about health; this is about government control. The Premier has transformed. The Premier is now more bureaucrat than community representative.

We are wearing masks because a blanket rule is an easier rule for the bureaucracy to implement, and casually the Premier says it is not an imposition. Well, he is wrong, and he just does not get it. He continues to show disregard for individual freedoms and a dangerous flair for authoritarianism, a trait no right-minded community representative should have. He keeps showing us he is an authoritarian. It has happened again and again and again. Regional Victorians will never forget his blanket lockdowns of the regions, lockdowns that were forced on communities unaffected by the pandemic. When asked why he was destroying regional communities who had no link to the virus, he flippantly said a blanket rule was easier to administer.

The bureaucrats struck again, and the private sector will never forgive the way the Premier shut them down. He picked the public sector and union industry over the private sector. He kept certain public sector workers in place but shut identical private sector industries. And how did the Premier explain his damaging bias? ‘Because the bureaucratic arm of government did not have the power to watch over the private sector.’ So he simply shut it down—how black-hearted.

The toll of that approach has set our economy back a decade, but no Victorian will forget the Premier’s decision to lock every one of us up. The curfew and restrictions on movement were barbaric. We know the curfew was not based on health advice, and we know that Victoria Police were not behind the decision. The Premier’s blunt and barbaric approach has scarred the community. The Premier chose not to save the minds of many Victorians. It will be a decision that will haunt him.

Victorians are not the only ones asking what COVID normal is. Private sector business owners are asking the same question. They want to know how they practically play their part in the new normal. What we have seen from the government over recent weeks is more chaos, with Business Victoria making 100 000 lazy robocalls to businesses. As the chief executive officer of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, Peter Strong, said:

The government is just going to say how good they are by making 100,000 calls but it’s just pressing a button.

…

100,000 nuisance calls have been made but as soon as you hear it’s a robocall you just hang up, it’s not very clever.

No, it is not very clever, but it never is with Labor’s approach to the private sector. We have seen the cost of this incompetence and the lack of cleverness. We saw the cost of Victoria’s contact-tracing system not being up to scratch. In fact it was a Third World-grade contact-tracing system. The lack of capacity was a significant cause of the virus spreading. It was a cause of the second wave. The government could not track the virus, so they certainly could not stop the virus. Labor’s failure on critical infrastructure should be a key finding in the hotel inquiry report—a report designed to be released in the Christmas week when no-one is listening, a report that will be nothing more than a whitewash costing well over $10 million.

Over recent weeks we have seen another alarming failure with critical infrastructure. This time Labor has dropped the ball on quick response codes. One of the great successes in New South Wales has been their ability to open the economy and put in place track-and-trace infrastructure. Obligations on businesses there include a requirement for digitised record keeping. Again, our government has not learned from its failures. Is the government rolling out existing technology proven interstate? No. Instead the Premier has announced:

We’ve moved to an entirely new IT platform.

And he boasted that our system would be:

… probably the best IT product anywhere in the country.

Sound familiar? We all remember the Premier bragging about Victoria’s contact-tracing system. What is it about the Premier’s need to be a hero and go it alone? Well, Premier, despite the bragging this government has not rolled out anything. Nothing. They are bragging about something that does not even exist. Talk is cheap. Despite the eased restrictions and businesses opening we still have no idea when the Premier’s revolutionary technology will be available. In October the Premier said we would have a QR code system soon. This week the Minister for Health said the system is still not ready and there might be a limited trial announced in coming weeks. Well, we know what that is government speak for: no wide-scale roll-out this year—another failure.

But clearly the government’s most significant failure for business has been with the economy. The state government has begun its budget sale job. When it comes to our economic standing we know, like everything else, Victoria has become the shocking stand-out in Australia. Labor are economic vandals. This Labor government have swung a wrecking ball through our economy because they just do not know how it works. The budget will be simple: big spending on the government’s taxpayer-funded credit card, big spends and bringing forward government infrastructure projects. Labor’s economic policy will always have the public sector at its centrepiece. Labor just does not get the private sector, the true engine of economic growth.

The cost of Labor to this state is unprecedented. Commonwealth Treasury data shows that in the September quarter lost economic output cost our state more than $100 million a day. Australian Bureau of Statistics retail trade figures released recently show that since the start of the pandemic in March Victoria’s retail trade has plummeted by almost 20 per cent. The Victorian trade collapse has pulled the entire country into negative territory. But these figures have a human impact. ABS data also shows that the average number of jobs lost daily in Victoria over August and September was 1200—1200 jobs per day, a figure which represents more than half of the total job losses in Australia since March. Treasury data also shows the effective unemployment rate in our state as 14 per cent when the national average is around 9 per cent. The damage to the private sector will be generational, and the associated psychological scars will not be forgotten—reckless vandalism.

But as a Parliament we should be deeply concerned about the way the government’s actions have damaged our institutions with structural undermining of our democratic processes and reputational damage to law enforcement caused by the Premier’s misuse of power. This government has abused its parliamentary majority. It bypassed cabinet and its own caucus, and it allowed this Parliament to become a lazy Parliament, a Parliament that rarely sits. The only lazier Parliament is in Queensland, which has a Premier who is behaving like she has declared the state a sovereign nation. We know why the Victorian government has scrapped Parliament: the Premier only wants Parliament to sit when he is seeking to extend his personal power—

Ms Thomas: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I would like you to note that the member for Brighton appears to be reading verbatim from his notes despite the fact, as he bragged yesterday in this house, that apparently he ran Parliament in Canberra. We know he is relatively new to this chamber, but as you know, Deputy Speaker, he should not be reading a verbatim speech as he appears to be doing.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is the member for Brighton reading from his notes?

Mr NEWBURY: No.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is the member for Brighton referring to his notes?

Mr NEWBURY: Yes—or when he wants to rubberstamp an increase on the government’s credit card. Every member in this place knows that the Premier tried to shut down electorate offices, which are the community-based, front-facing offices of this Parliament. The Premier was caught as being behind this shameful assault—another dangerous undermining of our democratic institutions by this authoritarian Premier.

There has been no greater crisis and institutional breakdown in trust than with Victoria Police. Make no mistake, the Premier’s repeated power grabs through changes to the legal framework have fractured the relationship between Victorians and law enforcement. Officers are the first to acknowledge privately that they have been asked to enforce laws that have directly undermined community trust and which were not helped by police command resorting to name-calling from their podium. We know that community trust is essential for the force to do its job best.

We know the community was aghast at the way the Premier casually knifed freedoms and liberties in the name of community health, just as casually as the Premier knifed his long-term friend the former Minister for Health. The powers the Premier enabled were designed to ensure that his critics could be arrested for critical social media posts, and they were arrested. The chasm of distrust has widened, and it is disturbing. As a community we have always been defined by our unwavering support for Victoria Police—an institution made up of men and women who put themselves in harm’s way for us. This breakdown has hurt so many officers.

Though the Premier has brought on institutional damage quickly, repair will not come with a snap of the fingers. Trust is hard to build up and easy to lose. Paul Kelly, one of Australia’s most pre-eminent journalists, has written:

… a corruption of the polity, where individuals are intimidated, checks and balances don’t function, the public service is politically aligned and institutions are compromised …

…

… Andrews presides over a crisis of the system.

‘A crisis of the system’ is an accurate assessment. It is understandable that the public is suspicious of their institutions, especially when their government’s maladministration led to hundreds of deaths. Their Premier repeatedly could not recall and refused to be accountable for decisions he made, and we have a politicised public service that covers up for Labor. Look at the new Minister for Health. He is the landlord to the crook John Woodman, who is the centrepiece of an anti-corruption probe. Labor has crippled the great state of Victoria. They have vandalised our state. They have caused untold damage.

Economic recovery

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (16:46): We have the chance to create a new deal for the challenges of our time. Creating opportunity from adversity, replacing anxiety and fear with hope, we are committing to the values of the Enlightenment, when facts were stubborn and cherished, not alternate, and returning to the primacy of evidence-based science, consensus politics and clarity after hyper-partisanship, hyper-factionalism and misinformation amplified through media echo chambers. We need to unite communities, not continually divide them through the chain reaction of race, rights and taxes. Australians are overwhelmingly practical, not ideological. We can make change a friend, not an enemy, by supporting evidence-based, solutions-driven, no-regrets investments. We can deliver a new era for Australia through enlightened federalism defined by rational decision-making instead of the relentless triumph of politics.

We confront a convergence of existential threats. A virus has spread into a pandemic, causing the world’s worst recession since the Great Depression. Fatal wildfires have again devastated Australia during a divisive period of counter-Enlightenment amid global warming. Catastrophic events change societies and politics. Now is the time not to grieve but to define remedies. We must leverage our competitive advantages nationally and internationally. Priority one for the President-elect of the United States of America is a task force to fight the coronavirus. Victoria should offer to partner in this quest, as we have with the Cancer Moonshot—it would further our relationship with the White House—after Joe Biden came to Melbourne in 2016 for our collaboration in the quest to cure cancer. Declaring his admiration for the billion-dollar jewel in Australia’s medical research crown, the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Joe Biden highlighted the international significance of the collaboration of 10 leading cancer organisations crucially locating patient care, clinical trials, research and education on one super-site in Melbourne. The Premier defined its significance:

One hundred Victorians are diagnosed every day with cancer, close to 1000 die every month. It’s everybody’s business.

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven how we are all connected. A compounding side effect is the impact on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Victoria’s experience confronting the coronavirus and cancer would be another valuable asset, extending our relationship with the United States. One of the humbling privileges of the role of Parliamentary Secretary for Medical Research is working with our internationally acclaimed researchers dedicated to changing lives and to saving lives. An important and fitting legacy from this pandemic would be an Australian version of a centre for disease control and prevention. Investing with the best maximises value. This is why I have advocated such a centre should be founded at the Doherty Institute, named after the Australian Nobel Prize winner. It should be located in the beating heart of Australia’s medical research precinct, which defines elegant science and collaboration.

The precinct features the University of Melbourne, the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and the designated world headquarters of one of Australia’s leading companies, CSL, which will manufacture vaccines for Australia in a place very close to my heart, Broadmeadows. The Burnet Institute should also be connected, along with the great southern hub, Monash University, right next door to the CSIRO—separated only by Innovation Walk, defining how the triple-helix collaboration between research, industry and government is crucial to translate rich ideas into life-saving remedies and economic value. Geelong is also critical as the only centre in the Southern Hemisphere that analyses how viruses from animals affect humans—the source of the coronavirus, SARS and MERS.

Queensland University, which has also been an international leader in the fight against COVID-19, has described this proposal as a fantastic idea in the national interest. It is really important to set aside parochialism, which has in the past meant that this sort of collaboration has not come to fruition. This is why I have advocated for the Australian government to join this unity ticket by also investing in an infectious diseases mission through the Medical Research Future Fund—rising to $20 billion. I think that that would be a decision for the federal Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, that would clearly be in the national interest and in the international interest and that would provide the security and safety for the future that all Australians crave.

Establishing a life preservation institute as a world-leading centre of excellence and collaboration would also help coordinate groundbreaking research nationally and internationally, focusing on future initiatives for bushfire mitigation, response and recovery, community resilience, drought, climate change and recommendations from royal commissions. This proposal has won international and local support and would underscore Victoria’s leadership in response to this existential threat.

Establishing Homes for Heroes is another priority in trying to look at how we get mechanisms for affordable housing. This could include Australia’s multitrillion-dollar industry superannuation funds investing in housing and community revitalisation. This is a proposal that I first proposed in 2016 in Creating Opportunity: Postcodes of Hope, and it is even more important now as a strategy post COVID-19 for economic development, equality and jobs. The plan is a practical response to the increasing sense of loss of the Australian dream and to address intergenerational inequality. The first-home-buyer dilemma of increasingly being priced out of the market is part of the integrated Comeback report that is a plan to deliver affordable housing and jobs in communities with established transport and social infrastructure, and that is really important in the state district of Broadmeadows, only 16 kilometres from the heart of Melbourne, which would be ideally suited for first responders, healthcare heroes, teachers and aspiring first-home buyers.

Establishing a housing fund mechanism would unlock the value of some of these outdated housing commission estates and provide a mix of new public-private-social housing. I think that is really important, and we have got proof of this concept through the current Minister for Housing when he held this role in a previous government, the Brumby government. There is a wonderful example of how this can turn around people’s lives and give them greater aspiration, and it is right in the state district of Broadmeadows. So I think we have got the proof of concept. Let us see what can happen. Social housing and investment in that has been flagged by the Treasurer and the Minister for Economic Development, so we await what the budget holds.

I really want to congratulate and thank the Premier and the cabinet, who have all worked through these incredibly daunting times to try and get to the future and the plan. The opposition have said, ‘Well, what’s the plan?’. Well, there is a vision, there is unity and there is hope that is being provided by this government. That is the plan. That is what is being done.

And one of the other issues that we need to address is that no-one is immune to the coronavirus, but it stalks inequality, so improving the social determinants of life is crucial. Confronting place-based inequality is vital. Established results show inequality leads to higher crime, health problems and mental illness combined with lower education and life expectancy. Mutual obligation demands a coordinated strategy between governments to turn adversity into opportunity, so I look forward to the Australian government partnering with the Victorian government and municipal councils on this as well. Redevelopment zones that provide incentives and trigger private sector investments are needed to increase jobs, growth and productivity. Fast-tracking opportunities for lifelong learning, local jobs for local people and building more infrastructure are critical.

The smarter on crime strategy—it is good to see the Minister for Crime Prevention, who delivered on these themes in her ministers statement today, at the table. I acknowledge that and want to congratulate her on that statement. This goes to the issue about the law and order debate. We must rise above the endless loop arguments over which political party is supposedly tougher on crime to a coordinated strategy that is smarter on crime. Such a shift requires focusing more on the causes and on place-based disadvantage, given that half of Victoria’s prisoners come from only 6 per cent of its postcodes.

How we coordinate the three tiers of government, business and civil society is vital and now even more critical for our recovery. We have secured the Australian government’s commitment to hard-won city deals for Melbourne’s south-east and north-west. Now is the crucial time to make no-regrets investments where need is greatest and opportunities are outstanding. Executive director of North Link, Chris James, supports the jobs-led recovery as a member of the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board 4.0 and through the Northern Horizons report and the North and West Melbourne City Deal with our colleagues in the western suburbs. He estimates four key projects in Melbourne’s north, featuring the Broadmeadows revitalisation, could generate up to 50 000 jobs. This is how you make investments of national significance and how you re-energise the economy. North Link is part of the regional association that is focusing through the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board 4.0 (BRB 4.0) on economic development and jobs, lifelong learning for skills, jobs and meaning, better health and longevity, and connecting the disconnected.

This is also a critical point where increasingly we have people coming into Broadmeadows, as my family did in the past. This is where you get a start in the land of opportunity, as my late father always said, and he was right. We have to make sure, though, that each new wave of migrants actually gets connected into the community, gets to be part of the community and does not feel isolated or marginalised. That is the way we can get better health, get better jobs and rebuild our society.

Broadmeadows is a prototype for economic and social recovery, creating jobs, attracting investments, facilitating community development and harnessing the benefits for local families. Globalisation and digitisation devastated Broadmeadows. Technology is powering change faster than politics or the law. The new BRB 4.0 model builds on internationally acclaimed leadership to harness technology, to empower people, to change place-based disadvantage, to fast-track recovery and to deliver jobs. What we are also trying to do is connect world’s best strategy to the local community.

Mental health is being defined as a shadow pandemic particularly affecting women and youth, so we are looking to see how we can connect that up and make sure that no-one is left behind. We are looking at how we build social capital and how we harness the assets that we have such as the multiversity, and how to get creative industries in there and empower women and families. Women and youth have been devastated more than anybody else during the pandemic. How do we have businesses for women? How do we have social enterprises? How do we make sure that no-one is left behind as we address this issue? This is the significance that we are looking for.

If you look at what happened in America, Joe Biden received the highest amount of votes ever for a president. Donald Trump received the second-highest amount of votes. So this is an issue we cannot ignore—how we actually connect people so they do not feel isolated, marginalised or ignored. They are critical in old blue-collar areas, so this is why we are trying to set this up as a prototype for the change so people do feel connected. They see where they fit into the big picture and they feel a part of that. This is an ongoing issue that we must address by the investments that we make, by the social capital that we put into place and by the human factor—making sure that people do not feel marginalised and isolated and that they can see the future and how it fits for their families. Give them lifelong learning for skills, jobs and meaning, provide better health and then make sure that we connect the disconnected. That is what I am looking for and hoping for, and I congratulate the cabinet and everyone on all the hard work for the forthcoming budget.

Question agreed to.

Bills

Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (17:01): When I was interrupted earlier I was talking about energy prices and why the opposition is concerned that this legislation is taking some power from the independent Essential Services Commission and giving it to the minister. As I said earlier, there is no evidence provided by the government through this legislation, through the second-reading speech or through the contributions of those opposite that suggests that the minister will do a better job in protecting consumers than the ESC has been doing. I was talking about electricity prices, and I am sure all members have been approached by their constituents about the increasing costs.

When I say that we have little faith in the current minister and the current government to actually deliver lower energy prices and affordable and reliable energy to Victorians, we can go back to the example of the Victorian default offer (VDO) policy, which was introduced—the member for Caulfield might remind me—probably two years ago. It was certainly in your time as the shadow minister, I think, member for Caulfield. But some time ago the Victorian default offer was introduced, and at the time the government was warned, not least by us but certainly by many in industry and many of the think tanks in the energy space, that this would not have the effect that it was seeking—to actually reduce prices.

What have we actually seen? We saw that the minister at the time of the introduction of the VDO said that on average it would save households $450 a year. What actually happened this year? Well, the Victorian default offer price on average has gone up by $110. So not only has it not come down and not only is it not saving Victorians money but it is actually costing them more. In response to that this year, back in August, the minister said, ‘Oh, the Victorian default offer has saved Victorians up to $350 on average’. That again is completely different to what she had said only a year or two earlier when she introduced it. As I said, the government had advice that the VDO would not work and was not going to be a good outcome for Victorian energy purchasers, and they proceeded anyway. It is another example of how this government cannot be trusted to deliver affordable energy for Victorians.

I want to talk just briefly on renewable energy subsidies. A number of those opposite spoke about renewable energy as part of the government’s suite of initiatives in energy policy and about how there had been great uptake of renewable energy subsidies. For example, one member before said what a wonderful success the reverse auction was for the government for its renewable energy subsidies. Likewise we had those who said that there had been a huge and unprecedented take-up in the solar subsidies for rooftop solar on houses. What a surprise that people will go and get something for free—that people can get a discount on rooftop solar, for example, and will take it up!

What a surprise that the industry, which is wanting to build wind farms or solar energy, will rush to the reverse auction to take advantage of a state government subsidy. I have said this many times in this place and I have asked the question of the minister at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee as well, because the minister regularly says renewable energy is much cheaper than baseload coal and gas. If that is the case, why does it need a subsidy? I have continued to ask the minister this and there is still no answer. If it is so much cheaper than traditional sources of energy, why does it need a state government subsidy? I do not deny that it is cheaper—indeed the wholesale price for some of those renewable sources has come down dramatically in recent years, in which case it does not need subsidies from a taxpayer other than for the base political purposes of the government to be seen to be out-greening the Greens and to be seen to be doing something when in fact the market could be taking part in this and saving taxpayers dollars.

The final thing I just want to mention briefly is that part of this legislation is to ensure that connections are done in a timely fashion for people wanting to get connected to electricity either in new homes or in existing homes. I am a little bit bemused by that because two or three years ago we had significant industrial action from the Electrical Trades Union. I had homebuilders in my electorate crying out for assistance because they could not get power—they could not get power to a site to even start building, let alone get the actual home connected once it was completed. When this was raised with the government, what did the government do? Did it rush in to ensure these connections were delivered on time? No, it stood back and let that happen with no intervention whatsoever. So I think we can be rightly somewhat cynical about this legislation.

The ESC has done its job for a number of years now. It was given that job by a Labor government minister in Candy Broad, and we are now being told by this government that decisions with respect to conditions for electricity retailers are better placed with the minister. I find that very, very difficult to comprehend, and I think Victorian consumers will also be somewhat bemused to be told by the government that has presided over the highest electricity prices we have ever seen that they will somehow be doing a better job than the independent arbiter.

Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support) (17:07): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.

Justice Legislation Amendment (Supporting Victims and Other Matters) Bill 2020

Council’s amendments

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Dimopoulos) (17:08): I have received a message from the Legislative Council agreeing to the Justice Legislation Amendment (Supporting Victims and Other Matters) Bill 2020 with amendments.

Ordered that amendments be taken into consideration immediately.

Message from Council relating to following amendments considered:

Clause 3, page 5, lines 16 to 26, omit all words and expressions on these lines and insert—

‘(b) for “whether or not a proceeding in respect of the alleged offence is pending in a court” substitute “whether or not a proceeding in respect of the alleged offence or offence has commenced, is being conducted or has been finally determined”.’.

2. Clause 4, line 3, after “4A” insert “and section 4B”.

3. Clause 4, line 24, omit ‘publication.”.’ and insert “publication.”.

4. Clause 4, after line 24 insert—

‘4B Repeal of certain provisions on 1 September 2021

On 1 September 2021—

(a) for section 4(1BF)(a) and (b) of the Judicial Proceedings Reports Act 1958 substitute—

“(a) that it has taken into account the views of any victims likely to be identified, if those views are known following reasonable enquiries; and

(b) that it is in the public interest to make the order.”; and

(b) in section 4(1BG)(b)(i) of the Judicial Proceedings Reports Act 1958 for “a living” substitute “an”.”.’.

5. Clause 51, page 47, after line 15 insert—

“(3A) The Secretary must publish an agreement or arrangement entered into under subsection (2) on the Department’s website.”.

Ms HENNESSY (Altona—Attorney-General) (17:09): I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

In speaking to that, I am conscious that my colleague on the other side of the house is here very enthusiastically for his contribution along with many others. I just want to accept and note that they are very, very passionate participants in this debate, so my contribution will not be a 29-minute one, because I am aware that there are a number of people who would like to make a contribution. But in speaking to the matter before the house I do want to acknowledge the amendments that were passed last night in the Council. I do want to acknowledge that there has been great passionate debate in the course of this. I specifically want to acknowledge the crossbench and the Greens, who I specifically had some direct engagement with in respect of their amendments.

I want to acknowledge that, despite all of the passion and the sometimes contest involved in the debate around some of these amendments, everyone’s motivation has been I think very much rooted in great respect and concern for the experiences of victims. In setting out different views and positions I do not want that to get lost, because I do accept that there has not been a single person that has brought ignoble motivations to this debate, and many others, can I say, on such matters.

Whilst the amendments were passed and we accept that that is the will of the upper house, if I could just very briefly, yet respectfully, set out what the government’s position and view was in respect of these amendments. This bill does a number of other important things that I do not want to be lost in the course of this debate. But it is essentially important I think to note and acknowledge that even with those amendments an important part of this bill will be setting out a process in the interim until important work has been done in respect of the views of family members—for example, of deceased victims—and there is a process that has been adopted in this bill.

Again, the government does not resile from any of the legal views that we have put forward, but there was a debate about what the status of the current law was and is. In acknowledging that debate I do want to continue to emphasise I think the important views that were put forward by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Law Institute of Victoria. I make that specific reference to the Director of Public Prosecutions not to be unnecessarily provocative in this debate which has been so traumatic for so many people. I make it simply because of the fact that there has been some commentary around that legal view and I just wish to place on the record the government’s endorsement of that view and the very heartfelt contributions that have been made. But specifically, in respect of that view, there are often different points of view held by family members and it is the Director of Public Prosecutions who is often dealing with those matters. So any reflection upon either the independence of the office or the veracity of that legal view is one that the government comprehensively rejects. Again, I am very conscious that I do not necessarily want to, after a very challenging debate, reignite some of those disputes, but I do think it is incredibly important that we place that on the record.

I also wish to place on the record the importance of many of the other things in this bill that were the subject of widespread agreement. One was the need in respect of victims of sexual abuse to have the agency and the power without court authority to be able to tell their stories. That I think was a very comprehensive and unified view that was put. In the course of this debate there have been views that have been put publicly, and obviously there have been a lot of views put privately. And even in the debate and the discussion that we have seen in this chamber and in the other place in recent days, one of the reminders I suppose for all of us is that people have shared stories. It is a reminder that everyone who comes to this Parliament also brings their personal experiences, and we should never assume that we as members of Parliament are not also victims bringing our experiences as well. I think that was something that was reflected in the debate in the other place, and it is something that I know is a matter of fact. People have spoken to me privately about their experiences, and there may in fact be people sitting in this chamber as we speak that bring the experience of victim-survivorhood to these debates and discussions.

Inevitably there is a fierceness in some of the political debates and discussions, but I want to place on the record a very genuine commitment, as we go forward, to ensuring that as we get a better and final resolution around the state of the law and the processes of the law that we will have very good engagement with families, victims and advocacy groups, all of whom I know these debates are traumatic for. The experience of not being able to speak is very traumatic, and I want to formally acknowledge that on the record.

I also just want to acknowledge on behalf of the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change that whilst this has really captured, I suppose, some of the political and media debate, there are some other provisions in this debate. I know that there was an amendment that the government did not oppose that will require MOUs signed as a result of this legislation with respect to fire services, to be published on the department website.

In closing my comments, as my friend looks not unprovocatively at his watch on the other side—I did say I would not be too long—I do just want to briefly set out why the government did oppose some of the amendments that the opposition put forward. It is our view and it was our advice that the impact of those amendments would have taken away any process whatsoever. There was really a threshold debate and dispute that existed about the state of the current law. The government maintains their position. We think it is important that we do have a process going forward in the interim, but we very humbly accept the proposition that we need another and better process in respect of deceased victims.

I do not want to overstate the complexity and the difference of view that exists in respect of that matter. We have dealt with it in the substance of the bill when it comes to children. Again, that is a matter that was quite complex to try and deal with and resolve in this bill. If a child wishes to speak about their experiences as a victim of sexual abuse and to publish those matters, how do we deal with issues of consent and agency for people that have had all of their power taken away from them? So these are tricky and challenging issues and I just absolutely want to acknowledge that.

In conclusion, it is I think incredibly important that we continue more broadly right across the justice system, and in social life and in civil life more generally, to find ways to make our justice system more victim focused, to ensure that for the disempowering experiences that people have as a matter of course—that are so inherently built into these systems, that are so inherently built into the way in which we debate matters in this Parliament as well—that we continue to strive and find opportunities to improve those. My friend and colleague, the minister for many things, including victim support services, is here at the table as well. I know the victim services review and the work that she is leading is very, very comprehensively focused at that end. With those brief but longer than anticipated comments, I wish the bill, amended as it is, a speedy passage through the house.

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (17:18): I rise to support the amendments of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Supporting Victims and Other Matters) Bill 2020 and to say today is a good day for victims. It is a good day for victims, but at the same time it has been a very, very painful period for victims. I note that the Attorney-General has come in today and has said that we should be listening to victims. But to have the Attorney-General come in here, dragged kicking and screaming to get to this point, is quite frankly a disgrace. The fact is that we did not hear an apology from the Attorney-General today. The fact is that two weeks ago, when we spoke on this bill, we had members of the government standing up, one by one, and saying, ‘We should not be speaking in this place on behalf of victims’.

Can I ask each and every member of the government that may speak today: what are we here for? What is our job if victims call on members of Parliament to do the right thing and speak for them, to speak on behalf of them? I think any member that stands up after me today from the government should start with an apology to the victims. That is where they should start, with an apology—simple—because we should not be here. We should not have had to wait. These amendments came before this house two weeks ago and they should have been adopted two weeks ago, but they were voted against by the government.

Ms Hutchins interjected.

Mr SOUTHWICK: The Greens supported them, and I remind the Minister for Corrections and Minister for Victim Support, who I cannot hear mumbling through her mask, that in the other house the government voted against these amendments. So to turn around today and say, ‘Oh, no, we’re actually all right with them’, is just completely hypocritical.

We have got licorice allsorts members in the upper house—Independents with such diverse political views I could not begin to explain how they sit on so many different matters. It is impossible to get agreement. But what did we get last night? We got agreement for our amendments from our colleagues and good friends from The Nationals, who joined us, along with Samantha Ratnam from the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, the Justice Party, the Animal Justice Party, Clifford Hayes, Catherine Cumming, Rod Barton and Fiona Patten. They all supported it—19 members supported it and stood up when they needed to. Fifteen members of the Labor Party rejected these amendments—they rejected them.

And today the Attorney-General gets in here and says, ‘We’ll be listening to them now. We’re going to listen to victims’. What a joke. What an absolute joke. And then the Attorney gets up and says, ‘Well, I want to qualify this by saying we will give the opportunity to listen to victims’. Jill Meagher’s mother, Edith, pleaded weeks ago but it fell on deaf ears. We even heard Adrian Bayley’s mother also saying, ‘Stop it, stop it. Allow the voice’. And the Attorney-General says, ‘That’s okay because legally we were right, but maybe we’re going to accept it now’. Well, legally there were plenty of varying views, including from Judge McInerney, who expressed in the County Court last Friday, as did many other legal experts, that what the Attorney and the Premier and the Labor Party and the government was doing was wrong—was wrong. To use the DPP as effectively political cover against victims is wrong. You are wrong, Attorney-General. You are wrong. You are wrong and this government is wrong, and they will be held accountable—

Mr Fowles: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, if you could please remind the member for Caulfield to direct his comments through the Chair.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Dimopoulos): I will take the opportunity to remind the member to direct his comments through the Chair.

Mr SOUTHWICK: So it is once bitten, twice shy, because this was not the first time. I remind the Attorney, who is in this place here, and the government that back in February we had this situation where this bill was put through the Parliament. It was highlighted then in April by News Corp’s Sherele Moody, who first approached the Attorney-General and said in terms of victims being gagged that changes needed to be made. That was back in April. Nothing was done. A month later there was another response and Sherele Moody was again dismissed. It was only in August when it hit the press that the government wanted to do something about it. Only then when they were exposed did they want to do something about it. The Attorney had effectively hidden the problems with this bill and had a second crack, rushed it through and again let down victims.

I want to remind the Attorney that on 26 August I wrote to the Attorney on behalf of my constituents Dassi, Elly and Nicole—Dassi Erlich, Elly Sapper and Nicole Meyer—in regard to the Judicial Proceedings Reports Act 1958 and their concerns over the impact that the changes will have on the ability of victims of sexual abuse to lawfully identify themselves and tell their stories publicly. What was happening was Malka Leifer, charged with 74 counts, was about to be extradited. Her hearing was on 21 September, and they were not able to speak.

Now, I do recognise and I want to make mention that the Attorney and the Premier contacted them and fast-tracked for them to be able to have their situation heard before a court so their gag could be lifted. So I appreciate, Attorney, that that work was done. However, that is a case where we stood up—and it is a very public case—and advocated for them. What about the hundreds and thousands of others that did not have that opportunity, never had that opportunity, did not have the thousands of dollars to go before the court and have their gag lifted? That never happened. And we have sat here for weeks until finally the government has turned around and said, ‘Oh, you know, we’ll now listen to victims’. What an absolute joke. What an absolute disgrace. And family members of the deceased would have had to go before the courts to be able to get their voice back.

Look, this beggars belief. I am glad that we are now finally at a point where the government is going to support these amendments. Last night they did not; today they are. I am glad we are ad idem. I am not going to speak for much longer; I know you are probably happy about that because you are all a disgrace, the member for Burwood.

Mr Fowles: I have two points of order, Speaker. The first is that the member for Caulfield again needs to be reminded to address his comments through the Chair. And I do take personal offence at the comments he has just made about me and I ask him to withdraw.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Dimopoulos): I accept the first point of order and remind the member again to direct his comments through the Chair, and I ask the member on the second point of order to withdraw.

Mr SOUTHWICK: Can I ask what specific element I am withdrawing for?

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Dimopoulos): I understood that you called the member a disgrace.

Mr SOUTHWICK: I am sorry, but on that basis there are no grounds to be asking for a withdrawal. On the point of order, I asked in this last debate for a withdrawal on a similar basis when the Speaker was in the chair, and the Speaker said there were no grounds for a frivolous withdrawal, and I would say that what the member is asking is for a frivolous withdrawal in terms of being offended.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Dimopoulos):The member will sit down. We have moved on from what the member has raised. I as the Acting Speaker heard you say to the member, ‘You are a disgrace, the member for Burwood’. You said that specifically. He has asked you to withdraw, and I am asking you to withdraw.

Mr SOUTHWICK: In the interests of moving on, I will withdraw, but I will also ask the Speaker for clarification about these points of order.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Dimopoulos): I will ask the Speaker too.

Mr SOUTHWICK: I will ask the Speaker for clarification. Thank you. There is one rule for one lot and one rule for everybody else. Can I please bring the house’s attention to the member for Burwood and the last contribution that he made. It is a great shame when addressing these matters that the opposition are playing politics with this particular victim and all of the people and the opposition’s ridiculous view to disregard professional advice. He stood up here and spoke about politics and never spoke about victims. And I would hope that the member for Burwood, with the victims that the member for Burwood would have in his constituency, would have the good regard to apologise, because he certainly was not there for them two weeks ago. He was completely missing in action like all government members two weeks ago, and I think government members should hold their head in shame for not supporting victims and not standing up when it counts. I would like to commend these amendments and thank Mr O’Donohue, the Shadow Attorney-General, for the great work that he has done and all the crossbench for seeing reason when the government did not.

Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support) (17:29): This is an incredibly important bill. We know that there is so much in this bill that will enhance and support the protection and rights for victim-survivors. The amendments made to the bill in the Council maintain the existing laws relating to publicly identifying deceased victim-survivors of sexual assault. I thank the members in the upper house who supported these amendments for the constructive spirit in which they approached this debate. I especially appreciate the cooperation and the respect for all victim-survivors, those who wish to tell their stories and those who do not. That is what is at the heart of this debate.

I understand that for many families this debate has brought feelings of worry, stress and fear. I note that the debate has been passionate, it has been fiery, but on this matter in the community and in the Parliament there are actually different views. There are different views from different sets of victims. There are different views in our community which reflect the debate here on these matters, and the government takes the position that the existing law applies to deceased victim-survivors even though it does not specifically mention deceased victim-survivors. The bill that we introduced would have expressly confirmed this application, ensuring that deceased victim-survivors are entitled to these protections. These amendments we have agreed to will remove that provision.

We recognise that the families who support anonymity did not have much opportunity for their voices to be heard in this debate because they do not find these conversations conducive to their grieving or healing processes. Not everyone is comfortable taking to a microphone or to a soapbox or to any platform to talk about these issues. Protections remain for both living and deceased victim-survivors, which the Director of Public Prosecutions has explained is an important tool to protect families from distress.

This bill has a range of important reforms that the government needs to progress. This includes the amendments to the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 1996 and also to the Victims of Crime Commissioner Act 2015 which introduce remuneration and extend the terms for the Victims of Crime Consultative Committee members. It will also help reduce the backlog at the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal by creating tribunal officers and moving from a court-based system that has been severely backlogged to an administrative system that will see these claims dealt with in a much more timely manner. In my area there are also important reforms to make it easier to prevent drugs from being smuggled into jails.

The government has also moved amendments that give effect to the commitment that these measures relating to deceased survivors were intended to be temporary, and the government will bring back a more comprehensive process next year. As the Attorney-General already noted earlier, we are committed to working with stakeholders and victim-survivors to improve these laws, and I join her in that determination. This is why the clause relating to the process for the deceased victims will sunset in September next year.

Now, we know that not all amendments were successful, and rightfully so. We know that the opposition in the previous debate sought to introduce amendments which would actually strip deceased victims and their loved ones of all protections, with no avenue to prevent the identification of deceased victim-survivors if that was their or their family’s wishes. So these amendments that are before us today are supported. It is our position on this issue that it is very clear that you should not lose your right to privacy and anonymity as a victim of sexual offending once you are deceased. That is just not right, and that is what we are defending with these changes. I am glad this bill is progressing, and the government accepts the amendments made by the Council.

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (17:34): Jill Meagher, Aiia Maasarwe—these are the names, and sadly I could go through a list of many, many others, Eurydice Dixon included. These names evoke a sense of dread in this state, a sense of mourning, a deep sense of loss and pain. We know these names because these names were attached to wonderful human beings, wonderful women who had their lives cut short at the hands of brutal, murderous men. Their tragic deaths provoked a city and a state to respond—in vigils, in an outpouring of emotion and grief and in a demand for action and a demand for justice. Their stories matter, their lives matter and their stories must be heard. This is why the bill that was introduced into this place by this government and rammed through this chamber—which sought to strip these women of their stories and their rights to have their stories told—was so abhorrent. The government cannot say that they were not warned. We pointed out to them—the member for Caulfield as lead speaker made it very clear—the consequences of what this bill was going to do, and the government did not listen. They did not listen to us, they did not listen to victims of sexual assault who told them that this was the wrong thing to do. They did not listen to Peta Funnell and the Let Us Speak campaign—

Ms Williams: Nina.

Mr M O’BRIEN: Nina Funnell; I beg your pardon—Nina Funnell and the Let Us Speak campaign, who just wanted the chance to have their stories told and their voices heard. It was yesterday in the other place—where I am so, so proud of my Liberal and Nationals team—that we stood up and gave those women the voices that they deserve, and I am pleased that the vast majority of the crossbenchers saw it the same way.

What I do not understand and what so many victims of sexual assault and violence do not understand and what so many family members of murdered women do not understand is why the government continued and persisted in denying the rights of their voices, why the government even last night voted against our amendments. Now, today the government says, ‘We accept the amendments’—begrudgingly, belatedly. But what pain have they already caused? The Attorney-General could not even bring herself today to say, ‘We got this wrong. We got this horribly wrong and we apologise’. That is what the victims deserve to hear, that is what Victorians deserve to hear.

In question time today I raised some quotes from Ashleigh Rae Cooper and from Tracie Oldham. These are both survivors of sexual assault, and I had the absolute privilege—and privilege is the right word for it—to stand with these two courageous women on Monday with the media. They told their stories and they told Victorians why this bill was wrong and why their voices needed to be heard. And the courage to do that, to not only survive what they have survived and endured but to speak up about it and to retell it in an effort to change the law to protect them and so many others, must be respected. And Edith McKeon, the mother of Jill Meagher, just wants to be able to tell her daughter’s story.

Well, the government got this wrong, and I do hope and pray that the government admits that it needs to listen. This government has been in for the last six years. This government has been in office for 17 of the last 21 years. That can breed a level of arrogance. It can breed a level of insularity, a belief that the government knows best and it does not have to listen. I hope this is a wake-up call because so many women have endured so much pain unnecessarily because of the way this government has mishandled this bill. I do hope that the government listens from now on and gives these women the voices and the respect that they deserve.

Ms WILLIAMS (Dandenong—Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) (17:39): To begin my contribution today, and to build on a few points that I made in my contribution on the bill when it first came to this place, I want to start by questioning, or correcting I guess, one of the assertions made by the member for Caulfield when he claimed that some on this side were saying that members did not have a right to speak on behalf of victims. I think this comment is demonstrative of the level of oversimplification that has come through in many comments made by the member for Caulfield and some others in their contributions today and the failure or refusal to accept the complexity of some of the issues. When you have the responsibility of governing you do not get the luxury of being able to oversimplify very complex details that have very meaningful outcomes for people’s lives.

For my part, and I know for many others on this side, it was never a claim that we do not have a right to speak for our constituents or to relay their views. What it was was a comment that it is not for anyone in here to assume, as I feel that many on the other side have, that there is one uniform view among victims and their families, because there simply is not. I fully appreciate and have myself spoken to many of the same victims that the member for Caulfield has. I have myself met with many of the same and spoken to—spoken to rather than met with, given the current circumstances—many of the same victims that the member for Caulfield and indeed the opposition leader probably have. I respect their view, respect their experiences and respect the uniqueness of those experiences and what it means to them.

I also, though, know of others, particularly family members of deceased victims, who have quite different wishes and concerns and fears. I think to brush over that, to gloss over it for political gain, does all of us a disservice, and it actually fundamentally leads to very bad outcomes. I get you need to play politics; you are in opposition. I get it. But what is really hard to deal with from my perspective, and I know probably for many others on this side as well, is to have that level of grandstanding on this and oversimplification—deliberate oversimplification—of, quite frankly I will call it, crocodile tears about an issue that also goes to the heart of many other areas of government reform that you have had a multitude of opportunities to contribute to over the last six years.

The family violence reform, for example. You still have not backed the royal commission, and yet you will stand up here and name victims and use these people, use these names and use these stories for a mark on a chalkboard. I just feel like there is a disrespect and a disingenuousness in the way you are presenting your position on this. It needs to be called out, and that is in no way disrespectful to the many victim-survivors who have put forward very genuine concerns. On that I just wanted to go back to—

Mr Southwick interjected.

Ms WILLIAMS: With all due respect, member for Caulfield, you have had your time at the lectern, and it would be nice if you could let me have my turn. I would really appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Having said all of that, let me start by thanking all of those who have put their views forward in all their diversity—and there is a diversity of views. I have had some really, really informative and heartfelt conversations myself, and I am very grateful for the people who have been prepared to share their experiences with me and share their advice, for those who continue to campaign for the rights of victim-survivors and for those who continue to live with the trauma of all that they have endured. That is an incredibly generous but personally taxing thing to do, to share your story for the benefit of good policy outcomes. I want to thank those victim-survivors who have done that and continue to do that, as I did in my original contribution. I also, though, want to—again not to over-labour the point—highlight the importance of balancing the rights of those who wish to be public with those who wish to remain anonymous. I will get to that hopefully, if I am granted a bit of time.

I also want to acknowledge the contributions in the upper house, many of the contributions in this place in the original frame and the many really considered, personal and genuine contributions that were made. There were many on all sides, and there was a great sharing of personal experience that came with that. Again I want to commend those in this place who did in many respects bare their souls and bare their grief for the purpose of this debate. No matter where you fell in the debate, I want to acknowledge the genuineness with which many of those contributions were made.

Now, our intention has never been to silence people. Of course it has never been to silence people. What on earth would we possibly have to gain from that? It has always been about removing barriers to speaking out and about giving certainty so that people were not taking a risk every time they chose to share their story. We did not want people having to carry that burden of whether they might or might not find themselves the subject of litigation because they shared the story. And that was the state of play—legal uncertainty that could potentially have had very big and very serious ramifications for people. But in attempting to rectify that problem we fully accept—and I certainly did in my original contribution—that the mechanism through which we sought to do that was not right, was not quite right, did not hit the mark. I acknowledged that in my previous contribution and I will acknowledge it again. Which brings us to why these changes were being brought in.

When the Attorney-General brought these changes forward, in doing so and in ensuring that we took away some of those court-based barriers and complexities to being able to have agency and giving life to that in this legislation, she also recognised that there were a number of other issues that had deep, deep complexity to them that could not be resolved quickly and did not have a uniformity of opinion around them. That of course for the purposes of this part of the discussion went primarily to victim-survivors or family members of deceased victim-survivors in circumstances where victim-survivors either did not or could not give consent. That being a very, very challenging area, I think the Attorney’s considered approach in putting forward these changes, to be able to be up-front and say, ‘We need more time to resolve and balance out the diversity of opinion in this and come up with a mechanism that adequately meets the diversity of need’, was not an unreasonable one. I get that it does not necessarily meet everybody’s views. I understand that. But from the perspective of a government that has the responsibility of governing, taking the extra time to try and resolve those matters in a way that does so thoughtfully and with a view to the fact that there are different experiences, for family members as well as individual victim-survivors, I do not think should be cast as unreasonable. I just think taking that and oversimplifying it in a way that so many opposite have does a disservice to all of us in this place and does a disservice to the tone of political debate.

I just wanted in closing to give my final remarks, which have been articulated by others, around the fact that we will be supporting the amendments because there are a lot of other changes being put forward in this bill which are deeply important and need to be progressed. I could get into the complexities of the fact that there still remains as a consequence of the amendments an uncertainty. Some may be comfortable with that uncertainty and be comfortable in taking their chances, families of deceased victims. Others may not be so comfortable, so may find themselves in a position where they may want to go through a court process to give them that certainty. That is the way things will be as a consequence of these amendments.

But irrespective of that, our commitment remains to do the work that needs to be done in the time ahead to come up with a permanent solution that resolves this matter as best as we can, taking into account the diversity of experiences, of views and of values as well. The Attorney has committed to doing that work. I look forward to playing my part in that as well. Again, I will finish by thanking those who have shared their stories. Others have reflected on the fact that in any space that people are in, this one included, where people stand at these microphones, they give a part of themselves and part of their constituencies’ experience as well. For that we should all be deeply grateful but also deeply respectful.

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (17:50): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Supporting Victims and Other Matters) Bill 2020 and the amendments that have come to the house. In doing so I begin by recognising the enormous achievement of Nina Funnell; Jill Meagher’s mother, Edith McKeon; ‘Maggie’; Tracie Oldham; Ashleigh Rae Cooper; Tania Maxwell and David Limbrick in the other place; and so many others who fought over long periods and short periods for where we are today. They stood up to power. They stood up to the government. They stood up and they said they would not be silenced. They said the government had got this wrong. They were not going to be put in a position where they had to go to court to be able to tell the stories of their loved ones. They did so with passion and with drive, and they did it over and over again in the face of a government that would not listen to them, in the face of a government that lied to them. Over and over they kept at it, Nina Funnell in particular—for a long time it was just her fight—and I really want to congratulate those people on their fight because they have demonstrated that you can stand up and make a profound difference.

But we are where we are because every non-Labor MP in the other place, every single one that was in the Parliament, voted for amendments that the opposition had put up and against the government’s position. We are here because the government lost a vote in the other place, and they lost it on something really important: they lost it on the ability of victims’ families to speak out when those victims cannot speak for themselves.

As I said in my original contribution, I understand these are very complex matters. I also understand that there are a whole range of views within families as to what could be said and should be said, but the government got it wrong, and it was clear it got it wrong. I want to quote briefly from Tracie Oldham. She said:

WE WON—My name is Tracie M Oldham and yesterday Advocates, Parliamentarians Survivors, Victims’ Families & Friends ALL United to make a stand against the Gag Law Bill which prevented families of deceased sexual assault victims to speak out about their loved ones … Both I and Ashleigh Rae reached out to Shadow Attorney General Edward O’Donohue who not only acknowledged our emails but rang us up personally and invited us to attend a media conference so Survivors could have a voice … Laws such as these should not be about politics it is too personal it’s about using your position to do the greater good and yesterday I was proud to be one of the countless people including “Maggie and Nina Funnell … Tania Maxwell and David Limbrick and the brave families such as Eileen Culleton, John Herron and countless others who stood up and demanded their loved one’s stories be heard.

Nina Funnell was very angry as this debate progressed, and she roundly went the government for its lack of compassion and not listening to her.

I do also want to address very, very head on the remarks just made by the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence. In her remarks she said that the reason many of those on my side of the chamber were speaking about this was we were playing politics. Maybe she did not hear what I said in the first round of this debate. I am now going to repeat what I said and ask her if she really thinks I was playing politics. I said:

The Labor women opposite should be ashamed. They should be ashamed of themselves for being part of this dreadful act against women’s empowerment. It is not too late. If they cannot break their caucus solidarity, and I understand why they cannot, they must privately demand the Attorney-General pulls the bill herself and goes and undertakes the consultation that should have happened before this bill got here.

I spent most of my remarks agreeing with Labor women as they talked about violence against women, because I stand with you when you talk about that and you campaign about that. This is a systemic problem in our society that affects all women in how we live our lives if we cannot do so safely. And yet when it was so clear that the families of women who had been raped and murdered wanted changes, where were you? Where were you then? Did you stand up for them then? I have got to say that there is no evidence that any Labor woman did, because every Labor member voted against the amendments that are now being put here. They did so in this place, and they did so in the other place. Nobody broke their caucus solidarity, and I understand why. I absolutely understand what that step means, which is why I did not ask people to do that. But do not come in here and say that my side is playing politics on this issue, not when you cannot stand up for the victims of crime, not when you do not even have the guts to do that.

The government got this bill wrong. And to their credit, various members have along the journey made some remarks that suggested you knew you got it wrong and that you would seek to have consultation after the bill had passed to make further changes. But the problem was that you dug the hole. The Attorney had dug a hole. I agree she was trying to do a really appropriate thing as she saw it, but when it was clear that that was wrong, the bill should have been pulled. The bill should have been paused between the houses. To be blunt, we should not be here putting through an amendment that was moved by the opposition. It should have been a house amendment. The government should have pulled the bill, done the consultation, made the changes, brought a house amendment into the Council and then brought it back through here. But the level of arrogance, the level of believing that this government knows everything and nobody else does, made that an impossible act, so every single member in the Council that was not a Labor member had to give you that lesson and had to teach the government that lesson on an issue like this. Really, I just do not think that was everybody’s finest moment. The government should have listened, and they should be far more contrite now.

We moved it—Edward O’Donohue in the Council did all the work through this for months and months—but we would not be here today if all the minor parties and the Independents had not also agreed that the government had got it wrong. That is why we are here today. The government got it wrong on something that is very complex and very difficult and on which there are competing views. But it was very clear last sitting week that this was flawed, and yet the government pushed on. I would hope therefore that rather than assuming every time somebody on this side gets up and says, ‘There’s something wrong’, you flip the switch to saying, ‘Oh, it’s politics’. Sometimes it is—we are politicians—but not always. Everybody on this side of the house spoke with great conviction, as did, I have got to say, those in the government. We were not playing politics. We were saying this was wrong. I am glad the government has accepted the will of the Council. I am glad the bill will now pass in its amended form, and I commend it to the house.

Mr EDBROOKE (Frankston) (18:00): I begin by just acknowledging the heartfelt, passionate and often very personal contributions that we have heard previously and today, and I am sure we will hear some more as well. This is a very important bill, it is also a very complex bill, and what we have seen is part of the democratic process. There have been some changes. We believed the position was that the existing law would mean that it applied to deceased victims, and though it does not necessarily specifically mention deceased victims the bill that we introduced would have expressly confirmed this application, putting it beyond any doubt.

This is Parliament at its best, but I cannot pretend to stand here today and think that we are in some kind of competition about who would look after victims best or whose interest it is in to protect victims best. I know the member for Prahran, the member for Gembrook and I probably all agree 100 per cent. It might be all that we agree on 100 per cent, member for Gembrook, but we all agree that we should be putting victims first. So it is good to see this amendment coming through—an amendment that was supported by the crossbench and the Liberals and that maintained existing laws relating to publicly identifying deceased victims of sexual assault.

Now, we have heard a lot of passion today. We have seen speeches on the front steps today about this, but one thing I would love to see in this Parliament—and I would love to not have to wait any longer—would be support for victims and also prevention of these kinds of acts that make more victims. And that would include people on all sides of Parliament in a non-partisan show of support for the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence. It is fine to have a spine now about this. It is fine to be hardball about this when there are media cameras around, but where were some people—and there are people in here today that saw this—when a certain member in the last Parliament did not stand up when a victim-survivor, Rosie Batty, made her speech in this Parliament? Everyone stood up except one person. Who had the spine then to actually go out and represent the party and say, ‘We do not stand by that action. We are better than that’?

We also know that out of those 227 recommendations from the royal commission not one will be supported by an opposition government. I think that needs to change, and I think there are people on that side of politics that will be able to actually get the spine and say that they support every single one of those recommendations to support victims and to support people who could potentially be victims and stop them from becoming victims, and that is so important. Putting this in context, this, as I said, is a great example of our democracy. This is how it works, this is how the model works, but there are certain things that we all agree on, and one is that victims should come first. And if we all truly believe that, then we all need to agree on the fact that every single one of those 227 recommendations from the family violence royal commission needs to be carried through by any government—Labor, Liberal—and any opposition needs to support that.

Now, as I said from the start, this is a bill that is very, very complex. The amendment was complex as well. It is an omnibus bill, there are some other parts of this bill, but I just want to go on record as saying regardless of whether our opinions meet in the middle, regardless of whether we are at loggerheads with our opinions, it has been done respectfully and I think that everyone should be proud of that. I think people watching at home—if there is anyone; I do not think it is prime time—would be proud at this moment even right now to see everyone in this Parliament so passionate about an issue. I think it is a good outcome, and I commend the amendment to the house.

Dr READ (Brunswick) (18:04): The Justice Legislation Amendment (Supporting Victims and Other Matters) Bill 2020 passed the other place last night. The most important thing about this bill is it allows women who have been sexually assaulted and survived to now tell their stories, fixing an inadvertent error in an earlier bill. But it did become complicated when the government tried to protect families of deceased victims from having their sexual assault published without court approval. It protected those families who wanted those details kept private but would have muzzled those who wanted to tell their dead, often murdered, relative’s story.

So I am pleased that all parties in the other place approached this seriously and negotiated an amendment, which passed, which leaves the law unchanged for families of deceased victims, allowing them to tell the full story if they choose but gives no additional freedom to news organisations. Critically the bill, I repeat, allows living survivors to tell their story.

We now have a sunset clause in the bill requiring the government to produce new legislation next year. The Attorney-General has assured us that she is consulting with victims’ families and is working on legislation that will take account of the often differing preferences between and within families of victims. This bill attempts to balance the need for unrestricted discussion of sexual violence and the reality that some sections of the news media exploit it for clicks without treating families with the sensitivity that they deserve. Grieving families do not need the additional stress of unwanted publicity. I acknowledge the work of victim-survivors and feminists in pushing for these improvements, and I acknowledge the work of the Attorney-General’s office in helping achieve a least worst outcome while we await further legislative improvements next year.

Ms KILKENNY (Carrum) (18:06): This is such an important bill for the rights of victim-survivors of sexual assault and also for the families of deceased victims. I want to acknowledge all of the victim-survivors and I want to acknowledge the families of deceased victims of sexual assault as well. As we know, the changes in this bill are going to bring about profound change, and they are going to give absolute agency to victim-survivors of sexual assault to decide whether or not their story is retold and who can retell it, but I think we need to get something clear here: what this bill does not do is prohibit the families of deceased victims from speaking out. The opposition may not agree with the position. The Director of Public Prosecutions, an expert legal adviser, has advised that that ban, that prohibition, has been in place in the current act for nearly 30 years now.

What this bill does is provide a lawful, albeit temporary, pathway for the families of deceased victims to speak out, to speak publicly, just as they should want to do and just as they need to do. But this bill also recognises that for victim-survivors and for the families of deceased victims their privacy is paramount, and that needs to be respected as well and that balance needs to be struck. That is incredibly important in this debate. As the Minister for Women made clear, when those opposite have tried to oversimplify this position it is wrong to do that. This is complex. We are working through these issues, but this bill is so profound in that it provides that voice now but it provides that choice, and that is what is so powerful and so profound.

Finally, I do just want to remind people in this debate, particularly those opposite, that when we talk about victim-survivors and when we say we do not victim blame, there is no place in this debate to talk about what a victim should have or could have done differently, and I never, ever want to hear that kind of commentary, that kind of contribution in any debate on matters of sexual offences against women in this place.

Ms VALLENCE (Evelyn) (18:09): It gives me great pleasure to rise today to talk to the amendments to the Justice Legislation Amendment (Supporting Victims and Other Matters) Bill 2020 that were passed in the upper house and have come to this chamber. Whilst other speakers so far have contributed on one of the amendments, first off I would like to speak on the other amendment that was passed in the upper house last night.

It is in relation to clause 51, and I commend the Liberal-Nationals amendment to clause 51. Labor’s proposed new laws provide for the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning to enter into agreements or arrangements with Fire Rescue Victoria, with FRV, to enable relevant Forest Fire Management Victoria personnel to exercise the powers of senior FRV operational staff under the Fire Rescue Victoria Act 1958 and to carry out the fire management activities in new fire districts and to provide immunity to those forest firefighters when doing so. Because of course what we know is that in the government putting this proposed new law, what they realised was that they had botched their new fire services reforms so badly that they had left huge holes—huge gaps—in relation to those DELWP forest firefighters, the women and men who pull on the green overalls and go and valiantly fight fires in our state forests and national parks, and what the Labor government had failed to do was to adequately protect them. There was no legal authorisation and no legal protection for forest firefighters should they find that the fire they were working on, suppressing and fighting went across Crown land into a new FRV district in country areas where they had no protection. Embarrassingly, only a few short months after the government’s new fire services reforms had come in, they realised they had completely and utterly exposed those DELWP forest firefighters, and in doing so had exposed country communities.

In particular the Labor government put this new proposal forward, and what we sought to do with clause 1 was to require the secretary of DELWP to publish any agreements or arrangements entered into with FRV on the department’s website, which I note passed in the upper house last night without dissent. The Liberal-Nationals amendment to have this added transparency and added accountability passed without dissent. I thank all of my colleagues in the upper house and all of the members of the crossbench and indeed the government who saw reason. The mere fact is that a few weeks ago we put this amendment to the house and unfortunately the members of the Labor government sought to deny it, but they have now realised that actually this is a commonsense measure. I commend that to the house, and I am pleased that the government finally has seen some sense. Because of course we know that the United Firefighters Union and the FRV are in current negotiations with DELWP, and we think it makes sense to have those agreements made available to the Victorian public. I am very pleased that we have been able to have that amendment and that that will go through, and I understand that the Labor government will be allowing safe passage of that to amend that aspect—that poor and lacking aspect of the bill.

I also would like to speak to the other amendment that is in relation to the Judicial Proceedings Reports Act 1958, and it is with absolute relief. I have to say that this has been an extremely challenging and emotional period for the whole community, and not least those women who have suffered tragically from sexual assault. The families of those who have suffered the gravest of fates through having been murdered after sexual assault have had anguish and trauma that they have had to go through, and this Labor government has caused them to relive it again over these last few weeks and months whilst it pursued this flawed, problematic bill—and pursued it and pursued it—despite the strong voices of members of our community and despite the strong voices of victim-survivors of sexual assault and the families of precious loved ones who have lost their lives through sexual assault. It is with a great deal of relief that I support the amendment in relation to Labor’s proposed new laws—that disgraceful new law that sought to criminalise the naming of dead rape victims in Victoria without the onerous, traumatic and financially burdensome process of getting a court order.

As was mentioned earlier, sexual assault survivor Ashleigh Rae Cooper courageously said that Labor’s bill would have meant mass erasure of survivors’ voices across this entire state. That is thousands of stories gone. That would have been completely and utterly a failure on behalf of this Labor government, to have failed women who have been murdered because of sexual assault. That would have failed them. Labor was failing them—failing their voice, failing the spirit of those women, failing their families, failing advocates of sexual assault victims and failing the Victorian community.

I am still floored that the Labor government sought to put this bill, because frankly such a flawed and disgraceful new law should never have been before this Parliament. How did the Labor government get this so wrong? I was so deeply saddened and troubled that the government could get it so wrong, and really my heart goes out to all victim-survivors and families of deceased victims who had to go through this trauma over the past couple of weeks and months—to realise, to hear that the Labor government wanted to silence them, wanted to gag them.

Our amendment retains the legal status quo and relieves the burden on victims and the families who want to give a voice to their loved ones and keep their spirit alive. The fact that this government wanted to legislate to force families to go to court to tell the story of their precious loved ones is shameful. It is absolutely shameful. Finally, despite it being less than 24 hours ago that members of the Labor Party voted against this amendment, less than 24 hours later they have turned around. Finally the voices of women who tragically and horrifically have been raped and murdered can be heard. They will have a voice, and their families will not need to worry that the Labor government wants to silence them. And still no apology from the Labor government, from the Attorney-General. She should be absolutely ashamed.

I am thankful for the work of the Honourable Edward O’Donohue in the other place and to all of the members of the crossbench who saw common sense, who listened. The voices of victim-survivors and of sexual assault advocates were listened to. We listened. The Liberal-Nationals listened, the crossbench listened—and Labor did not listen. You have got to ask: what changed in the last 24 hours? Perhaps it was the courage of the mother of Adrian Bayley, who so brutally raped and murdered Jill Meagher, in such a heart-wrenching call to Neil Mitchell’s 3AW. She slammed the Labor government and their stupid, indecent law. She slammed it because she knew it was wrong. She cared about the voices of the women who have suffered this tragic, unthinkable fate. The Labor government did not until the last 24 hours. That is what changed.

I am very sorry to all of these sexual assault survivors and the families of those who have died as a result of sexual assault that the Labor government did this and that they had to go through this process, and I commend the amendments to the house.

Motion agreed to.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Settle): A message will now be sent to the Legislative Council informing them of the house’s decision.

Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms D’AMBROSIO:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (18:19): I rise to speak on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020. Now, this is not the first energy bill that I have spoken on in this chamber since being elected as the member for Tarneit, and every time I have spoken on these types of bills, just like this one, I have spoken about our government’s track record of making Victoria’s energy market simpler and fairer. Again, this is what this bill will do.

Now, I remember I was only 25 years old—it feels like some years ago—working in Canberra at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. During that year, when I started work there as a graduate, a completely new sub-branch had formed, and that was called the Australian Energy Regulator. I remember it clearly, this new division, because it was the sub-branch that very few newbies, including me, wanted to rotate into or wanted to go and work in. The reason for that was simple: it was an incredibly complicated industry to get your head around. In fact still today the National Electricity Rules, the regulatory framework that governs this industry, are just so incredibly complicated. There was often office humour, I remember, or if staff were going out to drinks there would be a laugh that anybody that actually did a stint in the AER either left it immediately, tearing out their hair and vowing never to go back, or was actually able to create a career of living and breathing all things energy related. You could never actually go home and switch on the lights and think about that action and not the amount of work and the amount of regulation behind such a simple task. You learned to I guess embrace the complexities, and you would probably spend the next decade, like me, working them all out.

Remember this was all back when no-one really thought about or really talked about their energy bills or energy prices. We certainly did not talk about renewable energy and technology as we do now. I remember discussions around the office. There were conversations around solar panels and conversations around electric vehicles and batteries, but that felt so far off on the horizon that we felt we may never see them in our lifetime. I spent 13 years living and breathing this stuff. I loved it. It is funny looking back, because I think some of the engineers quite loved someone like me, a lawyer and not an electrical engineer. I would always be knocking on their doors asking for explanations. I used to say to them that it was so complicated they needed to explain it to me like they would to a five-year-old. This was really important, because the framework was so complicated and the industry was so complex, and I needed to be able to explain things to customers in a language—in plain English—they could understand. It struck me way back then, and still did when I left the energy industry to become the member for Tarneit in this place: how could costs and reliability of supply be transparent and be fair if your average customer could make neither head nor tail of their bill or what those charges were made up of?

Energy networks in the time that I worked in the industry had come a long way towards helping their customers understand and providing simpler, fairer and more transparent information to customers. But let us face it, they still have a long way to go. We know that the cost of energy household bills is an issue that matters to millions of Australians across the country, not just here in Victoria. Having worked in the sector for so long, I know all too well how energy policies can make or break governments. My expertise in this sector tells me that a combination of investment in renewable energy and price competition is the key to making our energy market more competitive, but it is also the key to making it fairer for customers and consumers—and on these fronts the Victorian government, our government, is doing both.

When we implemented the Victorian default offer we were directly providing energy providers in Victoria with a competitive incentive, a standard that informs customers about what their bills should look like and indicates to providers what they should be charging. As a result, we know that over 130 000 households right across Victoria have actually saved between $310 and $450 annually on their power bills, as well as 30 000 businesses out there who are between $1300 and $2000 better off.

Even more recently we expanded this to customers in embedded networks, saving them up to $370 a year. That means people living in our caravan parks, in our retirement villages and in our apartments can all be better off under this scheme. In fact our default offer was so popular that the federal government have decided to copy it with the national framework, because across Australia, let us face it, governments are looking to us—they are looking to Victoria—for leadership in this space. As I so often say to my community about this, folks, this is indeed something we should all be proud of.

But as I said, putting downward pressure on energy bills is only part of the equation. It is so, so important that our government continues to make strong investments into renewable energy. I have to admit that I was very excited when I heard the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change announce last week that our government is going to be building a new battery in Moorabool just outside Geelong—and this is not just an ordinary battery. It is the largest in Australia, it is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and indeed it is one of the largest batteries in the world. We know that projects like these create good, green jobs, and that is what a renewables policy framework should look like. You do not need to take my word for it, because the US has just elected a president who campaigned on just that.

When you talk about the jobs in renewables and how they save money on power bills and how they are good for the environment, that is a policy that wins. It is why our Solar Homes program has been so popular with households right across Victoria, especially in my seat of Tarneit, which has consistently enjoyed being one of the biggest uptakers of this program. Whether it is solar panels or batteries, Tarneit is a community that is actively investing and engaging in renewable technology from the comfort of their own homes.

On that note, there is another government program that makes a difference in this space, the greener government school buildings program. This program is run by the Victorian School Building Authority, and it provides grants to our schools to install solar power systems. I want to draw your attention to this program because the impacts of it are quite incredible for schools and indeed do reduce carbon emissions. By October this year the first round of grants to install solar power systems in our schools had powered the equivalent of 196 houses. It has also saved schools up to $300 000 a year on electricity bills. So you can see a policy like this is not just good for reducing our carbon footprint, it actually reduces the cost of powering our schools. That is $300 000 that can now be invested in keeping our schools well resourced. That is what a renewable energy program should look like, and I am very proud that our government is getting on and delivering it.

Now, what this bill does is tackle the licensing scheme that all of our energy providers operate under, and the key change in this space is that the bill is actually going to empower the minister to set conditions on these licences. One particular use of this power will be for energy providers to complete connecting new houses to the grid in a timely manner. This way new homebuyers will not be waiting for houses to have a proper energy connection before they move in. For growth areas like mine in Tarneit and Truganina this is a welcome change because this change is going to make a huge difference. Families in my area will be able to move into their homes a lot quicker than they are now. As part of our COVID recovery it is incredibly important that we continue to support our housing construction industry, which still has such a vital role to play in restarting our economy. Reducing delays in connecting these houses will remove a considerable barrier for these construction works, not just in the industry but also for people who are waiting to move into their new homes.

This bill is another step forward in our government’s energy fairness plan. It is the ninth bill implementing our energy policy introduced by Labor in the last six years and the fifth in the last two years alone, and I am absolutely positive that it will not be the last. This is a great bill, and I wholeheartedly commend it to the house.

Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (18:29): I am pleased to have the opportunity to make some comments on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020, because this is a bill that confirms what appears to be a rather dangerous trend, and that is the transfer of operational decision-making to the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change.

Setting conditions on individual licences is not the role of a minister, particularly one who apparently does not sweat the small stuff. The role of a minister is to set policy, determine the strategy and then allow the established delivery mechanisms to get it done, to implement it. No requirement for accountability is contained in this bill beyond that generally imposed on ministers, and as we know there has been very little accountability from this government. If I was the Secretary of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning—that is something that is never going to happen, but if I was—I would be looking over my shoulder, because it is clear that the Westminster ministerial accountability tradition does not extend to ministers in the current government. When things go wrong in the energy sector, as they inevitably will when the minister decides to place conditions on particular licences, they are going to be looking around for a scapegoat. And we have seen in recent weeks that scapegoats generally come from the public service, so the secretary will be thrown overboard or one of the deputy secretaries will be thrown overboard. No accountability is required of the minister and there will be no ministerial responsibility taken.

The bill is intended to allow the minister to vary, add or revoke conditions placed on licensed gas and electricity retailers. That power was previously the sole reserve of the Essential Services Commission. This bill has a singular purpose, and that is to establish a process so the minister for energy can override the Essential Services Commission. There is no evidence presented in the minister’s speech to suggest that these drastic steps—and they are drastic steps—are in any way necessary. There is no evidence to suggest the Essential Services Commission has been insufficiently diligent in oversighting the energy market. There is no evidence even of perceived shortcomings in the current arrangements, let alone actual shortcomings that would perhaps justify concentrating power like this in the hands of the minister. In fact, when you look at the minister’s commentary in the second-reading speech, it suggests that the process is actually working pretty well, because the minister says:

Energy licensees are subject to a stringent compliance and enforcement regime overseen by the ESC …

The Victorian government has committed to … strengthening the ESC’s enforcement powers so it is able to more effectively regulate the energy sector … In May 2019, the ESC was given a $27.3 million funding boost over four years to enable it to take strong action against wrongdoing by energy companies.

Now, I certainly would not use the sort of language that the minister is using in what appears to be a premeditated slur directed at the energy industry, but her comments do suggest that the Essential Services Commission is more than capable of doing the job. So again I say: how can ministerial intervention, particularly on the scale proposed by this bill, be justified? How can the government justify allowing a minister to intervene directly to determine the conditions of an individual licence? Because these are sweeping powers. When you look at pages 6 and 8 of the bill, the minister can specify as a condition to a licence anything the minister thinks fit, and similarly vary and revoke. But the key point there is anything the minister thinks fit. The minister can as a licence condition:

apply, adopt or incorporate wholly or partially or as amended by a Ministerial licence condition, the provisions of any document, standard, rule, specification or method formulated, issued, prescribed or published by any authority or body …

Basically any piece of paper that comes out of a public agency. A little bit further down the page:

confer powers and functions on, and leave any matter to be decided by, the Commission.

Which is currently identified in the Essential Services Commission Act 2001 and the energy act. What we are doing is effectively delegating the power of the Parliament within that clause. I would say to members on all sides: just think about what those words mean. Just think about it: the power to specify conditions as the minister thinks fit and to vary conditions similarly as the minister thinks fit. Those conditions can be applied in the words of the legislation to ‘a particular licence’—not just a class of licences, but particular licences. The bill gives the minister absolute discretion to place any condition on a licence—absolute discretion. There is no requirement even for consistency in the way the rules are applied, and in fact there is no opportunity to contest the imposition of that condition. The bill actually gives the minister power to place a condition on a licence that could potentially place that licensee at a competitive disadvantage. It could force a licence-holder, for example, to operate in a manner that is contrary to prudent financial practice. In other words, the bill gives the minister power to place conditions on a licence which could essentially force the licensee out of business, and—this is the real sin as far as I am concerned—without placing similar conditions on a competitor.

Effectively this bill gives the minister the power to decide who succeeds and who fails in the industry, and there is no avenue of appeal. Now, I am sure the government will say that is an extreme interpretation. They will say the power would never be exercised in this manner. But I would say if that is the case, why have it there in the first place? It does not need to be there.

The other point I want to cover is that the bill gives the minister the capacity to second-guess the Essential Services Commission. The fact is, as we know and as we have heard from the member for Tarneit amongst others, the energy market is a complex environment. These are complex matters, and the complexity is the very reason the Essential Services Commission was created in the first place. So where is the minister going to turn to for advice? Who will be tasked with effectively second-guessing the Essential Services Commission? Will it be the department? Will it be the minister’s office? Will it be outside political advice or someone in the Premier’s private office? Or will it be a ministerial advisory group of Labor cronies? Independent quality advice is essential, and there is nothing in this bill to ensure that the advice the minister will receive will be independent and will be quality advice.

The other comment I want to make is around consultation. The bill provides that the minister has to consult the Premier, the Treasurer, the minister administering the Essential Services Commission Act 2001 and affected licensees. But in no case is there an obligation to respond to any submissions that the minister might receive. Now, clearly it would be foolish to ignore the advice of the Premier, the Treasurer and even a colleague administering the Essential Services Commission Act, but there is no obligation to consider in any way beyond the necessary full form process submissions that might be put in by the licensees. There is no safeguard, no protection from ministerial overreach and no appeal mechanism. Licensees can like it or lump it.

I do not argue that we should have an unregulated market. I certainly do not argue for a second that this market is perfect. You have only got to look at the way power prices have gone up since 2014 particularly. I think we also need to accept that we are in the midst of tumultuous change in the way our energy is sourced and distributed. Whatever some may wish to think, coal is on the way out, fossil fuels are on the way out, and the rate of change in that regard accelerates every single day. I think there is great opportunity in that change but there are great risks as well. Is the market perfect? No, it is not. Do we need to make sure the consumers are protected? Of course we do. Do we need to make sure the strategic interests of the country are protected? Of course we do. But we need to know who is best placed to consider the complexities of the market. What are the strategic risks? How can they be managed? Clearly the minister’s office is not the place to do that. The Essential Services Commission has the expertise. They have the experience. They can deal with this issue appropriately. This is incredible power that needs to be exercised in a responsible way and it is not appropriate to hand this sort of power to a minister.

Mr HALSE (Ringwood) (18:39): It is a delight to see you in the chair tonight, Acting Speaker Settle, after you missed a few weeks, being from regional Victoria. It is great to see you in the chair, and it is great to follow on from the member for Tarneit. She knows a fair bit about the industry, having worked in the sector for very many years. I will reference some of her comments throughout my contribution over the next 9 minutes and 35 seconds. I do welcome the opportunity to discuss in this place an important policy area—a policy area that could not be more vital to the future prosperity of the great state of Victoria and to Victorians—and that is our energy grid. A reliable, sustainable, affordable energy supply is foundational to Victoria’s economy for businesses and for households right across our state. But as we know, we must continue to face up to the next transition—the next great leap forward in how we power our state.

To just give some background, energy companies in Victoria are rightly subject to a licensing framework administered by the Essential Services Commission. Those licences are an important instrument, and they ensure the correct conduct of energy companies on a wide range of matters. This bill enables the minister responsible for the administration of the Electricity Industry Act 2000 and the Gas Industry Act 2001 to make orders specifying the conditions of those licences. Those orders will have appropriate safeguards but will give effect to government objectives with respect to regulation of the licensed energy sector.

When we came to government in 2014 we came with an agenda—that is what Labor governments do; that is what we are about—to follow through on our promises and to make our energy market fairer. And on this side of the house fairness sits at the very centre of the decisions that we make. This bill builds on existing reforms that have been mentioned, particularly by the member for Tarneit, delivered under our government’s watch to deliver a fairer energy system for every single Victorian. The reforms in this bill will ensure housing developments are connected to power quicker, they will help home buyers move into new homes sooner, they will boost construction and drive Victoria’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis that we have been managing over recent months. These reforms provide a more direct and flexible and timely mechanism with appropriate safeguards to support a proper and effective regulation of businesses involved in the provision of these essential services.

I note that lengthy delays in connecting new housing developments to the power grid had previously impacted housing construction time frames and costs. This has been recognised in a number of recent reviews, including by Victoria’s red tape commissioner, the Building Victoria’s Recovery Taskforce and the Essential Services Commission. All these changes mean that the Victorian government will have the stronger powers it needs to regulate the licensed energy sector, including powers to impose licence conditions and to address delays in connecting power to new housing developments. This is a matter of high priority for the government, particularly at a time when Victoria’s construction and housing supply is a critical enabler of Victoria’s economic recovery.

With this bill we are cutting red tape so people can move into homes in Victoria’s growth areas sooner while supporting the construction industry and our economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. By reducing delays in electricity connections to new housing developments we are removing a considerable barrier for Victoria’s construction industry and housing supply. The government is also overhauling and significantly increasing penalties for energy companies that do the wrong thing as a part of the energy fairness plan as well as strengthening the Essential Services Commission’s enforcement powers so it is able to more effectively regulate the energy sector.

The centrepiece of that fairness plan is the Victorian default offer that the member for Tarneit mentioned that provides, finally, a simple-to-understand and reliable offer that consumers can trust. Just last week we announced that from 1 September this year the maximum price which embedded network customers can be charged for their electricity will be set by the Victorian default offer. So if you are in a managed care facility, for example, you can now access that same Victorian default offer that everyone else can.

The bill before the house tonight is another tranche that shows just how committed we are as a government to ensuring that we stand up for the people that need these essential services and see that they are not messed around, ripped off or both. I note that since 2014 we have passed, as I think the member for Tarneit mentioned as well, nine pieces of vital legislation relating to Victoria’s energy sector, reforming aspects of our energy legislation framework from renewable energy, including the Victorian renewable energy target, to regulating licensing to all-important safety initiatives. I also note that we must continue to face up to the next transition, the next great leap forward, in how we power our state, and that is the move to renewable energy.

The bill improves the energy regulation environment in Victoria, undoing some of the damage that Jeff Kennett did when he privatised Victoria’s power grid in the late 1990s and seeing that the minister has appropriate powers to protect Victorian consumers. This is a bill that will help fast-track Victoria’s economy at such an important time, a crucial time, to our local economy, the building industry and the tens of thousands of jobs that are associated with that sector.

Can I also note the swathes of reforms that have been introduced by this government. The member to my right, the member for Narre Warren South, and I were talking about solar panels and that program across the state and the great benefits that that is bringing to communities in helping them to save on power bills. Of course we have spoken about the Victorian default offer. The member for Tarneit spoke about the Greener Government School Buildings program, which will help schools and will provide some much-needed assistance to our local schools and will help them save on their power bills.

I think it would be remiss of me not—to trivialise my conclusion of this debate—to note that it is a pleasure to be speaking tonight in the presence of the Assistant Treasurer, who today had the pleasure of meeting the significant actor Liam Neeson. It is great to be amongst star company tonight.

Mr PEARSON (Essendon—Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Regulatory Reform, Minister for Government Services, Minister for Creative Industries) (18:50): Indeed it is fortunate that I get to speak tonight. I often think that many of us in this place are frustrated thespians. None of us are in the league of Liam Neeson, but nonetheless I do thank my good friend the member for Ringwood for that observation.

I am delighted to make a contribution on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020, Acting Speaker Settle, and can I say what a pleasure it is to see you in the chair. I do believe this is the first time I have seen you in the chair as Acting Speaker. Indeed it is that moment in time when you are selected by the Speaker, when you are provided with a warrant to be an acting speaker, that you are afforded that opportunity. It is something that I truly learned and appreciated in the previous Parliament, being an acting speaker. You do develop a greater appreciation of the forms of the house and the way in which debate occurs in this fine chamber. I did say before my arrival here in 2014 that I spoke broken procedure; I think the Clerk would probably say I still speak broken procedure. But I do like to think that as a consequence of receiving said warrant from the former Speaker of this fine place my contributions have increased somewhat. I have developed a keener appreciation for the forms of the house, though I am sure those opposite would quickly put me back in my place were I to suggest for a moment that I have developed any form of proficiency when it comes to the pronunciation of procedure.

Nonetheless, this is an outstanding bill before the house. When it comes to trying to find that great balance between capital and labour, when you are trying to ensure that you have got that appropriate balance, you can always trust the Labor Party to do that. The Essential Services Commission (ESC) is a body which was founded and established by a Labor government because we recognise the really important role it plays in ensuring that you have got that appropriate level of regulation in markets and that you cannot have a situation like you did, say, in America in the Gilded Age where you had the robber barons running rampage over the American economy. I sometimes thought the notion of the Gilded Age seemed to be quite pleasant. It seemed like a time of high ideals, like the Belle Époque, but in actual fact the Gilded Age refers to the fact that you had a base metal and over that was a precious metal, but at the end of the day it sort of tried to cover up what was a pretty base society.

I think that where you have institutions like major providers—you know, if you are looking at an oligopoly or a duopoly or a monopoly—there needs to be an appropriate form of regulatory oversight to get the balance right. It has always been a Labor government that has sought to empower organisations like the ESC to do its role, to play its vitally important role in relation to regulating these markets, because you know you have got to try and get the balance right. You have got to have that ability to make sure that you have got an appropriate level of regulation, which is a real contrast to what the former Kennett government did with its privatisation of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria and the Gas and Fuel Corporation, where there was really effectively no regulatory oversight. There were no regulatory balances in place. It was a case of the then oligopolies, those very large organisations, coming in and buying those privatised assets under a corporatised structure. In fairness to Alan Stockdale, he did oppose the idea of vertical integration, because he felt that that would lead to market manipulation and gouging, but there is no substitute for having an appropriate level of regulatory oversight, and that is what the ESC does.

The ESC has traditionally played and continues to play a very important role in providing that level of regulatory oversight in the way in which these essential assets are operated, and indeed that is exactly what we must do. You have got to try and find that right balance of ensuring that the owners of these enterprises can make an appropriate return on their investment and an appropriate return on the outlays that they have made in running these businesses, but not at the expense of consumers and not allowing that sort of rampaging gouging that could occur in the event that these assets were not probably regulated.

It is really important that you try and get that balance right, and I am pleased that we have got that balance right with what we have done with the Essential Services Commission. So I am really pleased that the minister has brought a bill like this into this house and it continues that level of reform. We do need, I think, to stand and play a key role in terms of looking at the way in which this industry is operating. I think that when you are looking at an industry going through a period of significant transformation, you have got to try and find a way where you can support that industry as it goes through a very challenging time. By that I mean you have got to try and have a more targeted and focused approach on the way in which these industries operate. If you look at one particular example where you have got ageing fossil fuel plants being retired and decommissioned and you have got workers in those businesses who might be, say, in their 30s, does it make sense that they lose their jobs when that business closes yet in a newer asset that will operate for longer you have got older workers who are approaching retirement? I think that you have got to try and look at ways in which we can support the workforce when they are going through that workforce transition. It is really important. You have got to try and find a way of supporting those workers as they go through a really difficult time.

Now, I know the member for Melbourne is in the chamber, and she will be speaking shortly, no doubt. It is interesting that often with the Greens political party in the last term of government they talked about Hazelwood, they talked about closing down Hazelwood, they talked about the fact that it was the dirtiest coal-fired power station in the Southern Hemisphere, but at no stage did I ever hear them talk about the workers, at no stage did I hear them talk about supporting the communities. It was always premised around shutting down Hazelwood and there was no consideration for the workforce. Now, I do not think that is fair. I do not think it is fair for people who have spent their lives working in an industry, who have raised their families and who have lived in communities and supported those communities to just be thrown on the scrap heap and for you to have no regard for them or their families or the fate of their communities. I do not think that is fair. I think the right way is to turn around and work with these communities and work with these workers and work with these assets to find a way where you can transition them into a cleaner, greener future. You do not turn around and basically say, ‘Oh, well, why won’t you shut down Hazelwood? Why don’t you close down Hazelwood?’, without due regard for the consequences. I think that is one of the weaknesses and the deficiencies of the Greens political party in some of their posturing and their arguments.

You have got to try and find a way where you can work with communities, work with people, find a transition, find a smooth pathway forward so these communities are not left behind and these workers are not left behind. That is why we believe in organisations like the Essential Services Commission. That is why the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change is bringing forward bills like this and making the necessary investments to support these communities. You know, it is easy to chant slogans from the sidelines and it is easy to turn around and oppose everything the government puts forward, but good policy requires a lot of careful thought and hard work and doing the research and communicating with people and talking to people with dignity and empathy and respect.

Now, if you are going to turn around and shut down an industry, if you are going to turn around and shut down a business, you have got to show empathy to the workforce, to the communities. You have got to show them respect. They have earned it. If you have spent 40 years on the tools in a power station, you deserve respect. You have earned respect. You have paid your taxes, you have raised a family, you have probably been active in your local community. You should not listen to people and you should not cop being lectured to and being told, ‘You’re out of a job and we don’t care about you’. That is not good enough. The way forward is to work with people and to transition people and support people through a really challenging and difficult time.

Legislation like this is really important. Establishing bodies like the Essential Services Commission plays a really important role. The Latrobe Valley is going to go through a really challenging time, and it is important and it is incumbent upon people who take public policy seriously to work with those communities to help them, to assist them, with that transition. Do not leave them behind. Do not throw them on the scrap heap. Treat them with dignity and respect because that is what they deserve.

Ms SANDELL (Melbourne) (19:00): I note that the member for Essendon is a keen student of history, and he might like to go back and look through Hansard and look through some of the public commentary over the last six years about Hazelwood to which he refers. He might notice if he does that that it was actually the Labor government that did not put in place the plans for the workers before Hazelwood shut, even though they knew it would shut. It was me who got up in this place and asked the minister what those plans were before Hazelwood shut, asked if she knew that Hazelwood was going to shut when I knew that she had met with Hazelwood and was informed that they would shut. Yet those plans were not put in place.

In fact it was the Greens plan for the Latrobe Valley Authority that was ultimately adopted by the government, after the fact—an authority that I note still does not have the ongoing funding that it has been asking for and that the community has been asking for. I wonder how many times the member for Essendon went to the Latrobe Valley and talked to workers in that community in his first term of Parliament, because I was down there at least half a dozen times talking directly to the community, talking to workers, and I never saw the member for Essendon down there at all.

But today we are not talking so much about Hazelwood. We are talking with the legislation before us, which is the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020. The bill does two main things. The first is to give the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change in Victoria the ability to put in place, change or remove conditions on the licences of electricity and gas companies in Victoria. The second thing it does is to make clear that one of the things that licence conditions can be about is the time frame for new electricity connections to be provided to new buildings and developments. Regarding this second aspect of the bill, I understand this is to manage a current issue where providers are not connecting new buildings and developments in a timely manner, which has been a bit of an issue.

Now, electricity is an essential service, and the Greens certainly support measures to ensure people have access to the utilities and services they need, even though some of the large-scale greenfield developments this might apply to may not be supported so much by us for various reasons, including sustainability, biodiversity concerns, a lack of public transport infrastructure to many of these areas and lack of planning as to how our cities are allowed to grow outwards and outwards in an almost unlimited way and whether that is the best way to develop our cities for people and the environment. But leaving that aside, in relation to the first part of this bill I do want to put on the record my concerns as a principle about giving ministers such broad discretionary power. In Victoria the Essential Services Commission already has the power to regulate gas and electricity providers and put conditions on their licences, so I do share some of the concerns raised by the opposition in this regard, but the Greens will not be joining them in opposing this bill.

I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the minister, her staff and the department with this bill in briefing my team and briefing me several times in really good faith. From all that we have been told, the power this bill gives to the energy minister is genuinely intended to enable better regulation of gas and electricity providers and overcome some of the difficulties that she has been facing, so I would really like to thank the minister for the work she has done with us on that.

What concerns me is what happens if a future energy minister comes in—perhaps one who does not accept the science of climate change, perhaps one who is more beholden to the fossil fuel industry or is ideologically opposed to renewable energy—and what they may choose to do with these powers. Unfortunately this is not just a hypothetical, given we have had many energy ministers that fit into this category in the past. So the power could be used, for example, to revoke important conditions that protect the public, to put unreasonable barriers in the way of renewable energy projects or to extend the life of fossil fuel energy. In fact the Labor government has extended the life of our dirtiest coal-fired power stations several times.

While I am on the topic of energy licences I would like to ask again, as my Greens colleagues and I have done many times in this place: when will the licences for Victoria’s three polluting coal power stations be updated? There has been a review ongoing, but the delay is now beyond a joke. The review has been dragging on since November 2017; that is three years. The community in the Latrobe Valley, including people who work there, are coming to me and saying, ‘When will this be done?’, because all this time, for the last three years and beyond that, the Latrobe Valley community have been breathing in toxic pollution like mercury from the plants because the government has failed to mandate on their licences that power stations put in place pollution controls that are simply just standard in other parts of the world. Yet we do not even have them in Victoria.

We know that these power stations are also Victoria’s biggest cause of the climate crisis, and it is essential that the new licences, when they are finally in place, also include limits on climate pollution. So while I very much appreciate that this government and this minister have done some really, really good things when it comes to renewable energy and storage, and broadly we believe these changes are in good faith to this bill, forgive me for being a little sceptical about energy policy in this state given that we have no plan to transition away from coal and no plan for the workers, as we simply must to support coal communities when the inevitable happens. If this government will not even update coal power station licences to regulate chemicals that are poisoning people even though they already have the power to do so, what hope do we have?

But that said, we will support this bill because we do believe our energy system is antiquated and we do believe it needs significant reform. At a broader level I would like to comment on the failings of the privatisation of the energy system in Victoria. Energy is an essential service. It should be government run and it should be for the public benefit, and the government should not have to go to enormous effort with constant new legislation, new powers and more licence conditions just to get something as basic as timely electricity connection. The government is having to waste an enormous amount of time forcing profit-driven private companies to actually just deliver essential services.

When our electricity system was sold off in the 1990s we were promised more competition, lower prices and better service, but instead—surprise, surprise—what we got was more expensive power and poor service, and all it did was make a killing for big energy and fossil fuel companies. It is a pattern that has happened again and again with privatisation, yet both major political parties seem still wedded to this neoliberal system which simply does not work—and especially it does not work when it comes to essential services and monopolies, yet they seem to continue with it. And it is not just the Liberals; this Labor government sold off the port of Melbourne, the land titles office and public housing land across the city, all with detrimental effects for our community. Now, the Greens and I took a comprehensive plan for energy for Victoria—

Mr Pearson: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, the member knows that no land for public housing was sold off by the government.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Ms SANDELL: The Greens and I took a comprehensive energy plan for Victoria to the last state election in 2018, and a key pillar of this plan was bringing energy back into public hands. Public ownership of energy gives governments the flexibility to design and run a fit-for-purpose energy system and ensure that energy is for people, not for private profit. I welcomed last week’s new Big Battery announcement—a very good policy. I applaud the minister for it, but it also would have been really great if it was a publicly owned battery that gave Victorians the opportunity to own this critical piece of infrastructure for our future.

We all know that in the next 10 years Victoria has some urgent work to do in our energy system, and we are running out of time. We do need to replace coal, we do need to get off gas, we do need more storage, we do need a modern grid, and we need it all really, really fast. This is the third energy bill I have spoken about this year that tinkers with a broken privatised energy system, and it would be really great if instead we were considering truly revolutionary reform to our energy system, such as part of a Green New Deal for Victoria. We can bring energy back into public hands, save every Victorian on their bills, protect workers and communities and tackle the climate crisis all at the same time.

Mr J BULL (Sunbury) (19:09): I am very pleased to have the opportunity this evening to contribute to the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020, and certainly I will take the opportunity to thank many on this side of the house that have contributed to the bill, particularly the member for Essendon, the minister, who in his very nimble way has once again delivered a great contribution. I do note the remarks of the previous member in her contribution around some of the member for Essendon’s work, and I will always say that I would each and every day—today, next week, next year—stand with the member for Essendon in his support for workers. Each and every time the member would be fighting for and working with local communities rather than just running a cheap political commentary on these matters like those from a party that has never been in government and never made those decisions.

There were a whole range of various statements made in a previous contribution, and one of those was around planning. Certainly when it comes to planning within my local community in the electorate of Sunbury I know that there are many young families and many people at various points within their life that are very pleased to have the opportunity to move into our community and to get into a house at an affordable price, and these are important things to the government.

When it comes to energy this government, the Andrews Labor government, stands for safe, reliable and consistent supply for all Victorians. This state, as we know, as has been mentioned by others, has a growing population, and this of course means that demand from households, from small businesses, from communities and from industry is growing. But we do know that at a household level this is an important bill that goes towards making sure that connections are provided in the most timely of manners, and it is fundamentally important that this piece of legislation goes through the house to ensure that this happens.

I did want to mention, as others have mentioned in their contributions, the recent announcement around the Big Battery. There was a lot of excitement around the announcement, and it will be installed at the Moorabool terminal station near Geelong in the 2021–22 summer period. I was having a conversation with the member for Footscray, who was saying that people were contacting her office wanting to know when they could go and view the Big Battery. There is a great need and a great interest I believe amongst the Victorian community to look at new, innovative and creative ways to deliver energy to our communities and to do as much as we possibly can to invest in science, to invest in technology and to do all of those things to work with industry to make sure that we are delivering a supply that Victorians are proud of.

Now, the Greens political party like to run a commentary around all sorts of things that should and should not happen, things that the government should do and things that the government have never done. The opportunity that exists for us is an opportunity to work with industry and to work with those that provide leading technologies to invest in this space, and it is fundamentally important that we do so. The battery will create more than 85 jobs, and this is where the power of investment in science is fundamentally important. We know though that sometimes it is the very basic necessities that our communities need, deserve and care for the most, and that is why the provisions within this bill to ensure that those connections are provided at a household level as soon as they possibly can be are fundamentally important.

We know that this government has a proud record on its renewable energy target—25 per cent by the end of 2020, 40 per cent by 2025 and 50 per cent by 2030. These are important targets, and it is an important opportunity for the government to invest in this space. The recent $3.7 million announcement to establish those initiatives which connect Victorians with energy bill hardship support during the pandemic has also been very important. We know that many in our community, through this toughest of six months, have indeed felt economic pain, and it is very important that provisions are provided from the government to make sure that we are working with and supporting local families. This is an important piece of legislation because it once again builds upon our record of supporting those families that need it the most. It is making sure that we are creating a system whereby we do not have all the levers but indeed we can make sure that we take each and every opportunity to invest in and support renewable energy and to invest in and support households and local communities that need and fundamentally deserve access to a reliable, an efficient and the most cost-effective supply of energy.

I am well aware of the hours of the house and certainly well aware that there are quite a few other matters to deal with this evening, and I am very proud to commend the bill to the house.

Following speeches incorporated in accordance with resolution of house of 10 November:

Mr EREN (Lara)

I am pleased to contribute to the house today in relation to the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020.

I wish to start by thanking the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change for the innovative work she is doing across this portfolio. She is an amazing advocate, leading our state into a clean, reliable, and affordable energy future.

This bill aims to amend Victoria’s energy laws to enable the minister to impose conditions on licences issued to electricity and gas companies.

This will mean that we are able to provide a more direct, flexible and timely mechanism, with appropriate safeguards, to support effective regulation of businesses involved in the provision of these essential services.

These reforms will give the Victorian government stronger powers to regulate the licensed energy sector, including powers to impose licence conditions to address delays in connecting power to new housing developments.

This is a matter of high priority for the government. It is also significant at the moment, when our construction industry and housing supply are so crucial to our state’s economic recovery.

The bill will improve the regulation of Victoria’s licensed energy sector and support the provision of reliable, sustainable and affordable energy to Victorians.

We all know that Victorians rely on an efficient and reliable service. Our government recognises that this service must also be sustainable and, importantly, affordable.

I know from speaking with my local constituency that they are so grateful to be able to benefit from the plethora of initiatives our government has delivered, which have directly helped my constituents to achieve lower power bills.

Our Solar Homes program and the Power Saving Bonus have been very beneficial to my constituents. Residents have told me these have made a real difference to their energy bills and therefore their cost of living.

I am also proud of our Energy Fairness Plan.

Through this we are delivering the biggest regulatory shake-up of the energy sector in Victoria’s history and putting power back in the hands of Victorians.

Just last year we implemented the Victorian default offer (VDO)—the centrepiece of the fairness plan. The VDO provides a simple-to-understand, reliable offer that consumers can trust.

Just last week we announced that from 1 September 2020 the maximum price which embedded network customers can be charged for their electricity will be set to the Victorian default offer.

This means that Victorians living in embedded networks, such as apartment buildings, caravan parks and retirement villages, will now save hundreds of dollars on their energy bills, ensuring a fair price for energy for all Victorians.

With this new pricing cap, these residents could save between $180 and $370 a year on energy bills, while small businesses in shopping centres could save between $900 and $2200.

There are more than 120 000 residential and small business customers who live or work in embedded networks across Victoria.

These customers are locked into a contract with a specific company, and these companies can act as a monopoly and charge higher prices for energy.

This is part of the suite of government reforms through the Energy Fairness Plan to make energy more affordable for all Victorians.

There are also upcoming reforms, which I spoke on recently to the house, which will limit the frequency with which retailers can increase their prices to once per year.

This will make marketing of energy deals clearer and less confusing for customers, and cap pay-on-time discounts so that customers are not unfairly penalised if they are late making a payment.

We on this side of the house have also created the strongest energy hardship protections in the country to make sure Victorian households are guaranteed the support and compassion they deserve.

This has been particularly important during these tough times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our recent announcement of $3.7 million for initiatives to connect Victorians with energy bill hardship support during the pandemic further establishes our support to safeguard Victorians doing it tough and make sure everyone knows their rights.

With the economic impact of coronavirus, in addition to all Victorians spending more time at home, it’s understandable that bills will become increasingly more difficult to pay for many households.

As a part of the government’s nation-leading reforms, energy companies must assist any household that engages with them—this includes a payment plan or extending bill due dates while customers work towards paying for their usage.

And importantly, no household engaging with their energy company can be disconnected from electricity or gas.

Another amazing initiative that I was pleased to announce with the minister just last week is the new Victorian Big Battery, which will be based in my electorate of Lara.

The battery will be built at the Moorabool terminal station, to boost the state’s energy reliability, drive down electricity prices and support Victoria’s transition to renewable energy—as well as creating local jobs as we take steps towards a COVID normal.

The Victorian Big Battery will create more than 85 local jobs and deliver over $200 million in investment into the Geelong region.

With climate change resulting in hotter summers, the demand for electricity is rising at peak times.

At the same time, Victoria’s ageing coal-fired generators are becoming increasingly unreliable, creating a need for additional capacity to safeguard the state’s power supply.

The Victorian Big Battery will address these issues.

The 300-megawatt battery will be ready by the 2021–22 summer.

It is another way we are helping reduce people’s power bills. This will reduce wholesale power prices—by storing cheap renewable energy when it’s plentiful and discharging it into the grid when it is needed most.

The reduction in wholesale energy prices delivered by the battery will mean that Victorians pay less for their power—with independent analysis showing that every $1 invested in the battery will deliver more than $2 in benefits to Victorian households and businesses.

Victoria is on track to meet its renewable energy target of 25 per cent by the end of 2020, and the battery will make an important contribution to its targets of 40 per cent by 2025 and 50 per cent by 2030.

These type of initiatives are what our government is focused on delivering—fairer energy for every Victorian.

And I am proud to speak to this bill, which builds on these existing reforms delivered under our government.

Today’s Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020 is a further reform to help alleviate the pressures Victorian households and businesses face, especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

This bill provides a more direct, flexible and timely mechanism, with appropriate safeguards, to support effective regulation of businesses involved in the provision of these essential services.

These reforms will give the Victorian government stronger powers to regulate the licensed energy sector, including powers to impose licence conditions to address delays in connecting power to new housing developments.

This is a matter of high priority for the government, particularly at a time when Victoria’s construction industry and housing supply is such a critical enabler of Victoria’s economic recovery.

With this bill, we’re cutting red tape so people can move into new homes in Victoria’s growth areas sooner, while supporting the construction industry and our economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

The legislation being introduced will help address the issue of lengthy delays in connecting new housing developments to the power grid.

This will support the state’s housing and construction sector as it rebuilds from the impacts of the pandemic.

The government is also overhauling and significantly increasing penalties for energy companies that do the wrong thing as part of its energy fairness plan, as well as strengthening the Essential Services Commission’s enforcement powers so it is able to more effectively regulate the energy sector.

This bill will build on the existing reforms of our government to deliver fairer energy for every Victorian.

That’s why I am proud to be supporting this bill and I wish it a speedy passage through both houses.

Mr NORTHE (Morwell)

I am pleased to make a contribution to the Energy Legislation Amendment (Licence Conditions) Bill 2020. This bill seeks to amend current acts to enable the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change to intervene and impose licence conditions for energy providers and retailers. I would like to sincerely thank the team in the minister’s office, who were most helpful in briefing the crossbench regarding various elements of this bill.

Personally, I am delighted that delays and issues of essential services connections are up for debate. Delays in gas and electricity connections have been an issue for a long time. In fact, I look back to an adjournment debate in May 2018 that I directed to the Minister for Energy about this very issue. After receiving many significant complaints from Gippsland businesses and home owners, I pleaded with the minister then to address this issue of timely electricity and gas connections to properties. These constituents faced business losses in having to hire generators, and families were denied access to their new dream homes and incurred additional mortgage, relocation and rental costs as a result. This problem has already been going on for quite some time. The government chose to wait until reports were concluded six months later to take notice of reporting, and now here we are two years later to see some kind of bandaid approach to fixing the issue.

The bill before us intends to replicate the powers of the statutory authority, the Essential Services Commission (ESC), and share them with the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. In addition, the minister’s decision would override any of those made by the ESC. The ESC was originally set up as an independent regulator to assist and protect consumers with regards to essential services connections, so one would think they would be unequivocally supported in this mandate—not superseded by ministerial control. But this is not the first time we have seen this government seek to duplicate powers with agencies and, indeed, within energy policy this year. Touted as a way to ‘fast-track’ projects, what this approach is doing is undervaluing the regulatory agencies’ work and quite obviously not supporting them in their important tasks. The National Electricity (Victoria) Amendments Bill  2020, from earlier this year, altered the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2020 to circumvent reporting and analysis in transmission network investment decisions. We have recently seen this in effect whereby the government can make announcements about the cost effectiveness of investment in energy infrastructure without regulatory investment tests (RIT-T) conducted.

This means that you can fund the installation of a giant battery in Geelong without providing any evidence to the public or industry as to whether it is the best investment of public funds. In addition, the energy sector then have to work out how this will affect their operations in the future network. Worse still, it will also make the consumer continue to pay for the investment through their retail bills, no less. We still don’t have information regarding how much they will have to pay and for how long. The lack of modelling in energy policy within the Andrews government seems to be a recurrent theme.

I must say that I find the breadth of the powers sought within this bill concerning. There are a number of questions relating to this bill that are really unanswered and unexplained as to their benefit. Why would sharing these powers with the ESC fix any problems that we have with delays in connections? How will the relationship between the ESC and the minister’s office work? What framework will be in place? What projects and connections will be prioritised for ministerial ‘fast tracking’? And in the current climate that the energy sector finds itself in, these are legitimately concerning questions.

The bill does set out a number of conditions, including that the minister must consult with licensees prior to imposing conditions and that these licensees must be given an opportunity to make representations regarding these decisions. In the Latrobe Valley many businesses across the energy space are impacted by government decisions and policy, and I can assure you that the process of consultation needs to dramatically improve and be widened to the community that is directly and indirectly impacted by these decisions.

A case in point is the long-term economic future of the Latrobe Valley as we see our power generation industry decline. The community are still unclear about what the government’s plan is for the future of our jobs and opportunities. Our power generators and the industries and workers that support this sector are waiting with bated breath as to what the local impacts will be when the government finally announce their overdue emissions reductions targets and sector pledges. In addition, the EPA’s review of licence conditions still hovers, and what the government intends to do in this space is also a concern. We know the government’s renewable energy targets have led to significant uncertainty in the Latrobe Valley community, particularly when a target of 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030 could well lead to a premature closure of power stations in my community.

These three policies or pieces of work have left my community and many businesses and industries within it at significant risk and with a high level of uncertainty, which we can ill-afford at this time. For example, the minister is only able to confirm that the conclusions of their emissions reduction targets will be released in coming weeks, despite the government presumably being in possession of the information and decisions since March.

I further ask: what impact will these combined policy decisions have on our community, because there is little consultation on that. I wonder if the government has a plan to transition the Latrobe Valley towards their new policies and what decisions they will make in order to implement their mandate. Have they done any modelling of the Latrobe Valley industry and economy and what impacts their policies will have? How do they plan to consult with us? How will they mitigate the fallout of their actions, or will they just turn their backs on my community?

These are vital questions for my constituents and indeed for the future of the Latrobe Valley that we are waiting to hear from the government on. We constantly hear the general political speak of ‘transition’, but what does that mean on the ground? The airy-fairy statements that come from a number of commentators and political parties, including the Greens, are just galling.

For those wishing to close down power stations in the Latrobe Valley tomorrow and simply say, ‘Oh well, we will just transition the affected workers into renewable jobs’, what a load of rubbish. Such statements are just an illusion, without substance and reality. What is reality is that the state government through its energy policy announcements and decisions are likely to lead to the premature closure of power stations in the Latrobe Valley yet they can’t, or won’t, admit to it. They are more than happy to receive tens and tens of millions of dollars each and every year through coal royalties, yet they are unable to work with the sector or our community with a real plan that will minimise the economic, social and employment harm when our power stations eventually close. It seems, however, that the state government is hell-bent on hastening this process.

I must say it’s interesting to observe the federal Labor shadow minister for resources step down from his position as a result of the party’s shambolic approach to energy. There are many who agree with Joel Fitzgibbon in that the party who purport to represent blue collar workers are simply not doing that. One only has to view the recent decisions and directions of the Labor Party in the spaces of energy and timber policy.

As I have said many times, the debate around renewable versus non-renewable is really irritating to me. I support investment in many renewable projects, but I also feel that for some time we will need a balance of coal, gas, solar, wind, hydro and other generation going forward. The reason I say this is from the perspective of security of supply, employment and consumer energy costs and for a strong economy. In that context I was surprised at the government’s announcement of a Big Battery to be constructed near Geelong. Many in our community were rightly asking: why was the Latrobe Valley not the designated location for this project, particularly given the government has previously had to place back-up diesel generators in Morwell, given energy security couldn’t be guaranteed in peak periods and following the closure of Hazelwood power station? And this in addition to the concession from the same government that the promised electric vehicle manufacturing plant for Morwell and associated 500 promised jobs has fallen over. It seems much of the policy and decisions being made at present are being done on the run, and this is extremely concerning.

My community are also worried about the cost of living—particularly in the current COVID-19 climate. As a result of the government’s attitude towards our energy sector, the Latrobe Valley now has less jobs, a more casualised workforce, lower incomes and big fat electricity bills on top of all of that. I believe my community’s concerns are valid. Despite all the fanfare of the Victorian default offer, for the past two years, the Essential Services Commission’s Victorian Energy Market reports show clearly retail prices are regularly increasing. We know the costs of this Big Battery will also be passed on to consumers—how much more can they take?

And finally, I will say it again: I would like to see a fitting acknowledgement of my Latrobe Valley community as we move closer towards celebrating 100 years of being the power hub for this state. Whilst we are willing and ready to transition to future models, we also need to be part of the conversation and feel valued at the table. In closing, the necessity of duplication of any powers should be a concern to governance and indeed to the minister. If we have to create a short circuit to the current framework in order to make it work, wouldn’t that suggest that the framework itself is broken?

Mr CARROLL (Niddrie—Minister for Public Transport, Minister for Roads and Road Safety) (19:15): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.

Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2020

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Mr CARROLL:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (19:16): I rise to put the opposition’s view on the Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2020, and I will start off by stating that at the moment we will not be opposing this bill but we will be raising some concerns we have. We will still be going out and doing some consultation with different parts of our communities obviously about some of those concerns and also various people within the sectors that the bill affects and impacts.

The elements of this bill, to put it straightforwardly, are to amend the Accident Towing Services Act 2007 as to certain offences and other matters, and it is in relation to tow truck driving. It allows for a vehicle to be withheld by a towing provider if salvage costs have not been paid. There are many parts of the bill around driver safety and around road safety. One of the focuses in the road safety area which I will touch on very early on is around drink driving and .00 versus .05, particularly in relation to heavy vehicles or vehicles over 4.5 tonnes. That is something we would support on this side. Anything that is around road safety measures I think every person should be supporting and looking at ways that we can improve road safety in Victoria.

There are other elements in there that we could also discuss around what is happening with speed cameras. We note that the road safety camera commissioner has come out with some reports on speed cameras, and we hope that they will be reviewed in the future on how we are using speed cameras on certain infrastructure to make sure that they are giving the most accurate results so people are treated fairly. But also you cannot just remove them, because you have got to make sure that people out there are aware that road safety is something that is very, very important.

One of the areas I will touch on tonight, and I imagine I will be going back to it tomorrow, is in relation to licence plates. There is some genuine concern about this bill in relation to clause 18 and clause 20. The concern that has been raised specifically with us is from people who have and hold current numberplates which are personalised plates or plates of heritage listing—most will know there are plates that go back to, originally, plate ‘1’, which was sold a lot later. It was not one of the originals sold in 1910 but was actually sold a lot later, in 1960, but that could go on the market these days and it could go up for $1 million. You could potentially have someone who could make $1 million off that, and they have speculated on that.

Ms Ward: Or you could have ‘BB’.

Mr BATTIN: A very good point raised—you could have ‘VOTEBB’. I actually have to say with ‘VOTEBB’ I have very much limited the amount of speculative people that could buy that. There is me and Bruce Billson—I have run out of options. But I do know the person that holds the plate ‘VOTE4ME’. I will not be putting that on my car, that is not my one, but someone does have ‘VOTE4ME’. I did look up one today whilst I was on 3AW, and it was ‘BYEDAN’, saying goodbye to Dan. I would not mind as a speculator putting that one out there and just having a bit of fun to see how much we could actually raise from that in the future.

But we do have some real concern around it, and the reason we have that concern is the system that is being set up within this legislation is effectively a tax on anyone who could speculate in the market for licence plates and make money from it. It is pretty rich for the government to be saying, ‘We’re going to be putting a tax on this for the future’ and targeting people that have been speculating on those numberplates when at the same time there is an option coming up very shortly from VicRoads where numberplates will go to market for up to $150 000 for the government. So it is okay for the government to generate that income of $150 000 on a numberplate, but it is not okay for people within the private sector who have speculated on the future cost of these plates.

Now, with the legislation at the moment the government is saying that this is not the intention but it could allow for a levy charge per year on any of those plates that people already hold, whether they are on a vehicle or not. Currently ‘VOTEBB’ is not on a vehicle. My uncle holds ‘GOCATS’. People in the house may or may not like ‘GOCATS’. However, under the current system you cannot have ‘GOCATS1’, so therefore it actually holds some fair value on it. It is not on a vehicle—he lives in Queensland. Under this system the government could go back and put a levy on that plate for him to hold it, which we disagree with. We do not support the fact that that could happen on plates of the past.

Now, the government, taken at their word through the briefings, would be saying, ‘No, it’s only on any plates that are going to be purchased in the future’. However, the more we have looked into this the more information we have got, and it looks less like it is going to be a levy and more like it is going to be a lease. That means you will be leasing the plates from the government rather than purchasing them. Therefore if you took the risk and speculated on any plates in the future that actually had some payback, you, as the person who took that punt, could never actually get the results for it. Who would win? The government. This legislation would allow somebody, and I will not use my footy team this time, to go out and buy the numberplates ‘BLUES 30’—

Ms Ward: No-one is buying that.

Mr BATTIN: Let us be honest, it would be a waste of money we would probably imagine. But I did speak about it with John Elliott, and he is fairly confident. If you bought ‘BLUES 30’ and Carlton Football Club managed to get up and win the premiership in 2030—Eddie Betts would be playing his 710th game, all those sorts of things that go with it—what would happen is that those numberplates would instantly go up in value. There is an automatic increase in value because you cannot get another one, other than ‘BLUESTHIRTY’. Under the leasing system or the levy system, whichever they want to call it, what this would mean is a person who has taken the risk of buying that plate and been speculative in paying for it—normally paying up-front a set figure but now having to pay a yearly figure—could be faced with the government turning around and saying, ‘This is now a plate that is seen to be of value’. And if it is of value, they could end that lease or put the option to the person to increase the value of that lease.

There are no figures in this bill, so we have to make up figures as we go because there is nothing within the legislation. So let us assume that you are going to be charged $250 a year so you can hold your own personalised plates. If those plates then become something of value and the government says, ‘We now deem them to be worth $5000 per annum’, then the government can force you to pay $5000 per annum because it is going to be an annual contract. That is simply unfair.

People who go out and take a risk in buying numberplates as an investment, putting their money where their mouth is, are doing something that I think is very reasonable. The argument from the government would be that they should not be able to make money off a government-owned product. I would argue that numberplates effectively come back to the person. They do own them. They are the ones that have undertaken the purchase. They have the rights to them, and they hold the rights to them until such time as the government revokes those rights, and I do not believe that the government should. If I was the holder at the moment of numberplates of value, if I held plates that had a genuine value, I would be concerned this legislation could give the government the power to remove those plates. And it could be someone in the bureaucracy who just decides that they are going to go up in value. I know people would say that that is not the intention. Well, we have already seen what can happen when a bureaucrat makes a decision such as the example of the numberplate ‘WEAPON’, where the government would not back the holder of the plates. People who have been involved with vehicles for a period of time—they have worked on cars, have built cars, understand cars—would totally understand that the word ‘WEAPON’ on a numberplate is not about a physical weapon. You are talking about a vehicle that can be fast, that can be a good-looking car, that can be hotted up or that is a car with a powerful engine. There are different reasons why you would call your car ‘WEAPON’. When you have an LC Torana, such as the one down in Warrnambool that had the numberplate ‘WEAPON’, I would actually say it was almost offensive to take those numberplates off it.

The sad part about that was at the same time we actually had a case up in New South Wales where a set of personalised numberplates was removed. However, the person who had the plates removed had the money to fight it through the courts and kept the plates themselves. Here in Victoria the person they took the plates off was a worker down in Warrnambool who loves his car—if you saw the car, it was always in a pristine condition. The only reason the government removed the plates was because the man’s wife bought a car, built it up—another LC Torana—and wanted to put ‘WEAPON 2’ plates on the car and was told it was deemed offensive. It had not been offensive for the time he had ‘WEAPON’ on the first vehicle. It only became offensive when it was on the second vehicle, and what we are going to see now is legislation that will tighten that up.

Plates are now going to be leased. There will not be any other agreement you can enter into. You are now going to have to lease those plates. Again, I put it back to people in the community. I am genuinely concerned because car enthusiasts are really enthusiasts. They get numberplates that are the right colour for their cars. If they have a specific car of a specific age, they get plates to match that era. They make sure the metal is the right metal. They do everything to ensure that their show car looks as it should look. They do not want to have to pay a levy per year just to protect their rights and what they have already paid for. I think it is really important that people out there are aware of exactly how that change could impact them.

I will come back to more of that change tomorrow, but I wanted to quickly focus on one of the other areas that we have got genuine concern around, and that is our farmers. We have heard a lot about farmers. We have heard a lot about regional properties here today, and I am sure that we should always be working to make sure that we protect our farmers and give them the rights that they deserve. When we spoke to the department one of the issues that came up with this legislation was when going along the railway lines, if there are private crossings which a farmer may use to move cattle or move product or whatever it is from one side of a railway line to another, this legislation will give the government the right to close that crossing. Now, we do not want to get in the way of progress and we want to make sure that there is progress for a certain line, but what we do want to do is make sure that any legislation that comes in protects the farmer. We were speaking with the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) to ensure that with any legislation that comes through there is an understanding that if the department are going to change or close a crossing down there has to be genuine consultation. There has to be a period of time when that consultation happens, and we have to be sure that if a crossing is removed there is still an opportunity for that farmer to go from one side to the other, whether that is via another safe private crossing or whether that is via a compensation deal or arrangement between the government and the farmer, because at the end of the day the farmer deserves that respect. It was disappointing when we asked the department how many crossings there are that could potentially be caught up in this legislation. They said they were not sure, so we went on to the next step and said, ‘Okay, if you can’t tell us how many are caught up, how many level crossings are there that are private crossings across V/Line tracks throughout Victoria?’. The sad thing was we got told, ‘We don’t know’.

Now, most of us will probably know a train driver. I reckon most of us in this house would have met a train driver at some stage and seen the training train drivers do. Train-driving training is not a basic thing. It is a long process to be putting the lives of people in your hands. You need to understand everything about that track. So when you get your ticket to travel from Melbourne to Warrnambool on that train and be the driver, you will know every blade of grass from when you leave Melbourne to when you get down to Warrnambool. It is impossible, in my view, or incompetent—one of the two—that this government does not know how many crossings between Warrnambool and Melbourne or on any other line up through Shepparton there are and how many of those crossings could potentially be impacted by this. The consultation process for this, before this legislation came to the house today, should have been going out and speaking to those individual farmers and understanding what the impact would be, because we need to see where those farmers are and how they are going to react to it.

Let us be honest, Deputy Speaker—and I know you represent a regional area—many of your farmers would say, ‘I’ve got a private crossing; there’s going to be an issue but I have a solution’, and we could work with them on that, but this legislation has removed that from them. They are no longer part of the discussion. What this legislation is is the department in Melbourne, with the government in the city, making a decision on a private crossing on a farm anywhere in regional Victoria. That is not how it should operate. We need to make sure that the farmers have that voice. We will continue to work with the VFF, and we will continue to make sure that the farmers’ voices are heard. As I said, I think it is vital, when we hear about some of the things that are happening in Victoria, particularly around what is happening with Victorian farmers and the way they are treated at the moment, that we make sure that their voices are heard.

One of the other concerns from the farmers is the condition of their roads—the state of the roads in Victoria. The sad thing is in Victoria at the moment there is an assessment done of roads I think about every—I would have to probably say—five years at the moment, the way it is done with the technology they use. We need to upgrade that system so we know what is happening on our roads at all times. Every state road should be assessed. We have got an organisation here in Victoria funded partly by this government and by other governments around the country, and the only state that does not really use the Australian Road Research Board is this state. This is the group that could actually go out there and assess our roads, find out where the money should be spent and take some of the politics out of it so then we can put the investment in the right areas at the right time. That could include not just people travelling to Melbourne to work, which is very, very important, but the farmers down through Gippsland to make sure that their roads are taken care of. They are using heavy vehicles to move around cattle and products that feed us every day. We need to understand exactly how wire rope barriers are going to work, how lines are painted on the roads, how the cat’s eyes are working, what is missing, where the potholes are and if a car is going to fall in—all those things.

Business interrupted under resolution of house of 10 November.

Adjournment

COVID-19

Mr McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (19:30): (4762) My adjournment is to the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is that he immediately remove restrictions on skin clinics and specialists where the face is the treatment area. I want to be clear that I am not talking about cosmetic surgery; I am talking about skin allergies on the face, including severe acne and other skin allergies, that cannot be treated due to the mask being required to remain on the patient’s face. It is ridiculous as the surgeon and the staff have face masks and face shields and are all trained in infection control. I know the government has announced there will be changes in the coming weeks, but this delay is too long for people who are experiencing skin rashes, allergies and other debilitating facial skin problems.

With only four active cases in Victoria it is appalling that skin surgeons cannot support patients in desperate need. When you consider that regional Victoria is faced with the same rules as metro Melbourne, this is downright discrimination. It is time to unshackle the regions and allow country businesses like skin surgeons to operate and function in a COVID-safe environment. This continued delay is causing grief for many families and is unnecessary. I spoke with a surgeon last week—they are classified as a beauty clinic when in actual fact they treat facial rashes, pigmentation and acne scarring. It is now having a greater adverse psychological effect. It is time for the Victorian government to let these businesses trade for their mental wellbeing and their physical wellbeing. These clinics have a high reputation for their cleanliness and sterilisation, which is in fact hospital standard.

Burwood electorate bus services

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (19:31): (4763) My adjournment matter this evening is directed to the Minister for Public Transport, the honourable member for Niddrie, and the action I seek is for the minister to visit and launch a new bus stop on Highbury Road.

Ms McLeish: That would be a big gig for him.

Mr FOWLES: It would be a massive gig. One ought not sniff at the opening of bus stops, over the other side of the chamber. These are big deals. They make a big difference to my constituents.

Earlier this year I met with the director of a great local small business, Amanda Brook. Amanda and her partner, Hugh Farrelly, run a business called Abbeys Auctions. They have recently expanded and are now based in both Box Hill and Burwood, two great Labor-held seats. One of their staff members, Lydia Lin, identified a gap in the public transport access between Box Hill and Burwood. There is a bus route that currently services both areas—the 766 Box Hill to Burwood via Surrey Hills—but the nearest stop is a full kilometre from their new site on Highbury Road.

Now, this section of Highbury Road in Burwood is bustling with life. It is a growing business area but also surrounded by residences, a fire station and a cemetery—perhaps bustling with life was not the best choice of words. But Amanda came to me with Lydia’s proposal for the installation of an additional bus stop that whilst not technically on the named route is nonetheless on the path that the bus takes at the conclusion of its run in order to circle back and commence the route going back in the other direction. They came with this simple request in the hope that the government would listen and act. I took the proposal to the then minister, my great friend the member for Williamstown, and this week I had the excellent news that the bus stop is being installed and we can expect it to be integrated into the 766 route. A terrific local suggestion and a result that delivers a massive convenience uplift at minimal cost and, most importantly, without changing the bus route itself, simply adding an additional stop on the path that the bus is already travelling. I would be absolutely delighted if the minister would be good enough to join me and Lydia and Amanda to visit the patch and launch this terrific new bus stop on Highbury Road.

Polwarth electorate roads

Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (19:34): (4764) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety as well. The action I seek from the minister is to immediately review recently installed road safety barriers on Colac-Ballarat Road at Irrewarra and the wire rope barriers installed in the centre and along the edges of Fyansford-Gheringhap Road in Stonehaven. There is a current epidemic underway in the state of Victoria of unnecessary and at times dangerous road safety barriers and wire rope barriers being installed the length and breadth of country Victoria. While country Victorians very much appreciate government efforts to make their roads safer, they do not in fact appreciate seeing literally millions and millions of dollars being spent on infrastructure that (a) makes the roads more dangerous and (b) actually is not money spent on potholes, dangerous intersections, dangerous curves, bad and poor camber, and no shortage of other far more necessary and far better spends of the safety dollar.

What we have seen in these two examples is that consultants, most presumably from Melbourne, who have not actually inspected the sites, have installed barriers. What they have not allowed for is essential roadside maintenance such as mowing, fire prevention and access to properties. We have a situation where the Keays family, who have been operating a property for many generations on a very well known stretch of the Fyansford-Gheringhap Road, can no longer bring their headers, grain, equipment, trucks, silos or whatever equipment they have into their paddocks because they have now been fenced off. VicRoads left them with the situation, telling them that they were not official entrances, and they said to try telling their great-great-grandfather from 100 years ago when he put the gates in that they are not essential accesses.

In Irrewarra farmer John Martin has biosecurity concerns. He runs a very, very professional farming operation and now he has wire and steel barriers along a road that can no longer be accessed for any form of road maintenance, mowing or fire prevention, and VicRoads’ solution is that they are going to use herbicides and spray the length of his property along the road in order to keep the grass down, which is environmentally unsustainable. It is absolutely detrimental to the farmer. The worst part is this is on perfectly straight stretches of road that have not recorded any accidents at any time. Yet for some reason they have decided to go and install literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of barriers in this spot. These are not good decisions. They are a poor use of taxpayers money. They are causing problems and potentially making not only our roads less safe but the fire prevention and natural care of the environment much more problematic.

Ballarat International Foto Biennale

Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (19:37): (4765) I direct my adjournment matter to the Minister for Creative Industries, and the action that I seek is for him to visit my electorate of Wendouree to meet with the Ballarat International Foto Biennale artistic director, Fiona Sweet, and members of the board to discuss the 2021 Biennale. The impact of COVID has been very significant on our creative industries, not just in Melbourne but in regional Victoria, including in my community of Ballarat. The 2021 Ballarat International Foto Biennale will provide an excellent opportunity for Victorians to visit Ballarat and the wider region and will provide a significant boost for the local economy.

The 2019 Ballarat International Foto Biennale was a huge success, boasting over 37 800 visitors—an increase of more than 10 000 visitors from the 2017 Biennale. Significantly, it contributed $7.27 million of direct economic impact to Ballarat over the two months from August to October 2019. The 2019 Biennale involved more than 150 artists, with over 190 core and open program exhibitions and events. Importantly, the Ballarat International Foto Biennale aims to be accessible for all, with free entry for 99 per cent of events in 2019 and with 135 volunteers throughout the Biennale who provided an invaluable contribution to the festival. I am really looking forward to welcoming the Minister for Creative Industries to Ballarat and the 2021 Ballarat International Foto Biennale, which opens on 27 August next year.

Bell train station car park

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (19:39): (4766) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the action I seek is for the state Labor government to listen to the Preston community over their design concerns with the Preston level crossing removal project in relation to the access to the Bell station car park. The Bell Residents Group and the wider Preston community have been banging their collective heads against the wall for years. Despite blanket opposition, the state government has approved the installation of and access to Bell station parking on the crowded residential side of the station instead of allowing access to the vacant VicTrack land located on the west side of the station. Bizarrely, the government’s approach includes access to the car park through a rabbit warren of narrow residential streets and heritage-listed homes on the eastern side of the station. Who will pay the cost of this approach? Residents—with a reduction to their residential amenity. The decision is illogical, but even though the Labor government will not admit it we know what they are doing. Labor has a secret plan to flog off the VicTrack land and allow inappropriate high-rise apartments to be built there. Labor is selling out local residents.

The Preston community has worked tirelessly to voice their opposition to the state government’s nonsensical plans. Almost 1300 residents of the local community have petitioned the government begging them to listen, but the Minister for Transport Infrastructure and the member for Northcote sneakily tiptoe around the issue. In a letter to the Bell Residents Group, a community group for residents affected by the proposal, the Minister for Transport Infrastructure casually wrote:

… your suggestion that the project could destroy the community is noted …

What a typical brush-off from a prickly minister. The member for Northcote’s own constituents feel their member has also given them the cold shoulder, with one constituent saying, ‘Kat was always available to us as a candidate until she was elected’.

Accidentally in a letter to the residents group the member admitted that the minister is considering the future use of the VicTrack land, buried deep in her response. The whole proposal is a sneaky stitch-up. Local residents are being hoodwinked by the government. They deserve to know the truth. I call on the government to come clean and let the Preston community know Labor has a sneaky plan to flog off the VicTrack land and allow inappropriate high-rise apartments to be built there. I look forward to the minister’s response.

Bass electorate bus services

Ms CRUGNALE (Bass) (19:41): (4767) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Public Transport, and the action I seek is for the minister to meet with me and discuss bus services, bus reviews and future network planning in my electorate of Bass. I am proud to be part of a government that prioritises investment in public transport. On the train front, the Andrews Labor government is removing level crossings left, right and centre. In Pakenham this translates to removing four level crossings, with our Cardinia Road one departing early December this year. Duplicating the Cranbourne line with planning to Clyde is also in the program.

A significant proportion of my electorate, though, is not covered by the train network, and in these areas buses provide an invaluable service. In fact buses are the number one unifying priority issue across my whole electorate and across every age group, and I agree. They are imperative for people to move around, whether it is getting to work, recreational activities, social happenings and cultural events, or getting to and from support services, medical appointments or TAFE, just to name a few. They are a crucial element for connectedness and participation on so many levels.

We are thrilled with the two new bus routes coming to Clyde and Clyde North. I see the member for Cranbourne here on my left. Bus routes 888 and 889 will connect this growing community to trains, shops, hospitals and so much more. I may as well in this adjournment as well invite the minister to come down in March to actually join the member for Cranbourne and myself on a bus with locals.

Ms Addison: Great idea.

Ms CRUGNALE: Great idea. My community have raised so many suggestions to improve and better the network, and I look forward to sharing these with the minister. Public transport is a social investment, and again I look forward to meeting with the minister and representing my community and also to continue being part of a government that is delivering public transport for all Victorians.

Victoria Police procedures

Ms SANDELL (Melbourne) (19:43): (4768) My adjournment today is for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and the action I seek is that the minister ask Victoria Police to make a formal apology to residents of 33 Alfred Street, North Melbourne, for the excessive, unnecessary and distressing police patrol that happened on Friday, 25 September, this year. On 25 September approximately 25 police officers entered and patrolled the public housing high-rises at 33 Alfred Street. While residents are used to seeing small groups of police patrolling outside their buildings and often appreciate this visible presence, this was very different. This time a large group of police entered their building, their home, and patrolled up and down each floor in groups, followed by a camera person. For residents it was a scary sight because they had just recently been through the police-enforced hard lockdown, and a large and sudden police presence on a Friday night made residents think that a hard lockdown was happening again or that there was some kind of emergency or immediate danger. When they asked the police what was happening they were simply told the police were there for proactive media purposes. Others said they were there in response to gang violence and they had to be in big groups due to their safety. But it was not clear why police were there at all.

Given the distress it caused, residents convened a meeting with police. I also had a meeting with police, and I thank them for genuinely engaging with me and with the community. However, what I heard at the meeting was disturbing. We were told that essentially police had extra resources available because due to the curfew they did not need to do their usual CBD patrols. So they looked around to see where they should do proactive patrols and they chose 33 Alfred Street, not because of any threat or crime beyond a single armed robbery that had happened a number of streets away a couple of weeks beforehand.

They took a camera crew with them to film for their own social media. To their credit, the police have admitted this should never have happened, but it is completely shocking to me that anyone in the police thought this was a good idea and that the decision was not questioned by anyone. Of all the places the police could have patrolled, why did they choose 33 Alfred Street, a place that had just come out of hard lockdown, where there was no actual threat and where they should know this houses a group of people with a history of overpolicing and racial policing? On top of that, who thought it was a good idea to film this incident without residents’ consent with the intention to share it on social media, which could have further marginalised and stigmatised this community?

For years I have heard from residents living in public housing who are sick and tired of being the target of unfair policing. I genuinely thought the police and government had learned lessons from Operation Molto and the hard lockdown, but this shows that perhaps they have not. If we want our communities to trust the police, if we want them to work together with the police to keep their communities safe, the police need to seriously look at how they do things, particularly in the public housing estates. Residents have told me they would like Victoria Police to make a formal apology for this incident. I also believe there needs to be an urgent independent review of the way in which public housing residents are policed to address concerns of overpolicing and race-based policing.

Early childhood education

Ms THOMAS (Macedon) (19:46): (4769) My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Early Childhood in the other place. The action I seek is that the minister join me in my electorate to visit one of our many fabulous kindergartens. This week’s announcement that all funded kinder will be free in 2021 is great news, and it has been welcomed across my electorate. It comes on top of so many other great announcements in early childhood education. This government knows that building the Education State starts in the early years. Quality play-based learning delivered by highly qualified teachers and educators will have profound impacts on the life chances of children right across this state, and that is why we, the Andrews government, are making 15 hours of three-year-old kinder available for all children, not just those whose parents can afford it. We are backing this in with a $5 billion investment over the next decade.

The Andrews government is working very hard to make sure all of our services across my electorate are prepared for universal three-year-old kinder. Upgrades have already been completed at Woodend and Swinburne Avenue kinder in Gisborne, and I know that Trentham Kindergarten is making great progress and is very close to completion. We are also delivering a new kindergarten alongside the brand new school in the south of Gisborne. The two-room, 66-place kinder will open in 2022, just in time for three-year-old kinder to start in the Macedon Ranges.

Earlier this week I visited Rachael Brown and the team at Goodstart Early Learning in Kyneton to announce that they had received $12 000 in school readiness funding for 2021. Twenty-two kinders in my electorate received this funding, and I am so glad to know that the children who need it most will be getting the help in preparing for school in 2022. With so much happening in early education right now we need more educators and more teachers, so now is the time for anyone with a passion for working with young children and helping them to get the best start in life to consider a career in early childhood education. I know that early childhood educators across my electorate look forward to joining me in welcoming the minister to Macedon in the near future.

Wildlife of the Central Highlands

Mr BLACKWOOD (Narracan) (19:49): (4770) I raise a matter for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. The action I seek is that she immediately stop supporting the environmental activist group WOTCH, also known as Wildlife of the Central Highlands. Currently the minister supports WOTCH representatives sitting on the stakeholder reference group of the Office of the Conservation Regulator. The minister also directs that WOTCH be given specialised survey equipment such as infra-red cameras from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning for the purposes of the group’s survey activities. The results of the survey activities are used to withdraw large areas of forest from timber production and are acted on by DELWP without any verification. It is interesting to note that their work is only conducted in areas that are being logged or are earmarked for logging in the timber release plan signed off by the Minister for Agriculture, not in the 94 per cent of native forest area that is set aside from timber harvesting in parks and reserves.

On their Facebook page WOTCH state that with each tree that falls, with each hectare of habitat lost, we come closer to losing these species forever. This is typical of the emotive language used to depict a lie. With the controls in place and the pre-coupe survey work undertaken by VicForests, not one species of animal has become extinct because of timber harvesting, ever. As an example, the Leadbeater’s possum is now found in regrowth from logging that is only 40 years of age. The areas that are harvested do not disappear. They are regrown, and this has always been the method used. Habitat trees are set aside from harvesting, ensuring animal habitat is protected in close proximity to the forward food source that will come with the regenerating forest.

WOTCH is an environmental activist group using the information gained with the support of DELWP to undermine and eventually end the sustainable harvesting of our native forests. They have strong links to Friends of the Earth, a very radical environmental activist group originating in America in the early 1980s. This group completely disregards our rule of law. They published a book on how to monkey wrench logging equipment, as they called it, but in reality it advocates the sabotage of equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, which happened on many occasions through the 1980s and 1990s. WOTCH have proven to have the same disregard for the law, conducting their surveys in breach of the curfew and the 5-kilometre and 25-kilometre travel limits of the COVID restrictions, also illegally entering harvesting coupes and breaching the safe work zone of an active coupe on many occasions.

How can the minister for environment justify giving this feral activist group legitimacy, accept their survey results and use them to remove areas from industry without even verifying their survey data, that in most cases has been illegally obtained? I call on the minister to stop providing WOTCH with taxpayer-funded equipment and remove them from the Office of the Conservation Regulator stakeholder group as they are completely conflicted with their intent to shut down our native forest timber industry.

Western Rail Plan

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (19:51): (4771) My adjournment is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the action I seek is that the minister provide me with an update on the Western Rail Plan. As the minister well knows, the Western Rail Plan is set to dramatically transform the way in which we travel in the west, particularly in my electorate of Tarneit. Beyond providing a fast route to Geelong, it will finally separate metropolitan stations like Tarneit from the Geelong line, with an electrified metropolitan service running from Melton and Wyndham Vale. This also means that the Western Rail Plan will go ahead and lay those very important foundations for where future stations will be built in the west. That is why this plan is so important for commuters in Tarneit, particularly commuters from Tarneit train station. Minister, my constituents and I would welcome any updates on the progress of this transformative plan for the transport network in Melbourne’s outer west.

Responses

Ms WILLIAMS (Dandenong—Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) (19:53): The member for Ovens Valley raised with me a matter for the Minister for Health regarding restrictions on skin surgeons, I believe it was. The member for Burwood raised with me a matter for the Minister for Public Transport regarding an additional bus stop on Highbury Road. The member for Polwarth raised with me a matter for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety regarding a review of road safety barriers in his constituency. The member for Wendouree raised with me a matter for the Minister for Creative Industries regarding a visit to her electorate to meet with Fiona Sweet and other board members of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. And the member for Brighton raised a matter for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure regarding the Preston level crossing removal project, I believe it was, which seems a little bit out of Brighton, but I know his interest is genuine.

The member for Bass raised with me a matter for the Minister for Public Transport regarding a request to meet with the member to discuss some bus services. The member for Melbourne raised with me a matter for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services requesting an apology by Victoria Police. The member for Macedon raised a matter for the Minister for Early Childhood requesting that the minister join her to visit some local kindergartens. The member for Narracan raised a matter for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change requesting that the minister stop supporting a local environmental organisation. The member for Tarneit raised a matter for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure requesting an update on the Western Rail Plan. I will refer all those matters off to the relevant ministers.

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

House adjourned 7.55 pm.