Matters of Public Importance
Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (16:32): It is a pleasure – well, it is not a pleasure – to rise and speak on this issue, because, while the member for Tarneit might call this MPI laughable, the 7 million Victorians do not think that $15 billion of their money going up in smoke is laughable. What I think probably was a little bit laughable about that contribution is I sometimes look at ministers on the other side and wonder how they got to that position. Then I hear a contribution like that from one of the backbench members and I understand exactly how they got to that position, because there was obviously not a lot of competition for it in that respect.
Dylan Wight: How many years have you been a minister for?
Danny O’BRIEN: Same number of years as you, old mate.
The SPEAKER: Leader of the Nationals! The member for Tarneit can leave the chamber for an hour.
Member for Tarneit withdrew from chamber.
The SPEAKER: Leader of the Nationals, I ask you to speak through the Chair, and I have already reminded members about imputations.
Danny O’BRIEN: I do need to reflect on some of the statements from the member for Tarneit. We are hearing that the government acted swiftly apparently. I reckon Nick McKenzie from the Age would be pretty interested in that response. He has continued to roll out year after year after year more issues with this Big Build, yet this government says it acted swiftly.
To the question of a royal commission, we saw in the papers today how Victorians want a royal commission: 75 per cent of them understand the issue here, and they absolutely would like to see a royal commission. We hear those opposite say we had the royal commission in 2015 and it did not find anything. When did the Big Build start, everybody? The Big Build started after 2015. This matter of public importance, the Watson report, the corruption that we have heard about in the last couple of weeks has occurred on the Big Build site under this Labor government. It is such a facetious argument to say we had a royal commission and it did not do any good. The crooks had not started doing their crook stuff at that point in time. That was the problem.
Then we hear we have got Operation Hawk. Does everybody remember Operation Hawk? Probably not everyone does remember Operation Hawk. I know the Premier did not remember Operation Hawk, because she was on her way to announce Operation Hawk a few months ago and had to be reminded that it had been going for 12 months already. I understand that people on that side had forgotten about Operation Hawk, but they are out there spouting that there have been 70 charges laid. I know a 15-year-old kid in my electorate that has had more than 70 charges laid on him alone. To suggest that 70 charges has somehow cleaned up the entire Big Build is just absurd for this government to be talking about, saying, you know, ‘Job’s done.’
The other thing that I need to pick the member for Tarneit up on – I am disappointed he is not here, but perhaps a future speaker could enlighten me – is he told the chamber just now that the government has announced an independent review.
James Newbury interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: What is that indeed, member for Brighton. What is this independent review? Has it just been announced by the member for Tarneit? Is this new policy that we are not aware of? Because we certainly have not seen an independent review. I did hear someone mention the Wilson review. That was done and dusted, and jeez, hasn’t that cleaned the place up! That has made a huge difference already! It was so quick and dirty that the CFMEU did not even notice that it was happening. They went ahead and have continued to do exactly what they have been doing: funnelling taxpayers money to bikies and criminals and seeing every single Victorian have to pay the consequences of that. And it is not just the consequences of the lost money that has gone from our taxpayer dollars, it is the opportunity cost for every single one of us. I know particularly my rural and regional colleagues will say, ‘There are so many things that we have been waiting for this government to spend money on in our electorates, particularly infrastructure, and they haven’t happened.’ Now we find that $15 billion minimum, according to Geoffrey Watson SC, has just disappeared.
I have been waiting for the government to fund the Sale College replacement, bringing it on to one campus and building a new school. We have got roads in an appalling condition. We have been waiting for the Western Highway project to get underway through the seat of Ripon and out to Lowan – all those areas. I know the member for Mildura, after some floods this week, has probably got a few roads that she needs fixing up. I know the member for Ovens Valley spent – how many years waiting for dialysis chairs at Cobram hospital?
Tim Bull: Still waiting.
Danny O’BRIEN: Still waiting for dialysis chairs. All of these are things that we are desperate for at the West Gippsland Hospital. I see the member for Narracan is here. I actually had the Minister for Health today say ‘all the rural and regional hospitals that we’ve been funding’, and when I said ‘Where’s the money for West Gippsland?’ she turned around and showed me her back, not surprisingly, because they have made a commitment to it but it is still not there. Where is the money?
The government stands condemned on the opportunity cost that we have lost because of the corruption that it is overseeing. To have members opposite, like the member for Tarneit, say ‘We’ve acted swiftly and cleaned it all up’ is just absurd and appalling. The government wants to cover it up, the Liberals and Nationals want to clean it up. We have a very strong plan that has been announced over the last couple of weeks, and we are still working through it. That includes ensuring that we have a royal commission. As I said, people in Victoria are saying to us that we need a royal commission. We committed two years ago to establishing Construction Enforcement Victoria to actually have a watchdog on the job on those Big Build sites and other sites around the state and to ensure that the rules are being adhered to. Part of that is reinstating the code of practice for the building and construction sector, which was abolished by this government when they came to power in late 2014, to make sure that there is a code of practice, that the law is respected, that corruption does not occur and that taxpayers dollars are not wasted and to have Construction Enforcement Victoria to oversight that and to enforce that code. We attempted to introduce legislation this morning to deal with that. Surprise, surprise, the government opposed that legislation.
Speaking of which, yesterday we moved to give IBAC the follow-the-dollar powers, which are so critical, that it has been asking for years and that the Premier was advised in 2024 that IBAC needed. We again, through the member for Brighton yesterday, introduced legislation. What did the government do? They voted it down – voting with their feet. You can see exactly what their attitude to this stuff is. It is to oppose anything that will actually reveal what has been going on. As I said, going back to that, the government said, ‘We acted swiftly.’ Well, the Premier in 2024 wrote to IBAC knowing – she must have known or at least should have known – that IBAC did not have the powers to actually investigate this corruption when it comes to third parties. IBAC then wrote back to her and said it did not have the powers. What did the Premier do? Did she change IBAC’s powers? Did she look at an alternative method as to a way the government could investigate these allegations of corruption? No, she did nothing.
James Newbury interjected.
Danny O’BRIEN: She did not even say that. It was extraordinary that the Premier would come out a few weeks ago and release her original letter to IBAC and not think that perhaps people would ask, ‘Then what happened?’ The Premier can say she referred this, but she referred it to someone who could not do anything about it, and that is the fallacy of it. Now, as this Parliament tries to clean up the mess and to give IBAC those powers, the government is opposing it.
We have also committed to mandatory criminal background checks to keep bikies and criminals off our government worksites. We know from the ‘Building bad’ series and from the Geoffrey Watson report that we have seen criminal activity on worksites. Whether that is drug dealing, whether it is standover tactics or whether it is state-sponsored strippers, all of these things have been happening for years now on the Big Build, and the government has done nothing about it.
We have also committed, on top of Construction Enforcement Victoria, to a police taskforce in conjunction with the AFP and the ATO to seize assets and go after the money, to find the money. I think that is one of the things that Victorians are angry about. The corruption is one thing, but it is the scale of it and the $15 billion of taxpayers money that keeps being repeated to us.
We have also committed to new laws to target the crime bigwigs. We know time and time again it is the organised crime bosses who are not addressed properly, and that is why we will do that. That is a simple plan: enforce the law, find the money and stop the rorts. The Liberals and Nationals have got a plan. We are committed to addressing this, we are committed to cleaning up our state and we are committed to cleaning up the Big Build. The Labor government seem only committed to covering it up, because they oppose every step of the way, they minimise everything and they attack the messengers, people like Geoffrey Watson. They stand condemned for the gross waste of Victorian taxpayers dollars.