Second Reading
Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (12:32): Labor cannot manage money, and Victorians are paying the price. We just heard from the Minister for Finance, who is already walking straight out the door because he has got nothing more to say as to why Victorians are suffering under this government. If that was the putative Treasurer giving his audition, then that is why he is not the Treasurer now, isn’t it? We have heard the Minister for Police has got a got a bottom drawer full of ideas. Clearly that was the attempt at the top drawer from the Treasurer that would be. We know why he is not there.
There are a couple of things that the Minister for Finance just talked about. He tried to say that we were stuck in the dim, dark years of the Howard government. Actually, most people remember the Howard government as pretty good. It actually was not that dim and dark; it was actually pretty good. We had strong employment growth, and we had a budget under control. What those of us on this side and what all Victorians are concerned about in terms of dim, dark years is that this Labor government has taken us back to the Cain–Kirner dim, dark years. The parallels are so stark. It is absolutely concerning for any Victorians who were around at that time just how bad the state of our finances has got under this Labor government. It is a reminder of the Cain–Kirner government. The difference of course is that this time around there are no power assets to sell to get down that debt, which I remind those opposite is now higher as a percentage of gross state product than it was in the Cain–Kirner years. We are over 25 per cent of GSP as debt-to-GSP ratio.
Emma Kealy: Who sold those power assets?
Danny O’BRIEN: Well, actually, the Minister for Finance likes to tell us about that. He always says that it was the Kennett government, but he was actually around as an adviser at the time, when it was the White and Kirner government that actually started the sale. It is a bit like how this Labor government did the Land Titles Office and the VicRoads registry and the Port of Melbourne, but anyway. I am indebted to you for your reminder of the economic profligacy of this government. For the Minister for Finance to refer to us as economic vandals is like Tamerlane accusing Genghis Khan of being a warmonger. This government suggests that we are economic vandals. Have a look at the mess that these budget papers are in under this government: $194 billion of debt. That is $29 million of debt in interest payments every single day in the out years. $1.2 million of interest repayments per hour is what we are heading for.
Everyone on that side is looking at their phone or looking down and checking their notes from the Treasurer’s office for their speech because none of them actually want to address it. Why is it important? It is not about numbers. The numbers are not what is important in this, and that is sometimes lost in our debates. What is important is the impact on people, the impact on Victorians – $29 million a day for the fifth budget running. In my electorate the people of Gippsland South have not had funding for Sale College. That could be funded in two days with Labor’s interest payments – a new school for the people of Sale and district funded in two days of interest payments – not to mention the Foster fire station and the Mirboo North fire brigade getting a new station, which we are supposedly being promised under this new emergency services tax. There are going to be rivers of gold for our emergency services, but I will come to that in a moment.
I was in Bendigo with Gaelle Broad, a member from the other place, last week. It was mentioned to us that there is an intersection on the Calder Highway and Maiden Gully Road in Maiden Gully that is designed and ready to be implemented, but we are waiting on funding from the state government to actually fix that intersection. Not only is that intersection dangerous and an issue for road safety, but until the intersection has been realigned there are four property developments with over 140 homes that are being held up at a time when we cannot get housing and we cannot find affordability of housing. That project did not get funded. I think the member for Mildura asked me whose electorate that was in. I think you will find that is the Premier’s electorate. In her own patch, in her own backyard, that project is still not funded and is being held up because this government cannot manage money. The people of Bendigo are paying the price. The people of regional Victoria are paying the price.
We have seen in this budget, continuing on the issue of regional development, we have got a cut to the regional development budget again – I am not quite sure how that is even possible after being cut repeatedly over the years – cuts to the agriculture budget and a cut in real terms to the roads budget. I want to talk a little bit about roads, because this is dear to my heart as the shadow minister, as it is to all of my colleagues and everyone who travels on our roads in Victoria. The government will be claiming – as I am sure we will hear from future speakers – that they are spending a record amount on roads maintenance this financial year. Let us leave aside for a moment the fact that in real terms what the government is proposing to spend is actually a cut on last year, and that is just on CPI. If you look at actual construction costs and particularly road construction costs, it is actually a significant cut. Let us have a look at some of the performance measures. The budget papers very helpfully set out not only what the government is going to spend but what it is going to do. I like to say – I think it is important for all of us – do not listen to what the Labor government says, actually look at what they do and what they are going to do. The ‘Department Performance Statement’ highlights on page 135 ‘road area major patched’ in regional Victoria. The target for this year was 1,033,000 square metres of patching. How much do you reckon they got done, given they were spending record amounts last year?
Emma Kealy interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: You would think, member for Lowan, they would get more. In fact what they actually expect the outcome to be this year is 566,000 square metres. Members on this side, bear with me on this. Does that mean that there were not actually that many potholes that they had to fix up? You would think that perhaps the government might say, ‘Well, we didn’t quite get all that done because we only got half of our target done last year. We probably should increase that this year, should we not?’ So what is the target for next year?
Emma Kealy interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: It is not 1,033,000 square metres, member for Lowan. It is not 566,000 that they actually got done; it is 70,000. So the target last year was 1,033,000 square metres of road patching; they did not even get half of that done, and their target for next year is 70,000 square metres. A 93 per cent reduction in the target of what they are going to do to fix our roads – that is part of it. You could actually then go on to roads area resurfaced or rehabilitated in regional Victoria: the target last year, 3,163,000 square metres; the expected outcome – well, once again they did not actually meet the target of just over 3 million. So what is the government doing? Are we going to put in a whole lot more money? Well, apparently we are putting in a whole lot more money. Are we going to get more done? No, we have actually cut that target again by a further 14 per cent.
Members interjecting.
Danny O’BRIEN: Oh, absolutely. You have got a regional Treasurer and a regional Premier. Our roads are goat tracks, and the government cannot actually deliver what it said it was going to do last year. So it gives up and actually cuts the target again for next year – in the case of potholes, by 93 per cent. It is an absolute joke.
Emma Kealy interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: Member for Lowan, I am indebted to you again for highlighting that the budget papers say ‘Focused on what matters most’. What matters most appears to be failing and just accepting failure and going back to it and failing again. It is a joke when it comes to roads. We see in the budget papers the police budget getting cut. The member for Nepean and my colleague the member for Gippsland East are here, all very concerned about cuts to the fisheries offices. That is still going ahead because Labor cannot manage money, and it is Victorians paying the price.
Where they are really paying the price for this economic vandalism over there is in this absolutely egregious new emergency services tax. It should just be called a revenue tax – that is what it should be – because it is got almost nothing to do with emergency services, and those opposite do not seem to understand that. It is extraordinary that many of them are out there in public saying, ‘I’m very concerned about this, and I’m lobbying the Treasurer,’ but none of them voted against it. Every single one of them supported it, and we have now got a $3 billion bill on Victorians – $3 billion extra on Victorians – to pay for Labor’s economic vandalism. This tax is not about emergency services. It is taking Triple Zero Victoria, Forest Fire Management Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria and the State Control Centre – all of these things funded as core government services and funded out of general revenue for decades – and now shifting them across, and Victorians are being asked to pay for them again. So you get people like Trent in my electorate, who is facing his fire services levy bill going from $7000 last year to $22,000 this year – a 210 per cent increase. That is the dividend that we are getting from the economic mismanagement of this government. We could give multiple examples about the emergency services tax and how it is impacting on every single Victorian. This is not a farmers tax; this is a doubling of the tax for every residential owner in Victoria and a doubling of the tax for every business, every commercial business. It is a 64 per cent increase for every industrial property and 150 per cent for farms. That is just outrageous. We asked the Premier why farmers were copping such a big whack, and all she could say was, ‘Well, they’ve got big holdings, and so they’re riskier.’ That is just offensive, particularly given it is those farmers who are generally the volunteers that jump on the trucks and actually fight the fires.
But it is not just the emergency services tax – also land tax. I have had emails from Mark in Sale in my electorate. He and his wife are retired teachers. They have four investment properties that they have used to actually fund their retirement. They do not take a pension; they are funding their retirement. Three years ago their land tax bill was $385. The year after it was $765. Last year their bill was $2774. It is nearly a 10-times increase of their land tax bill under this Labor government, because Labor cannot manage money, and it is people like Mark and his wife who are paying the price. More particularly, it is their tenants that are paying the price, and the tenants of their four properties are pensioners and single mums. Mark and his wife said to me, ‘We simply can’t absorb that. We have to pass it on.’ Now Mark and his wife – and they have not emailed me about this – will actually be facing a doubling of the fixed charge that they pay on their emergency services tax, plus a doubling of the rate that they pay, in addition to those land tax figures that I just mentioned. That is the dividend of the economic management of this government, a Labor government that cannot manage money, and Victorians suffer.
I want to just touch on one more thing from my electorate that exemplifies the ineptitude of this government: the little Winnindoo fire station between Rosedale and Heyfield – and you know when you say something is between Rosedale and Heyfield it is going to be pretty small. Winnindoo is a great little spot. They have got one fire station, they have got a truck and they hope in the future to have a field command vehicle as well. In 2020, in the COVID budget, the government announced they would fund a new fire station for Winnindoo, which we had been fighting for for a couple of years.
Members interjecting.
Danny O’BRIEN: How is that going? Well, no, it is not due to open, because here we are in 2025, five years since the budget announcement was made, and the Winnindoo fire station still has not started construction and the brigade are being told that they will not get their new station until at least the end of next year. So I was very surprised to pick up the budget papers two weeks ago and find, in a line item for emergency services, funding for the Winnindoo fire station – amazing. Six years after the government first put funding for the Winnindoo fire station in there – which they have not built – they have now announced it again. It just highlights how appalling that is.
I should add, circling back to the emergency services tax, the Winnindoo fire station went off line last week in protest at the emergency services tax that they are all being asked to fund. It is a joke, and this government is a joke when it comes to managing money. Labor cannot manage money. They are failing Victorians, and Victorians are paying the price of this government’s failure to manage money.