Second Reading
Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (10:02): I will do my best to continue the trend, Speaker, although you are leaving now, so I can do what I like. I will reiterate that the opposition is not opposing this procedural debate. The member for Box Hill talked about looking forward to members on both sides having the opportunity to have their say. I am speaking now because very rarely do we all get to have our say, particularly on something like this, where the government is rushing this legislation through, and that is what we are debating right now. The government is rushing this through, and we absolutely believe in the urgency of this situation. But what is hypocritical of the government is that the Premier announced it on 18 May 2024 with the media release ‘New laws to keep workers safe from assault and abuse’. I have not got the calculator available right now to work out how many days that is, but it is about 18 months since the government announced it was doing this legislation. And now it is not just introducing it, it is introducing it in a rush and moving to the second reading straightaway. That is the concern that I have about the government’s chaotic approach to this.
We are here again for the first time in many, many years on a Friday because the government has not been able to manage its legislative agenda. We have actually had multiple pieces of legislation brought in. We are now sitting on a Friday because the government did not manage its legislative agenda. Everyone in this chamber can remember earlier in the year we were debating motions every sitting week because the government did not have anything to do, and now we are getting to the end of the year and we have got to put in an extra week and sit on a Friday all because this apparently is so urgent – so urgent that it is 18 months since the Premier announced that this needed to be done.
We have seen already this week the government making announcements that do not match up with the legislation they have actually got planned, so we will be very, very cautious in going through this legislation. I am sure both the member for Brighton and the member for Caulfield will be going through it in very fine detail, because we know from this week and from past experience what the government says and what it actually does are not always the same thing. It is a truism, I am sure, with this legislation. The member for Caulfield highlighted the fact that, in the original draft of this legislation provided to the opposition, workplace protection orders were not in place, and that is something that the retail sector and indeed the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association have been asking for. I will be interested to see what those members of the shoppies on the other side will actually say about this legislation, given it does not have that.
We have seen retail crime become a massive issue in my own electorate. The Wellington shire saw thefts from retail rise 135 per cent in the last 12 months. The member for Morwell has told us stories about the horrific amount of shop stealing going on in parts of his electorate too. But it is the threats to the workers that are of most concern. We know that this has been an issue for a lot of this year too. The Premier herself should remember the security guard at Bendigo Marketplace being attacked by a gang of youths running through. I wonder why now, given that happened in March. We have now got the Attorney-General here to maybe talk about her own legislation. The Attorney-General has walked in, so it turns out the member for Caulfield was wrong. But we had that attack in Bendigo in March, and here we are nearly halfway through November and the government is only now acting. Why are they acting? Because retail crime is out of control in this state under the Labor government’s watch. We have seen the retail sector come out. In the last sitting week we had Woolies, Bunnings, IGA, Coles, JB Hi-Fi and the Australian Retailers Association come out and say that Victoria is the worst place for retail crime in the nation. We have got a laggard government that takes so long to do anything because it is more focused on chasing headlines than it is on chasing crooks, and we have seen that a number of times this week.
This legislation should have been brought in much earlier. We will not be standing in the way of it proceeding today, and we will look forward to the debate next week. I hope that all members of this chamber will get the opportunity to speak, but we know the government is in chaos and has not been able to manage its legislative agenda, and that may well not be the case. We do need to crack down on retail crime, and the Liberals and Nationals will not stand in the way of that.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until tomorrow.