PARLIAMENT OF

PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES

(HANSARD)

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

FIFTY-NINTH PARLIAMENT

FIRST SESSION

THURSDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2021

hansard.parliament.vic.gov.au

By authority of the Victorian Government Printer

The Governor The Honourable LINDA DESSAU, AC The Lieutenant-Governor The Honourable KEN LAY, AO, APM

The ministry

Premier...... The Hon. DM Andrews, MP Deputy Premier, Minister for Education and Minister for Mental Health .. The Hon. JA Merlino, MP Attorney-General and Minister for Emergency Services ...... The Hon. J Symes, MLC Minister for Transport Infrastructure and Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop ...... The Hon. JM Allan, MP Minister for Training and Skills and Minister for Higher Education .... The Hon. GA Tierney, MLC Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Industrial Relations ...... The Hon. TH Pallas, MP Minister for Public Transport and Minister for Roads and Road Safety . The Hon. BA Carroll, MP Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change and Minister for Solar Homes ...... The Hon. L D’Ambrosio, MP Minister for Child Protection and Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers ...... The Hon. LA Donnellan, MP Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services and Minister for Equality ...... The Hon. MP Foley, MP Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation and Minister for Fishing and Boating ...... The Hon. MM Horne, MP Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice and Minister for Victim Support ...... The Hon. NM Hutchins, MP Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development and Minister for Veterans ...... The Hon. SL Leane, MLC Minister for Water and Minister for Police ...... The Hon. LM Neville, MP Minister for Industry Support and Recovery, Minister for Trade, Minister for Business Precincts, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events and Minister for Racing ...... The Hon. MP Pakula, MP Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Regulatory Reform, Minister for Government Services and Minister for Creative Industries ...... The Hon. DJ Pearson, MP Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business and Minister for Resources ...... The Hon. JL Pulford, MLC Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Community Sport and Minister for Youth ...... The Hon. RL Spence, MP Minister for Workplace Safety and Minister for Early Childhood ...... The Hon. I Stitt, MLC Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Regional Development ...... The Hon. M Thomas, MP Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs ...... The Hon. G Williams, MP Minister for Planning and Minister for Housing ...... The Hon. RW Wynne, MP Cabinet Secretary ...... Ms S Kilkenny, MP Legislative Council committees

Economy and Infrastructure Standing Committee Mr Barton, Mr Erdogan, Mr Finn, Mr Gepp, Mrs McArthur, Mr Quilty and Mr Tarlamis. Participating members: Dr Bach, Ms Bath, Dr Cumming, Mr Davis, Mr Limbrick, Ms Lovell, Mr Meddick, Mr O’Donohue, Mr Ondarchie, Mr Rich-Phillips, Ms Shing, Ms Vaghela and Ms Watt.

Environment and Planning Standing Committee Dr Bach, Ms Bath, Dr Cumming, Mr Grimley, Mr Hayes, Mr Meddick, Mr Melhem, Dr Ratnam, Ms Taylor and Ms Terpstra. Participating members: Ms Crozier, Mr Davis, Dr Kieu, Mrs McArthur and Mr Quilty.

Legal and Social Issues Standing Committee Ms Garrett, Dr Kieu, Ms Lovell, Ms Maxwell, Mr Ondarchie, Ms Patten, Dr Ratnam and Ms Vaghela. Participating members: Dr Bach, Mr Barton, Ms Bath, Ms Crozier, Dr Cumming, Mr Erdogan, Mr Grimley, Mr Limbrick, Mr O’Donohue, Mr Quilty, Ms Shing, Mr Tarlamis and Ms Watt.

Privileges Committee Mr Atkinson, Mr Bourman, Mr Davis, Mr Grimley, Mr Leane, Mr Rich-Phillips, Ms Shing, Ms Symes and Ms Tierney.

Procedure Committee The President, the Deputy President, Ms Crozier, Mr Davis, Mr Grimley, Dr Kieu, Ms Patten, Ms Pulford and Ms Symes.

Joint committees

Dispute Resolution Committee Council: Mr Bourman, Ms Crozier, Mr Davis, Ms Symes and Ms Tierney. Assembly: Ms Allan, Ms Hennessy, Mr Merlino, Mr Pakula, Mr R Smith, Mr Walsh and Mr Wells.

Electoral Matters Committee Council: Mr Erdogan, Mrs McArthur, Mr Meddick, Mr Melhem, Ms Lovell, Mr Quilty and Mr Tarlamis. Assembly: Mr Guy, Ms Hall and Dr Read.

House Committee Council: The President (ex officio), Mr Bourman, Mr Davis, Mr Leane, Ms Lovell and Ms Stitt. Assembly: The Speaker (ex officio), Mr T Bull, Ms Crugnale, Ms Edwards, Mr Fregon, Ms Sandell and Ms Staley.

Integrity and Oversight Committee Council: Mr Grimley and Ms Shing. Assembly: Mr Halse, Ms Hennessy, Mr Rowswell, Mr Taylor and Mr Wells.

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee Council: Mr Limbrick and Ms Taylor. Assembly: Ms Blandthorn, Mr Hibbins, Mr Maas, Mr Newbury, Mr D O’Brien, Ms Richards, Mr Richardson and Mr Riordan.

Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee Council: Mr Gepp, Ms Patten, Ms Terpstra and Ms Watt. Assembly: Mr Burgess, Ms Connolly and Mr R Smith.

Heads of parliamentary departments

Assembly: Clerk of the Legislative Assembly: Ms B Noonan Council: Clerk of the Parliaments and Clerk of the Legislative Council: Mr A Young Parliamentary Services: Secretary: Mr P Lochert MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL FIFTY-NINTH PARLIAMENT—FIRST SESSION

President The Hon. N ELASMAR (from 18 June 2020) The Hon. SL LEANE (to 18 June 2020) Deputy President The Hon. WA LOVELL Acting Presidents Mr Bourman, Mr Gepp, Mr Melhem and Ms Patten Leader of the Government The Hon. J SYMES Deputy Leader of the Government The Hon. GA TIERNEY Leader of the Opposition The Hon. DM DAVIS Deputy Leader of the Opposition Ms G CROZIER

Member Region Party Member Region Party

Atkinson, Mr Bruce Norman Eastern Metropolitan LP Maxwell, Ms Tania Maree Northern Victoria DHJP Bach, Dr Matthew1 Eastern Metropolitan LP Meddick, Mr Andy Western Victoria AJP Barton, Mr Rodney Brian Eastern Metropolitan TMP Melhem, Mr Cesar Western Metropolitan ALP Bath, Ms Melina Gaye Eastern Victoria Nats Mikakos, Ms Jenny5 Northern Metropolitan ALP Bourman, Mr Jeffrey Eastern Victoria SFFP O’Donohue, Mr Edward John Eastern Victoria LP Crozier, Ms Georgina Mary Southern Metropolitan LP Ondarchie, Mr Craig Philip Northern Metropolitan LP Cumming, Dr Catherine Rebecca Western Metropolitan Ind Patten, Ms Fiona Heather Northern Metropolitan FPRP Dalidakis, Mr Philip2 Southern Metropolitan ALP Pulford, Ms Jaala Lee Western Victoria ALP Davis, Mr David McLean Southern Metropolitan LP Quilty, Mr Timothy Northern Victoria LDP Elasmar, Mr Nazih Northern Metropolitan ALP Ratnam, Dr Samantha Shantini Northern Metropolitan Greens Erdogan, Mr Enver3 Southern Metropolitan ALP Rich-Phillips, Mr Gordon Kenneth South Eastern Metropolitan LP Finn, Mr Bernard Thomas Christopher Western Metropolitan LP Shing, Ms Harriet Eastern Victoria ALP Garrett, Ms Jane Furneaux Eastern Victoria ALP Somyurek, Mr Adem6 South Eastern Metropolitan Ind Gepp, Mr Mark Northern Victoria ALP Stitt, Ms Ingrid Western Metropolitan ALP Grimley, Mr Stuart James Western Victoria DHJP Symes, Ms Jaclyn Northern Victoria ALP Hayes, Mr Clifford Southern Metropolitan SAP Tarlamis, Mr Lee7 South Eastern Metropolitan ALP Jennings, Mr Gavin Wayne4 South Eastern Metropolitan ALP Taylor, Ms Nina Southern Metropolitan ALP Kieu, Dr Tien Dung South Eastern Metropolitan ALP Terpstra, Ms Sonja Eastern Metropolitan ALP Leane, Mr Shaun Leo Eastern Metropolitan ALP Tierney, Ms Gayle Anne Western Victoria ALP Limbrick, Mr David South Eastern Metropolitan LDP Vaghela, Ms Kaushaliya Virjibhai Western Metropolitan ALP Lovell, Ms Wendy Ann Northern Victoria LP Watt, Ms Sheena8 Northern Metropolitan ALP McArthur, Mrs Beverley Western Victoria LP Wooldridge, Ms Mary Louise Newling9 Eastern Metropolitan LP

1 Appointed 5 March 2020 5 Resigned 26 September 2020 2 Resigned 17 June 2019 6 ALP until 15 June 2020 3 Appointed 15 August 2019 7 Appointed 23 April 2020 4 Resigned 23 March 2020 8 Appointed 13 October 2020 9 Resigned 28 February 2020

Party abbreviations

AJP—; ALP—Labor Party; DHJP—Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party; FPRP—’s ; Greens—; Ind—Independent; LDP—Liberal Democratic Party; LP—Liberal Party; Nats—The Nationals; SAP—Sustainable Party; SFFP—Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party; TMP—Transport Matters Party

CONTENTS

ANNOUNCEMENTS Acknowledgement of country ...... 441 COMMITTEES Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee ...... 441 Membership ...... 441 PAPERS Papers ...... 441 BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE Notices ...... 441 COMMITTEES Economy and Infrastructure Committee ...... 442 Inquiry into the Increase in Victoria’s Road Toll ...... 442 MEMBERS STATEMENTS International Day of Women and Girls in Science ...... 442 COVID-19 ...... 442 Caroline Springs police station ...... 443 schools ...... 443 Refugee detention ...... 443 Migrant Information Centre ...... 444 Corruption ...... 444 Learn Local providers ...... 444 Sri Vakrathunda Vinayagar Temple ...... 445 CoLocal ...... 445 Table Tennis Victoria ...... 446 Mental health support ...... 446 National apology anniversary ...... 446 Etsy ...... 447 COMMITTEES Economy and Infrastructure Committee ...... 447 Reference ...... 447 Economy and Infrastructure Committee ...... 463 Reference ...... 463 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS Migrant Workers Centre grants ...... 464 Big Housing Build ...... 465 Ministers statements: early childhood education...... 466 Crime prevention ...... 466 Crown Casino ...... 467 Ministers statements: Living Libraries Infrastructure Program ...... 468 COVID-19 ...... 468 COVID-19 ...... 469 Ministers statements: LaunchVic ...... 470 COVID-19 ...... 470 COVID-19 ...... 471 Duck hunting ...... 472 Ministers statements: Castlemaine training and skills ...... 472 Written responses ...... 473 Migrant Workers Centre grants ...... 473 CONSTITUENCY QUESTIONS Western Metropolitan Region ...... 473 ...... 473 Western Victoria Region ...... 474 ...... 474 Northern Metropolitan Region ...... 474 Western Victoria Region ...... 474 Western Metropolitan Region ...... 475 Western Metropolitan Region ...... 475 Northern Victoria Region ...... 475 Southern Metropolitan Region ...... 475 Northern Victoria Region ...... 476 Eastern Victoria Region ...... 476 Western Victoria Region ...... 476 COMMITTEES Economy and Infrastructure Committee ...... 477 Reference ...... 477 BILLS Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 491 Council’s amendments ...... 491 PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS COVID-19 ...... 491 MOTIONS Small business support ...... 509 STATEMENTS ON REPORTS, PAPERS AND PETITIONS Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions ...... 510 Report 2019–20 ...... 510 Department of Premier and Cabinet ...... 511 Report 2019–20 ...... 511 Department of Treasury and Finance ...... 512 Budget papers 2020–21 ...... 512 Public Accounts and Estimates Committee ...... 513 Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic ...... 513 Auditor-General ...... 514 Grants to the Migrant Workers Centre ...... 514 Legal and Social Issues Committee ...... 514 Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s COVID‐19 Contact Tracing System and Testing Regime ...... 514 Public Accounts and Estimates Committee ...... 515 Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic ...... 515 ADJOURNMENT Katunga cricket club ...... 516 Murray Basin rail project ...... 517 Northern Metropolitan Region schools ...... 517 Box Hill transit interchange ...... 518 Police conduct ...... 519 Crime prevention ...... 519 Victorian Emergency Management Training Centre ...... 519 Gambling harm ...... 520 COVID-19 ...... 520 Prison staff safety...... 521 Latrobe Special Developmental School ...... 521 Western Port Bay ...... 522 Surf Coast Shire Council code of conduct ...... 522 Murray Basin rail project ...... 523 COVID-19 vaccination ...... 524 Montmorency train station ...... 524 Responses ...... 525 WRITTEN ADJOURNMENT RESPONSES Housing affordability ...... 527 V/Line ...... 527 Serious sex offenders ...... 527 Post-traumatic stress injury assistance dogs...... 528 Shepparton bypass ...... 528 Dame Phyllis Frost Centre ...... 529 Banyule biodiversity ...... 529 Electric vehicles ...... 529 Wild horse control ...... 530

ANNOUNCEMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 441

Thursday, 18 February 2021

The PRESIDENT (Hon. N Elasmar) took the chair at 9.50 am and read the prayer. Announcements ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY The PRESIDENT (09:50): On behalf of the Victorian state Parliament I acknowledge the Aboriginal peoples, the traditional custodians of this land which has served as a significant meeting place of the First People of Victoria. I acknowledge and pay respect to the elders of the Aboriginal nations in Victoria past, present and emerging and welcome any elders and members of the Aboriginal communities who may visit or participate in the events or proceedings of the Parliament. Committees SCRUTINY OF ACTS AND REGULATIONS COMMITTEE Membership The PRESIDENT (09:51): I would like to advise the house that I have received a letter from Ms , the member for Carrum in the other place, resigning from the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee effective from Wednesday, 17 February 2021. Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Resources) (09:51): I move, by leave:

That Ms Watt be made a member of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee. Motion agreed to. Papers PAPERS Tabled by Acting Clerk: Auditor-General’s Report on Grants to the Migrant Workers Centre, February 2021 (Ordered to be published). Family Violence Protection Act 2008—Report on the implementation of the Family Violence Risk Assessment and Management Framework, 2019–20. Waste and Resource Recovery Group—Minister’s report of receipt of the 2019–20 report. Goulburn Valley Waste and Resource Recovery Group—Minister’s report of receipt of the 2019–20 report. Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Group—Report, 2019–20. Subordinate Legislation Act 1994—Documents under section 15 in respect of Statutory Rule Nos. 149/2020 and 5/2021. Business of the house NOTICES Notices of motion given. Notices of intention to make a statement given. COMMITTEES 442 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Committees ECONOMY AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE Inquiry into the Increase in Victoria’s Road Toll Mr ERDOGAN (Southern Metropolitan) (10:01): I move, by leave:

That if the Economy and Infrastructure Committee proposes to transmit a report for the inquiry into the increase in Victoria’s road toll to the house on a day when the house is not sitting, the chair may give the report to the Clerk and: (1) the Clerk must: (a) as soon as practicable after the report is received: (i) give a copy of the report to each member of the house; (ii) cause the report to be published on the tabled documents database and the committee’s website; (b) cause the report to be tabled in the house on the next sitting day of the house; and (2) the report will be taken to be published by authority of the house. Motion agreed to. Members statements INTERNATIONAL DAY OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN SCIENCE Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (10:02): On 11 February this year we celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. On this day we encourage women and girls around the world to pursue an education and career in science. A key part of encouragement is acknowledging the reality that the pursuit of science and of gender equality are both vital and interwoven causes. By supporting women and girls in science we have more breakthroughs, better developments and faster technology. Women scientists have discovered incredible things in our world. To cite a few: Marie Curie’s discovery of radium and polonium, Katherine Johnson’s calculation of orbital mechanics and Vera Rubin’s significant discovery of dark matter—one of the 20th century’s most important discoveries— to Elizabeth Blackburn’s finding on telomeres, a discovery that has significantly impacted cancer and ageing research. This year’s theme of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science is celebrating the countless number of brave women who are at the forefront of the global pandemic response. Without these women, we would find ourselves in a far worse situation than we are currently in. I want to thank and acknowledge the powerful contribution these women across the globe have made to science and to the suppression of coronavirus. COVID-19 Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (10:04): This week Victoria has again been plunged into darkness, and Victorians are angry. They are angry at the sudden lockdown, which has again caused so much damage socially and economically and to mental health. They are angry at the failure to set down a strategy to announce goalposts so people can plan. They are angry at the lies and incompetence that they have endured from this government for the last year. This lockdown was laughably called a circuit-breaker, as if society and the economy can be turned on and off like a switch. It came to a crashing halt on Friday night, and it does not simply rebound today. Permanent damage has been done. Some businesses which were forced to shut down again on Friday night will not reopen this time. More jobs have been permanently destroyed and more lives have been lost as yet more Victorians are being pushed over the edge. The sudden, unexpected and unnecessary lockdown of the whole state has had a crippling impact on confidence. Victorians are on edge because they do not know when their panicked, hysterical and ill- MEMBERS STATEMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 443 prepared government will do it again. Talk of leadership prizes this week has just added to the community’s anger. Leaders set out a vision and a path forward. They take the people with them, they provide reassurance and they take responsibility for their actions and their failures. has done none of that. He has abrogated decision-making to mid-level health bureaucrats, he has tried to shift blame to subordinates and he is more focused on managing media fallout than on fixing his mess. Leaders also know when it is time to go. After the repeated failures, lies and cover-ups, Victorians have lost confidence in Daniel Andrews and his government, and that feeling has been palpable in the last five days. CAROLINE SPRINGS POLICE STATION Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (10:06): I speak today about the Caroline Springs police station. The latest statistics show that crime in the area has increased by over 25 per cent. In the City of Melton, where Caroline Springs is located, family violence unfortunately has increased by 23 per cent, the highest in recent years. We can assume that Caroline Springs has had a similar increase. But the Caroline Springs police station is not open 24 hours a day—it is open 9 till 9 on weekdays and 9 till 5 on weekends. The population in the area is booming and will go from 140 000 to 400 000 by 2040. The local community is crying out for a greater police presence, and the Police Association Victoria has echoed these calls. Those in need must travel to other police stations, including Melton, over 16 kilometres away. This might not seem much to some, but to people running from danger it seems like a lifetime. Domestic violence victims have nowhere to go when they need it the most. Locals need to feel safe urgently, and we require an around-the-clock police station—a 24-hour police station—in Caroline Springs. WESTERN VICTORIA REGION SCHOOLS Ms TIERNEY (Western Victoria—Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education) (10:07): Today I draw the house’s attention to good news for schools in western Victoria. Mortlake P–12 joins Hamilton’s Baimbridge College and Murtoa College in a new tri-school partnership, which has been granted $40 000 to work together to significantly broaden the VCE curriculum. Cobden Tech and P–12 schools in Timboon, Lorne and Apollo Bay and the Lavers Hill K–12 were funded previously. Smaller rural schools constantly face the challenge of offering and staffing a wide range of senior subjects. Limited choice means that some students do not see their course as relevant—a powerful factor in early school leaving and not completing year 12. Nine extra VCE subjects will be available to 164 VCE students in the new partnership. These students will learn virtually, and the funding covers the cost of teacher relief so that the subject content can be adapted to virtual delivery mode. The VCE Collaboration Fund is a great boost to innovative teaching and is open to all schools, provided at least one partnership member is a government school. It helps make sure that our young people have access to good education no matter where they live. Mortlake P–12 also has another reason to celebrate. It is ready to officially open its $1.176 million modular building. This is architect-designed and features general purpose classrooms, new toilets and a breezeway that links via a deck to the rest of the school. I am really looking forward to visiting the school very soon to help mark this great occasion. REFUGEE DETENTION Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (10:09): I rise today in support and praise of protesters from Stand Together for Justice and other groups who have been instrumental in helping gain the release of 26 refugees from detention here in . These legal refugees spent a year in a hotel in Preston and many years prior to that in detention before being transferred to a city hotel where each night at 5.00 pm protesters met to rally for their cause. At the end of January all men were granted bridging visas, finally. MEMBERS STATEMENTS 444 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

There have, however, been some questions over the tactics used by Victoria Police and the Melbourne City Council at these protests. Several activists were fined using rarely enacted council by-laws that were written to govern noise levels around buskers and their use of portable speakers and megaphones. I would hope that there would be some common sense and discretion used to quietly do away with these frivolous penalties. All those who dedicated themselves to the release of these men should be immensely proud of the work they have done. Sadly, the fight will continue until all those who seek asylum on our shores are dealt with in the humane way all Australians expect. MIGRANT INFORMATION CENTRE Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (10:10): I rise today to make a contribution in celebration of the fantastic work that the Migrant Information Centre is doing in the Eastern Metropolitan Region. Usually this event that I attended on the weekend is an in-person event, but due to COVID it was moved online, and it was a great success. The event, Together Stronger Better, is a celebration of multicultural communities and the achievements that they make in the Eastern Metro Region. I was also pleased to be able to represent the Honourable , the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, at that event. The Migrant Information Centre opened in 1999 and seeks to support people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds residing in the eastern suburbs to settle into Australian life. It provides connections to local multicultural communities and access to support services and information. These services include providing asylum seekers, temporary protection visa holders and safe haven enterprise visa holders with support through social events, information sessions and assistance, sourcing financial support and much, much more. The Migrant Information Centre’s recent achievements in supporting migrant communities include engaging the Haka Chin, Zomi, Falam Chin, Mizo and Karen communities to perform, speak and participate in events; including Burmese traditions and young people in their network events; and acquiring equipment to enable the moving of face-to-face events online. It was a fantastic celebration, and I look forward to attending it again next year. CORRUPTION Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (10:12): This week I feel indignant and annoyed by the Victorian government’s lack of action on corruption. In the two years since I was elected I have not seen the government take one step to stamp out corruption in any form. My motion to ban political donations from property developers was dismissed by both the major parties. Despite a reported shortfall in funding, the government has outright refused to assist IBAC. It is not a good look, especially now that Robert Redlich, QC, has highlighted that IBAC will be unable to properly investigate a growing list of tasks in Victoria, which, by the way, includes an investigation into the Labor Party’s branch-stacking scandal. Now we have the New South Wales government uncovering money laundering at Crown Casino in Victoria to which the Victorian government is oblivious. It is reported that Crown Casino has donated $550 000 to Victorian political parties since 2010. This creates a huge conflict of interest, and it is appalling that the government does not recognise this as a problem. The Party is very concerned about the extent of corruption in Victoria. It is time to get some heads out of the sand and recognise this as a systemic problem that needs urgent addressing. Corruption is an awful disease, but it is not something we do not have a remedy for. It is time to apply decisive action and stamp it out. LEARN LOCAL PROVIDERS Mr MELHEM (Western Metropolitan) (10:13): As Parliamentary Secretary for Training and Skills, last week I visited three Learn Locals in East Gippsland: the Mallacoota District Health and Support Service, the Orbost Education Centre and Buchan Neighbourhood House. These communities MEMBERS STATEMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 445 have been doing it tough for over a year now, first with the devastating summer bushfire season and then with the global coronavirus pandemic, creating immeasurable human tragedy. These centres act as important community hubs, particularly in times of crisis. They ensured people stayed connected during the initial chaos and confusion. They supported those hit hardest by distributing food and other donations, organising shelter and providing financial assistance through grants, and they are empowering residents into employment opportunities during the recovery phase 2 training programs. For example, in Mallacoota the destruction of local employers left many community members without jobs, but the Learn Local in this town was committed to providing educational opportunities to empower those most in need. In partnership with TAFE Gippsland, over 80 community members were equipped with the digital and construction site skills they needed to secure employment with Grocon and Whelan, enabling them to contribute to the recovery of their community in the process. Recognising the importance of these centres, the Adult, Community and Further Education Board provided grants of $25 000 to the seven Learn Locals directly impacted by the bushfires. This funding is designed to assist impacted learners and support recovery in this community through new courses and improved resources. The Andrews government is dedicated to supporting the Learn Local sector and communities reeling from a difficult 2020. SRI VAKRATHUNDA VINAYAGAR TEMPLE Mr TARLAMIS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (10:15): On 25 January I had the humbling privilege of visiting the Sri Vakrathunda Vinayagar Temple in The Basin on the occasion of their reconsecration ceremony. The temple was established in the early 1990s and was the first-ever traditional Hindu temple to be built in Melbourne. Since then it has fulfilled the spiritual and cultural aspirations of thousands of Hindus. The temple has become a focal point for Hindus across Victoria and offers a wonderful shrine to Lord Ganesha, who is regarded by the Hindus as the god of new beginnings and whose blessing is sought before the start of any new venture. As part of the Hindu tradition, the temple is renovated, refurbished and reconsecrated every 12 years. The latest addition to the temple is a glorious 17-layer, 350-tonne granite shrine dedicated to Lord Ganesha costing over $4 million, making the temple also home to the largest granite stone shrine in the Southern Hemisphere. The temple’s community has grown from a few thousand to several thousand, and the new renovation speaks volumes about the success of the Victorian Hindu community and is also a timely reminder of the success of multicultural Victoria and the great contribution all migrant communities have made to our state. During this pandemic the temple has also provided thousands of free meals to those in the community who are in need. In recognition and support of their contribution and valuable work, the Andrews Labor government recently announced $500 000 towards their new community kitchen, enabling them to make more meals more often and continue to assist those in the community most in need. It was an absolute honour to be invited to join with the Hindu community on this important occasion. I congratulate president Balaa Kandiah, his dedicated committee and all their volunteers for having achieved so much and for their invaluable contribution to the community, and I thank the entire Hindu community for being an integral part of Victoria’s multicultural vibrancy. COLOCAL Ms VAGHELA (Western Metropolitan) (10:17): Recently I had the opportunity to meet with Sara Mitchell, the founder of CoLocal, to hear firsthand the important community initiatives that Sara and her team are working on in the Western Metropolitan Region. CoLocal has been advocating for many years for the 20-minute neighbourhood model, especially in the fast-growing and diverse outer metro areas like Wyndham. CoLocal aims to build capacity and share resources that allow our community to do more together, aligning a shared vision that creates a sense of belonging and pride and encouraging a supportive local economy. CoLocal are about joining the dots in the community. Since 2018 they have piloted and managed the Point Cook pop-up park to connect the heart of the MEMBERS STATEMENTS 446 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 community and to create a focal point to congregate, to get to know one another and to support local traders. I thank Sara for all her hard work and for her leadership and look forward to working with her to make our community a better place to live and work. TABLE TENNIS VICTORIA Ms VAGHELA: On another note, I recently also had the opportunity to meet with Mr Ritchie Hinton, the CEO of Table Tennis Victoria. TTV is the state governing body for the sport of table tennis in Victoria and is the largest state body in Australia, with in excess of 60 affiliate members and in excess of 4000 individual members. I received an update from Ritchie on Table Tennis Victoria’s existing programs and their intentions to expand their plan to promote the sport in Victoria. I thank Ritchie for taking the time to meet with me, and I look forward to working with him to ensure that table tennis is accessible to more residents living in my electorate. MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:18): I must say how incredibly relieved I am that we passed the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment (Provisional Payments) Bill 2020 this week, because we know that it has the intent of and certainly will deliver on getting injured workers the support they need sooner and back to work quicker. We know that with the nature of mental health claims they can take up to 38 days because they are inherently more complex generally that a lot of physical claims, and whereas with an open wound we would not dream of leaving it for 38 days, somehow in the past there perhaps has been attitude that mental health can be allowed to falter. That is no longer the case. And why is it no longer? Well, we have changed our expectations with mental health, and part of that is to do with extensive research. The Productivity Commission’s report into mental health found that timely provision of support for a worker suffering a mental health injury increases the likelihood of them returning to work earlier, which is beneficial to the worker, the employer, the scheme and the Victorian community. The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System interim report also found that early intervention is effective in reducing the impact of mental illness, and for all those in the community who may have experienced or continue to experience this, this surely must bring comfort for them into the future. NATIONAL APOLOGY ANNIVERSARY Ms WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (10:20): I rise today to speak on the occasion of the anniversary of the apology to the stolen generations. Just over 13 years ago then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the historic apology. I want to take a moment to remember that day, to remember the elders, the survivors and the lost ones for their long struggle for truth and justice. In the years since, many hundreds of survivors and their families, emboldened by the promise of the apology, have sought to connect with families, find their truth and begin the long journey to healing. I would like to acknowledge the organisations in the Northern Metropolitan Region that work with survivors and their families in this journey. From the Koorie Heritage Trust to Connecting Home and Link-Up, the Northern Metropolitan Region is home to some of the most important services for stolen generations members and their mob, services that assist members to access records, research family and cultural connections, get their birth certificates—some for the very first time—and support members in contacting family members and facilitating that meeting. For too many members of the stolen generation that includes referrals to much-needed healing for trauma and hurt that places like this Parliament put on people and their loved ones. We must make right, and that is why I am delighted to follow the progress of the landmark stolen generation redress scheme, a plan that will help Aboriginal communities heal, because it is never too late to do the right thing. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 447

ETSY Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) Incorporated pursuant to order of Council of 15 September 2020: I add my voice today to the nearly 37 000 petitioners calling for retailer Etsy to stop facilitating the sale of child abuse themed merchandise through its online platform. Retailers have conveyed stories of pulling their products from this site after it was discovered childlike sex dolls were being sold through Etsy online. As Melinda Tankard Reist of Collective Shout quite rightly says, ‘Child sex abuse and incest are not fashion symbols to be turned into products and sold for profit’. I thank Melinda for her many years of work advocating for the removal of this abhorrent paraphernalia. This material is not only highly inappropriate; it is completely unacceptable how it can be purchased through any platform, whether that be online or in retail outlets. I thank Anna Cordell for starting this petition, and I encourage others to go online and support her cause. Committees ECONOMY AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE Reference Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (10:22): President, I seek leave to move notice of motion 486 in an amended form, with the deletion of a small number of words. I will just explain that to people before I do it, with your good grace. It is just in response to crossbench comments. Item (4) previously read:

calls on the state government to urgently relax COVID-19 restrictions, where it is safe to do so, in line with other states and ensure … additional state government support … A number on the crossbench would prefer to delete the first part of that, and consequently my amended motion does do that. Leave granted. Mr DAVIS: I move:

That this house: (1) notes: (a) that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism contributed to 6.5 per cent of the Victorian economy, supporting 263 000 direct and indirect jobs, comprising 7.8 per cent of Victoria’s employment, 142 300 jobs in Melbourne and 110 000 in regional Victoria; (b) the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry, including Victoria’s second wave, driven by the closure of international and state borders and the severe restrictions on movement imposed by Victorian public health orders; (c) that the COVID-19 pandemic has seen Victoria’s visitor economy haemorrhage almost $2.5 billion per month and is projected to shed 85 300 jobs by September 2021; (2) recognises that the more than $10 billion annual Victorian events sector— and that is a very, very conservative base figure—

is a major sector in its own right and is vital to supporting tourism through central city events, regional events and festivals and business events, which importantly drives visitation into Melbourne and regional areas in the off-peak and shoulder seasons and has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 restrictions, including the impact of snap border closures on consumer confidence levels; (3) further notes that a number of businesses within the sector have had trouble accessing state government support and that the many sole traders within the tourism and events sector have received inadequate state government support; COMMITTEES 448 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

(4) further notes that additional state government support should be urgently provided to tourism and events industry businesses; and (5) requires the Economy and Infrastructure Committee to inquire into, hold public hearings in Melbourne and regional Victoria to identify key issues and areas of concern, and report by 30 June 2021 on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism and events sectors and provide recommendations for state government support measures that will restore the tourism and events sectors to their critical role in the Victorian economy and restore lost jobs. These are two incredibly critical sectors to Victoria’s economy. We have built an economy in Victoria driven in part by services and inbound tourism—inbound movements from other states and overseas. These have all been critical to building jobs over many years. The events strategy began—indeed I will put this on the record—under Joan Kirner and was taken to a new and very effective level by Jeffrey Kennett and retained largely by the existing Labor government, so through our period of government and beyond. COVID has hit this for a six, and that has done tremendous damage to employment. It has done tremendous damage to the small business sector. I look at the regional tourism sector and note the terrible damage that has occurred there. You walk through central Melbourne and you do not have to walk far to see the direct impact on those businesses and the employment in central Melbourne too. These are very, very significant impacts that the community needs to deal with. I am not saying in this motion that there should not have been public health orders. Just to be quite clear, I am not saying that. What I am saying is that they have in fact had a very significant effect. You might want to circulate that amended motion; that would be good. I am sorry; I only have the one copy. I thought I outlined it pretty clearly. It should be circulated, please. The point I would make here is that the huge employment effects here are very significant in the substrate of our events and tourism sector—the ‘Harry the hirers’; the people who provide support to the events sector. I am Shadow Minister for the Arts and creative industries, and that sector too is burning, burning, burning and dying because of the damage that is occurring under COVID. Victoria does have tougher rules—and I could outline those—in many venues, but that is probably a better purpose for the inquiry, to look at the specific rules. These rules need to be justified properly. They need to be put out, and the basis for many of these restrictions needs to be laid out very clearly in the inquiry, in my view, to get to the bottom of the exact arrangements the government has put in place and what can be done to sensibly and safely modify those. But I also make the point that there is an urgent need for support to go into those sectors. We have heard from the Minister for Small Business of the failure of the Sole Trader Support Fund and the fact that only 15.2 per cent of the money, of the $100 million, has been allocated. Meanwhile sole traders around the state are burning and dying significantly with this set of restrictions. We need to provide that urgent support to them. There needs to be further tax relief in some areas. There need to be direct payments that are actually accessible. We have seen the state government—and it is the subject of a motion later in the day—with its licensed premises support, the 293 businesses that were overpaid, and now the government is clawing that money back. Well, that is a significant impact as well. So even where there are programs in place, in many cases this state government—this Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events and this Minister for Small Business—have botched the response, have botched the delivery of those programs, and they have left those smaller businesses high and dry. But I also say that in the events sector there are very large businesses—very large businesses—that have many different venues and arrangements for weddings and business events. The whole business events sector is such an important sector for Victoria. I do not think I even need to lay out some of the figure work, but it is clear that that events sector is a huge driver. EY in 2015 did significant work and said business events alone in Victoria were in those days, in 2015, worth almost $10 billion. That is just business events alone, so all of the family and personal events, all of the other events that occur, COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 449 are a much, much larger sector. I do not think that very many Victorians have quite understood the impact of some of these restrictions on these sectors. They have cut in hard. They have cut in hard in country Victoria. We had questions in this chamber about the sharp impact of the quick closure that occurred from Friday until midnight last night. That five-day closure has devastated florists; it has devastated many of the small events. I am just going to provide to the chamber some examples of this—some very simple examples that provide a kind of simple background of what is occurring around the state. Hardware Lane is one such location, where the Hardware Société has effectively been clobbered by this lockdown 3. Their turnover on Monday this week would normally have been $10 000-odd; it had fallen to $391. No businesses can survive with turnovers falling like that even while their overheads continue. Some of their overheads may have been moderated with rent arrangements, but some of them will not have been moderated. This sharp lockdown that occurred on Friday meant for hospitality businesses and tourism businesses related to hospitality and events the loss of enormous amounts of fresh food and associated purchases that these businesses had brought in in good faith, with bookings, with plans to go forward and to ensure that those arrangements could go forward. But they could not, as it turned out, and all of that fresh food has been thrown out. That is a huge loss. What compensation will they get for that? What support will they get for the loss of those purchases that they in good faith made? It is not their fault that this has happened. It is not their fault that this has occurred in such a shocking and frightening way. I would ask, with this motion, that the Economy and Infrastructure Committee hold a very short, sharp inquiry. In doing so, it would be in a position to hold hearings. The central city issue is real. Vouchers obviously have helped somewhat, but much more is needed in that regard—vouchers from the City of Melbourne I am talking about there. Vouchers in country Victoria and other areas have helped. But much more is needed. On the central Melbourne economy and the central Melbourne events and tourism role, as people come into the state and as they move around, central Melbourne has been absolutely the key to building Victoria’s tourism economy over many, many decades, and now it is quiet—now it is deathly quiet. We need to make sure that we find a way forward there so that we can safely open as many venues as possible, so that we can safely go forward. I am particularly interested in some of the arts and creative industries areas, and it is very clear that the rules in New South Wales and Queensland have been less sharp, less restrictive, at almost every turn, so the impact on their sectors has been less than in Victoria. Again, I am not arguing that there should be no restrictions. I think we need to make sure that our venues are safe, but we need to ground this on the sharpest possible evidence, and that needs to be demonstrated. There would be an opportunity for such an inquiry to look at those comparisons, to understand those and to see what is realistic and what is reasonable to safely open some of our venues. I do note that in so many country towns and other areas around rural Victoria, regional tourism support is absolutely critical. It is one of the big generators of jobs. It is the big festivals, like the surf festival down on the Surf Coast—a really critical part of the economy down there—but it is also the small festivals, the small events and the small tourism trails that are critical to so many of our small country towns. This is a very timely motion. These sectors are in deep trouble. Unless we act as a community quickly, we are going to lose real strengths of our state: real, valuable events capacity and really valuable tourism support. We need to act very, very quickly, hence the sharp time line on this to report by 30 June. The Economy and Infrastructure Committee has other inquiries, I accept that, and has other proposed inquiries, including one from Mr Barton that our parties, the Liberal-Nationals, will support later today, and we will do that because we think it has merit, but in no way does the time line on that impact on the ability to undertake this urgent, necessary, sharp inquiry that will help hopefully to provide a way forward for urgent assistance for the tourism and events sectors and urgent support which is financial on one hand but non-financial on the other. We need a quick, deeper understanding of what the problems are and what can be done. We need to examine those government programs, and where COMMITTEES 450 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 they have failed or where they have been too slow to roll out, we need to get them moving. Frankly I think the government needs a rocket under it in this respect. They have not quite understood the impact that is occurring. I want to say this, and Dr Ratnam made this point in the chamber the other day: this is also about many casual jobs. There are people in these sectors whose jobs and incomes have been tied up with these sectors and who at this point no longer have employment. That is true in country Victoria and it is true in the city, and that is a legitimate point for this inquiry to also look at. Key regional economies, whether it is Shepparton or Mildura or Bendigo or Ballarat, are all important with these regional— Ms Bath: Gippsland. Mr DAVIS: Gippsland indeed, and I know Ms Bath will have a lot to say about Gippsland. But think of a key regional hub like Ballarat that holds events—business events, for example—that are key drivers of their economy. At the same time you have got the massive centre at there—a wonderful asset for the state, but that has been hit very hard too by these arrangements. Now, JobKeeper has obviously been a very big part of this—it does come off—but this is about more than that. It is about understanding what restrictions should be put on and how they can be best and safely moderated, but it is also about understanding that the sector is composed of many sole traders and many small operators—the smallest of the small operators—who are part of the sector and who come in to fill the void through a whole series of different steps. It is also about those key events— key business events and other events—and the big flagship events too, so we see the tennis, the golf and surf carnivals. All of these key events also drive huge employment. We cannot wait, we need to move quickly, and that is why this motion has a short time line for the delivery of a report and the holding of hearings. I think this is a way we as a chamber can send a signal—a clear signal—to the tourism sector and to the events sector to say, ‘We actually do care. We actually are worried about what is happening’, and yes, we are critical of the government, but this is a constructive way forward as well. Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (10:38): I rise to speak to the motion put up by Mr Davis. I will go into several points that have been put up in the motion, but I cannot help noticing that part of clause (4) has been removed, that part about the urgent relaxation of COVID-19 measures that the government has put in. Even so, Mr Davis went on to criticise various measures, including the interim circuit-breaker that we have had for the last few days. In doing so I think that Mr Davis maybe is in agreement with Mr and perhaps all the opposition are. This morning on the radio I heard a familiar voice talking about how all the measures have nothing to do with the virus. I could not believe my ears that such a statement could be made in terms of the pandemic worldwide. It may be redundant, but I would like to remind the house of the impact worldwide in terms of health and fatalities. Up to now 110 million people have been infected by the virus, of which 2.5 million and growing have been fatally affected. And how much has that been impacting the economy? Take the example of the UK economy. Mr Leane: Boris Johnson is not a socialist. Dr KIEU: He certainly isn’t. According to a well-written report by PwC, in the UK 10 million people—half the size of our population—would be in food poverty of some sort due to the pandemic and, in addition, the unemployment rate is the largest ever in the country’s history. We are very lucky to have been able to control and suppress the transmission of the virus and its impact on the economy. Mr Davis also talked about small businesses. Even though this is about tourism events, I acknowledge they are overlapping. I would like to just repeat and remind the house of the statement by the Premier about the assistance package. The government is recognising that, and it is in the planning and will be forthcoming. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 451

Now, back to tourism and events. We as a government acknowledge and understand that the visitor economy has been significantly impacted by not only the coronavirus last year but I am sure the bushfires at the beginning of 2020. We know that the community, the businesses and the sector need support now. Time is of the essence for the support to help with navigating the pandemic, to recover and also to put the foundation for growth and sustainability going forward. That is why last year in the budget for 2020–21 the government included unprecedented investment in the tourism sector. In doing so we listened to what industry had said and what they had flagged to the government would be needed. We did so through the regional tourism review and many other consultations following the coronavirus pandemic outbreak. Building on the work already undertaken through the review, the government in last year’s budget developed the $465 million Victorian tourism recovery package— $465 million—to ensure that Victoria maintains its visitor economy market share through the immediate response and also through early recovery status, to further its position to grow beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, to stimulate immediate demand through investments in national events and targeted domestic destination marketing, and also to strengthen the industry support infrastructure to coordinate supply and demand and build industry resilience to address existing weaknesses in the system. Now, in the $465 million regional tourism recovery package there are many components. I could stand hear and speak about that for hours to come, but let me just go through some of the key points here. We have the Regional Tourism Investment Fund, we have regional events funds, we have invested in business events programs and we also support the First Peoples tourism development. Also, a substantial amount has gone into industry support and development. Let me just highlight two particular components. Firstly, the flagship tourism infrastructure project in which the government has invested $149 million. In this package, the flagship tourism infrastructure project, we have invested in 10 tourism initiatives in regional Victoria. They include the Wilsons Promontory revitalisation, the Great Ocean Road, the Mallee Silo Art Trail, the Grampians Peaks Trail, the Falls to Hotham alpine crossing, the Murray River adventure trail, the Gippsland tourism recovery package, the Brambuk Cultural Centre, the National Centre for Photography in Ballarat and Prosecco Road, to name the 10 project initiatives that the government has invested in through the flagship tourism infrastructure project. On top of that let me highlight the Victorian regional travel voucher scheme. The scheme has been very popular. Victorians can seek reimbursement of $200 when they have spent at least $400 on accommodation, tourist attractions or tours undertaken in regional Victoria, in the Yarra Ranges and the . Victorians have already reported spending more than $55 million on travel in Victoria under the scheme. Round 3 will commence on 30 March, coming in a month’s time, for travel from 6 April to 31 May 2021. This is not just by accident. We have for many years recognised the importance of business events to the state and provided funding to support this important industry and sector. In addition to the current business events program, the government has previously invested in conference facilities in both Melbourne and regional Victoria. In order to advertise our leading role in cultural and sporting events and conferences and other leading attractions for Victoria, we also have the Visit Victoria marketing funding. The campaigns are developed and delivered in consultation with businesses, with regional tourism boards, Tourism Australia and other key industry partners, including airlines and other tourism operators. While the markets are closed, Visit Victoria will focus on working with key partners to promote our tourism and events sector to ensure the state can reopen when the international borders are open. Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (10:49): I am pleased to rise to speak on the motion brought forward by Mr Davis. This is a very important motion. The tourism and hospitality sectors have been very hard hit by the pandemic and by the loss of trade over the last 12 months. Businesses who have done it extremely hard over the last 12 months in my electorate were hit with a double whammy. Just COMMITTEES 452 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 as they were about to gear up for a bumper long weekend over the New Year weekend—where they had stocked up with their food, they had rostered all their staff, they had booked entertainment, they had had staff in for a couple of days preparing food et cetera for this huge, bumper long weekend, followed by an extended holiday period over the first two weeks of January—they were hit at 4 o’clock on New Year’s Eve with the closure of the border. Now, this saw people just leave the region in droves. In Echuca-Moama, most of the accommodation is on the Moama side so everyone had to leave, which meant that impacted on the Echuca businesses as well. It also meant that people lost confidence in our region, in coming to our region, and so our visitation over that January period was severely impacted. These same businesses, just as they were gearing up for another bumper weekend with the Valentine’s Day weekend, were hit with the five-day closure. Again this came very late on Friday, after they had ordered in all their fresh produce and food, prepped it all—had staff in for a couple of days doing that prep—and also then booked entertainment et cetera. Again, ‘Locked down, can’t trade, throw away all your fresh produce’. The fresh produce that restaurants and the hospitality sector have thrown away is incredible, and this is really impacting on their businesses’ confidence and their confidence that they can continue to gear up into the future and have confidence that they should make preparations for the Easter period and the March long weekend—and any weekend really. They are just really concerned about when there will be the next snap closure and the effect that it will have on them. The Murray Regional Tourism Board have done some terrific work on the impact of the border closure on New Year’s Eve. They surveyed 401 businesses in the Murray tourism area. Of those, 51 per cent of the respondents saw customers reduced by between 41 and 99 per cent over the border closure. Seventy per cent of the businesses reported between 41 and 100 per cent cancellations for January. January’s revenue fell by 81 to 100 per cent for 36 per cent of the respondents. Forward bookings dropped by 61 to 100 per cent for 52 per cent of the respondents. 44 per cent of the respondents expect the future revenue to drop by 41 to 99 per cent, and 59 per cent of respondents reported staff hours had to be reduced. 24 per cent of respondents reported they had made or were likely to make staff redundant as a direct result of the border closure, and the lockdown would have the same effect on those businesses. 72 per cent of the respondents identified that the reduction of turnover was the largest impact of the border closure on their business, and that was followed by 70 per cent saying cancellations were the largest impact on their business. Sixty per cent of them said it was a reduction in bookings. 52 per cent said bookings had been postponed. Fifty per cent said visitor satisfaction had reduced and complaints had increased, and 36 per cent said that people shortened the length of their stay in their region. So you can see this is having an enormous impact on tourism in my electorate. The Murray Regional Tourism Board have also done a significant work on how long it will take the tourism sector to recover from the pandemic. This is extensive work that has been done on this, and it has been done by Karl Flowers of Decisive Consulting Pty Ltd. Decisive Consulting Pty Ltd estimates that it is going to take until at least the 2022–23 financial year for the Murray region to recover to the same levels as the 2019 economic year. So this is a long time—till 2022–23 just to recover to what they were doing in 2019. This is no growth—just to recover. So they are going to be down on their turnover and on their visitation and on their profits and on jobs in the region for some significant time to come. This is why we need to hold this inquiry. We need to hold this inquiry to ensure that we do know the full impact that this has had on this sector and what support is needed from government to help them to recover. But I would say we do not need to wait until the inquiry has said what support is needed. The government needs to step up now and provide support. It is appalling that we are almost a week from when they announced the five-day lockdown last week and there has still not been any announcement of support for the businesses who have been impacted by this. That includes the florists that lost millions of dollars in fresh produce over the Valentine’s weekend and also our hospitality sector that had to throw out millions of dollars in fresh produce that had been prepped for Valentine’s weekend. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 453

In Mildura tourism supports around 1676 jobs, which is 7.5 per cent of their total employment, and the subsector of accommodation and food services is 919 jobs. So this is a really important sector to the Mildura community, and what they have seen over the past year, so in the 2020–21 year compared to the 2019–20 year—and bear in mind this is the year ending June 2020, so compared to the year ending June 2020 the year ending June 2021 will be significantly worse—Mildura was already showing a decline of 13.6 per cent on domestic overnight visitors compared to the year ending June 2020. That was only three months of the pandemic we had seen by then, so it will be significantly worse by the time we get to June 2021. Visitors to the regions for holidays had decreased by 11.9 per cent. The overnights spent by holiday- makers had decreased by 9.1 per cent. Accommodation at a standard hotel in Mildura had declined by 14 per cent. The number of visitors were down by 19.5 per cent and the nights that they stayed down by 10.7 per cent. Compared to the year ending June 2020, visitors from New South Wales were down by 5.6 per cent, visitors from South Australia were down by 12.7 per cent and international visitor visitation nights to the city were down by 52 per cent. That is just the first three months of the pandemic, so we are expecting a much worse result when we see the full figures for 2020–21. Visitor expenditure was also down by about $40 million in Mildura, so it is really important to Mildura that this motion is supported. Also, in Greater Shepparton, which you might say is not a big tourism area, we do our tourism around major events and things, and our council does a fantastic job in this area. They have had so many events, sporting events and others cancelled that it has really impacted on the hospitality and accommodation businesses in Shepparton, but also the decrease in visitations to Shepparton is having a significant effect on our seasonal harvesting. I urge everyone to support this motion. Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (10:59): In considering this motion I need to consider the businesses in my community and the families that they support. These businesses have been affected through lockdowns and restrictions over the last 12 months, and they continue to suffer. Many are struggling to survive. A survey conducted last week showed that 80 per cent of event industry businesses will need to let staff go and about 40 per cent will potentially close. The latest lockdown and border closures have dealt another massive body blow to the events industry at a time when events were only just starting again. In the last week many events as far out as September have been cancelled or moved interstate due to little confidence in holding events in Victoria. In my electorate I have the airport. Not only are the airlines struggling but so are the many industries that support the airport—the shops, the cafes, the transport industry. The event industry has lost out on major events such as weddings, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Australia Day and Lunar New Year, and many community events that are held each year. Many hire companies are based in my electorate. Let me just name a few of the hire companies: Westgate Party Hire in Williamstown, Werribee Party Hire in Hoppers Crossing, Xtreme Party Hire in Tullamarine, Spits for Hire in Hoppers Crossing, Hoppers Party Hire in Werribee, Marquee Party Hire, Excel Events in Truganina, Jump ‘N’ Bump, On Trend Event Hire in Maidstone, Harry the Hirer in Brooklyn, Western Suburbs Party Hire in Melton, Event Marquees in Williamstown, Marquee Hire in Melton, One Big Day Event Hire in Tullamarine, Teepees and Treats in Yarraville, the Prop Store in Spotswood, the Staging Brothers in Yarraville, Splashdown in Brooklyn, N & M Catering and Event Party Hire in Sunbury, AC Party Hire in Melton West, the Big Letter Co. in Tullamarine, Snow Flow in Derrimut, M.R.E Sound Lighting & Party Supplies in Melton, Aart Party Hire in Melton, Daiquiri Hire in Derrimut, Good Day Club in Sunshine West, Decor It Events in Tullamarine, Go Direct Entertainment in Tottenham and Bramshaw ICS Conference Communications in Footscray. Then there are the venues: Sheldon Reception in West Sunshine, the Overnewton Castle in Keilor, Little Ginger in Williamstown, the Luxor in Sydenham, the Lakeside banquet centre in Taylors Lakes, White Night Receptions in Maidstone, D Celebrations in Hoppers Crossing, Grand Star Receptions in Altona North, Happy Receptions in Tottenham, Encore Events in Hoppers Crossing, Glengala Hall in COMMITTEES 454 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Sunshine, the Enchanted Studios in Ravenhall, the Ultima Function Centre in Keilor Park, Tumbles Playhouse in Williamstown North, Ascot House Receptions in Ascot Vale, the Line in Footscray, the Active Hall in Laverton, Seasons 5 in Point Cook, Dizzy’s Playland in Maribyrnong, 540 on Barkly in West Footscray, Chirnsides by the River in Werribee, the Substation in Newport and Kindred Studios in Yarraville. There are many. In addition to these businesses, there are the food trucks, the catering companies, the florists and the carnival rides. This list is nowhere near complete, and I am sorry for all the businesses that I have actually left out. It does not even touch on the smaller venues, such as cafes and restaurants and motels and hotels, that hold smaller corporate events and conferences. It is vital that we support tourism and events, so on behalf of every one of these companies and the many more involved in tourism and events, I support this motion. The government must consider every time they make these rash decisions around lockdowns that these are the companies, these are the events, these are the event businesses that you affect—and their families and the communities that are involved. With the stroke of a brush, when you lock down the state this is who is actually affected—these families, these businesses. If the government wishes to only support elite athletes, sees them as the major priority and does not touch on all of the small businesses, all of the companies involved in events, all of the cafes, the restaurants and the hotels, we will continue to see these businesses fail, not be able to reopen, and to struggle, along with their families. The ongoing effect of harsh lockdowns when you have it under control—this cannot continue to go on. We need, as a Parliament, to feel secure and the community needs to feel secure that you have excellent quarantine—that you are actually going to hold the virus at bay, that you are going to have infection control at a hospital standard, that you will not let it continually leak out of quarantine. If the government actually had quarantine under control, the virus would not be spreading through the community. It is as simple as that. The virus is coming in on an aeroplane; it is meant to be held in excellent quarantine. We should have the best of infection control for those staff, for those families, for the community. And when the government actually gets quarantine under control, this is when we are going to be able to see all of these businesses come back to life, if it is not too late already from all the losses from quick, snap lockdowns when the government actually had it under control. Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) (11:07): It is a good thing to be able to stand and talk today about the impact of the pandemic upon regional tourism and in particular to talk about the profoundly human face of loss and of damage and of distress that has not only arisen in the last 14 months but been amplified time and time again by the public health crisis that has engulfed not only Victoria but the entire world. At the outset I want to acknowledge those businesses, communities, families and sectors which have been so profoundly impacted by a swathe being cut through our visitor economy—in accommodation, tourism, hospitality and the sorts of events and experiences which characterise our regions in such wonderful and diverse ways. We have, in the course of changes that have been necessary and have been founded in public health and expert advice, been required to stop the influx of international visitors who would otherwise be visiting our iconic destinations—from the Grampians through to Prosecco Road, from Falls Creek and the Great Alpine Road down to Wilsons Prom and Phillip Island. These are all destinations which sit amongst a very long list of tourism attractions which make our visitor economy so strong and which enable so many thousands of people to participate in a robust visitor economy and to take employment and to retain employment security in making sure that the visits and experiences that people have the opportunity to partake in are the very best they can possibly be. I, like so many others in this place and in the other place and in other parliaments, have seen those attractions cease operation overnight. These decisions have been incredibly difficult for people on the ground to accept because as much as anything they have led to widespread economic loss, they have led to enormous uncertainty and they have also contributed to precarious situations for many COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 455 businesses—not just in rural and regional areas but also back towards the peri-urban, suburban and metropolitan areas too. Having said that, these decisions have not been taken lightly, and it is really important that we have conversations, discussions and debates such as the one that we are having today against that backdrop of needing to take decisions which prioritise public health in order to be able to open up the economy and to keep the economy open while we wait for the federal government to roll out the AstraZeneca vaccine. We have seen this week that at last a pallet of vaccine has arrived in Australia, and we are anticipating the first of those vaccinations being administered in Victoria in the coming week. It is necessary for us to continue to work proactively with the commonwealth to make sure that vaccines are not just distributed but administered in the most effective, efficient and equitable way possible and that this includes coverage across the entire state, because, as we know from the UK variant—the B.1.1.7 variant—as well as from early indications of the South African variant and also the Brazilian variant which are arising, this is a virus which will continue to mutate, which will continue to evolve and which will continue to impact upon the health of communities all around the world, particularly those who are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed. It is pleasing to see that the federal government will prioritise aged care. It is disappointing to see that it will not enable the same treatment to be provided to people in the Victorian public sector aged-care system, but we are looking forward to hopefully a more equitable playing field developing into the future. As far as regional tourism is concerned, certainty and consistency are of maximum importance. It is through that lens of certainty and consistency that people can begin to plan holidays, can begin to plan long weekends away and can begin to plan the way in which they will book accommodation, from the smallest and most isolated B & B right through to the large hotels and resorts that dot our coastlines, our mountain ranges and indeed the interior of our state. This is why it has been really important not only to make sure that there are existing packages of support for tourism and for hospitality against this backdrop of public health uncertainty, which none of us want but which all of us have to live with until such time as the federal government completes its rollout of the vaccine, but also to make sure that these packages of support are tailored towards making a positive difference on the ground where this support is needed most. The voucher scheme is one such example of being able to incentivise Victorians to take a holiday and to make plans to visit regional Victoria, including in a way that perhaps takes the place of international travel that might otherwise have been planned but which is not possible. This means that we have seen a really important and positive uptake of regional tourist offerings through the voucher scheme. We know that the instant popularity of the site shows a great desire by Victorians, particularly from the densely populated metropolitan areas, to contribute to the recovery and to the support of regional and rural businesses. We also know that it has been necessary, particularly in eastern Victoria and in the north-east of the state after 1.5 million hectares were decimated, were destroyed in the bushfires of a year ago, to continue to rebuild and to invest in infrastructure. In particular I want to make brief mention of the work going on in eastern Victoria, in particular in Gippsland—work such as investment in Cape Conran and Wilsons Promontory; in making sure that we are supporting businesses right out through to Orbost, such as Sailors Grave Brewing, an amazing microbrewery which has been awarded funds to set up an expansion of its business; and in making sure that we have got better connections between different tourism associations and business associations and that we are supporting accommodation offerings by better promotion through Tourism Victoria and indeed locally through Tourism Gippsland. We need to keep this work going, and this is where again these sorts of inquiries, as proposed, are a useful point of discussion to make sure that this work continues over time. It is also important to acknowledge that there is a power of work happening, not just as evidenced by November’s budget, which prioritised recovery, and not just through jobs growth but also through encouraging the better COMMITTEES 456 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 movement of people throughout our state and the stickier movement of people throughout our state. This is in the sense when people are incentivised and encouraged to do so and when local businesses are given the right levers to bring more people to towns, to settlements and to regional centres, they can have people stay overnight, spend money locally, go into the local shops and pick up anything from new clothes to shoes to fishing rods and enjoy experiences, whether it is on regional rail, whether it is on our rail trails, whether it is enjoying our beaches or whether it is getting out on the water or indeed heading up to enjoy some of the green season in our mountain areas. There is an awful lot of work going on to assist this sector. The figures in the budget speak for themselves. Other contributors to this debate have outlined the record funding that has gone in, whether it is to assist people from communities and families in the metropolitan area to visit regional Victoria or to assist businesses directly. We are also assisting with the development of funding of $152 million over four years to attract major events to the state, and this is a really important part again of providing that downstream benefit to local businesses in regional areas. We know the reality of what we need to live with in a pandemic situation, we know the virulent nature of the virus, we know the devastation and damage which it has caused and we also know the importance of providing support and assistance in meaningful ways that will enable businesses to weather these storms, to get accurate information and to obtain the support required to survive and then to rebuild, to recover and hopefully to thrive into the future, so again the work goes on. I look forward to continuing to see the Andrews government invest in the way that it has to date. Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (11:17): I rise this morning to throw my weight behind motion 486 put on our notice paper by Mr Davis, and in doing so I would like to reflect on my experiences in working with participants in the tourism and events sector and to really highlight some of the key areas in Eastern Victoria Region. In fact I could spend the whole of my 10 minutes saying how absolutely fantastic Eastern Victoria Region is, with our huge expansive region and with our amazing tourism assets, tourism experiences and events, but I will not spend the whole time on that, because there are some really key points that I would like to make. Noting the Mornington Peninsula, we were down there the other day with a think tank. We had some very good consultation and gained understanding through the Victoria Tourism Industry Council. They put a very fine point on some of the real concerns that they have in relation to tourism and events, both with the short-term stability and the need for investment into the tourism and events sector, but also with some long-term infrastructure that is required across our great state in order to rebuild what has been so damaged through, in my area, fire, drought and now this shocking pandemic and the lockdown of Victoria—a lockdown that we have not seen resonate and impact other states like New South Wales. Why? Because the New South Wales government has been able to manage this pandemic far, far better. Indeed I have a son that lives in New South Wales, and he has been able to go out to restaurants. Other than in the very short instance at the very start where there were some key lockdowns, New South Wales have been open for business and their tourism sector and events have been blossoming with those COVID requirements still in place. We have the Mornington Peninsula, with its great hot springs and wineries. Phillip Island is just a magical place and so well frequented by locals and those from interstate and overseas. Baw Baw, Walhalla, Omeo, Buchan and our magnificent Gippsland beaches I say rival anywhere in the world. Some of the safest beaches to swim from are certainly around South Gippsland and Wilsons Promontory. The Lakes area is just a jewel and a spectacle and was so well frequented pre COVID. Certainly it was devastating to be down there just after the fires at the very start of 2020, when smoke was filling the air. Even though it was safe to go to places like Paynesville and Metung, visitors stayed away, and of course then accommodation was at a standstill and so were bakeries and our cafes. It was very tragic for them to have to deal with that. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 457

What we also know is of course that along came the pandemic, just as many Victorians were pouring out their hearts and moving to our regions, spending their cash and bringing an empty esky to fill up in regional Victoria. But this pandemic has crucified our tourism events sector. Indeed, when I say that I do mean that most sincerely. Families, businesses, family businesses have had their industries dry up. It is so hard to pivot when you have no-one walking in the door or no-one ringing up to book a night’s accommodation. Just to give some context to the very relevance of having an inquiry in the upper house in relation to tourism, the Gippsland visitor economy has been so impacted. I thank Destination Gippsland for providing me with some documentation and some statistics on this. They have got some stats out for the first six months of the COVID lockdown. From April through to September 2020, total visitations were down 185 million. Total nights stayed in the Gippsland region—1.6 million visitors down in comparison with the previous year. That is over 330 000 for six months. We also see that international visitors of course dried up, so there was a 100 per cent reduction in those, and the impact of that was most significant. If we look at 2019, Gippsland received almost 800 000 international visitors. Again, we cannot just click our fingers and make that economy happen. Indeed, COVID is going to be in the landscape for a long, long time to come, and it will be very dangerous if we do not support our regional businesses to really not just pivot but to facilitate how they can regrow those markets. Things were opening up until this shocking event last Friday, when people with all their pubs, clubs, restaurants and cafes had all their weekend markets all ready. They can freeze a certain amount of food, but they certainly had a lot of wastage that they just could not do anything with. They had to cancel their staff. We have seen how florists had to throw out flowers; you cannot keep red roses for another year. These sorts of things have a huge impact on the emotional and mental stability of our people in regional Gippsland and Victoria in general. I would just like to raise a very key point from one of my constituents who runs a great company. It is a fireworks company, and a company that outsources various activities for major events. They run an events team in Lakes Entrance called Lakes Entrance Events, strangely enough. In the previous year, in 2019, they had 20 000 people come into the region, booking out accommodation—hospitality and retail. What has happened of course with COVID and the very severe restrictions is that basically the events are drying up. I note that people in Paynesville have run very successfully a music festival. They really tried this year to see if they could put it back on for 2021. But here is the nub of the problem, and I think that is why we need to hear from people from our regions and central Victoria as well; they need to understand the interface between Department of Health requirements and stipulations and COVID restrictions and how that interfaces with councils interpreting that and creating permits. And there is a real lag time too between when you go to register for an event to when DH says yes or no and whether you can run it. There are also problems with managing events of size. I note that quite often many of our community events are only run by volunteers. Now, it is very hard to manage those and pay for all of the additional requirements, whether they be additional staff or security or physical requirements that would be needed to run these events. There are other issues that really plague our regional people, and indeed some of those relate to Anzac Day. You can say Anzac Day is a known event. I know that some of my locals are very frustrated with the fact that they do not know whether or not they can absolutely—rock solid—have Anzac Day. It is very important that these sorts of things that are the very fabric of our communities are driven and supported. These things need to be unpacked. I note that the government has taken up our very wise choice around vouchers. I know in our Back to Work and Back in Business commitment we spoke about vouchers, but also people need to be able to go to a region, use their vouchers but stay and play and experience the wonders in regional Victoria. COMMITTEES 458 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

I ask the house to certainly support Mr Davis’s motion. We need to unpack what is not working here and we need to facilitate the support for our tourism and really drive people. In the face of COVID we are not going to have overseas visitors for some time to come. Goodness me, I hope we can get interstate visitors to come in. We need to support these industries that are the very fabric of our regional communities. Mr ERDOGAN (Southern Metropolitan) (11:27): I am pleased to rise to speak on this motion before the house. I have been listening to the speakers before me, and I want to acknowledge that it seems there is broad concern for the impact of this global pandemic on the tourism or visitor economy broadly, across the chamber, which is pleasing to see. I want to make a number of reflections. The global pandemic has disproportionately affected certain sectors of the economy. That is visible for everyone to see; it is the very nature of this pandemic. Sectors such as the visitor economy and such as tourism have been probably disproportionately affected, but it is obviously not an effect that is unique to Victoria, or to Australia for that matter; the effect globally is quite similar in fact. Before rising to speak I reflected that before the COVID-19 pandemic global tourism accounted for about 10 per cent of the global GDP and over 300 million jobs worldwide. A lot of the travel has obviously sharply declined since the advent of the global pandemic. The IMF has stated that it believes 100 million jobs globally are affected. And those most greatly affected are in fact women. Broadly speaking it is the case in Australia, as it is globally, that 54 per cent of the tourism workforce worldwide is made up of women, and some of them work in small- or medium-sized enterprises, and they have been put out of business as a result. The IMF further noted that tourism receipts worldwide are not expected to recover to 2019 levels until at least 2023. So the effects of this pandemic are going to be with us for some time yet. Mr Davis’s motion also reflects that tourism contributes 6.5 per cent to the Victorian economy, employs 260 000 people directly and indirectly and comprises 7.8 per cent of Victoria’s employment or workforce, and that the COVID-19 pandemic has had an effect on the tourism industry with the closure of international and state borders. On this point I do want to also add that some of the speakers, I felt, were unfairly reflecting on some of the quarantine matters that have been experienced. Ultimately there have been quarantine breaches in every state and territory except for Tasmania and the Northern Territory. Over the summer break in my electorate of Southern Metropolitan, in Black Rock, we found the New South Wales strain of the virus, and with our improved contact tracing we were able to get on top of it and bring cases right down to zero. Obviously there has been a quarantine breach since, which again, with the short, sharp circuit-breaker, we have been able to overcome. These similar sorts of shutdowns or circuit-breakers have happened in WA, in South Australia and in Queensland, and they are the right thing to do, because obviously we want to get on top of it before it gets out of control. I think it is important to correct the record in this regard. As a government we are doing a lot. We understand that this sector needs targeted support, and as chair of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee I look forward to looking at how we can assist or provide recommendations for the government in this area. The minister responsible is doing a lot of work, and I think it is worth recognising that. I was glad to see Ms Bath also give the tick of approval to our Victorian regional voucher scheme. I agree it is a great scheme. The package included $28 million to encourage Victorians to get out and see the rest of the state, and it was very popular. The scheme has been increased by $36 million, and a total of 150 000 vouchers have been given out to Victorians to see the regions. It is important, and over the next four years we have allocated $152 million to attract more events to our state, increasing the Major Events Fund capacity to improve our state’s reputation as a sporting, cultural and major events capital. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 459

There are a number of other grants we are releasing that people may have heard of, through the Business Support Fund. About 35 000 grants totalling over $300 million have already been paid to events and tourism-based businesses in our state. We have broader regional recovery packages planned as well, and some of them have been delivered already: $465 million into flagship programs, such as the Grampians—$149 million going there; a further $150 million for the Regional Tourism Investment Fund to support development in the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula regions; $20 million to the Regional Events Fund; $9.7 million to the business events program; $1.6 million to support First Peoples tourism development; and $106 million for industry support and development, including marketing, skills development and support for the private sector to plan for events and improve industry and government coordination. This is just some of the work that this government is doing. As chair of the committee I look forward to seeing this referral. I notice that the time frame is, relative to some of our other inquiries, quite a short time frame. Mr Davis has said 30 June this year, so I know fellow committee members—our deputy chair and other committee members—will be quite eager to get onto this work and visit the regions and see what is happening in Melbourne also. The effects of this global pandemic are immeasurable in terms of the human cost and the economic devastation, but, like I said, it is not unique to Australia or to Victoria, it has affected everywhere. Some nations in fact are more reliant on the visitor economy—countries such as Spain and Greece. I have friends and family over there who say that it really has led to not only financial ruin but devastation of whole towns and cities. But in Victoria we are getting on with the job, and that is why we are investing money in upgrades of facilities along the Great Ocean Road, Wilsons Promontory, the Mallee Silo Art Trail and even the Falls to Hotham alpine crossing. There have been investments across our state. The tourism travel scheme, which has already been discussed, has been very popular, with 150 000 vouchers being distributed. I guess in my electorate of Southern Metropolitan, what I call the artistic hub of Melbourne, the events sector has taken a hit. But as a government we have not stepped back. We are making a record investment into the National Gallery of Victoria Contemporary—over $1 billion in investment—so we are planning for the future of the sector. There is the Major Events Fund—we are putting $150 million towards that; the Regional Events Fund, $20 million; and the business events program. Obviously Melbourne was a hub in our nation for big conferences to take place, and obviously a lot of people that would come down to Melbourne for these big conferences would then go out and visit the regions whilst they were here. So the global pandemic has definitely affected the event sector greatly. But I think it is important that we do get an opportunity as a committee to look into all these matters. I noticed that, like I said, as a government, the government is not waiting for this inquiry. They are getting on with the job and providing targeted support where possible. But obviously some of the sectors will not have full recovery, as the IMF has stated, for some time. Until we get over the line or until we have a complete vaccine rollout we will not be able to, I guess, open up borders. But there are still concerns about this global pandemic. We are hearing about the UK strain, which was what we experienced recently. There is a South African strain now and there are discussions about many other strains, so the visitor economy will be affected. It is about making targeted support, understanding that this is not a challenge for the short term—it is probably a medium-term outlook. That is the IMF’s reading of what is happening with global tourism, and as a government we need to provide support every step of the way. I see that Mr Barton is also looking forward to this inquiry into this important sector. Tourism and the visitor economy is not just hotels, it is also the taxidrivers who take people to their destinations, it is the bus drivers, it is the tour guides, it is the ecotourism as well. We have environmental protections in this state which ensure that our parks and gardens are well maintained. So it is an inquiry that I look forward to as chair, and I look forward to reporting back by 30 June. COMMITTEES 460 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (11:37): I will be brief. This motion is a chance to whack the government over its handling of the coronavirus in the regions. I am happy to join in the whacking, because there has been so much incompetence. I have not been quiet about this government’s disrespectful treatment of regional Victorians. Border closures have destroyed businesses and ruined lives. People who have worked hard and saved responsibly have had years of their life swept away because of this government’s indifference. This latest snap lockdown is just another example of this indifference. We have now endured three lockdowns and had the borders slammed shut by both our own government and the surrounding states. I mentioned on Tuesday the loss of the basketball tournament in Bendigo and the tennis tournament in Swan Hill. I have no doubt that there would be dozens of other events, large and small, that were broken, along with that circuit you seem so pleased about. Again, there has never been a case of COVID in Wodonga. This is not because heroic Dan saved us from the smart, hyperinfectious virus moving at light speed. It is because we are over 300 kilometres away from his quarantine failures. This is the same story throughout almost all of northern Victoria, and where the virus has reached the regions it has been easily controlled because we have a low population density. This motion requests that the Economy and Infrastructure Committee investigate the damage done to the tourism sector. People working in tourism are just a few of the many, many people suffering because of our Premier. I believe it is important to hear from the people this government has steamrolled. After the bushfires last summer, tourism was touted as the road to regional recovery. Since government management of COVID began, that road has been closed. The road is closed, the bridges are burnt and the pavement is bulldozed. This government patted itself on the back for handing out tourism vouchers to support tourism operators, but those vouchers were funded by the tax dollars paid to the government by those tourism operators. The government did not help these people, it just forced them to give discounts to their customers. Border restrictions and lockdowns have cost regional communities the events that keep them afloat, but this government was on the warpath against regional events and tourism operators well before COVID-19. I am under no illusion that this committee will solve the problems caused to the tourism industry in the regions by this government, but it is my hope that it will shed at least a little light on some of the damage that has been done. Mr ATKINSON (Eastern Metropolitan) (11:39): I am not interested in this particular committee giving a whack to people because of the handling of the tourism industry or the events industry looking back; I am interested in where we go in the future. I am interested in the fact that we have industries and businesses and individuals who are currently on their knees, and they need to understand what the government programs are and what the support measures are going forward. And it is not about sustenance payments; it is about having coherent plans for the future. I do not want to tackle the tourism industry, although I support many of the remarks that have been made in this debate in support of the tourism industry and I agree with them. I want to focus in the few minutes that I have on the events industry—a very significant industry in Victoria and an industry that in fact is a platform for most of the rest of the Victorian economy, right through to education, with the people that are trained in different areas, right through to export dollars, where we have had people managing events in this state who have then gone on to assist with events around the world because of their expertise and their intellectual property. The events industry has been devastated in this current coronavirus period, and so many of the people in the events industry are sole traders who have got absolutely nothing in terms of support—nothing. We are very quick to boast about our events. We are very quick to be captured in photographs at our events. We are very quick to understand the value of those as a multiplier effect into the economy when it suits us for bragging rights, and yet now, when it comes to this situation, we have absolutely no thought about how we go forward, about the recommendations, about the exit plan from coronavirus. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 461

As somebody said in the context of this latest lockdown, you cannot turn an economy on and off, you cannot turn a business on and off like a light switch, and it has never been more true than for the events industry—a $10 billion-plus industry in its own right, but with a multiplier effect so much bigger. The fact is that this industry needs time to plan. It needs certainty. It needs to know that if it agrees to run a business conference or a major sporting event or some other festival or activity, in fact it is able to proceed with the planning for that, because in many cases these events are not happening in days or weeks but indeed in months and sometimes years ahead. At the moment that certainty is simply not there. We all understand the coronavirus is likely to have a continuing impact on our economy going forward and on some of our behaviours, but we have to find a way through it to support this industry in particular, which next to the airline industry in my view has been the hardest hit industry of all. It is crucial to Victoria. It is part of Victoria’s signature in a global community. We are an events capital. It is a crucial industry in terms of its multiplier effect right through our economy, and it involves so many people with so much expertise—brilliant, innovative people who at the moment feel very let down by government, abandoned by government in terms of not having received any support for many of the people employed in this industry, and indeed not knowing where to go in the future. At the moment this state is in danger of losing some significant events, including business conferences and so forth, to other states and other destinations simply because we cannot provide the certainty for their planning for the future. This committee reference is really important in terms of what it produces in those recommendations. I am pleased that the government is prepared to accept having this inquiry proceed. Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (11:45): We have only got 3 minutes to go, so I will quickly run through this. For the last 30 years I worked in the events industry and tourism sector. It is something that I have lived and breathed and it is how my family made a living. We have got skin in the game and we absolutely understand how important it is to Victoria. I think a lot of Victorians do not understand the importance of our tourism sector and our events sector, and I particularly want to talk about the events. We have some magnificent events like the grand prix, like the flower show. People do not understand how big the flower show is. Not only do people fly in from all around Australia, people fly in from around the world to go to our flower show. It is now an international event. The kick-on from all these things is that people do other things when they come in. I have had a client for the last 25 years who does a major thing through the footy finals, where they fly in 200 people not only from around Australia but also from overseas. While these things are going on, they are doing other things—they are going down the Great Ocean Road, they are going down to see the penguins, they are filling up all our restaurants, and our commercial passenger vehicles are driving them around. I absolutely get the tourism industry because that is how I made a quid over the last 30 years. I love it, and it is incredibly sad to see it in such dire straits. I just want to quickly touch on the commercial passenger vehicle sector, particularly the hire car industry, which has been decimated with the shutdown. Most of the people in the hire car industry were non-employing sole traders and clearly got diddly squat when it came to any support. They have done no work since March last year. We need to get the tourism and events sector back up and going, and we need to get our taxis and hire cars working as well. There are events such as the air show; that is a major event here every couple of years. I can certainly remember dealing with international people; in fact a 4-star general came in for the week to do that. The flow-on effects with the other people that come in are absolutely awesome. It is imperative that we have the confidence. We have got to get this industry stable, because the flow-on effect is enormous. Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (11:48): I thank the chamber for their contributions on this motion. This is a very important motion. As Mr Atkinson said, the events COMMITTEES 462 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 and tourism industries are on their knees. We need to move very quickly here, and I think that this motion gives a way forward for those industries to vent their concern, to put on record the ways forward and constructive steps that can be taken both financially, with support, and also in terms of regulation. I think that they are important opportunities for the committee and for the Parliament to actually provide the support that is so needed. As has been pointed out repeatedly through the chamber in this debate, the events sector is a linchpin, a key sector in the economy, and tourism is similarly a very important part of our economy. We need to have this inquiry and recognise the linkage between those two key sectors, the huge employment significance of them and the fact that they have taken such a substantial whack here in Victoria. Now, that is true right across the whole country, but the second stage lockdown here was much worse, much deeper, much more severe, and the impact has been much more lasting. The certainty that Mr Atkinson pointed to is also important. The government has failed, I think, to understand that they have got to find ways forward. We all accept that COVID is there. We all accept that there is a challenge. We all accept that the vaccine will help but may not provide absolute security on these matters, and the state government and the federal government have got to roll that out as quickly as possible. But that is one point. The next point is what regulations and what arrangements are in place to support sectors, what restrictions are there and how they can be safely implemented. My portfolio, as I said, is also arts and creative industries. I have looked very closely at a number of the restrictions in different areas—whether it is theatres or comedy venues or a whole list of different venues—and they are very different in each state. We need to see the reasoning behind those distinctions in each state, and we need to find what is the best way that actually goes forward. The administration of programs is also important. I will be quite blunt, and people know my view about this: the government has botched the rollout of a number of programs. So whatever is there has not got to the people that need it in many cases, particularly sole traders. The tourism and events sector is full of sole traders who play an absolute linchpin role, and those people—the most vulnerable of many of the small business sector in our community—are on their knees in many cases. We just need to do every single thing that we can—as a Parliament, as a community—to support them, and that needs to be urgent. As Dr Ratnam pointed out, there are also many casual employees who have lost all of their income through what has happened in this, and there needs to be a focus on them too. So all of these steps are important, you know, and there are other sectors of the economy too that are so critically important. Look at the wine sector. Ms Lovell just provided me data from people in that sector, and the impact has been differential in different parts of the sector. So for packaged deliveries and things like that there is one impact; for others that are delivering into the hospitality sector the impact has been much worse. So all of this is complexity that has got to be understood, and the committee can do that. It is a short time fuse; I accept what the chair said. That is deliberately so, because we cannot sit around. There is a balance between the ability to do the work properly and to do it swiftly to actually have an impact while they need it. I think the balance is roughly right there, and the task is to ensure that that report comes down and provides the way forward. I think the fact that hearings occur that highlight certain weaknesses and issues is important in itself, and I would hope that government would listen to some of these matters. So when an industry sector highlights a problem, I do not mind if government moves quickly to fix that that week. They do not have to wait until the report comes on 30 June or near there; they can actually implement responses, take on board the issues that are raised, look for constructive ways forward. Thank you to the chamber and those who wish to support this. Motion agreed to. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 463

ECONOMY AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE Reference Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (11:53): I move:

That this house requires the Economy and Infrastructure Committee to inquire into, consider and report, by no later than Friday, 18 February 2022, on the safety standards for members of the public that travel on the multipurpose taxi program (MPTP), including but not limited to: (1) a review of the minimum safety requirements for vehicles operating within the MPTP scheme; (2) the consideration of a mandatory maximum fare rate across all MPTP work; (3) an examination of how rorting and exploitation of vulnerable users will be prevented; (4) an assessment of the financial impacts to services within the broader disability sector and how this will be managed; (5) an examination of pathways for the industry to absorb major change post COVID-19; and (6) ensuring proper probity and good governance are applied following careful consideration and reporting of all possible ramifications of consultations with both industry and disability stakeholders. This relates to the announcement by Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria (CPVV) on 15 January this year regarding the decision to expand the government-subsidised multipurpose taxi program to include Uber services. The multipurpose taxi program scheme supports the transport needs for people with severe and permanent disability by offering subsidised commercial vehicle fares for eligible members, covering 50 per cent of the cost of the trip up to $60. The scheme is entirely government funded at a cost to the taxpayer of more than $70 million annually. Until recently the subsidy was only payable on trips conducted in a taxi. While I believe that all consumers should have a choice, and this includes those with a disability, this special cohort needs to be protected. It is my firm belief the decision to allow Uber as they currently operate to service work under the multipurpose taxi program puts the rights, welfare and security of our most vulnerable citizens at risk. The consequences of this decision also threaten the viability of specialised disability transport services across the state, which will impact most disadvantaged people in wheelchairs. I seek today the support of this house to put an immediate halt to this decision until the matter is further reviewed and openly debated, in the interest of public safety, and the survival of specialised transport services in the broader disability sector is considered. There are a number of concerns with this decision. The first of many relates to the safety of our most vulnerable citizens. Up until now taxis have serviced the transport needs of the aged, the incapacitated and the disabled through the multipurpose taxi scheme. But unlike taxis, Uber vehicles do not have fixed tamper-proof cameras or fixed in-vehicle GPS tracking devices to ensure passenger safety. We hear time and again that Uber drivers have taken advantage of vulnerable passengers simply by turning off the app on their phones. In the past week we have had two instances of sexual assault by Uber drivers reported in the Melbourne media. Last year an Uber driver was jailed for almost six years for raping a drunk passenger he took on a detour back to his home. Just recently there has been the case of an Uber driver in Brisbane who raped a 17-year-old passenger. These incidents are reprehensible, and I am relieved that these drivers were successfully brought to justice. However, just consider for a moment what recourse a disabled passenger might have without the evidence provided from a tamper- proof camera and GPS tracking to ensure successful prosecution against any wrongdoing. The safety of our most vulnerable citizens should be paramount when authorising who is available to provide them with transport services and under what conditions. If the multipurpose taxi program is to be expanded to include other services, then it should be mandatory for these vehicles to be fitted with audio and visual cameras and fixed GPS tracking to reduce the likelihood of predatory behaviour and, more importantly, to provide evidence needed to support any claim of wrongdoing. There is a reason we put cameras in taxis all those years ago— QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 464 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 because of the need—and I can tell you people have not got any better. We know when we put cameras in the cars that predatory behaviour is reduced. This should be a no-brainer. Providing choice equity to all consumers is not a cause for celebration alone. We must set the standard for the services allowed to be included in a government-subsidised program, and it should not be determined by a bunch of shiny suits in Silicon Valley. Added to this, I put the question to you: should we allow a corporate entity that shows complete disregard for our legal process by hindering progress to hold positions of trust in the transport of our most vulnerable citizens? There have been numerous cases to date where police have been called in to investigate potential criminal activity by an Uber service. Rather than the local arm of the Uber business fully cooperating with police in such matters, Uber chooses to obstruct the course of justice by referring all queries and warrants to Uber’s offshore offices. This increases the workload and the cost of police investigation and renders many cases not worth the follow-up. Is that the sort of behaviour we will be up against if there is any wrongdoing against a vulnerable passenger? Then there are the underhanded tactics used by Uber to dupe customers into thinking it is cheaper than a taxi ride. In September 2019 A Current Affair outed Uber for quoting comparative taxi fares at amounts far higher than they would normally be outside of the Uber app. I find it incredible that this level of dishonesty is allowed to occur. Consider how a passenger who may not have the capacity always to navigate these decisions would react when confronted with fake and misleading price comparisons. We must protect our vulnerable citizens from such blatant deception. As well as this, we then have the issue of surge pricing. This will leave many disadvantaged people paying more and will expose the scheme’s taxpayer funding to unnecessary expenses. All multipurpose taxi program work should be capped at a maximum regulated fare rate, which taxis are, but for some reason Uber seems to be able to get away with this. This is not unreasonable, and it is taxpayers money after all. The changes to the multipurpose taxi program scheme to include Uber have also opened up the potential for major rorting and for vulnerable people to be taken advantage of. It is a requirement that the multipurpose taxi program card holder is present in the vehicle during a trip in order to legitimately claim the travel subsidy through the program. When using taxis, multipurpose taxi program card holders are required to present their cards to the driver on the commencement of each trip and to process the subsidy payment on conclusion. However, when using the Uber app, cardholders are only required to enter their card details once when setting up the Uber account and the information is saved for all future trips. Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders. Questions without notice and ministers statements MIGRANT WORKERS CENTRE GRANTS Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:00): My question is to the Leader of the Government. The Auditor-General’s report Grants to the Migrant Workers Centre uncovered the Migrant Workers Centre and the Victorian Trades Hall Council improperly using state government funds, shamefully, for political campaigning activities in 2018 and 2019. The Auditor’s report says that in June 2017 the Department of Premier and Cabinet engaged a consultant, who recommended arrangements to establish the centre. The consultant later became the first board chair but was initially engaged without complying with DPC procurement policy. I quote:

Additionally, the DPC staff member who formally offered the engagement to the consultant … worked directly with them at another government agency. This relationship represents, at the least, a perceived conflict of interest … I therefore ask: who was the crooked consultant and who was the corrupt DPC officer who appointed their mate? Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Resources) (12:01): I thank Mr Davis for his question. As we know, a Victorian Auditor-General’s QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 465

Office report has been tabled, and of course any misuse of grant funding is unacceptable. The Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing have together accepted the recommendations. Steps will be taken to strengthen compliance and reporting requirements so this type of infringement does not occur in the future, and I do understand that the funds have been repaid in full. I understand that at no point was grant funding ever used to campaign for any political party or to distribute party-political material, and any continued suggestion will be rejected. The Victorian Auditor-General has accepted that the Migrant Workers Centre did not at any stage campaign on behalf of any political party. The department has accepted the recommendations and will review its grant management frameworks and processes, and as the department has noted in its response, which is available, it is committed to ensuring that the government’s grants management approach reflects best practice principles, ensures probity and transparency and delivers strong policy outcomes for all Victorians. Mr Davis: On a point of order, President, the minister made a number of significant comments around the matter but did not directly answer the simple question of who is the consultant and who is the— The PRESIDENT: I believe the Leader of the Government has finished. Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:03): This is clearly corrupt activity that is now admitted by the Migrant Workers Centre and the Victorian Trades Hall Council. The money has been repaid—a clear admission of guilt. I ask: will all Labor Party MPs, including the Premier, and DPC staff who may be questioned by police in relation to this matter cooperate fully and answer police questions if requested to be interviewed? Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Resources) (12:03): It is my expectation that any Victorian citizen, whether they be an MP or not, cooperate with any appropriate authorities when they are requested to do so. BIG HOUSING BUILD Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (12:04): My question is to the minister representing the Minister for Regional Development, and it relates to the Andrews government’s Big Housing Build program. It was pleasing to see the government announce that 25 per cent of its Big Housing Build would be spent solely across regional Victoria. This equates to around $1.25 billion of investment in our regional centres and rural communities. I think this is a good indication that the government recognises that homelessness and rental stress stretch far beyond the high-rises of the metro suburbs. Of the $1.25 billion, $765 million has already been allocated to regional local government areas through the minimum investment guarantee, leaving $485 million to be allocated to other areas. Yarriambiack shire have not yet been included on this list but would very much like to see investment in social housing in their local government area. My question is: can the government guarantee that Yarriambiack Shire Council will receive a portion of the Big Housing Build’s unallocated funds? Ms Pulford: On a point of order, President, I respectfully suggest the member directs their question to the Minister for Housing, who is responsible for the rollout of that program. The PRESIDENT: Do you want to direct your question to Minister Stitt? Mr GRIMLEY: I direct the question to Minister Stitt. Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:05): I will refer that question to the Minister for Housing and request that a response be provided in accordance with the standing orders. Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (12:05): Thank you, Minister. A beautiful handball there. Since my election to this place I have met with many NGOs and organisations that work to reduce family violence and, as a consequence, homelessness. Many of these organisations, including the Salvation QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 466 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Army, have told me that the current availability of social housing is low and so would absolutely welcome the Big Housing Build initiative. However, they and other organisations also noted that the variation of social housing is limited. For example, if a mother and her five children need crisis accommodation or even long-term affordable accommodation, they sometimes would have to have multiple hotel rooms rented for them. Not only is this dangerous and not good enough for the children involved, but it is an expensive exercise for the government to undertake. Therefore my supplementary question is: has the government done planning, data collection and consultation to ensure that the Big Housing Build invests in a range of affordable housing for single people to large families and everything in between? Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:06): I know this is a matter that Minister Wynne is working very hard at, and I know that he is looking at these very questions. I will ensure that he responds to your supplementary question in accordance with the standing orders. MINISTERS STATEMENTS: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:06): I rise to update the Parliament on how the Andrews Labor government is upgrading early childhood infrastructure across Victoria, as we continue to roll out funded three-year-old kindergarten. The most recent Victorian budget invested a further $38.5 million into the Andrews Labor government’s Building Blocks early childhood grants program, which supports early childhood providers by boosting capacity and improving facilities, creating inclusive kinders and delivering information technology upgrades. Last week I had the pleasure of joining the hardworking Labor member for Carrum, Sonya Kilkenny, MP, to officially open the new early learning centre for Bonbeach preschool, which will offer both three- and four-year-old programs to local families. The $2.6 million allocation to this project to build a new not-for-profit community-based early learning centre on the site of Bonbeach Primary School is helping families to ditch the double drop-off. Also last week I was lucky enough to join the equally hardworking Labor member for Mordialloc, Tim Richardson, to visit the much-loved community kinder Elonera Preschool in Parkdale. Elonera Preschool will receive a $742 000 Building Blocks grant from the Andrews Labor government to deliver a new kindergarten building, and this will create an additional 33 kinder places to cater for growing demand in that area. Elonera is one of 127 successful grant recipients in the latest batch of Building Blocks capacity-building and improvement grant streams. Applications to make kinders more accessible are open until 28 February 2021, and applications to build the capacity of kindergartens are open until 14 March. CRIME PREVENTION Mr O’DONOHUE (Eastern Victoria) (12:08): My question is to the Attorney-General. Attorney, since the election of the Andrews government total crime has increased by over 20 per cent. Does the government accept its justice policies have led to the community being less safe under your government? Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Resources) (12:09): I thank Mr O’Donohue for his question. Obviously crime stats present a good indication to the community about where crimes are impacting our state. I would note that often the increase is driven by the reporting of family violence cases, and so there is sometimes an instance where the rate of crime can be seen as a good thing because you want to make sure that people are reporting cases and that they are being dealt with appropriately. That in no way suggests that I want Victoria to have a high crime rate, but it is just always important to keep that context in mind. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 467

Mr O’Donohue, I am very proud of the policies that the Victorian government have introduced in relation to supporting victims of crime, the investment in our corrections system and programs to get people back on track, and indeed the really important work that Minister Donnellan does in making sure that we are really addressing the causes of crime, as we know the connection between child protection, youth detention and then adult jails is all too familiar for many people. There are many programs, Mr O’Donohue, that we will continue to invest in, and we have never stopped looking at different policies, as everyone in this chamber knows, because there is a lot of legislation in this space that is all about making our community safe. Mr O’DONOHUE (Eastern Victoria) (12:10): I thank the Attorney for her answer. I note she referred in her answer to investment in the corrections system. Since the election of the Andrews government the recidivism rate for offenders has increased significantly. There seems to be a never- ending increasing trend of criminality where offenders are released from prison and they are back in prison in a short period of time. From two prisoners released from prison today, one will be back in jail within two years, according to the statistics. That is reflected, Minister, in youth offending, which has disturbingly increased under your government’s watch by over 16 per cent, with the largest cohort of alleged offenders for crimes against the person being 15 to 19 years of age, with 7241 alleged incidents for the year to September 2020. What new policies or legislation will you bring forward to stop this spiral of increasing youth crime? Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Resources) (12:11): Mr O’Donohue, that was a rather large supplementary question. I am not going to be using question time to make government announcements in relation to policies and legislative reform, but I can assure you that I work very closely with Minister Hutchins in the youth justice area, and we have cabinet committees that discuss these issues all the time. When we have announcements to make, they will be made. CROWN CASINO Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:12): My question is to the minister representing the Premier. One of the very first motions I moved in this place back in 2017 was for an inquiry into the failings of the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation and its inadequate regulation of Crown Casino. The government voted down this motion, saying that they had confidence in the regulator. Since then scandal after scandal has engulfed Crown, and now we have the Bergin inquiry in New South Wales finding Crown not suitable to hold a gaming licence after hearing evidence of money laundering and links to organised crime occurring at its Melbourne casino. These are allegations the VCGLR is yet to report on, despite a so-called urgent inquiry promised 18 months ago. This has amounted to a complete and utter failure of regulation. Minister, after the very serious findings of the Bergin inquiry, why is the government still protecting Crown? Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Resources) (12:13): I thank Dr Ratnam for her question, which she has referred to me as representing the Premier. There is a minister in this place that represents the minister for gaming; as I think we have had a conversation about before, it is probably best to direct questions to relevant ministers. But with that in mind I can provide an update to the house before there are particular further announcements in due course, because prior to the Bergin inquiry being finalised we did take the action, as you identified, of bringing forward the seventh casino review. We brought that forward by two years. The Bergin report was handed down last week, and there have obviously been a number of serious findings. As a result, the minister and the government are carefully considering a course of action in the same way that the New South Wales government is still considering its response. We are currently getting advice on the most appropriate form of action regarding Crown in the Victorian context, so I expect that further details will be provided by the minister. If you want me to get you any further written advice, I think it would be best for it to be directed through Minister Leane. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 468 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:14): I thank the minister for her response and for acknowledging that the government has brought forward its regular review of Crown, but given the history of these reviews letting Crown get away with all sorts of improper and potentially illegal behaviour in the past, I feel it is fair enough for the community to be a little sceptical at that response. Isn’t it actually the reality that this government is incapable of effectively regulating this high-risk industry while the Labor Party has received and continues to receive donations from them? The PRESIDENT: Order! Dr Ratnam, my understanding from your question was that it was a question about representing the Labor Party, and Ms Symes does not represent the Labor Party; she is the Leader of the Government. It is up to you whether you rephrase your question, or I am going to rule it out of order. Out of order? Thank you. MINISTERS STATEMENTS: LIVING LIBRARIES INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM Mr LEANE (Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development, Minister for Veterans) (12:15): Today I would like to update the house that applications are open for funding from the Living Libraries Infrastructure Program. Thanks to a funding boost in the last budget there is $10 million available this year for new libraries, library upgrades, expansions, redevelopments and mobile libraries to service remote communities. I have got to say that the funding program is unique this time because small rural councils will not have to deliver matching funding in order to apply, which I think is very important, meaning that they do not need to choose between delivering state-of-the-art library services to the community and maintaining or renewing their other assets. I think I have mentioned before that last month I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of visiting the Ballarat Library with a couple of spectacular MPs, I have got to say, and , to see the progress that has been made on an expansion funded by the last Living Libraries Infrastructure Program. Can I thank the council’s mayor, Cr Daniel Maloney; the interim CEO, Janet Dore; and the new CEO who has not started yet, Evan King, who were there to show me around. The $2.4 million in work will open up a second storey to the building to create a new digital and youth hub and expand on the children’s area to create a new discovery zone. I look forward to seeing that work in the future and going out with—as I said, I think I have said it before—a couple of MPs who are just great representatives of their community and who do a great job in advocating for funds like this for improvements for really important facilities in the areas they represent, such as this fantastic library. COVID-19 Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:17): My question is for the Minister for Workplace Safety. Minister, it was revealed yesterday that WorkSafe Victoria had issued improvement notices to the Department of Health and COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria (CQV) in late January, about a week before a family of three staying in the Holiday Inn tested positive to the British strain of the coronavirus. I ask you, Minister: will you table those improvement notices in this house? Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:18): Thank you, Mr Davis, for your question. Clearly WorkSafe have played and continue to play an incredibly critical role in the government’s response to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. They do an important job of supporting employers to keep workers safe during these unprecedented times during this global pandemic. It is important to reiterate, Mr Davis, that WorkSafe exercise their enforcement activities at arm’s length from me. They play a hugely important role in ensuring that Victorian workplaces are safe and that employers comply with their health and safety obligations. As the Minister for Workplace Safety, I do not direct WorkSafe’s enforcement activities, and they are conducted independently from me and my office. I am obviously aware that WorkSafe have been at Melbourne Airport, and I am advised that there have been notices issued. It is important to understand that in relation to this matter WorkSafe continue to work very closely with CQV and the Department of Health, and that is appropriate and in QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 469 accordance with the act. Since the beginning of the pandemic WorkSafe have conducted over 20 000 visits and inquiries in relation to COVID-19, and they will continue to do their job in relation to mitigating the risks of COVID-19 in Victorian workplaces. Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:20): It is just not clear to me whether the minister will actually table these improvement notices. I am hopeful that she will. She has not actually answered that simple question. Nonetheless, my supplementary is: Minister, despite these improvement notices, the state’s latest coronavirus cluster nevertheless emerged from the Holiday Inn at Melbourne Airport quarantine hotel, and as a result all Victorians were locked down for five days, and I therefore ask: has WorkSafe subsequently issued prohibition notices to the health department and COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria, and if not, why not? Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:20): The Leader of the Opposition can try to conflate the two issues here, but the reality is that these notices relate to terminal 2 at Melbourne Airport. And anybody who knows anything about the complex nature of airport operations knows that it is entirely appropriate for WorkSafe to be involved in compliance activities at Melbourne Airport as a high-risk setting, as they have done in other high- risk settings throughout this pandemic. Mr Davis: On a point of order, President, it is a very simple, straightforward question: have there subsequently been prohibition notices issued to the Department of Health and COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria? The minister made no attempt to answer that. The PRESIDENT: Thank you. COVID-19 Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (12:22): My question is to the Minister for Workplace Safety. Can the minister please explain how the government is ensuring that workers in quarantine hotels are being provided with a safe work environment? Recommendations contained in the interim report into hotel quarantine, which were accepted by the government, clearly state:

… that each quarantine facility has a properly resourced infection prevention and control unit embedded in the facility with the necessary expertise and resources to perform its work. … … that all personnel working on-site are inducted into a culture of safety, focussed on infection prevention and control provided by those with the expertise to deliver such training. Why do cold hotels have a lesser standard of infection control than has been applied to hot hotels? Ms Stitt: On a point of order, President, I seek your guidance on whether this question is appropriately directed to me. Hotel quarantine is not within my portfolio responsibilities, and in terms of the substance of Dr Cumming’s question, that really goes to issues that are the subject of health advice, not in the workplace safety portfolio. Dr Cumming: On the point of order, President, my original question was: is the minister providing a safe work environment, and she is the workplace safety minister. The PRESIDENT: Ms Stitt, I believe the question is in order for you, but you can refer it if you want. Ms Stitt: President, of course I respect your ruling, but Dr Cumming may want to rephrase her question in that event, because infection control is not the responsibility of the workplace safety minister. The PRESIDENT: Can I have a look at the question. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 470 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

MINISTERS STATEMENTS: LAUNCHVIC Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business) (12:24): On Monday I joined Boab AI in announcing the launch of Australia’s first accelerator program to scale up artificial intelligence companies. Backed by $1.5 million from the state government through our startup agency LaunchVic and $8 million of private sector capital via venture capital manager Artesian, Boab AI is set to support 32 mature AI scale-ups over four years from its new base in Richmond. To add to this fantastic announcement, the scale-up program will be complemented by a new $100 million AI investment fund to support the growth of the best and brightest AI startups. The AI investment fund will invest in up to 150 cutting-edge artificial intelligence companies with AI at their core across all industry sectors and with a focus on Asia-Pacific. This announcement is another major step towards establishing Victoria as a world-leading innovation ecosystem and will help us attract and develop the best talent, investment and technology expertise. Boab’s first round of scale-ups include Victorian companies Pi.Exchange, Plaetos and Strong Room AI. Each participating company will receive a minimum of $300 000 in capital as part of a tailored six-month program that addresses the unique challenges of each business. AI is a once-in-a-generation technology shift with vast areas of application of technologies, including machine learning, robotics, computer vision and natural language processing. Victoria will be well placed to capitalise on the opportunities presented by emerging technologies like AI, with the sector projected to be worth $315 billion to Australia’s economy by 2028 and requiring up to 161 000 new specialised workers by 2030. These programs build on the government’s commitment to accelerating the growth of Victoria’s innovation ecosystem and digital economy following the November budget, which confirmed $626 million to upgrade digital infrastructure and develop tech skills and more than $130 million for the startup sector. (Time expired) COVID-19 The PRESIDENT: Dr Cumming, rephrase your question, please. Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (12:27): I am going to try. My question is still to the Minister for Workplace Safety. Can the minister please explain how the government is ensuring that the workers in quarantine hotels are being provided with a safe work environment? That was my question. Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:27): Thank you, Dr Cumming, for your question. Of course these are incredibly important matters, and WorkSafe Victoria have got very broad obligations in terms of assisting employers and their workers to be safe in the workplace, and that extends to being safe in relation to this highly infectious virus. The hotel quarantine system, as you are aware, does not sit within my area of responsibility, but of course WorkSafe as the independent safety regulator will enforce the health and safety obligations of every employer regardless of what industry or what sector they are in. As I have indicated a number of times to a number of colleagues in the house, as WorkSafe minister I do not direct compliance activities of the independent safety regulator. They will ensure that the compliance activities are focused in those areas where they need to be, and workers in hotel quarantine are no different. Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (12:28): I thank the minister for her response. Can the minister confirm that a high standard of PPE was provided to staff at all times at all the hotel quarantine facilities—for example, fitted N95 masks. Again, the recommendations state:

… that the infection prevention and control experts direct the acquisition, distribution and use of PPE with specific, clear and accessible directions to all personnel on-site … It appears that this has not been done, as we have staff members and their families infected with COVID from just doing their job under employment and direction by the state government. Why don’t QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 471 we have infection control standards and procedures comparable to those in hospitals? Infection control should be hospital grade— The PRESIDENT: Dr Cumming, I have to interrupt. We are back to stage 1, where I agreed for the question to go to the minister, but now you are asking for further detail that is not her responsibility. Again there is a gap there. Please direct your supplementary straight to her to answer or to her portfolio. Dr CUMMING: I guess, in rephrasing it, the staff deserve infection control standards that are hospital grade in quarantine. We need an infectious disease expert running hotel quarantine so these workers can be safe, and their families and the rest of the community. The PRESIDENT: Minister, do you want to answer it? It is up to you. Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:30): I will just take that as a statement. Mr Leane: On a point of order, President, I hate being a bit of a dobber, but I know you made a ruling at the start of the week in particular around the wearing of masks. I know it is not easy, and I struggle a bit too, but I think the application of wearing masks in this chamber has been a bit lax. In particular I am sure we all respect that we are protected from whatever Mr Finn might have in his beard and I do appreciate that he actually believes that COVID-19 is a socialist plot, but I urge not just Mr Finn but maybe all of us to reinforce your ruling and do a better job of keeping on our masks in a better fashion. The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr Leane. COVID-19 Mr O’DONOHUE (Eastern Victoria) (12:31): My question is to the Minister for Workplace Safety. Minister, have you exercised or will you exercise your power referenced in section 7(1)(a) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (OH&S act) to direct WorkSafe to inquire into and report to you within a time frame specified by you on failures in your government’s current hotel quarantine program? Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:32): I thank Mr O’Donohue for his question. I do not know how many times I have to say it, but as they are the independent workplace safety regulator, it is not my job to direct WorkSafe in respect of their independence or their compliance activities. They take very seriously the obligations they have under the act in terms of their enforcement activities, and they have been doing that, as evidenced by the over 20 000 visits that they have made and inquiries that they have responded to in relation to COVID-19 matters across the state in the last 12 months. Mr O’DONOHUE (Eastern Victoria) (12:32): The minister said she does not have the power to direct WorkSafe, but as I referenced in the substantive question, clause 7(1)(a) of the OH&S act says the authority has the following functions:

(a) to enquire into and report to the Minister on any matters referred to the Authority by the Minister (within the time specified by the Minister) … So there is a clear head of power contemplated in the act. Parliament contemplates giving that power to the minister. She has that power. So it is actually factually incorrect, Minister, when you say you do not have that authority. My supplementary, Minister, is: noting the clear words of the act—the clear head of power that it gives you—why are you running a protection racket for the government rather than being more focused on the safety of those involved in this program? Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (12:33): Aside from being verballed about what my answer was in respect of the substantive question, I utterly reject the assertion in the supplementary question. I take very seriously my role as the QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 472 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 workplace safety minister. What you are referring to is a general power under the act that does not take away from the importance of the independence of WorkSafe as the safety regulator in this state. If the suggestion is that I am somehow running a protection racket, then I would just point you to the facts—the facts of how many visits WorkSafe have done and the fact that they are in high-risk settings each and every day ensuring that workers are safe, and they should continue to do that because that is their primary function. Mr O’DONOHUE (Eastern Victoria) (12:34): I move:

That the minister’s answer be taken into consideration on the next day of meeting. Motion agreed to. DUCK HUNTING Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (12:34): My question is for the Minister for Agriculture in the other place. Last week a duck-shooting season was announced. It is the most restrictive we have ever seen and will run for just 20 days, with a bag limit of only two birds per day. Cutting the daily bag limit down from the legislated amount of 10 is an acknowledgement by the government that our native waterbirds are struggling. To me and to so many other Victorians this is even more proof of why the season should be cancelled and duck shooting ultimately banned altogether. Minister, Eastern Australia has lost a staggering 90 per cent of its waterbirds in the last four decades. What is your reasoning for restricting the bag limit instead of not having a season at all? Ms TIERNEY (Western Victoria—Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education) (12:35): I thank Mr Meddick for his question and his ongoing advocacy in this area. As the member well knows, the minister takes the advice of the Game Management Authority, but I will refer the question to Minister Thomas. Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (12:35): Thank you, Minister, for referring that on. The supplementary is: if evidence of non-compliance with the bag limit is found, will the minister cancel the season completely? Ms TIERNEY (Western Victoria—Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education) (12:36): I thank the member for his supplementary question, and again I will refer the matter to Minister Thomas. MINISTERS STATEMENTS: CASTLEMAINE TRAINING AND SKILLS Ms TIERNEY (Western Victoria—Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education) (12:36): Last week I had the opportunity to join with the member for Bendigo West, , to open new all-ability facilities at the Castlemaine Community House. As the Learn Local provider servicing the Castlemaine community, it is absolutely critical that the facility be available to all members of the local community. Learn Locals are all about accessibility and inclusion for all Victorians. Last year I was pleased that the Andrews Labor government was able to provide $154 000 in funding to the Castlemaine Community House to make the building accessible to all abilities. This funding has meant a new rear ramp to meet current access standards, the installation of a new folding wheelchair platform lift, handrails and upgrades to the rear doors and disabled toilet facilities. This is a project close to the member for Bendigo West’s heart, and can I say what a fantastic advocate for her community the Bendigo West member, Maree Edwards, is. I am really pleased that we were also able to provide this funding and support the community so that more locals can access local training to upskill or gain employment. While in Castlemaine we also went to the Bendigo TAFE campus. It was great to meet the VCAL class that were there. They were hard at work discussing future career paths and potential work CONSTITUENCY QUESTIONS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 473 placements for this year. It is always great to see TAFEs delivering VCAL and keeping students engaged in study. As always, TAFEs continue to serve their local communities extremely well. WRITTEN RESPONSES The PRESIDENT (12:38): Regarding questions today, Mr Grimley to Ms Stitt, two days, question and supplementary; and Mr Meddick to Ms Tierney, two days, question and supplementary. Mr Grimley: On a point of order, President, I would like to note that I still have a question without notice outstanding from 13 November 2020 from Minister Stitt on behalf of Minister Donnellan. It is question 253 with regard to children in out-of-home care, and I would very much like an answer to that one. Ms Stitt: I will endeavour to chase that answer up for Mr Grimley. MIGRANT WORKERS CENTRE GRANTS Mr Davis: On a point of order, President, in respect of the answer to the question I asked Minister Symes, I asked specifically for names and she did not provide those names at all. It is a simple matter: the name of the consultant and the name of the officer who appointed the consultant. The PRESIDENT: You know very well, Mr Davis, that I cannot force the minister in how she answers your question. I believe the minister has already answered your question. Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:39): I move:

That the minister’s answer be taken into account on the next day of meeting. Motion agreed to. Constituency questions WESTERN METROPOLITAN REGION Ms VAGHELA (Western Metropolitan) (12:40): My constituency question is directed to the Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development and Minister for Veterans, the Honourable . My question relates to the portfolio responsibilities for local government. The Living Libraries Infrastructure program is an important opportunity, expanded by the Andrews Labor government, to enable public libraries to continue to support communities to rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic. A funding round of $10 million is currently open for councils and regional library corporations to apply for. My question to the minister is: can the minister update me on how the Living Libraries initiative continues to benefit residents of the Western Metropolitan Region? Libraries have been a herculean support throughout the pandemic. An astounding 20 000 new members joined their local library during the first lockdown. The Andrews Labor government commitment ensures that this project will deliver lifelong learning, health and wellbeing to meet the needs of expanding and growing communities while being a boost to the state’s infrastructure development. NORTHERN VICTORIA REGION Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (12:41): My question is for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and I raise again the need for a new fire station in Yarrawonga. I last raised the condition of the current Yarrawonga fire station in March last year and called for the minister to commit funding to build a new station on its current site, which is owned by the CFA. In her response the minister stated she had asked the CFA to consider the request regarding the Yarrawonga fire station. Nearly 12 months later station members have received no information on the status of this request. Construction of a new fire station in Yarrawonga has been the top priority for the region 22 land and building priorities list, and two separate CFA reviews have found that the current station is unsuitable, recommending that a new station be built at its current site, utilising re-acquisitioned land currently leased by the Yarrawonga SES. Will the minister intervene on this issue and provide a CONSTITUENCY QUESTIONS 474 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 commitment to allocate urgent funding to construct a new fit-for-purpose fire station for the Yarrawonga fire brigade on the land it currently owns on the corner of Woods Road and Dunlop Street? WESTERN VICTORIA REGION Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (12:42): My question is for the Treasurer and has been raised by residents of both and Ballarat. It concerns the urgent need for a new pound and shelter facilities in both these regional cities. They provide what is widely known as an essential service, run in Geelong by the Geelong Animal Welfare Society, which needs a complete relocation, including land and a purpose-built modern facility, and in Ballarat they require financial support to build an already-designed modern facility on Crown land under the control of the Ballarat City Council. These two facilities do an enormous job in receiving, providing veterinary care for and rehoming thousands of animals every year and have run on a shoestring and out of ageing, and now inappropriate, facilities. Will the Treasurer make the appropriate provision in the state budget for these essential services to be what the community expects: modern, clean, spacious facilities that provide the best environment for animals who find themselves where they do not wish to be? EASTERN VICTORIA REGION Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (12:43): My constituency question is for the Minister for Agriculture and it relates to the timber industry in East Gippsland. The biodiversity division of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and staff from the Office of the Conservation Regulator have had 12 full months since the fires ripped across the landscape to assess the resource, including the availability of timber coupes. Timber harvesters have been left high and dry, having been told to wait until the end of 2020, and now they will not have a resolution until May 2021, at best, to renegotiate their contracts. They are highly stressed, and these protracted waits are absolutely causing significant distress for them. They need to understand when they can have this information. The question I ask is: when will the results of these investigations be provided to the East Gippsland timber harvesters so that they can get on with doing their job? NORTHERN METROPOLITAN REGION Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:44): My constituency question is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. I thank the minister for the response to my adjournment matter requesting the government move vehicle access to the proposed Bell station car park to the west side of the rail line. In her response she claimed that she has provided detailed traffic modelling to the community, which the community has never seen, and clarified that the future use of the land on the west side of the station is yet to be determined. Regardless of which way she may twist the traffic numbers, everyone knows traffic management plans should be designed to take as much traffic as possible off narrow, windy residential streets such as these and direct it onto main roads and low-pedestrian commercial streets, such as Bell Street and those on the west side of the station. My question for the minister is: with no other urgent need for the land, why precisely will you not commit to use a small portion of the west side land for vehicle access to the car park and thus enhance the safety of these residential streets? WESTERN VICTORIA REGION Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (12:45): My constituency question is for the Minister for Health. For the past five days the half a million constituents in the 24 local government municipalities in my electorate have been locked down. This is despite not a single case of coronavirus ever appearing in any of these areas. There were only 25 active cases in metro Melbourne during these past five days of this lockdown, which the figures showed were in just six local government areas and many of which were a result of hotel quarantine issues. It is completely absurd that people in Nhill, Horsham and Portland, to name a few, were locked down despite no active cases being within more than 200 kilometres of them. Minister, why does the government not follow New South Wales’s successful CONSTITUENCY QUESTIONS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 475 lead, which restricts movement by distinct local government areas, thereby avoiding statewide pain and suffering, especially for country Victoria? WESTERN METROPOLITAN REGION Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (12:46): My question is to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure in the other place from a resident representing Wyndham Cycling. Work has commenced on the level crossing removal at Hoppers Crossing, and the new road bridge 0.8 kilometres east of Hoppers station lacks any pedestrian or cycling facilities and will be designated a freeway ramp. At Hoppers station cyclists have been told that they will be using the train commuter bridge lifts as a cycling solution. Will the station’s lifts be oversized, given that they will be dealing with disabled and injured people accessing the hospital; cyclists; people who cannot, will not or do not use stairs; and now tandem cyclists, who include a sighted captain and visually impaired stoker? WESTERN METROPOLITAN REGION Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (12:47): My constituency question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, I had a constituent call me yesterday who was very distressed. He lives in Point Cook, of course a booming area in the west of Melbourne. He recently suffered a stroke. His son called an ambulance, which took 90 minutes to reach him—this is in Point Cook. The ambulance, when it finally got there, took him to Werribee, where he stayed in the ambulance in the waiting bay for 3 hours. It was an appalling situation where the time elapsed between my constituent’s stroke and receiving the appropriate and much-needed treatment was approaching 5 hours. It is nothing short of a miracle that he is still alive. I am not shocked by much anymore, but this case genuinely disgusted me. Minister, is this another example of the gold standard health care provided by the Andrews government to sick Victorians? NORTHERN VICTORIA REGION Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (12:48): My constituency question is to the Minister for Health. Several people have approached me or spoken publicly about their experience at Albury hospital during the snap lockdown period. Despite the facility physically being in New South Wales, Albury hospital is managed by the Victorian government and was subject its lockdown rules. Long-planned medical procedures were cancelled and patients were allowed no visitors. It might have been only five short, sharp days for the Premier, but for some it cut deep. Families of loved ones suffering from terminal illness were told that only one person was allowed to visit their dying relatives; several never got the chance to say goodbye. These relatives were distraught. They could not understand how a snap decision made by a man in Melbourne about a quarantine failure 300 kilometres away meant that they were not allowed to visit with their family in their final days of their lives. I have to say I do not understand it either. Minister, why was it reasonable and necessary to place patients in Albury hospital in a stage 4 lockdown for five days? SOUTHERN METROPOLITAN REGION Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:49): My question is also to the Minister for Health. I have been inundated by people who have had woeful experiences following the latest outbreaks and failures in contact tracing. A constituent received a text message notifying them they were a primary close contact of a person identified as having been in terminal 4 at Tullamarine airport on 9 February. They were asked to get tested and to isolate in their household until they received a call from contact tracers. They heard nothing for days. They actually contacted the COVID hotline 15 times and still got no information that was at all helpful. Another constituent was given information to contact the national hotline, but they could not give any suitable advice because it did not pertain to Victoria’s situation. How on earth can the Victorian public have any confidence in the government’s ability to manage COVID-19? Minister, it is clear the IT systems have not been fully implemented, so will you ask Salesforce software developers from New South Wales and the commonwealth to come and fix these ongoing issues that are both profound and very, very evident? CONSTITUENCY QUESTIONS 476 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

NORTHERN VICTORIA REGION Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (12:50): My constituency question is for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services and relates to the frustration of local fire responders in my electorate because Parks Victoria and Forest Fire Management Victoria are unable to operate in an FRV area. During an incident at Kaluna Park in January it took 3 hours for permission to be gained for Parks Victoria to be able to access the reserve because it was a designated FRV area. Local residents, indeed our firefighters on the ground, need legislative supports in place to enable them to cooperate effectively when responding to a fire. I ask the minister to advise when the agreement between FRV and FFM Victoria will be finalised to establish supportive arrangements for both agencies in managing fire incidents and eliminate this restrictive red tape. EASTERN VICTORIA REGION Mr O’DONOHUE (Eastern Victoria) (12:51): I ask a question for the Minister for Health. Last week I had the pleasure of joining Ms Crozier in touring Rosebud Hospital, and I thank the CEO of Peninsula Health and her team for that opportunity. It was great to meet some of the hardworking staff who have done such a great job during this very difficult period for health workers. What is clear is that Rosebud Hospital is no longer fit for purpose, and while the staff do a great job, their job would be made easier and the service provided to the community could be enhanced with new infrastructure. Thanks to Greg Hunt, the federal health minister and local federal member, $5 million has been allocated for a full business case and for commencing any works onsite. So the question I have for the health minister is: when will the business case for a new or expanded Rosebud Hospital be completed, and will he release it to the community? WESTERN VICTORIA REGION Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (12:52): My question is to the Treasurer. My region of Western Victoria, like most of regional Victoria, has been battling through the COVID-19 pandemic. The recent cancellation of the 2021 Rip Curl Pro event at Bells Beach and the 2021 Melbourne to Warrnambool Cycling Classic were the latest heavy blows to the local economy and morale. The snap lockdown has thrown many lives into chaos. Casual workers in Western Victoria who rely on weekend shifts and penalty rates will simply not be paid. Tourism and accommodation businesses have lost another five days of trading, two being over the weekend. Residents in Western Victoria are resilient people and will continue to work together to overcome the current crisis, but support will be needed. Community and sporting clubs that had paid for and organised events and fundraisers will be out of pocket. I personally know of a number of events where they had paid for their catering and the like to support fundraisers. Ironically and cruelly, they will now be worse off than when they first starting planning for fundraisers and community events. My question to the Treasurer is: what funding and reimbursement opportunities will be available to sporting and community clubs in Western Victoria who had spent money to raise funds for their respective clubs only to be unable to go ahead due to the snap lockdown? Mr Ondarchie: On a point of order, President, I do understand why the house calls this question time, because it is certainly not answer time. I draw your attention to the standing orders relating to timely responses to constituency questions that I have asked on behalf of my constituents in the Northern Metropolitan Region. I asked a question to the Minister for Mental Health 247 days ago on behalf of my constituents, a further question to the Minister for Mental Health 156 days ago, a further question to the Minister for Mental Health 111 days ago, a question to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety 100 days ago and a question to the Minister for Mental Health 72 days ago. I asked these questions on behalf of my constituents, and they deserve, rightly so, appropriate answers at an appropriate time. Ms Tierney: On the point of order, President, we will follow those matters up. I understand the member raised some adjournment matters the other night. They have been responded to, and now we will chase these up for him. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 477

Sitting suspended 12.54 pm until 2.04 pm. Committees ECONOMY AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE Reference Debate resumed. Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (14:04): I will just recap where I was. When using the Uber app, cardholders are only required to enter their card details once when setting up their Uber account and the information is saved there for all future trips. It is not uncommon for people other than the account holder to make bookings through someone else’s Uber account. It must be obvious to everyone how easily public funds might be misused, as well as introducing potential for vulnerable multipurpose taxi program (MPTP) participants to be exploited. I am yet to hear from the industry regulator how this will be addressed. I also have concerns about how public funds are used. How do we as a nation and as a government reconcile with the decision to allow taxpayer-funded schemes to support offshore operators of a multinational corporate giant that does not pay taxes locally? Are we endorsing the use of taxpayer dollars to subsidise travel costs charged by Uber, which skims 30 per cent off every fare in commissions and then swiftly channels these funds offshore in tax-dodging operations? I seriously question the integrity of the taxpayer-funded subsidy program, which chooses to support this sort of corporate behaviour rather than ensuring that the taxpayer dollars support the local economy. This is more relevant in today’s world than ever before. The multipurpose taxi program scheme costs the taxpayer upwards of $70 million annually. What this means is that $1 in every $3 is going to end up in the pockets of those billionaire shareholders in Silicon Valley. It is outrageous that this money is not going to stay here, supporting our small businesses and our economy. Uber has been given the green light to do this work, while cherrypicking in the disability sector, at the expense of those who are heavily invested through the operation of the wheelchair-accessible vehicle scheme. The consequences of this decision by Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria (CPVV) will see WAV services decline, which will impact on those severely disabled passengers who use WAVs as their sole mode of transport. The impact of the expansion of the multipurpose taxi program to include Uber services must be considered across the entire disability sector, including wheelchair and other special need users, so they get the balance right. To date no consideration has been given to this matter. It costs $90 000 to put a wheelchair-capable taxi on the road and many thousands of dollars a year to keep it there. It is a specialist area requiring detailed driver training and ongoing compliance costs. The deal with Uber means that for many operators this investment will no longer be viable, forcing them off the road and leaving wheelchair users on the curb. In some country areas that also means wiping out the regulated taxi service, leaving communities stranded. For many regional taxi services multipurpose taxi program work is the backbone of the business, accounting for up to 50 per cent of all trips conducted. With the decision to expand the multipurpose taxi program scheme to include Uber, it will reduce revenue, and the increased competition for the MPTP work will impact the delivery of WAV services. This is not debatable. The sheer commercial investment for specialised wheelchair-accessible vehicles and associated operating costs sees WAV services often run at a loss. The financial viability of offering WAVs is only possible through regular sedan work in other sections of the business, which cross- subsidises this specialised area of transport. The potential reduction of multipurpose taxi program work and associated revenue across the fleet will leave in question for many operators the commercial viability of offering WAV services. Wheelchair users will be impacted should networks choose to discontinue those services. This is a critical point requiring urgent consideration. COMMITTEES 478 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Uber’s business model does not include investment in vehicles and relies on a transient and casual workforce to provide their own cars. Uber is simply not interested in providing services to wheelchair users, and the financial investment required to put a WAV on the road makes the proposition unviable for their driver partners. Should we allow Uber access to a government-subsidised program without them first displaying a tangible commitment to providing services across the entire disability sector? In 2020, when the Victorian government designed the $22 million COVID-19 industry support package for the commercial passenger vehicle industry, it did so with the needs of wheelchair users at the forefront of consideration. The subsidy provided to booking service providers to ensure that they were able to continue operating services for our most vulnerable and needy citizens was exclusive to BSPs who also operated wheelchair-accessible vehicles. We were heading in a direction where we were not going to have wheelchair vehicles available for those who needed them, and I thank the government for getting that money up. This ensured that those passengers who have no other means of transportation were not left stranded during this pandemic. Now, the decision to expand the multipurpose taxi program scheme to services provided by Uber will bury the same BSPs we have just saved from collapse. This is a paradox. The lifeline that was extended to those businesses by the government has now been sabotaged by the industry regulator. It makes no sense. This will have a devastating consequence that will seriously jeopardise the commercial viability of offering WAV services and will leave stranded our most needy transport users. Parliament must intervene to demand an impact assessment on WAV service delivery and other unintended consequences should this decision proceed. The CPVV has allowed Uber to do the multipurpose taxi work as a result of a trial that was conducted with Uber in the Geelong area to service passengers in the disability sector. This trial was conducted at the height of the pandemic lockdown, between 22 March and 31 May of last year, and covered only 170 trips. All of this was when 90 per cent of the vehicles in the commercial passenger vehicle industry were parked and the number of passenger trips was markedly reduced. The trial has been hailed a success by those with a vested interest, but it is questionable how that data collected under these extreme and atypical circumstances could in any way really reflect the normal operating conditions, particularly with such a small sample size. The trial was a sham and simply lacked integrity. It casts significant doubt over the merit of conclusions drawn and raises questions whether proper due diligence and risk assessments were conducted. Other than saying the trial was a success, the CPVV has not shared any supporting details or reports of the outcomes of those findings. It is imperative that the trial results are released, along with the associated risk and financial impact assessments for industry-wide consideration. We are in the middle of a one-in-100-year pandemic, and the taxi industry has thousands of vehicles sitting in driveways around Victoria with insufficient work. Many family operators have been surviving on JobKeeper and JobSeeker, which are now coming to an end. Many of them are non- employing sole traders who did not qualify for any additional business support from the Andrews government through this pandemic. The industry is still operating at a little over half pace. There are 10 500 fully compliant taxi vehicles capable of doing multipurpose taxi work, with fixed cameras, with GPS tracking and with appropriate signage. What is being proposed is to bring in the entire, mostly part-time, Uber fleet of more than 70 000 vehicles to compete for the few jobs that are out there. Given the current commercial environment, the decision by the CPVV will only serve to destabilise the industry when it is at its most vulnerable. Taxi operators are at breaking point. There could be no legitimate justification that would suffice to offset the damage that will be caused by introducing further competition into an already oversaturated market with severely depressed patronage throughout the pandemic. This decision is socially and economically irresponsible and simply imprudent and ill timed. For all those reasons I have given, I believe it is a matter of sufficient public importance that the decision by the CPVV to expand the multipurpose taxi scheme to include the Uber service should be reviewed by the Parliament. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 479

I have brought this to your attention at the earliest opportunity. I seek your support to put an immediate freeze on the decision to expand the multipurpose taxi program scheme to include Uber services until (a) a review is conducted on the minimum safety requirements for vehicles operating within the multipurpose taxi program scheme, (b) consideration is given to the mandatory maximum fare rates across all multipurpose taxi program work as applied to the taxi industry now, (c) it can be explained how rorting and exploitation of vulnerable users will be prevented, (d) the financial impact to services within the broader disability sector is properly assessed and managed, (e) the industry is back on its feet post COVID and can better absorb such a major shock and (f) proper probity and good governance are applied following careful consideration and reporting of all possible ramifications of consultations with both the industry and the disability stakeholders. Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (14:14): I rise to make a contribution in regard to this motion 485 on the notice paper in Mr Barton’s name. In doing so, before I make my contribution I just want to acknowledge Mr Barton’s very longstanding commitment to the commercial passenger vehicle industry and his passionate commitment to and advocacy for all of those drivers and families who work in that industry and whose families derive an income essentially from that industry. I just acknowledge that and recognise that advocacy. Thank you, Mr Barton, for standing up for those people. In regard to the motion itself, though, before I speak to it further, the government is supporting this motion but subject to an amendment. I might just read out the amendment. I am not sure whether it is being circulated at this point. The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Just pause a moment and we will circulate it. Ms TERPSTRA: Thank you. I will just read out the amendment to the motion. Effectively it goes like this. I move:

1. In paragraph (6) omit ‘stakeholders.’ and insert ‘stakeholders;’. 2. After paragraph (6) insert: ‘(7) an assessment of the impact of the expansion on MPTP clients, taking into account feedback on the expansion from Victorians living with disability and the disability sector.’. I understand that this has been agreed to by Mr Barton and consultation has indeed occurred with the members of the crossbench on the amendment as well. As I said, the government’s position is that we support this motion, with the amendment of course. I note that the crux of the motion that has been moved by Mr Barton is to have this matter referred to the Economy and Infrastructure Committee for an inquiry. I just want to comment on some of the things that really go to the heart of this motion. I note Mr Barton talked at length about people living with disability and vulnerable users of commercial passenger vehicles, and particularly the multipurpose taxi program (MPTP). Mr Barton was concerned about some inconsistencies, I guess, for want of a better term, in how the scheme is operating. The purpose of the inquiry would indeed be for that committee to report back to the house no later than Friday, 18 February 2022 on the program and consider a range of things that go to the heart of what Mr Barton talked about: minimum safety requirements for vehicles operating within that scheme and the consideration of a mandatory maximum fare rate across all of that multipurpose taxi program work. These are Mr Barton’s words in the motion but, as I said, we support it subject to the amendment. He refers to ‘examination of rorting and exploitation of vulnerable users’ and how that will be prevented. Of course I look forward to the committee’s work in examining that matter because that in itself is of concern where we see any vulnerable groups or people who may be using some services—whatever they may be—if they have been exploited or if there has been an inappropriate usage or leverage of market power over somebody. That is something that of course should be inquired into. As I said, I look forward to seeing how that examination by the committee plays out. COMMITTEES 480 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

The referral also includes an assessment of the financial impacts on services within the broader disability sector and how that will be managed. I note that the next part is about how major change post COVID-19 is going to be managed. We know that Victorians, no matter whether you are an individual worker or whether you are a person who is a commercial passenger vehicle driver or operator—no matter what you are—we have all been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in a range of ways. Of course I think Mr Barton makes the point that any radical change coming off the back of COVID may be felt particularly harshly or may be made even more difficult by the pandemic in this sector. He is seeking to see how any adverse impacts in that sector could be dealt with and managed properly while also ensuring proper probity and good governance are applied following consideration of ramifications of consultations both with the industry and with disability stakeholders. These are important matters. I add the additional part, which is the amendment to the motion: that the committee ensures that feedback on the expansion of the program is also gathered from Victorians living with a disability and the disability sector. Again, it is important to ensure that relevant stakeholders are included in any feedback that might be gathered by the committee, so important matters. As I said, the expansion of the multipurpose taxi program has been a longstanding policy of the Andrews Labor government, and it is part of our wider reforms to Victoria’s taxi industry. Many would know—and I know Mr Barton would know—that the changes in this sector have been ongoing for quite some time. This change to the multipurpose taxi program, for example, was announced in 2017. Significant work has been done to date to ensure that a careful expansion delivers more choice for Victorians with a disability whilst at the same time maintaining appropriate levels of safety and consumer protections, because again, this is what is at the heart of these changes for this program. Again, consumer protection is incredibly important—acknowledging and recognising that because people living with a disability are a discrete group who may be particularly vulnerable, their protection as consumers needs to be front and centre—and also appropriate levels of safety. So we need to make sure that those things are applied across the board. The government has publicised the expansion of the program through consultation and engagement over almost four years with industry providers, and this also has included disability advocacy groups and, most importantly, MPTP members. As part of our reforms to Victoria’s taxi industry we have delivered a $500 million industry support package. This is the most generous industry transition support scheme in Australia and this was rolled out to support those most impacted by industry transition. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic we have also rolled out a $22 million package of additional support to the industry, including fee relief and cleaning grants. The government looks forward to the work of the inquiry and any learnings from the expansion so we can best support mobility and choice for Victorians living with a disability. As I said earlier, I do indeed look forward to the work of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee and look forward to looking at the evidence of providers, both in person and by submission, to help the committee inform its deliberations around these matters. As I have touched on, they are important reforms, and as I said, it is a piece of ongoing work by the Andrews Labor government. In 2017–18 a $500 million industry support package was announced, as I said earlier. I just might go to some of the granular detail of some of that for the record as I have a minute and a half left on the clock. The support package comprised, as I said, transition assistance of $330 million to eligible taxi and hire car licence holders in September and October 2017. In metropolitan regions transition assistance was provided as $100 000 for the first taxi licence and $50 000 for the second, third and fourth. These figures were scaled accordingly to reflect differences in licences. There was also a Fairness Fund payment of $56.75 million to 693 applicants who had suffered significant financial hardship because of the reforms. Assessment of applications was completed mid-2018. Rebates for the annual fee-paying licence-holders who had paid annual licence fees prior to the reforms were also announced. During this time the government also cut further costs for the industry—annual taxi hire car fees of up to $23 000 were abolished from October 2017 and TAC annual premiums for taxis were COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 481 reduced by up to $2000 per year from 1 July 2018, indicating that cumulatively some taxi owners have made savings of up to $6000 by 2021. I might leave my contribution there, and I will leave some time for other contributors, but in doing so, as I said, I would note that the government’s position is to support this motion moved by Mr Barton subject to the amendment, as I have foreshadowed. I will leave my contribution there. Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (14:23): I rise to speak on Mr Barton’s motion today, motion 485, and commend him on putting this forward to the house and commend him indeed on the great work that he has done over a long period of time in supporting those in the taxi industry in particular but also those who are dependent upon taxis and have been dependent upon taxis for a very long time. Of course that very much brings into account the multipurpose taxi program users. As somebody who has had a great deal to do with the disability sector for a very long time, I know just how important this particular program is and how we have to get it right—and we do have to get it right because of the number of vulnerable people who are dependent upon us getting it right. If we get it wrong, we are going to put those vulnerable people in danger. Whether it be in financial danger or physical danger it does not really matter; they will be in danger, and that is something that we must at all times avoid. I think we have discussed in this house, not so long ago as I recall, this very issue, and I am pleased to see that Mr Barton has followed that up with this motion today. As a member and indeed as deputy chair of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee I very much look forward to examining this matter, to making sure that we do have it right, that the government does have it right. As we know, we can examine these things, we can make recommendations, but ultimately it is up to the government. I would hope that once we have been through this process the government will take our recommendations seriously to ensure that the safety of which I speak is across the board, that nobody is put in a situation where either they do not have the transport that they need or the transport that they need in fact poses a threat to them. I have no intention of going on any longer. I sincerely hope that the motion is agreed to. I commend, again, Mr Barton on putting the motion up. The opposition will not oppose the amendment. We are very happy to accept the amendment and also very happy to support Mr Barton’s motion today. Ms VAGHELA (Western Metropolitan) (14:26): I rise to speak on Mr Barton’s motion on the multipurpose taxi program, motion 485. The multipurpose taxi program is an important service to support Victorians. This program ensures that our transport system is accessible to all. I thank Mr Barton for bringing this motion to the Council. I also thank him for his continued advocacy for the transport industry, including the taxi industry. Before I begin my contribution, I wish to say that the government supports the motion subject to the amendment that has already been mentioned by my colleague Ms Terpstra. The multipurpose taxi program, the MPTP, supports people with limited mobility by offering subsidised taxi fares. It is a significant part of Victorian public transport service provision. Many Victorians with disability rely on point-to-point transport services to get around. The program pays half of the cost of each taxi trip taken by its users up to $60. Additionally, a $21.20 lifting fee for wheelchair trips is paid. The program is administered by the industry regulator, Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria, CPVV. There are about 231 000 registered MPTP users, of whom around 98 000 took a trip in 2019–20. This program is vital for people with accessibility and mobility needs which are not met by conventional public transport. Therefore we committed to improving this program. In 2017 the government committed to expanding the multipurpose taxi program to all commercial passenger vehicles. The expansion of the multipurpose taxi program has provided more options to the people. The expansion of MPTP aims to ensure the industry is accessible, safe and competitive. This has been a longstanding policy of the Andrews Labor government as a part of our wider reforms to the Victorian COMMITTEES 482 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 taxi industry. Significant work has been done to make sure that expansion is delivered carefully while maintaining appropriate levels of safety and consumer protection. Since the initial announcement about the government’s reforms, our primary focus has been safety and services for people with disability. We are also investing directly in further improving accessible services. The Commercial Passenger Vehicle Industry Act 2017 established a fully open and competitive commercial passenger vehicle industry, which was an Australian first. These reforms have been a boon for passengers as there is more choice, better service and improved safety. Since the reforms were enacted passengers have seen their waiting times almost halved from 9.4 minutes in 2017–18 to 4.8 minutes in 2019–20 for conventional vehicles. The reforms were delivered through two sets of legislative changes in 2017 and 2018. The Andrews Labor government delivered a considerable $500 million industry support package to support those most impacted by the industry transition. During this time the government also cut further costs for the industry. These reforms, along with the expansion of the multipurpose taxi program, MPTP, are widely supported by program members, industry providers and disability advocacy groups. Any booking service provider, BSP, can make an expression of interest to the regulator to offer MPTP services. There are strict data collection requirements that have to be considered. Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria has a strict multipurpose taxi program and the conditions have to be met. The expansion requires service providers to have an MPTP service offering in place. This includes payment systems, technology platforms that can integrate with CPVV’s systems and the ability for CPVV to monitor the capability within a controlled environment. At this stage Uber is the only non-taxi provider of MPTP services. The program remains open to other interested providers. All Uber drivers are accredited by CPVV and undergo the same police, medical and driver history checks as other drivers, including taxidrivers. Uber requires its drivers to complete disability awareness education before receiving trip requests and provides a specific service, Uber Assist, that targets individuals with specific mobility requirements. While Uber’s service does not currently include wheelchair-accessible vehicles, should Uber provide wheelchair-accessible services in the future they will be subject to the same requirements as other wheelchair-accessible vehicles. We have made sure that the safety and quality of services for people with disability remain the primary focus. Consumers should have more choice. We have a very strict standard for government subsidised programs. Safety should never be compromised when it comes to our wonderful citizens. We have made sure that there is no place for predatory behaviour, and we must ensure that there is successful prosecution against any wrongdoing. Vehicles registered for unbooked services must carry approved CCTV cameras in metropolitan and urban areas. This requirement is set in the Commercial Passenger Industry Regulations 2018. The decision on requirements regarding security cameras was taken in 2018 following a comprehensive regulatory impact statement process. The minister released draft regulations and a regulatory impact statement for public consultation during March and April 2018 seeking feedback from the public and industry on the regulations. The new regulations commenced on 2 July 2018. Security cameras were only ever a requirement in taxis; they were not required in hire cars, reflecting the nature and occurrence of incidents in those vehicles. When developing new regulations for the industry, the department considered requiring security cameras to be installed on all commercial passenger vehicles. In the response to the COVID-19 pandemic the government has rolled out a $22 million package of additional support to the industry, including fee relief and cleaning grants. The government has provided support to the commercial passenger vehicle industry and professional driver training industry in multiple ways during this difficult time. Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria has implemented a range of measures to assist industry to manage the health and safety of commercial passenger vehicle drivers and passengers in relation to COVID-19. Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria has contacted booking service providers, COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 483 vehicle owners and drivers directly to share advice provided by the Victorian Chief Health Officer. It continues to use social media channels and its dedicated coronavirus webpage to provide regular updates. The regulator is also holding regular video meetings with booking service providers to understand and respond to their challenges. Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria is also working with the professional driver training industry. The commercial passenger vehicle industry have stepped up and diversified their services during the pandemic. I thank them for their service and efforts. We are committed to supporting the industry by reducing the financial pressure. The regulator has suspended all recurring fees until further notice. The regulator’s website also provides information about the financial assistance available to industry members. We have to make sure that the confidence of the passengers and drivers remains in the industry. The safety of the drivers and passengers is very important for us. During 2020 an advisory panel comprising Mr and Mr consulted on a range of options to provide support and mitigate the adverse impact of the coronavirus on the commercial passenger vehicle industry. Based on the panel’s recommendations, the Victorian government announced on 24 July 2020 that it was investing $22 million to support the commercial passenger vehicle industry and support jobs. As part of the support package, $3.5 million was made available to subsidise increased cleaning and sanitation of vehicles. For this, the government’s support package for the industry was supported by new vehicle cleaning laws that came into effect on 18 November 2020. With that, I am going to conclude my contribution. Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (14:36): At a guess, Mr Barton would be very pleased with the amendments that the government is proposing, but that is not exactly what Mr Barton wants. Mr Barton wants a freeze on what Uber is doing now until a review is actually done. It is because of the safety concerns that have rightly been raised by others. I rise today to speak to Mr Barton’s motion. I think we all agree that there should be a choice, and that includes those in the disability sector and our most vulnerable community members that use this program. But yet again we have a government who makes legislation without having done proper community engagement. The community engagement appears to have been a trial conducted last year at the height of COVID, in Geelong, covering 170 trips. Is that really a valid sample? There does not seem to be anything on the Engage Victoria website. The government certainly has double standards. You legislate for local government to carry out community engagement prior to making any local laws, but you certainly do not carry out adequate engagement prior to making major decisions—decisions that have serious consequences for the taxi industry and for our most vulnerable. I do not know how the Minister for Local Government can look into the faces of mayors and councillors when this is the way the government behaves. The other reason for concern is the lack of standards applied to Uber drivers. The taxi industry has standards for a very good reason—to protect customers, vulnerable customers. So why have they not been set for Uber drivers? Uber drivers must undergo a driving and criminal history check before they can begin using the app, and are prohibited from carrying weapons, thank goodness. However, have you seen the number of alleged rapes, attempted rapes, sexual and physical assaults conducted by Uber drivers? One driver is up on multiple charges. Uber’s record in managing complaints, including serious ones such as sexual assault, is not good. One woman received an initial response from Uber’s community operations team that noted that it takes ‘user safety very seriously’ and that ‘We will be looking into this incident carefully’. Then, a few days later, she received an email from the same team telling her that her access to the app had been temporarily blocked because Uber had recently received some concerning feedback from ‘one of your trips regarding inappropriate conduct’. She found it very difficult to get in contact with the platform after her account was blocked, and they never contacted her. Other people, including Uber drivers, have made similar claims. Cameras in vehicles are essential to ensuring the safety of passengers, but no such standard has been set for Uber drivers. COMMITTEES 484 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

We have a taxi industry that has been brought to its knees. The government revoked taxi and hire car licences to allow Uber to enter the market. No other state or territory, nor any other country in the world, did such a thing. You revoked licences at a fraction of what they were worth. People lost their homes, others are paying back loans for assets they no longer have, others had their superannuation cleared and their plans for the future destroyed, many previously self-funded retirees are now reliant on government benefits. Some committed suicide. Then along came COVID—the industry suffered even more, and a lot of drivers are not eligible for benefits. Now you have let Uber drivers into the multipurpose taxi program. I shake my head that you can be so oblivious to the effect that this has actually had. Once again the government has put the cart before the horse—do not bother about doing proper engagement, make an announcement, make legislation and then this chamber and the community are supposed to trust that you will work out the administration details. I will be supporting this motion because we do have to have proper engagement, we need to stop this because there is a safety concern and we need to look after the most vulnerable in our community. Mr MELHEM (Western Metropolitan) (14:42): I also rise to speak on the motion moved by Mr Barton. In fact I spoke on a similar motion Mr Barton moved I think in the last sitting week. I just want to acknowledge Mr Barton’s commitment to the taxi industry and, since he came to this place, his continued advocacy for the sector. Now, as stated by government speakers, the government will be supporting the motion, as amended by the amendment moved by Ms Terpstra, to refer this motion to the Economy and Infrastructure Committee, which has dealt with this issue in the past. Hopefully the committee will then kickstart that issue again and review and address the various points raised by Mr Barton. Now, can I just point out that the Andrews Labor government has done a fair bit of work over the last five or six years in relation to the reform in the taxi industry. I just want to focus today on the main guts of the motion, which is basically the multipurpose taxi program, which is the focus of this motion. I think we all agree the MPTP delivers a very essential and important service to the people of Victoria, particularly to people with a disability. We need to make sure people with a disability are not left out in the cold and they are able to access a first-class service and an affordable service, and hence the government has continued to support the industry and to subsidise fares for the users of that service— for example, the government has increased the lifting fee from $16 to $20 as well as adjusting the actual fares to make sure there is equity there for both the users and the operators of the multipurpose taxi program. We know that the government announced the changes back in 2017, so it is nothing new; I think it is no surprise to anyone. The reason we did it that early was to ensure—and we talked about it—the careful expansion of that program, which by my understanding was one of the recommendations from the same committee which basically this reference is being referred to, the Economy and Infrastructure Committee. Following its inquiry into the Commercial Passenger Vehicle Industry Bill 2017 the Economy and Infrastructure Committee of the Legislative Council recommended in its report tabled in June 2017, and I quote:

That the Victorian government ensure that: • existing Multi Purpose Taxi Program concessions for passengers are extended to all commercial passenger vehicle trips That was recommendation 5.1. The government response to this recommendation was also tabled in June 2017. It reflected the government’s cautious approach and stated:

The Government’s reforms involve moving to one type of CPV licence. Subject to meeting the current conditions of the Multi-Purpose Taxi Program (MPTP), service providers registered under the new legislation would be eligible for MPTP payments. I think it is important to point to that because I think Mr Barton and I are on the same page, and I think the government is on the same page, in that we want to make sure that we provide a first-class service COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 485 for the people who want to use that service and also make sure that people who operate the service receive fair compensation. Now, there is always going to be an argument about whether or not we restrict the service to what was known as the taxi industry versus expanding that program to other players in the industry, by my understanding. We talked about that in the last week—that Uber entered the program and there was a trial in Geelong. There are some safety issues that Mr Barton raises there, and I think they are fair and reasonable issues to address. The government is mindful of that, and we believe the regulators and the industry are basically mindful of that to make sure that safety is paramount and that any player who wants to enter the industry needs to comply with that. There was an issue about whether or not cameras should be part of the non-taxi industry who are going to enter the industry. I think that issue was reviewed by the regulators in consultation with the industry, and I think the numbers did not support that approach. I mean, personally, that is probably an issue I think the committee should look at carefully and maybe review to see whether or not we need to introduce cameras in, let us say, the Ubers of the world for the people who use the multipurpose taxi program. I think part of the logic is, for example, that hire vehicles in the past—and it is currently the case still—have not had cameras, and I think that is one of the arguments, given that in taxis they are mandatory. That has come out as a result of many, many incidents over the years. That is why that has become a requirement in the taxi industry. I think research and evidence did not show the whole level of incidents with other providers in the industry, and so that is why it has not been made mandatory. As I said earlier, perhaps the committee can address that issue and have a look at that. It is important to point out that since the reform was introduced, when all taxi licence fees were abolished on 19 October 2017, it has cut the cost of keeping a wheelchair-accessible taxi on the road by $19 438 per year in the metro area as well as in Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat. I think that is a substantial saving for the operators, and that could take the pressure off the actual charges being charged to customers—and to taxpayers, as we are subsidising 50 per cent of that. Since our reforms to the taxi industry have been delivered, benefits have been experienced in the wheelchair-accessible vehicle market, with waiting time reduced from 26.9 minutes in 2017–18 to 10.1 minutes in 2019–20, coinciding with an increase of 360 WAVs—from 636 to 990—since licence fees were abolished. So definitely there has been some improvement to how the industry operates. Yes, there has been some hardship experienced by taxi licence owners as a result of these reforms, and I think we went through that in previous debates. I accept that there has been some hardship there, and the government has chipped in half a billion dollars to support that industry. But definitely as far as consumers go, they have been the biggest winner out of this. There is no question about that; they are the biggest winners. I commend the motion to the house, and I am looking forward to the report from the Economy and Infrastructure Committee when it concludes its deliberations. To my understanding, Mr Barton, we are looking at a report coming back in February 2022. With these comments, I will leave my contribution at that. Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (14:51): I will be brief. I note that Mr Barton appears to be making full and good use of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee process. This is his third or fourth committee. This is another ‘Get Uber’ motion from Transport Matters—and fair enough, they have an agenda to pursue for their core voter base. I do hope at some point he will acknowledge how happy the consumers are with the increased choice and level of service they have been able to get since we have introduced ridesharing. Mr Barton has repeatedly talked about safety. It is not entirely clear to me that there is a safety problem with Uber or other ridesharing services. It seems highly likely that the rate of attacks on passengers in ridesharing services is as low or lower than the rate of attacks on passengers in taxis—not zero, but then any target of zero will never be met. However, the Liberal Democrats are not going to oppose this motion. Let us have a short, sharp inquiry into the multipurpose taxi program. Perhaps the program could use some scrutiny. I note that the terms of the proposed inquiry are not limited by the motion, so let us range widely over the program and COMMITTEES 486 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 ensure that taxpayers are getting value for their money and that passengers are getting the level of service that they require for the significant expenditure of taxpayers money. Perhaps we can hear from some of the passengers involved in the Geelong trial and what they thought of the changes, because this service exists not to prop up what remains of the taxi industry but to ensure that those with severe and permanent disabilities are able to get around. I look forward to the inquiry. Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) (14:53): Mr Quilty was indeed brief, and one of the things that I found to be in fact very fortifying in his contribution was an interest in what the inquiry may yield, given that he is in fact a member of the committee in question. This is where there is benefit to be had in an inquiry of this nature within the terms proposed by Mr Barton’s motion. It will, I think, shed some very important light on issues which have emerged first anecdotally and then in a quantitative sense around insecurities, inconsistencies and shortcomings across the sector which need and deserve attention around continuous improvement and in that these issues go as much to safety and to adequacy of services as they do to recognition of the industry as it grows, evolves and changes. Mr Quilty referred to Mr Barton’s use of the committee process in the course of understanding more about the taxi, hire car and associated industries and their growth in the state. To that end I would in fact commend Mr Barton for standing very strongly and consistently on the platform which has brought him here to this place—namely, to investigate and to interrogate systems which he, on behalf of his members and constituents, has raised continuously throughout his time in the many years that he has been advocating for change and for some light to be shed on issues that I think have required this attention for some time. The purpose of the inquiry itself has been well canvassed by contributors to this particular debate. It will not be a short and sharp inquiry, as Mr Quilty may in fact desire, given his penchant for brevity. But what it will do is comprehensively analyse the level of service, the way in which rorting and exploitation of vulnerable users can and indeed should be regulated and the experiences of consumers and indeed stakeholders around public travel within the multipurpose taxi program (MPTP). We also need to understand the way in which these changes and adaptations may be contemplated in a post-pandemic environment and also to understand what further changes may look like when and as we do have further COVID cases, whether it is of the 2020 strain or indeed other variants that are coming to the fore, which indicate significantly higher levels of virulence within the community and therefore pose a higher risk of transmission in closed environments such as taxis and hire cars. One of the things which I think is of particular importance in this motion, though, and which I have spoken to on previous occasions in this place and also had discussions with Mr Barton about is the way in which vulnerable users are not as a matter of course afforded consistency in their access to these services. I know from a number of friends who are also disability activists and advocates that the very dramatic experiences that they have had across the sector when seeking to access services show that casual and entrenched discrimination in an attitudinal sense is rife across the sector and the industry, as much through ignorance as through any other more dreadful motivation, and indeed that the infrastructure is necessary to reduce accessibility challenges, such as wheelchair lifts and seating which is comfortable and safe. These are the sorts of things which I think will be really useful for the Economy and Infrastructure Committee to look at, and when I examine the membership of this committee I think that it is well placed to inform this Parliament. We have got, I think, Mrs McArthur, Ms Lovell, Mr Barton, Mr Quilty, Mr Tarlamis and Mr Erdogan, and I believe that may well indeed be it on this particular committee. A member interjected. Ms SHING: Sorry, and Ms Terpstra. Mr Barton: Mr Finn. COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 487

Ms SHING: No, not Ms Terpstra. Mr Finn? Are you on it, Mr Finn? Mr Finn: Deputy chair. Ms SHING: I beg your pardon. I am sorry, Mr Finn. Mr Finn is indeed also on this committee, and far be it from me to ever fail to include Mr Finn on a list of committee work that is being undertaken outside of this place, particularly as it relates to a vulnerable section of the community, and particularly as it relates to what these changes around mandatory maximum fare rates will look like across the MPTP sector. We also want to make sure that in understanding probity and good governance we can build upon the recommendations that have been provided in earlier inquiries and that we can in fact make sure that this work and that these conversations and discussions with stakeholders do not wither on the vine. We need to keep the discussion going and to make sure that it evolves around safety as safety challenges continue to arise and that governance continues to evolve and to become more consistent and more reliable, more transparent and more accountable over time. We also need to make sure that we are taking care of the wellbeing and livelihoods of people who provide these services more broadly. Mr Barton has in fact educated I think everyone in this chamber with the work that he has done to date on the vulnerabilities experienced by people who use this level of service across the sector, whatever form it may take, as well as the people who work in the sector itself and their families. We have had contributions today from around the chamber, including from Mr Melhem and Dr Cumming, indicating their understanding of the very real impact of changes for people across the industry and the devastating toll that that can take upon people where change management needs to be the priority and at the forefront of informing, educating and consulting with people who are going to be impacted by that change. And as far as disability standards are concerned, this is also crucial. I am looking forward to seeing this inquiry bear fruit around the voices of people who have specific needs around accessibility— Victorians with disabilities—their peak bodies, and organisations who are part of advocating for their needs and priorities, particularly in rural and regional Victoria, and understanding also how technology forms part of the set of platforms that can be used to improve access to consistent service. So we have an opportunity here, and I would hope that, as I think has been the case with Mr Barton’s work across the Parliament since he was elected, this inquiry can also consider in a measured and evidence-based way the issues that have been raised within the terms of reference set out in Mr Barton’s motion. I also hope that, when and as we see updates and reports from this particular inquiry, they will form the basis for further good-faith discussions with government and they will enable and facilitate a better understanding of a sector and an area within workforce perspectives that has needed and continues to need engagement—and with people who need and rely upon adequate safety and transport measures to get around. These are uncomfortable conversations in the latter sense. We need to, I think, lean into a number of the areas of some pretty vile discrimination that has occurred in the past as well as understanding how the most basic of upgrades or changes, where encouraged and facilitated within the sector, will go a very, very long way to improving the dignity and the mobility of people who are vulnerable and who rely upon a transport network that will be less ill-equipped for their needs over time. I think as far as the work we have done with the fund and as far as the discussions we have had across government go, there has been significant progress. I think that there will always be stakeholders who disagree within the discussion about the extent to which that progress has been successful or not, but I also think that this level of inquiry will be an important further step in understanding the measures of success or otherwise as they relate to security, safety, accessibility and consistency. So I commend Mr Barton for bringing this motion to the house. I think that he has done an admirable and indeed difficult job in raising these issues and I think that his stakeholders are lucky to have his voice in this place, because it is through that advocacy that we as a Parliament are in a better position COMMITTEES 488 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 to understand the nature of changing priorities, the nature of risk and the nature of continuous improvement as those within the sector would like to see it developed. Broadening that out to stakeholders who use these services is another important part of the discussion and the debate, and I am really looking forward to seeing how that unfolds, to keeping pace with public hearings that will be conducted as part of this process and to reading the final report. Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (15:03): My comments here may be even briefer than Mr Quilty’s. I am not really sure, but we will see how that pans out. I rise to support this motion of Mr Barton’s, and for a number of reasons. I support it wholeheartedly, but I would like to thank Ms Shing for bringing the conversation back to where it should belong. We have heard a lot of talk about studies, we have heard a lot of talk about facts and figures, we have heard a lot of talk about market share and we have heard a lot of talk about, you know, that dry, unfeeling analysation of things in a purely business sense. That is not where this discussion should lie when we talk about this particular issue. What we are talking about here are some of our most vulnerable people, many of them wheelchair bound. Some of them have multiple disabilities, including intellectual disabilities. And that is what I want to touch on; they are the people that I want to speak about. I can speak about that particular part because that is what my mother-in-law and my father-in-law did for in excess of 20 years in the very place where this study was undertaken, in Geelong. They drove these taxis, and let me tell you, the only thing that mattered to the people that were clients of theirs and the others that drove these taxis was those relationships. They had a relationship with the drivers. Trust built up over years and years of service, having the same driver come to them all the time and the regularity of knowing who that person was. That meant the world to each of them. That is where this should be headed. That is where this conversation needs to be—on what the best outcome is. I find it absolutely incredible that a study was undertaken by a new entry into the market—I hate that word, but there it is—undertaken by that player, self-reporting on the results, Mr Barton: Paid by themselves. Mr MEDDICK: Paid by them. It is just extraordinary. Taxidrivers are there to make a living, just like anybody else, but that particular cohort of taxidrivers are not your midnight runners, the guys doing the graveyard shift who are there wholly and solely to get out of it what they can and get home and sleep and go and do whatever else they might do. This particular cohort of drivers are there because they are in it for the long haul. They are in it because they care about their clients. That is why I will be supporting Mr Barton’s motion. I look forward to the committee, and I sincerely hope that the committee deals with this subject with the sensitivity and with the heart that Mr Barton has brought to this particular argument. Ms GARRETT (Eastern Victoria) (15:07): I am particularly delighted to follow Mr Meddick’s contribution and his words. I will come to the words around the vulnerable people to which this motion is addressed—and this is a bit of a Mr Barton feel-good day, as it should be—but for those of us in the chamber who have watched you and listened to you as we all have, I think I speak for everybody, and Mr Meddick said it very well: with your commitment to the issues that brought you here and your lifelong career and the people that you worked with, your family and the people that you advocate for, you are a very fine advocate, but you are also a very fine advocate because you bring your heart and your intellect and your experience into this chamber and you do it with great honesty and commitment and you do it smartly. You pick the issues that you want to run with, and those issues in the main tend to always be about the welfare of other people. So I am really pleased to speak on this, and I am proud to call you a colleague in this chamber. I know that what has happened in your industry over these last few years has been nothing short of tumultuous and that many, many lives have been affected—and you have stood up for those lives and those families, and you do so again today. I am very pleased that we are supporting your motion here and that there will be an inquiry into the issues that you have raised with the multipurpose taxi program. I note that there are several prongs to COMMITTEES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 489 your motion, including a review of minimum safety requirements, mandatory maximum fare rates, examination of rorting and exploitation of vulnerable users and how that can be prevented, assessment of financial impacts for services within the broader disability sector, pathways for industry to absorb major change post COVID and ensuring proper probity and good governance are applied. Again, to go back to the points that have been made by others, for vulnerable people in our community the capacity to be able to move around—be it for medical services, be it for work, be it for social activities, be it for engagement with family members, or be it for participation in sporting and other activities either through actively engaging in those or watching them—is absolutely fundamental to ensuring that vulnerable people participate fully in our community. We also know that often modes of public transport are either not available or not appropriate. It might be the time of night, it might be the location or it might be the particular issue that the vulnerable person is dealing with that means that the only form of transport that suits is through a car or another form of vehicle, particularly for people who may have profound disability, in wheelchairs and the like, or people who need to rush to medical appointments, people who would like some privacy—all of the above makes this such a critical area and a critical service for people. I think we can touch on some of the initiatives that the government has introduced and is introducing as a result of the government advisory panel on commercial passenger vehicles, and that is a range of initiatives in this area, which members of the house would be aware of, including $6 million to subsidise depot fees paid by vehicle owners and drivers to ensure wheelchair accessible vehicles are available for those who need them, an increase in the subsidy from 50 to 70 per cent per fare for several months in late 2020 to make rides more affordable in that particularly difficult period which we experienced, doubling the wheelchair lifting fee paid by government for four months, some refunds on the levies paid, grants with respect to increased cleaning and sanitation of vehicles, and some investment in a regional essential services fund. This is part of what needs to be built upon—there is no question about that—and it is why this inquiry is going to be so critical. Like so many of the inquiries that are able to be conducted via this chamber—across chamber and across party—there is that unique opportunity to hear from affected people. There is nothing like it anywhere. It is not an adversarial process. It is not a court of law. It has not got the strict rules and regulations that we face in this chamber and all of the background to that when we walk in here. It is a genuine opportunity for people to hear from those members of the community who are affected— from peak bodies, from families—and that voice, I think, is the most powerful voice. And for those of us on these journeys, to be able to hear directly to understand those experiences is absolutely critical. Again, to go back to you, Mr Barton, you have brought that voice into this chamber on behalf of the thousands of people—tens of thousands of people—who are directly engaged in your previous industry, but then there is the voice for the countless others who rely on it to go well. So I think this is going to be at times very heartbreaking and heartfelt, but the more that we hear the voices, the louder the voices become and the more change happens. And you have had—I will not say loud, because that can have a difficult connotation—a deep and strong and heard voice in here. I think the issue of safety—and I will touch on this before I finish—is particularly critical around CCTV cameras, and I know how much has changed since CCTV was put in, as the mother of daughters. With that sense of people getting in the car you have that horror around, ‘This is a huge thing—you are hurtling off at 100 k with my precious cargo’, I think we need everything that makes our commercial passenger vehicle industry as safe as possible, and including safe for drivers. We all know the story of the 3.00 am run, with some—usually men—who are a bit full from the night out and what that can mean for people and the aggro that can come from there, or the concerns around vulnerable passengers with other passengers, and all of the above can be a heady mix for terrible consequences. So I think that focus is incredibly significant, and I think sometimes we can get lulled into a false sense of security, because you can see the track route on the phone, and everyone thinks that that is okay, but I think that we need those extra layers of protection, primarily as a disincentive COMMITTEES 490 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 rather than as a cleaning up after the fact. That is what we would all like to see, and I do think that that changed culture very significantly. Part of Mr Barton being in here and bringing forward these motions is to absolutely remind all Victorians that we take these things for granted. You jump in a car whenever you need to, you know. There is not a person here—their families, their communities—who would not be touched by using or engaging with the commercial passenger vehicle industry on a daily basis. It is such a part of our lives that it is part of the furniture. It is at these times where we step back and have a good look at that furniture and make sure that it is not only fit for purpose for the users of the furniture but very significantly for the providers of the furniture. And on that outstanding metaphor, I will stop my contribution, but I do again thank Mr Barton for bringing these and many other issues to this chamber, and I look forward to the work. Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (15:16): I just want to first of all thank everybody. We take this very, very seriously, the safety of vulnerable people. It is something we have done for the last 30 years, and Mr Meddick absolute touched on the core thing. Just recently down in Geelong we met someone who is using the services and who has had the same driver for 20 years. She is nervous when someone else comes. She does not want a car to come where they cannot identify the car. It scares her, and that is reflected across the industry. I just want to touch on a few things, but I particularly want to thank Ms Garrett, the rest of the team and the opposition. Thank you. But there is something I cannot ever let go: do not ever tell me that we have had the best support package when you have cancelled our licences. Every time the government speaks the number is getting bigger, and I suspect in two years time I will have received a billion dollars. We received around $300 million. The government included $100 million of lost income. This was not the most generous package this country has seen. This is the only state that revoked taxi and hire car licences; no other state did it. It is not apples for apples. I had to get that off my chest. One of the things that has been going and one of the things that has been said is about the complaints and how the industry is calling for it, all that sort of stuff. Well, it has been a secret. Yes, the regulator has been calling for it, no question. They may have been talking to the disability sector, but they have not been talking to the industry. Since the deregulation we have not had a strong dialogue with the industry in terms of problems within the industry. On the day they made this announcement I asked where is the data to support it and where is the driving demand apart from a theory. On training, Uber does a tick and click; we bring drivers in. And because they wanted to do the trial in Geelong—big mistake. For Geelong taxi services the drivers have to have done at least 50 shifts before they can drive a multipurpose taxi vehicle. They have to come in then and do a one-day course—come in, not do a tick and click. So once again, it is not apples and apples. Even if you can remember me from back when—Mr Finn would remember—you would never find anywhere I have said that Uber could not enter the market. We have consistently said before deregulation and before I came to this place, it has got to be a level playing field. We have got the same thing again: we are going to allow them to come into a market where they do not have to have the same safety. What I find absolutely staggering is they are allowed to determine their price. When do you go into a contract with a government where you get to choose your price when, if and how you like? That does not make any sense. Taxis do not get to choose what they can charge. Only Uber can get to do that. I would like the Minister for Public Transport to reflect on what has been said here today. Pause this program. We are not saying stop it. We are saying pause the program, let us do this properly, let us do the inquiry and we may be able to knock it out much quicker, but we have got to do what is fair for the disability sector and the people who work in it. Amendments agreed to; amended motion agreed to. BILLS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 491

Bills OWNERS CORPORATIONS AND OTHER ACTS AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Council’s amendments The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman) (15:21): I have a message from the Assembly:

The Legislative Assembly informs the Legislative Council that, in relation to ‘A Bill for an Act to amend the Owners Corporations Act 2006, the Retirement Villages Act 1986 and the Subdivision Act 1988 and for other purposes’ the amendments made by the Council have been agreed to. Production of documents COVID-19 Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:22): I move:

That this house, in accordance with standing order 11.01, requires the Leader of the Government to table in the Council, within 14 calendar days of the house agreeing to this resolution, all documents and information relating to the auditing of hotels used in the hotel quarantine program. I rise to speak to my motion because Victoria has just come out of a five-day lockdown—a five-day lockdown where 13 cases of coronavirus were in the community in six local government areas. It is clear that this government has not fixed the problems that were identified last year. It is certainly clear that contact tracing has not been fixed, because of the reaction—the overreaction—the fear and the language that came out of the Premier about some of his assertions, which senior epidemiologists and those in infectious diseases have counteracted with a far more measured and proportionate response in relation to this virus. We all know it is a virus that is causing great distress and great harm, especially amongst vulnerable communities. We have seen that. We saw that in Victoria last year because the systems were not put in place and out of those breaches of hotel quarantine, when no-one was responsible, no-one was found to be responsible through the Coate inquiry, came the prolonged second wave and that 111-day lockdown due to the failures of contact tracing. While the hotel quarantine inquiry gave an interim report back in November, and they made certain findings and certain recommendations—I am not going to go through all the details of that, but I still have to say how utterly disgraceful it was for the Premier, three ministers and 10 bureaucrats to have collective amnesia in relation to who made the decision. They damn well know who made the decision. They know and they have not been truthful or up-front with the Victorian public, and that is a disgrace. But out of that inquiry, and after the interim report was handed down, the Premier said this:

That is why we had this process to determine exactly the points at which the system broke down, the origins of the errors and the mistakes that have been tragic and that have caused us pain and done so much damage. We understand those weaknesses, those errors, and we have a steely resolve and commitment to remedy those errors, those cultural problems, administrative problems, to ensure that this can never … happen again. Well, it has. It has happened again. One of those findings from the Coate inquiry was around independent safety auditing, around looking at these quarantine facilities and looking at the auditing processes, not just in relation to infection control on the ground and not just having a task force and a committee set up to look at the protection of those frontline healthcare workers who are doing a mighty job in these situations, because it is so unknown. But I think you have to presume that anybody flying into the country is at high risk of carrying this virus—not that the Premier or the government thought that those coming from hotspots to the tennis carried it. Nevertheless the hotel quarantine program is absolutely critical to allowing travellers to come back to Australia and to Victoria. In New South Wales they are doing it so much better than we are. 125 000 travellers had returned by last week, and there were another 3000 this week. Our returned traveller program has been halted because of this disaster that has occurred here in Victoria. The mental health impacts of this five-day lockdown, the cancellations of elective surgery, the cessation of screening for cancer and not being able to get proper medical treatment for other diseases and other PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 492 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 illnesses are going to have long-lasting implications. There are people who ring my office saying, ‘I need an operation. It’s been cancelled yet again. I’ve got cancer cells. I need an operation. I’m not scared of dying of COVID, I’m scared of dying of cancer’. These are the real impacts of the decisions of this government. They have failed again. They do not get it—they do not get the health and mental health implications, and they certainly do not get the implications for business. Small businesses are on their knees, and we keep hearing, from the minister in this house to the Premier: ‘We’ll have more to say about the compensation. We’ll have more to say about that’. Nobody believes you. They have heard those words before. They are sick of it. They are fed up. They are hollow words. You are a hollow Premier. You are a gutless Premier because you know you have failed. You got it wrong again. You will not admit your failures, and you will not seek help from other states, like New South Wales, that are doing it so much better. One of the issues from the government’s response to the interim report of the COVID-19 hotel quarantine inquiry—let us not forget that we had that final report just days before Christmas—was this:

The Government is committed to effective and appropriate assurance and reporting processes An assurance process will be in place prior to flights resuming to ensure that the model is safe and effective for returned travellers, staff and the Victorian community. The Government is also committed to ongoing and transparent reporting against the recommendations … Well, there were 79 recommendations or thereabouts, 10 of which related to infection control, and four of those are still to be implemented. But I want to go back to my motion about the audits and the auditing processes of these hotel quarantine facilities: are they fit for purpose? It is clear that some are not. We have seen what has happened with the Holiday Inn at Tullamarine, and I have got so many stories. I actually have spoken to the man who was made the scapegoat, subject to the disgraceful comments by the Premier, who made him the scapegoat after he used a nebuliser. I have spoken to him at length, and it is stunning to hear of the gaps in this program. All of those words after the interim report—all of those media releases to say ‘We’ve got this whiz-bang, gold-standard model, the envy of other states’ and that these systems are in place—are just wrong because of the ongoing failures. My motion:

… requires the Leader of the Government to table in the Council, within 14 calendar days of the house agreeing to this resolution, all documents and information relating to the auditing of hotels used in the hotel quarantine program. I have said 14 days because back in October, when this whole dreadful, prolonged second wave disaster was occurring, there was agreement that auditing would be undertaken. In fact many experts have been calling for it, because they were concerned about what was happening. Ventilation audits were only conducted at hot hotels, and that was despite calls from various experts who are involved in infectious diseases, at the AMA and the like, who really were wanting to know: are these fit for purpose? Those audits were undertaken, but they were not undertaken in other facilities. The government’s Healthcare Worker Infection Prevention and Wellbeing Taskforce recommended in October that assessments be done at all facilities. I am quoting from an article from the Age of just a few days ago, 16 February. It says:

Questioned on the two different standards applied to the health hotels and other quarantine hotels, Ms Cassar said there were only a small number of people returning to Melbourne with coronavirus and “it wasn’t deemed necessary at the time”. That says it all to me. They have ignored everything that was wrong with what happened last year. They did not even think it was warranted. They do not get it. That is what happens when you have got people who are out of their depth and cannot do this really important work. There should be somebody with infectious diseases experience running these hotel PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 493 quarantine programs, because the failures are not happening in other states. In New South Wales breaches do occur and they jump on them. They have got a far better contact-tracing system. They have got a mandatory QR code system that goes into the department where they can have that information and it can be got out to the community. They jump on this. They do not lock an entire state down. They do not do that. They understand where the cases are and they deal with them in a proportionate manner, in a far more considered way. They are not terrifying the community, they are not constantly providing this terrible uncertainty for business. Will they be open? Will they be shut? This Premier has no idea. He is not walking the streets; he is just so cocooned in his office watching his screen. I spoke to one of his spin doctors one day, and that is what he said to me: ‘He’s just glued to his screen looking at the figures’. Well, he should get out. He should get out more. He should walk the streets and see the closed shops, the businesses that are closing down because of his government’s failures, because of your government’s decisions that you made last year that have decimated this state. Again, what has happened in the last five days is completely unacceptable. You should all hang your heads in shame. This motion is incredibly important because they have either done the audits or they have not, and judging by the head of hotel quarantine, the audits have not been done. Despite what was promised and recommended back in October so we would not go through this whole extended lockdown again, they have not done the work. Despite all of those quotes I cited of the Premier in his press conferences—he was very happy to go out every single day and talk about what a great job the community was doing and what a great job the government was doing in keeping this virus under control—he has failed every single Victorian yet again. He has let every Victorian down. He is a man that cannot be trusted. This is a government that cannot be trusted, because they have not done the work. That is why we need those audits. We need to see that. This house, this Parliament, deserves to see what has been done and for them to be provided. No more excuses like we continually get from the Attorney-General: ‘We cannot provide the house with those details’. This government has never provided the health advice around the directions that every single Victorian is living under. Mr Finn: Victorians deserve to know. Ms CROZIER: Victorians deserve to know, Mr Finn, they do, because we have a right to know. We live in a democracy. We actually live in a democracy, and we have a right to understand why the government is making these decisions. We are not asking for personal details to be provided or thrown out there into the public domain. We are asking about the information. What was so telling on Friday was as it was all being leaked out to the media hours before that we would be going into lockdown on Friday night 30 000 people could go to the tennis and cheer and clap for Nick Kyrgios, scream and yell and cheer him on at a great rate—the virus must have just gone steady for those few hours before midnight struck—and then at 11.30 everyone was marched out. I mean, what an utter embarrassment and how farcical the whole thing looked. Give us the details, government, so that we understand. Has this virus spread so far that the whole state needs to be locked down? We did not get that. And it is clear, after I raised it in the house here on Tuesday about the numbers—‘Where are the numbers? In which local government areas?’—they scuttled and put it back up on the website at 10.30 pm. Then we had Jeroen Weimar, the Commissioner for Spin, out there saying, ‘We were so busy doing other things’. What a load of baloney. There was no information put up since the end of January. This government is so intent on its own preservation. They are not interested in the state’s preservation. That is absolutely clear. It is really, really concerning that this government has failed on so many levels—failed to provide Victorians with the information that they rightly deserve to know, failed to undertake what they promised to do and fix the system. It is still not fixed. They need to bring those Salesforce software developers down from New South Wales and get this system integrated, because it is not. I challenge anyone in the government to tell PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 494 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 me that it is, because it is clear it is not. You do not lock a state down for five days if you know where the cases are, if you can contact trace. I have had dozens of phone calls to my office around the debacle—the absolute debacle: ‘I flew in and out of terminal 4, but I was contacted by Queensland Health and have never heard from DHHS’; ‘My parents went through terminal 4—not on the day, a week prior, and DHHS is contacting them to self- isolate’; ‘I’ve just seen another issue’; ‘You need to isolate—oh, actually, we got it wrong, you don’t’. People have been sent information with the wrong address on it. We know that the man at the centre of the nebuliser issue was provided on Saturday afternoon with information from the Department of Health: ‘You need to isolate because you’re COVID positive’. Well, seriously—he was in intensive care days before, and then they had the gall to ask him who are the close contacts: ‘Well, that’ll be the nurses in PPE’; ‘What are their names?’. That scenario tells you the system is not fixed. This is not good enough. This government has been promising Victorian for a year that they were in control, that they had everything under control and that they knew what they were doing. They do not. They still do not. So it is incredibly important that this Parliament has the opportunity to have those audits, to see where we are at, because we cannot go through this again. The Premier himself said back in December:

… to ensure that this can never … happen again. But it has, and it will continue to do so because they have not fixed it. So where are those audits? And it is no good running off to Mr Fox and getting him to do it. We know that the Premier spent a lot of time with him over the summer break—everybody knows that; that is no gold-standard state secret— being down there and swanning around in Portsea in the compound. Well, good luck to him. Mr Leane interjected. Ms CROZIER: But if that deal has been done, you have got to fix the processes and the systems, Mr Leane, in the hotel quarantine. And I do not care if they are at Avalon, Tullamarine, Mildura, Puckapunyal, Point Nepean or the CBD. The processes and systems need to be in place to stop the virus from escaping. And this is just what has not occurred. That is why these audits need to be provided to this house within 14 days so that we understand, so that Victorians understand, why this has gone wrong. And I think it is telling that New South Wales has done a magnificent job on managing this and really should be congratulated. It has not been easy for any government—not this government, not any government; I understand that—but we do not want to be constantly told that it is under control, that we are the best, that we have got the benchmarks in place, that we are the envy. We do not want any more of this spin about this wicked, virulent, highly transmissible virus. The health minister does not even know that what he was quoting was completely wrong. It was wrong. Mr Finn interjected. Ms CROZIER: Yes, well, that is right. He had that it would be going off to the moon at the light of sound—the speed of light. Mr Leane: The Premier has been nominated for an award. Ms CROZIER: Yes, Mr Leane, the Premier has been nominated for an award. It is bizarre. He should be awarded for being the worst Premier—the worst Premier of this state. That is what he should be awarded for. Mr Finn interjected. Ms CROZIER: It is an absolute insult, Mr Finn. It is an absolute insult to the memories of all of those 801 Victorians who lost their lives in the second wave, which could have been avoided if your government had done what they were supposed to do, if your government had actually been upfront, if you had admitted you were wrong. You cannot even say sorry. It is pathetic. You cannot even say sorry. All you are interested in is spin, and that is why New South Wales should be congratulated and PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 495 really looked at. I wish, with the ego and the arrogance of the Premier and your government, you would actually take heed of what is going on in New South Wales and go and have a look what they are doing and bring back some of that knowledge. Ms Terpstra interjected. Ms CROZIER: Well, you are not. You are killing people by not getting the processes and systems in place. 801 Victorians died because of your government’s incompetence. Ms Taylor interjected. Ms CROZIER: Ms Taylor, your government and your government ministers made—through you, Acting President—these decisions. It is really insulting to be laughing about this when 801 Victorian lives were lost through the second wave and there were the mental health impacts, the elective surgery waitlists and the delays and the prolonged issues around children who could not go to school. You can think that your Premier is up there, but seriously, you really do all need to have a look at yourselves, because it has been devastating—devastating—what has happened to this state. These ramifications will be long lasting, and I implore you to get out there and to just speak to small business, to speak to parents. Ms Terpstra: We know. Ms CROZIER: Well, you do know—you know the devastation. In my final 30 seconds I would seek that the government does support this important documents motion, because it is about transparency, as was stated in the interim report of the hotel quarantine inquiry—and the Premier was gloating about that. Well, if he is true to his word, those documents and those audits will be provided within 14 days. Mr LEANE (Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development, Minister for Veterans) (15:42): Despite Ms Crozier’s contribution, I think this is basically a call for documents. It is a motion that we have in this chamber. There is a lot of general business on Wednesdays—today is a general business Thursday, which is still supposed to be Wednesday in terms of the Parliament, which just confuses everyone. But it is basically a call for paperwork. The government has been consistent: if it is not cabinet in confidence and not commercial in confidence—the government will look at this paperwork and determine if it does not fall into those categories—it will hand it over to the Parliament. It is the Parliament’s right to call for these particular documents. I have been around a long time. I have said it before: I was around in those dark days when the Liberal- Nationals were in government and they had 21 votes in here out of 40 MLCs, and I have got to tell you I reckon there might have been two times they handed over documents. I know that once they accepted a committee reference from someone other than themselves—once. So it is a bit rich, a bit of outrage about what sorts of documents come to this house now. Taking into account Ms Crozier’s contribution brings us to really how appalling the opposition has been during this particular period, this global challenge—absolutely appalling. I find it hard that we have this call for particular health advice and health auditing when there are people in the opposition ranks that do not even believe the COVID virus is real. Ms Crozier: You tell me who. Mr LEANE: Well, Mr Finn was at a meeting today, and he said that it was actually a conspiracy— that the lockdowns were part of a socialist conspiracy, because socialists do not like small business. Now, there has been a long lockdown in the UK, under the man well known worldwide for being a socialist, Boris Johnson. He must be part of the conspiracy, because obviously the UK like every other jurisdiction has really found this a challenge. It is a global pandemic. PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 496 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

The opposition are all over the place. In their ranks they have got people that are presenting to and actually championing, and in some ways forming, these real far right wing nutter groups. They are presenting to and agreeing with these groups. I suppose, if you do not believe in COVID, you do not believe in vaccination for COVID. They are anti-vaxxers; they are anti-mask people. They go around doing big events around the place. They are anti-establishment. And they are being spurred on by members of the coalition. As I said, the opposition’s contribution to this worldwide challenge has been nothing but appalling. It is par for the course that they managed—and I do not know how they did it—only recently to clutch defeat out of the jaws of victory. I think it was only a week or so ago that their leader—it might not have been their leader; it is hard to keep up with that—was saying there should be some hotel quarantine sites outside built-up areas, outside of cities. They were saying that. Then when the Premier only a few days ago suggested that maybe this is something that could be looked at, opposition members went out and said, ‘That’s a really stupid idea’. They actually called for something. They could have had a win. They have not had a win for the whole time, but they could have had a win. They called for something. They called for quarantine sites outside of built-up areas, outside of Melbourne. Then the Premier said, ‘Oh well, it doesn’t matter where the idea has come from; that’s an idea we probably should embrace and have a look at’. Then the opposition, instead of beating their chests and going, ‘Yeah, well, that was our idea and we were running with that last week’, actually came out and said, ‘Oh no, that’s a stupid idea’. What the opposition has put into this period of time, and I cannot stress it enough, has been absolutely appalling. Their biggest contribution is to social media and going on pay TV news shows that no-one watches. The only reason I see that Ms Crozier has been on a few of those shows is that they have come up on Facebook, but they are gone now from Facebook. They used to come up on Facebook and now that actual provision has disappeared. I think other than if you actually saw it on Facebook, you would not know. On social media in general, their biggest effort is to hashtag name-calling like #DanTheMeanie and #DanIsAPoohead’. It is like they have never left grade 4. It is like they have reverted back to their grade 4 days. I was going to say maybe they have reverted back, but I would be surprised if they had ever left that sort of grade 4 mentality. Rather than stimulating serious debate their position has to be all these memes and name-calling, which means nothing—absolutely means nothing. I think the problem the opposition have is they had an opportunity to show leadership during a tough time but they have completely failed. They probably have no strategy of coming out of it. All the fishing trips and all the sitting around in circles singing Kumbaya will never unify what is an unified group of people that span from some people that actually believe that COVID-19 is a conspiracy to other people that actually— A member interjected. Mr LEANE: I can show you the video later; I can show you. Mr Finn was this morning talking to a group of anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, anti everything, and he said that he believed that the lockdown was all about a socialist plot to punish small business. Ms Crozier interjected. Mr LEANE: And Ms Crozier believes it was a socialist plot to punish small business. Ms Crozier: On a point of order, Acting President, the former President of this house should know better and not verbal me in what he just said. I ask him to withdraw what he said. The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Would you like to withdraw? Mr LEANE: If a member asks for a withdrawal, if they feel that it should be withdrawn, I will withdraw it. PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 497

Ms Crozier interjected. Mr LEANE: Look, one day, Ms Crozier, there is a real chance you might hurt my feelings with the way you approach me. Anyway, I just think, as I said, you go from one extreme where it is a socialist plot to another extreme where there are people that actually, I would say, do have great concern for the community but have been hamstrung by their nutters in actually getting out a clear message, which is a bit of a shame for the opposition, but I do not think there is a lot of sympathy out there for them. As I said, their contribution in the last period of time when we have all tried to do our best to support the community has been appalling. It has made no difference. I believe probably the way they are going they will continue to make no difference, but that will not stop the government and others doing their best to support the community in what is a global challenge. It is not just Victoria. You would think, the way some people talk, it was just Victoria. It is not just Victoria, it is a global challenge. It will be a long time till the vaccine gets rolled out, the way the feds are going, but I think we will just keep continuing to do our best for the community. Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (15:53): Just rising to speak on Ms Crozier’s motion today, which is requesting that we have all the documentation and information relating to auditing of hotels for the quarantine program, I just want to pick up on the government’s contribution just then and Mr Leane’s contribution and just add that two of my favourites so far are probably #FigJamDan and #DimSimDan. They are two of my favourites that are going around on social media at the moment. But quarantine should be excellent, and infectious diseases experts should be running hotel quarantine. Now, infection control should be hospital grade in quarantine. The whole purpose of quarantine is that you treat everyone as though they are positive and have an infectious disease until they are proven to be negative or not infectious or without disease. The concept of cold and hot hotels is irrelevant. The hot hotels are currently two hotels that are staffed by Alfred Health clinical staff, who apply infection- control procedures comparable to those in hospitals, and we have nine cold hotels with less stringent measures, creating the problem of hotel workers unknowingly catching the virus and taking it home and into the community. Why is it that there have not been breaches in the facilities that are run by our hospital clinicians? The Victorian government’s approach to quarantine has made people sick; it has made people die; it has killed businesses; and the mental health and the health of the whole community has become quite poor. Now, respectfully, if a nurse or a doctor broke infection control, they would be brought before their board. As a doctor of Chinese medicine, if I broke infection control procedures and I made my patient sick, I would be dragged in front of my board, because that is what we have. We have the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. Now, the reason why you would put it in the hands of health professionals and infectious disease professionals is that that is what quarantine requires. We are trying to stop an infectious disease coming in from overseas. We are allowing it to come in from overseas, and we are trying to quarantine it so it does not get into the community. Now, the government is failing us completely. They are not taking quarantine seriously, as you can see by a lot of the interjections that I have heard and the way that the government has approached hotel quarantine or quarantine in general. If you are doing quarantine correctly—which hospitals do, which nurses and doctors do, which infectious disease experts do— you do not have breaks in infection control, it does not get out into the community and you do not make other people sick. Now, when you as a government do not see quarantine as the most important thing that we should be doing to make sure that our community is safe and you put it in the hands of ‘hey, how about let’s do this little course’, then you are not doing everything that you have been told. You spent $7 million on a hotel quarantine inquiry. You were given recommendations in December last year and you still refuse to actually go through them and actually implement them. And some of those things are really PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 498 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 simple infectious disease control things that anyone who understands infection control does. You do not do cross-contamination. You do not move those patients—sorry, those travellers—from one hotel to another. You are increasing your chances of actually spreading the disease. You should treat every facility as though it is a hot hotel—every one of them—until it is proven that they are safe. They should be at a standard where they have the proper ventilation and all of the staff have the PPE equipment that they need. They should have the masks that they require—not just the little itty-bitty things that are being handed out, the proper masks that can actually help with COVID-19 or any virus for that matter. We need proper infection control measures. If we had that in place, it would not get into the community. And to compare us to the USA or UK when we stopped international travel is scaremongering at the most. To think that we have actually had months without travellers here, to think we have had months and months and months and months and months—you could have actually built these facilities. You could have built them from the ground up in the time that you have had, but no—not at all. You have not taken quarantine seriously and, respectfully, until you do we are going to continue to have these problems. And I tell you what, Mr Andrews, yesterday in that press conference when you said, ‘Oh, we can’t guarantee it’—you had better guarantee that it does not come out of hotel quarantine again. You had better have those infection control measures in place so it does not come out into the community again. We all get what a virus is, and that is why we have got quarantine. People in this place know that I have spent 10 years in the army. In the army I was a preventative medicine technician, which is a bit like a health officer, and I was at Portsea. Portsea is the old place of quarantine. We have plenty of old facilities around here that can be dusted off and made into quarantine facilities, but we do not need that. We just need those nine hotels to be all hot hotels and for you to treat this seriously and seriously get the proper staff who understand and give them the proper equipment. We know that even when it was leaking out with our health workers, they were not even given the proper equipment until pretty much September last year and that is why they were bringing it out into the community from the hospitals—because they were not even given the proper masks. That is where our problem has lain. Now, I do not expect gold standard, I expect that you take hotel quarantine seriously. Australia can do this. We have done this. We seriously made the best decision in not actually having overseas travel. We can contain this. We are having small amounts of the disease coming in, and we should be able to control this. To make out that somehow it is the virus or it is the poor, sick person or it is a ventilator or a nebuliser—that that is what the problem is—no, it is actually the way that you are not doing your infection control. It is your systems. It is actually not having proper health or infectious disease personnel looking after our returning travellers. For others to think that returning travellers should not return—no, they are Australians, they come back. But to also think that we somehow have got elite athletes as essential workers but our small businesses are not essential—every small business is essential. Every single small business is essential. Those cafes, those events—everything is essential. Everyone is essential. I am going to leave my contribution there. I tell you what, if we have another outbreak from a quarantine facility, I will beg the federal government to come in and help us in some way. Somebody, help us—anyone, seriously. The medical community—I know that doctors in my area would actually step up, because they have stepped up before. Sitting suspended 4.03 pm until 4.20 pm. Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (16:21): I rise to speak in support of Ms Crozier’s motion, which is just the latest effort by this house to extract from the government information which it ought in any case to be releasing. The phrase ‘blood from a stone’ springs to mind. Many of us in this place have spent a great deal of time and effort condemning the government’s failure to govern in accordance with good, time-honoured democratic practice. The parliamentary calendar itself has been PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 499 reduced, sittings truncated and delegated legislation enacted with little opportunity for scrutiny. State- of-emergency powers have been relied upon well beyond the timescale for which those powers were originally intended. Within the executive, cabinet government has been downgraded. Now, as reasonable people, we understand that in a crisis it is proper, indeed sometimes essential, for government to operate more quickly and decisively than is possible in the normal course of affairs. Provision is made for this in legislation, in the rules and indeed in the conventions of Parliament, but an essential trade-off for these greater powers is the requirement on government for transparency— and this is where I come back to Ms Crozier’s motion. Transparency is desirable at all times, but in times of crisis, when the Premier and his ministers employ shortcuts to our normal processes, it becomes absolutely essential. When ministers can act without prior consultation, transparency after the fact becomes our only safeguard. Yes, it is right that ministers can do more unilaterally, but it is absolutely required that they explain exactly what they have done and exactly why they have done it. Honesty, frankness, exposure, transparency—whatever you like to call it—is part of the bargain which differentiates a democratic administration governing through a time of crisis from a despotic regime assuming even more absolute power and explaining and justifying itself to no-one. And it really matters, because failure to disclose breeds mistrust and damages the social contract between the government and the governed—the people. The Premier and his acolytes may be convinced—Messianically convinced—that they are doing the right thing for the right reasons, and in some cases they might even be right, but if they fail to disclose, to explain, to justify, even the most correct and defensible process or decision becomes suspicious. Often this suspicion is well founded and there is no justification for the government’s secrecy. This is not wartime, with an urgent need to protect public morale or an overriding need to prevent information from falling into the hands of the enemy. Instead the explanation can only be arrogance, stubbornness and political self-protection. The Premier treats Parliament with contempt and the people like children. Now, I would like to give an example of why this matters, which relates directly to the hotel quarantine program, specifically the security employed. In September last year I lodged a freedom-of-information request with the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions seeking all correspondence between 29 March 2020 and 29 April 2020 between Minister Pakula and DJPR secretary Simon Phemister about Unified Security, between Minister Pakula and Simon Phemister about the use of private security firms in Victoria’s hotel quarantine program, between Minister Pakula and Unified Security, and between Simon Phemister and Unified Security. Only one document was found in the department’s search—a single email, eight pages long, from Simon Phemister to the office of Minister Pakula. I was refused access to the document due to the cabinet document exemption, as it was prepared for cabinet consideration by Mr Phemister. I was not taken aback by the refusal but more by the extraordinary lack of correspondence between either the minister or the department secretary and Unified Security, particularly given that the services agreement between the department and Unified Security was reportedly valued at $30.2 million. On top of that, it is alleged that the services agreement was in fact signed by Mr Phemister. One of two things can therefore be true: either the freedom-of-information unit at the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions dishonestly refused to disclose the existence of more correspondence than this single email from Mr Phemister to Minister Pakula—but I do not suspect that is the case—or Mr Phemister signed a $30 million contract with Unified Security to work on hotel quarantine without he or the minister ever having corresponded with them prior, leaving it all to their departmental juniors, a contract which ultimately contributed to the deaths of 800 Victorians and the destruction of the state’s economy. The problem here is that I do not know the truth. The response given to me raises more questions than it answers. If you sow secrecy you reap suspicion. The government and indeed our state’s health officials are quite rightly worried about paranoia in this time of COVID. They fear viral hoaxes—anti-vaxxers and campaigns of civil disobedience against public health restrictions. The PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 500 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 antidote to this is not endless lectures from the Premier in the guise of openness. You cannot lecture a paranoid person, especially if you are from the government. Mr Leane: Well, you shouldn’t encourage them either. Mrs McARTHUR: State education programs will not cut it. The only thing which works, Mr Leane, is openness. The vaccine for paranoia, even hyperinfectious paranoia, is transparency, and it applies to us all. We do not need to be told that ministers are doing the right thing on hotel audits or anything else. We do not need selected extracts and the commentary. We probably will not believe it. We need all the documents, all the information available—unvarnished and unredacted. This motion is about more than just hotel audit records. It is about the Premier’s whole approach to government and the damage he is causing our state. If you do not appreciate the damage that has been caused by the lockdowns that have destroyed businesses, destroyed jobs, destroyed families, and created an unprecedented level of mental illness and the lack of ability for people to get proper health care and ongoing surgery, which they have had to put on hold, let alone the damage that has been done to children through not going to school, continually having to have parents being babysitters and teachers while they are trying to hold down a job in their own home—if you do not understand that damage that you have done—then you should not be here. If government ministers are not responsible, then who is responsible? We have spent millions of dollars trying to establish who was responsible for issuing these contracts which I have referred to, and we have got no answers. You have got a problem with amnesia in this government. We heard that a minister cannot read emails. You do not know. You cannot remember. I mean, what sort of an operation are you running? You should be able to provide us with all the evidence as to why you want us locked down all the time. Why should my half a million constituents outside the tram tracks of Melbourne be subject to this lockdown when there are 13 cases in six local government areas in Melbourne? Why do you subject the whole of Victoria, especially at the most important time of the year—in holidays—to this sort of lockdown? What we need is the evidence, the documents that we are seeking, and you should provide them in a timely fashion. Otherwise, what are you hiding? Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:30): I was a little bit aghast with people being concerned about my interjections. I was quite angry; I will concede that. The reason I was angry is the amount of energy that the opposition has put into, for months, undermining every health measure with reckless indifference to the impact on those they claim to care for. Over and over they have said, ‘Ooh, lockdown, lockdown. Ooh, masks—over-the-top, dreadful!’, constantly undermining our public health officials, bagging out Alfred Health, anyone, frontline workers, does not matter, in a grab for votes next election: ‘We’ve got to get those votes, seize those votes. Don’t worry about public health’. Flip-flop, flip-flop. You only have to look at their leader, at the claims, ‘Oh dear, Mother’s Day. Oh dear, no you mustn’t observe public health because of Mother’s Day’, as if we do not care about our mothers. There is all sorts of strange flip-flopping all the time. Do you know what is motivating it? He is not motivated by public health. That is why I have been so upset—literally upset—because I cannot believe the mercenary attitude of those opposite who do not want to take on the medical advice from experienced public health experts. Let us get to this issue. If only the energy that they put into undermining the public health measures could be directed towards actually getting out of the lockdown quickly, because that is what we all want. Nobody wants a lockdown, and least of all does the Premier want to have to make that announcement. It is with great reluctance. But he does not have the luxury of picking and choosing the medical advice that suits a political objective because this is not about politics, this is about protecting all Victorians. They try to deflect and distract, saying ‘grab for power’. Frankly, the audacity of it and the arrogance of it, to claim that this is about power. This is about controlling the virus, not people. It is about controlling the virus, and the only reason we look overseas is to show what happens when you do not take expedient action and you do not do a lockdown. You can see the devastating impact that occurs. That is why we have made allusions to that. It is not flippant. It is because it is, as PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 501

Mr Leane and many before have said, a global pandemic. It is affecting all states of Australia. Everyone has to be prudent. Now, getting down to this motion, it says ‘agreeing to this resolution, all documents and information relating to the auditing of hotels’. It is really unclear. What do they mean by auditing? Auditing of physical space, auditing of staff, auditing of Victoria Police— Ms Crozier interjected. Ms TAYLOR: Well, that is not what is in the motion. It is a slap-up job just to have an excuse to bash the government and to bash public health measures once again. I do not know how many of them actually believe in COVID. I have to say from the tremendous effort and energy and tweets to undermine all the public health measures, I do not believe they actually think it is real, because if they did, wouldn’t they want to undertake all the measures possible to protect Victorians? At least that is what I would want to do, and that is what I have been doing. That is why I wear a mask: because I genuinely do not want to get COVID and I do not want to pass it on to anyone else. I actually have cousins in the US who did contract COVID. Let me tell you, they are young guns, they are young fellas—they are like in their early 20s. One of them still cannot taste or smell. Now, this is at the light end of the scale of side effects, but it is still, we would have to say, pretty upsetting to not be able to taste or smell. I am just thankful that he has recovered to the extent that he has recovered. Now, my cousins in America believe it is real. We text a lot. They have talked about lockdowns and kids and everything else that they have had to do, schooling from home and the like. We have been able to relate on these issues. They believe it is real, and I am just afraid that I do not believe the opposition do. Now, when we are talking about auditing, are we talking about the auditing of VicPol resources, of the ADF, of testing regimes, of contracts or of financial records? The list goes on. No, this is a slap- up job. They have not been precise. What is it that they actually want? Because if they actually— Ms Crozier: We’re talking about ventilation. Ms TAYLOR: You did not write that in your motion, and if you actually did genuinely care about public health, then you would have directed us to what it is that you are so desperate to know, because I have a feeling that you actually are not going to do anything with this information. It is just an excuse to be able to talk about it and tweet about it after. Ms Terpstra: They are fishing. Ms TAYLOR: It is a fishing exercise; that is exactly right. And this fishing exercise demonstrates how irrelevant they are in this ongoing fight against the pandemic. They could have been integral, they could have taken the high road, they could have been honourable, they could have backed in our healthcare professionals, they could have helped support the community to get through these lockdowns, but instead they undermine, undermine, undermine—flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop. That is why I am upset. It is not because we are not taking it seriously. It is incredibly hard to watch the impact of this pandemic, locally and around the world, so I find it incredibly insulting and hypocritical when those opposite try to insinuate that all those frontline workers doing all the testing, the contact tracing and working in hotel quarantine are not taking it seriously. Really? When I went and had my test done a few months back the workers at Alfred Health who took my test were very, very serious and very careful about that testing process, let me tell you. I do not know why you have so little respect for our public health system and for our public healthcare workers. I do not know, but I would say they are mercenary because this is about a political agenda and has nothing to do with protecting the health of Victorians. This request is not only imprecise, but there is no identifiable purpose. What auditing is the member seeking—an audit of financial records, an audit of quarantine hotels, an audit of which hotels are currently in operation, an audit of staffing, of VicPol rosters, of ADF deployments or of contract PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 502 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 compliance? Given we are unable to ascertain the intent of the question, it is difficult to say. I do not know. It just looks like a fishing exercise. That is all it looks like, I am afraid. I wish in my heart of hearts they genuinely cared about this issue. I wish they would demonstrate it now. They have not up until this point, but if from this day forward they would do the honourable thing and honour our frontline workers and honour all those who are putting so much work into protecting our state, that would be well received. But I doubt they will. Now, I think it was alluded to before that the board of inquiry established last year used their interim report to review the whole hotel quarantine program, which includes many of the hotels themselves. This was a detailed assessment with, I should just say, 69 recommendations made to the government about how hotel quarantine should run. All of the recommendations that sat at state level have been accepted and either have been implemented or are being implemented. A dedicated administrative office, COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria, was established in line with the recommendations to establish a quarantine body with clear reporting lines. The commissioner of this office reports directly to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. This new model also includes a deputy chief health officer— Ms Crozier interjected. Ms TAYLOR: See? Constantly undermining the public health officers and constantly undermining the experts in the system. You cannot help yourself. You have to make this political. You cannot show any care or respect for our Victorians, for the community or for their health. It is horrifying. That is why I am so upset. I cannot believe even now you do not care about the health of Victorians, because all you are doing is chasing votes. That is all you are doing. You do not care. Now, if this helps the opposition, we can table the websites where the reviews and assessments are publicly available, such as the National Review of Hotel Quarantine undertaken by Jane Halton— again, a report that was used to help design our hotel quarantine program. Maybe they are against that report—I do not know. This is a detailed assessment of hotel quarantine right across the country. You said that we were not looking at other states. This went right across the country outlining good practice that we have embedded into our program. I am happy to put the websites up there. There is nothing to hide. I do not know what the mystery is. Here we go. We will give you these websites: https://www.quarantineinquiry.vic.gov.au and https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/10/national-review-of-hotel- quarantine.pdf. I will make sure that is correct in Hansard, and you can get it from there. Knock yourselves out. Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (16:40): I do not know how I will be able to follow that. I will have a go. I rise to speak on Ms Crozier’s motion requesting the audit data from the documents relating to the quarantine program, and it will come as no surprise to anyone here that the Liberal Democrats will be supporting this motion. Just a little bit of transparency is the very least the Victorian public deserve. For some reason the government believes that having the Premier front up to the press on a daily basis to give us all a masterclass in political spin is the same thing; it is not. A member interjected. Mr LIMBRICK: He has been nominated for an award. Maybe he has got an award for spin. Instead we are repeatedly told that the systems are the best and everything is under control: ‘Trust the experts and trust the government’. It is all wearing a bit thin, but the government keeps on spinning. Mr Leane: You don’t trust anyone. You don’t even trust your dog. PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 503

Mr LIMBRICK: I don’t have a dog. When I was on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee inquiry into the pandemic response, there were a number of findings from that that indicated that key information was not provided. For example, finding 14 states, and I quote:

The Committee was provided with limited contact tracing performance data by the Department of Health and Human Services. Data for the period before 15 August 2020 was not supplied including the peak of the second wave of infections. This is possibly because they did not have any data; we do not know. In fact there have been very many reasonable requests for information from members of the public, journalists, public health experts and me throughout the last year. Indeed in this chamber documents have repeatedly been called for and have not been provided. It is probably a good time to remind members of clause 8 of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008, which talks about the principle of accountability. It says:

(1) Persons who are engaged in the administration of this Act should as far as is practicable ensure that decisions are transparent, systematic and appropriate. It also says:

(2) Members of the public should therefore be given— (a) access to reliable information in appropriate forms to facilitate a good understanding of public health issues … Some of the decisions are as transparent as someone else’s mental process. When it all went belly up last year, when the government’s processes, complete lack of governance and oversight over the quarantine program and completely out-of-depth contact-tracing program were overwhelmed, leading to the deaths of hundreds of Victorians, we had an inquiry, where nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything and nobody knew anything. I could quote sections of the Coate hotel inquiry report all day and it still would not do justice to the scale of this failure, but I will pick out a few gems. From page 25 in volume 1, I quote:

IPC— infection prevention and control—

measures are essential to a successful quarantine program. It was necessary to have those with the expertise in infection prevention and control deliver that training. Nothing short of constant reinforcement, supervision and oversight from those with the necessary expertise was what was required in such a highly infectious environment. There were no infection prevention and control experts stationed at the hotel sites to give guidance, oversight or supervision on the range of risks to which hotel staff would be exposed and what they needed to do to mitigate those risks. It goes on to cite evidence from Dr Simon Crouch, a senior medical adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, on the emerging understanding of how COVID-19 is spread. It concludes, and I quote:

Given what Dr Crouch stated, it made it even more unsatisfactory that hoteliers were contracted to provide their own PPE, training and infection prevention and control. This was a wholly inappropriate situation. Point 376 on page 310 states:

A number of witnesses from DHHS gave evidence about the various policies and procedures relating to infection control and welfare that were drafted and disseminated. But the process was ad hoc, fragmented and reactive. Point 379 on that same page makes it clear that the public health team had absolutely no awareness of the level of compliance or oversight of the program. Many of the other issues outlined in the report are well known to both members of the public and members of this chamber. Nobody seemed to know who was in charge, who was making decisions PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 504 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 and who was ensuring the hotel quarantine program operated effectively. The fact that there was no appropriate governance in place to ensure a safe workplace would certainly make it seem like one of the biggest occupational health and safety failures in the history of the state. Indeed this very government passed legislation in this term to ensure that people, including ministers, would be held accountable for OH&S failures that led to unnecessary deaths. The government repeatedly tell us to listen to the experts. Well, the Coate inquiry sought the advice of three experts on infection prevention and control, and one of them, Professor Grayson, has provided his comments this week on the government’s gold standard revamped program. From his opinion piece in the Age this week titled ‘Has Victoria learnt anything since the hotel quarantine inquiry?’, he answered that on the second line, and I quote:

Based on the recent problems resulting in the Holiday Inn outbreak, it would seem not. He continued:

In fact, given the Premier’s recent comments … “I think we could all agree on the fact that hospitals are different to hotels in many, many different ways”, one wonders whether Mr Andrews has actually read the hotel quarantine inquiry report. He went on to question how, after a significant inquiry with 69 recommendations, 10 of them around infection prevention and control, the government has still ‘stuffed up so badly’. ‘Listen to the experts’, the Premier tells us. Well, Professor Grayson is a professor of infectious diseases, and he does not think this program is up to scratch. He certainly did not seem to buy the excuse that it is a hyper-infectious, hypersonic, semi-sentient strain of a virus. The Victorian President of the AMA, Professor Julian Rait, was quoted in the press this week also. He said:

We always thought that the cold hotels would be properly audited, as well as the hot ones … The Police Association Victoria secretary, Wayne Gatt, stated that they:

… had contacted COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria to find out what ventilation assessments had been done at the … Holiday Inn, on behalf of about 770 members working in the quarantine system. I could go on. I am as outraged by this as many Victorians are, but the least that could be done is to actually provide some transparency on this issue around auditing. The Liberal Democrats support this motion. Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (16:47): I am pleased to join the debate on this really important motion at such an important time, given that our state has just undergone another lockdown, although by the grace of God at least it was only for five days on this occasion. It is incredibly important that we as a Parliament meet, despite the bizarre and disparaging comments of Ms Taylor, to discuss hotel quarantine at this time. There have been, as a matter of fact, a matter of record, shocking failures in both hotel quarantine and contact tracing not only last year—we know about those—but also into this year, which is extraordinary. They are extraordinary in their scope, given that surely the government has not been focusing on the internal corruption probe that is engulfing the Victorian branch of the ALP, and surely the government has not been focusing only on more political communications since the report that my friend Mr Limbrick was just referring to. Since the inquiry in this place into contact tracing, surely the government has got those messages and has sought to fix contact tracing and, coming directly to this motion, hotel quarantine. Now, to reiterate one of the points that my friend Ms Crozier made when she was kicking off the discussion about her motion, we have actually been clear—we have been very clear—about what we mean when we talk about an audit. Again, there were strange comments made by those opposite about the need for an audit. An audit has been called for by no lesser medical authority than the AMA, and that is something that my friend Ms Crozier directly referred to. She also referred in particular to PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 505 ventilation and the need to audit ventilation. Again, this is something that the AMA has specifically called for. So a bit of respect perhaps for the Australian Medical Association would not go astray in this house. Now, like Mr Limbrick, I was very interested to see that just earlier this week one of the eminent experts that was called by the Coate inquiry—one of the eminent medical experts—Professor Grayson, a professor of infectious diseases at no lesser institution than the , had some remarks to make about the egregious failures recently in hotel quarantine. I was struck, as other members of this house have been struck, by the forthrightness with which he expressed himself. He was in no doubt that the recommendations that Ms Taylor referred to have not been accepted by the government. He went so far as to say that it would appear that the Premier has not even read them. Now, this is a sober and independent medical expert. If any of those opposite say otherwise, I would be appalled and shocked, especially given the bizarre presentation from Ms Taylor. This is a sober and respected medical expert called upon by the Coate inquiry itself, and yet he said the Premier has not read the report. He said that many recommendations are not currently being followed, and he said, in a manner that is not in keeping with his usual scholarly mode of writing, ‘How can it be that’ hotel quarantine ‘still gets stuffed up so badly?’. That is the view of this eminent expert. Ms Taylor talked about cherrypicking experts. Well, the experts have been out in force over the course of this last week, backing the coalition’s policy and arguing against the government’s policy. I am not sure if those opposite saw the remarks of Professor Fiona Russell and Professor Sharon Goldfeld reported in the Age newspaper this morning. Many members opposite have recently been denigrating the Age. Well, it was not just the reporters in the Age newspaper and the ABC—that odious organ of the right-wing press, the ABC! These eminent medical experts were arguing just yesterday that the coalition’s policy regarding school closures—that they should be a last resort, temporary, only ever in areas with intense local transmission—was right. Now, I wonder if those members opposite to follow me will dare to impugn the good character of these independent medical experts from the Murdoch centre. I wonder if they will. I could go into chapter and verse about the number of eminent medical experts who are almost unanimous in their view that the government’s actions last week not only were heavy-handed but, to come to the content of this motion, were caused by appalling failures of the government itself. The recommendations of the hotel quarantine inquiry have not been heeded; they have not been put in place. Mr Limbrick was right. There was much discussion through that inquiry about the need to ensure that there was strong infection control, and yet we know that N95 masks are still not being used. We have seen extraordinary examples of the government’s view of infection control, with people being paraded around the street with garbage bags on their heads instead. It has been interesting that so many eminent medical experts have taken issue with the way in which the government, instead of taking responsibility for its appalling failures, has sought to shift the blame onto individuals and in particular onto COVID-positive Victorians. It has been so odious to see the fearmongering that has gone on, especially from the Premier himself but also from other members of this government. To come again to that eminent medical expert Professor Lindsay Grayson, he said:

As a physician, the most distressing issue from the recent weeks is that both the Department of Health and Human Services, and now COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria, seem willing to openly blame patients for their Department’s own failures … And that has been an appalling thing to see over the course of this last week. So I have no confidence that the government has learned its lessons. I think Professor Grayson is correct. Those opposite can work themselves up into a lather; the fact of the matter is that the coalition’s long-held position is that the government, instead of taking the approach it has taken to arrogantly assert that night is day and black is white, that hotel quarantine is the gold standard and that contact tracing works, should instead take the approach of the government in New South Wales to fix the problems in hotel quarantine and also in contact tracing and then to ensure that Victoria stays open. That has been our position PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 506 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 throughout this pandemic and, may I say, it has been utterly vindicated by recent events. On any metric—public health metric, economic metric, mental health metric, educational metric—the approach consistently advocated by those on this side of the house has been shown to be the superior approach to that of those opposite. And again, that is not just my view; it is a view of so many eminent medical experts that Ms Taylor and those opposite say they respect but instead denigrate. The spin from the government is extraordinary. When this recent outbreak first occurred of course the Premier told us that it was not anything to do with his ‘gold standard’, ‘leading’—his words—hotel quarantine system. Those were lies of course. Instead it was the virulent UK strain. Well, what do the medical experts have to say about that proposition? They say the Premier was lying. This is from Professor Grayson, and I quote:

The UK variant, regardless of any possible increased transmissibility, did not cause the breaches in infection control procedures at the Holiday Inn … Ms Taylor interjected. Dr BACH: And I will pick up the interjection of my friend Ms Taylor. I do not know how many experts you would like me to quote. Perhaps the World Health Organization—they have a view that is entirely in step with the coalition’s policy when it comes to school closures, and I have talked about their position many times in this house, as early as the middle of last year. The UN, experts from the Murdoch institute and experts called by the Coate inquiry itself back up the coalition’s long-held position, consistently advocated in this place and out of doors in Victoria, that we should adopt the New South Wales approach—an approach that has been shown, as Ms Crozier has discussed in this place before, on any and all metrics to be superior to the approach of the Andrews Labor government. I wholeheartedly support this motion. There can be no reason in my view for the obfuscation. There can be no reason to hide the public health advice that has led us to another calamity, another lockdown, a billion dollars lost, mental health trashed and learning losses. The OECD—I wonder if those opposite recognise the OECD—say learning losses from our kids will be permanent. In the debate on my education motion last year those opposite said there were positives and negatives to school closures. That is not what the UN, the WHO, the OECD or the Murdoch institute say. Science, despite the protestations of Mr Leane, despite what the Premier says daily, despite the protestations of Ms Taylor, is on our side. We must have this audit of the hotel quarantine program, because the government has simply not learned the lessons of the catastrophic year 2020. Ms GARRETT (Eastern Victoria) (16:58): I think while we are quoting and quoting and doing some more quoting, I will quote the Bard. The Bard would say, ‘The lady doth protest too much’. And of course we all remember those words, particularly my learned friend who just spoke, as an esteemed education professional. The lady doth protest too much. I would just like to point out that I think it would have been 950 times in that contribution my learned friend across the chamber said, ‘The coalition’s very consistent and clear position on this from the beginning’. Then he said, ‘We have been very consistent’, ‘We have been very clear’, ‘As we have always said’, ‘As I would always point to our recognition of the New South Wales model of doing things’, ‘We have always been clear and consistent’. And as my colleague Mr Tarlamis is nodding in furious agreement, the one thing the coalition has not been either in this chamber or in the chamber below is clear or consistent on any measure in response to hotel quarantine or in fact this pandemic. Let us go through the litany of changes: ‘Things should be shut’, ‘Things should be closed’, ‘You’re opening too quickly’, ‘You’re closing too fast’, ‘You should be closed more’, ‘Why are you opening now?’. It went on and on and on and on. Then we had a barrage of delightful exchanges in the glorious twittersphere, where people had conflicting views about what was going on. I do not remember anyone on that side of the chamber talking eight months ago about the New South Wales Premier—we had of course the Ruby Princess delights. But to suggest that there has been a clear and consistent position from those opposite at any point during this pandemic is again ‘The lady doth protest too much’. PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 507

I know that they would like to say there has been a clear position. I know that they would desperately want to say that they have been rock steady and certain and have given the people of Victoria real ballast upon which they can congregate, but the reality is none of that has happened. There has been opportunistic bagging of the government and individual members therein. There have been panicked responses. They have been all over the shop. There has been this, there has been that. And quite frankly it has contributed to a sense of fear and uncertainty within Victoria. While we are on this very motion, I will point to the minister at the table, Minister Leane, who made a very good point, as he often does, around ‘When has, in their time of government— Mr Finn interjected. Ms GARRETT: Well, he made a very good point. He does have a long memory—a memory like an elephant, they may say, Mr Finn. Mr Finn: And hide as well. Ms GARRETT: And a hide like an elephant, and some may say the physog of an elephant, but here he is doing his bit—and I withdraw the physog of an elephant—absolutely standing here saying he remembers when those opposite held the benches of power. And how many times were documents released then? Like, zero. I think usually they would have probably been released in response to a more pertinent and structured motion than what we are experiencing today, and that is where I would like to pick up where my colleague Ms Taylor left off. I mean, ‘We’d like an audit of hotels used in the hotel quarantine program—all documents, any documents, relating to an audit of hotels’. Now, again, what is it an audit of? There are so many factors to which this could relate. It is so wide as to be incapable of responding to or complying with, if anyone was so minded. And again, it is the opposition parties pretending they had a consistent position, playing politics right now with what has been a global pandemic that has wreaked misery across the world. And Victoria of course has had its fair share of misery, but I tell you what, there would have been a hell of a lot more misery if those opposite had been allowed to run some of the things they were saying last year. If those opposite had been allowed to have their view of the world absolutely followed to the letter, as conflicting as it was, imagine the misery. And there is no-one on the government benches who does not understand and feel very deeply the pain that Victorians have had to suffer through these last 12 months. It has been extraordinary, and again, like everyone in this chamber, we pay tribute to Victorians who stood up, stood together and got this done. Once again, over the last five days it has been horrendous and difficult, and people have had trauma, but again, every Victorian dug deep, as we do. They dug deep, and they did what—badum- badum-badum-badum!—the medical experts told us to do. They did what the medical experts told us to do, and it worked, and the Victorians who did everything they were supposed to do, they delivered this home, and we pay tribute to them. But this was done on medical advice, as it is always done in this state. There has been a huge world of transparency around this. There was the hotel quarantine inquiry, which we all know went for days and days and days and days and days. Mr Finn: It was a total farce. Ms GARRETT: Well, Mr Finn calls it a farce. I am sure the judge who ran that inquiry would not refer to it as a farce. There was witness after witness after witness. There was a full suite of recommendations provided, all of which have been implemented or are being implemented. All of that occurred. That is not a government who is afraid to show documents. That is it not a government who is afraid to have the spotlight put on it. It was a literal inquiry run by a judge with full counsel assisting that went for weeks—weeks and weeks and weeks—under the public glare, and then Victorians want us and want this government— Mr Finn interjected. PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 508 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Ms GARRETT: I do understand why Mr Finn is upset, because they have yet to find a consistent position within their own party rooms about their response to this. I get it. I get that it is better and easier to get cranky with those opposite, but again, the speakers across this chamber show there is no consistent position here, there is no clear idea of what they want, because they are not listening to the science—as they often do not—and they are not listening to the medical experts who are giving clear directions about how we go through. And I think the latest research shows that faith in our health experts has never been higher from Victorians, and that is what has been the true north of this government in guiding our response. Of course the hotel quarantine inquiry delivered a huge range of recommendations. It went through root and branch these processes and came up with a suite of findings and suggestions for how this could be done better, and that has all been implemented—or is being implemented, to be fair. We now have the commissioner, who is reporting directly to the office of the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. We have got a deputy chief health officer for hotel quarantine who is overseeing infection prevention control, contact tracing and other associated public health functions. We have got a deputy controller who is focusing on managing logistics and operational processes and a deputy controller from Victoria Police focusing on enforcement and compliance. All of those key issues came out—again, this has been a huge, complex issue that Victoria and indeed the world have had to deal with—but these changes and these recommendations are absolutely focused on prevention and control of infection, testing and contact tracing, governance, accountability, auditing and assurance, training and role clarity, and resident health and wellbeing. A member interjected. Ms GARRETT: Would you like to move for me to keep going? I feel like Mr Finn would. Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:06): I understand that I have got a few moments to sum up. I have listened to members in the chamber, and I thank my colleagues and Mr Limbrick for supporting this motion. It is an important motion. It is about transparency. It is about releasing those audits. Despite what Ms Taylor and others have said, I specifically referred to the ventilation audits that the AMA and others have called for. I specifically, if they were listening to my contribution, spoke about what was said was going to be—and promised last October—in those audits to be released. The hotel quarantine inquiry spoke about safety audits. There are safety audits undertaken. The ventilation audits around these hotel quarantine facilities and whether they are fit for purpose are incredibly important to give Victorians confidence. I listened to the ridiculous and bizarre comments of Ms Taylor in asserting that the Liberals and Nationals did not believe in COVID, that we did not believe in the UK strain, that we did not believe in anything that was being said. It is quite extraordinary that that is what the member said. I think it is quite disappointing, because there has been information. There has been information sent out by all members in this chamber to their communities and to those they represent in various forms, but again, there is information and there are questions to be asked of government to hold you to account. We need to do that in a robust democracy. It is important that the decisions you make on behalf of the entire Victorian community are understood and, when mistakes are made, that you are held accountable. Our job is to challenge you on this and to ask those questions and to have the information that you have be released in the interests of transparency. Because, as you all keep saying, this is an unprecedented global pandemic, you should be building that trust within the community. What you have done in the last five days has killed that trust because you have not been up-front with the community. Again, from hearing the comments, I doubt whether we are going to get these audits of these hotel quarantine facilities around the ventilation aspects, because I do not believe they are done. If they had been done, you would provide them to the house. You would say to Victoria, ‘Here they are. Here are the audits. Here is what we’ve done. We are concerned about this one, we’re working on that, this is MOTIONS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 509 what we’re doing. This one we think absolutely abides by the standards and the guidelines that need to be undertaken in relation to dealing with this COVID pandemic and assisting those people, keeping those people safe in hotel quarantine’. We know that people have caught coronavirus in hotel quarantine. We know that people that have been working in those hotel quarantine facilities have become infected as well. They have not actually had the equipment that they were supposed to have had, like N95s and other things that were recommended to be provided. That is just some of those safety issues, and these are really big issues for the government to explain why that has not occurred. These issues around the audits, but particularly around the ventilation audits, are so important because of what has happened in recent times at the Holiday Inn with this poor man who has been accused—and has been used as a scapegoat by the Premier—of causing this third lockdown. You cannot take back the words that the Premier said; it is clear that he was using him as a scapegoat. We need to understand how the virus then got out into the ventilation system and therefore spread throughout that quarantine hotel and why those people have been moved. And look at what happened in the medi-hotel, the Holiday Inn, on Saturday. A sprinkler went off on Saturday and flooded it, and just two days ago people were moved out of that hotel—on Tuesday, so that was four days later. After that sprinkler system went off and flooded the hotel, four days later people were being moved out. These are really important issues, because there are sick people in these hotel quarantine facilities too, so people who are returning home with cancer. Their immune systems are compromised. They want to remain well; they do not want to get sick. They want to know that the facilities are fit for purpose. And if the government is doing their job, if they are true to Victorians, they will release those audits, particularly around the ventilation elements, as I have said. And despite the carry-on from the government members, I would hope that they will be releasing those and that all Victorians can see those audits. Motion agreed to. Motions SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (17:12): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to move motion 492:

That this house: (1) expresses concern at the state government’s mismanagement of support programs for small licensed businesses, noting that at least 293 businesses were incorrectly paid and have been ordered to swiftly repay the department despite serious impacts on the viability of these small businesses resulting from COVID-19 restrictions; (2) calls on the Minister for Industry Support and Recovery, the Honourable , MP, and the Minister for Small Business, the Honourable , MLC, to urgently meet with representatives of these impacted businesses; and (3) given the purpose of these grants is to support vulnerable businesses facing severe impacts caused by the COVID-19 crisis, further calls on the government to pause their harsh clawback until these meetings have occurred, at which point the government would be in a position to craft a fairer regime. What this motion goes to and is at the very heart of is a fair go for small business in this state, and that is something that this government just does not seem to understand. They—but particularly the Premier—regard small business as the enemy. We saw that last Friday when with just a few hours notice he stood up and cancelled the weekend, cancelled the next five days in fact, even though small business operators right across the state had prepared for a huge weekend. We had Valentine’s Day— and I know Mr Rich-Phillips was expending extensively on that event. The number of restaurants and pubs that had bought up big on drink and food and all manner of entertainment to have a wonderful weekend all of a sudden were shot. And Daniel Andrews shot them. Business interrupted pursuant to order of Council of 16 February. STATEMENTS ON REPORTS, PAPERS AND PETITIONS 510 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Statements on reports, papers and petitions DEPARTMENT OF JOBS, PRECINCTS AND REGIONS Report 2019–20 Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (17:14): I rise to make some comments on the annual report of the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions for 2019–20, and in particular I would like to focus on that department’s responsibilities as the department which supports the Game Management Authority, supports Agriculture Victoria and provides advice to the Minister for Agriculture, because we have seen that the department has had a number of controversial roles in the decisions and announcements the government has made around duck season. We have seen on a number of occasions now where, for example, the former Minister for Agriculture would answer questions in this place and invariably when she was asked a question about an upcoming duck season she would say that she acted on the advice of the Game Management Authority. This gave the impression to the community that there was some independence to the process—that the GMA would make assessments as the independent agency and it would provide advice to the minister and the minister would sign off on that advice. Now, what is not known is the nature of the advice that has gone from the GMA to the minister. Of course more recently we have had a change of minister in relation to the latest decision. But what we have also discovered recently by way of an FOI, which was in fact refused by the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions, is the extent of the advice and the nature of the advice between the GMA, the department and the minister. Following the announcement of the truncated, cut-down duck season on 5 or 6 February this year, an FOI was submitted seeking the documents which went between the GMA, the department and the minister—the advice upon which the minister allegedly relied—and briefing documents which had gone between the department and the minister and the GMA. The FOI simply sought documents back to 1 November last year. A response has been received, and the response from the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions was in fact to decline the FOI in totality on the basis that it was too voluminous, because the department then revealed that in that very brief period from the beginning of November through to the announcement of duck season some 273 documents related to duck season went between the minister, the GMA and the department. Rather than, as we have been told, the minister waiting for a brief, getting it and signing off on what she has been advised, 273 documents in just three months were flowing between the minister, the GMA and the department around duck season. So the suggestion that the minister simply signs off on what she receives raises questions of what is the basis of what she has received, how has it been determined and what role does the minister’s office or the department have in shaping that advice before it gets to the minister? Ms Symes: It doesn’t work like that. You’re making allegations. Mr RICH-PHILLIPS: The former minister says it does not work like that. So is the minister giving an undertaking that there was no— Ms Symes interjected. Mr RICH-PHILLIPS: Yes, the advice is implemented once the advice is the advice the government wants. There were 273 documents between the minister, the department and the GMA before the decision was made. Ms Symes interjected. Mr RICH-PHILLIPS: Perhaps the minister might want to put on record why there were 273 documents flowing between her office—or the minister’s office, because the minister at the table is no longer the minister—the department and the agency. When the question was asked of the agency as to the nature of the advice given to the minister, the agency declined to provide it. What it did release STATEMENTS ON REPORTS, PAPERS AND PETITIONS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 511 was a skeleton of selective facts—not a full report, not a full study as to bird numbers, not a full study as to wetland conditions, but a selective release of data to back up the decision the government had made. Now, the problem has arisen this week where the New South Wales government has also made a decision around duck numbers for this year. They do not have a recreational season like Victoria, but they do have management of duck populations, and the New South Wales government has in fact increased their quota by 16 per cent in recognition of the size of the problem in New South Wales— (Time expired) DEPARTMENT OF PREMIER AND CABINET Report 2019–20 Mr LEANE (Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development, Minister for Veterans) (17:20): I would like to give a statement on the Department of Premier and Cabinet’s annual report 2019–20. What I would like to talk about, because it relates to the veterans portfolio, is a case similar to Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean, who was awarded the Victoria Cross after his deeds on HMAS Armidale. I think we all agreed with that. That was an act of heroism. Teddy Sheean went down with the ship. There is a Victorian whose family has brought him to my attention via my office: Ron ‘Buck’ Taylor. This is a very similar story. He has not been acknowledged or awarded any acknowledgement whatsoever. As I said, he was a Victorian that grew up in Carlton in a large family. At a young age he developed an interest in the Royal Australian Navy through watching warships entering the port. He used to talk to sailors about their lives of service to the point where, at the age of seven, he became a mascot of the sloop HMAS Marguerite and was given his own uniform to wear on special occasions. After spending some time in Queensland, Buck Taylor began his training at the Flinders naval depot in Western Port in April 1936, and he was posted on the cruiser HMAS Australia. After undertaking a course in gunnery at Flinders, he served on the destroyer HMAS Vampire and on the cruiser HMAS Adelaide before being transferred to the sloop HMAS Yarra in August 1939. The Yarra remained in Australian waters until 1940, and then she was dispatched to Aden to join the Red Sea force. The ship took part in operations against Iraq in May 1941 and against Persia in August 1941. Buck Taylor was promoted to acting leading seaman and was given command of one of the Yarra’s 4-inch guns. The Yarra was in the Mediterranean from November to December, escorting convoys which ferried supplies to troops in an allied garrison at Tobruk, Libya. On each of the four trips, Taylor’s gun was active in beating off enemy aircraft attacks. By 1942 the Yarra was employed on escort duties between Java and Singapore. On 5 February she rescued 1804 people from burning troopship the Empress of Asia, which had been crippled by an air attack near Singapore. Sir Wilfred Hastings Harrington later reported that Taylor had controlled his gun ‘on this occasion, as on many others’ with ‘judgement and determination’ and his ‘keenness and courage’ set an example to those around him. On 27 February 1942 the Yarra was ordered to escort three auxiliary vessels from Java to Fremantle, Western Australia. Five Japanese warships intercepted the convoy on 4 March. Despite the Yarra’s gallant defence, all four allied vessels were destroyed, with the sloop the last to be sunk. Buck Taylor ignored the order to abandon ship and stayed alone with his gun. He fired slowly and defiantly at the enemy until he was killed and went down with the ship. This is a very, very similar example to Seaman Teddy Sheean which has not been acknowledged in history. Here is a young man that was born in April 1918 and grew up in Melbourne. As a kid he hung around Port Melbourne, got an interest in the navy, then joined the navy and then eventually as a young man performed a very heroic act. I would call on all of us to, if we can, push for some way of acknowledging Ron ‘Buck’ Taylor, who obviously has not been with us for a long time. He is a Victorian who was an absolute hero, and I think it is a shame that his story has not been acknowledged STATEMENTS ON REPORTS, PAPERS AND PETITIONS 512 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 and his family has not been acknowledged. I would call on us all to provide the support that we can to make sure that Ron ‘Buck’ Taylor, despite not being with us anymore, gets the honour that he very much deserves. DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY AND FINANCE Budget papers 2020–21 Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:25): I rise to speak on the state budget 2020–21. In doing so I actually want to talk about the tourism industry which it funds, but I am going to use some data that was supplied to me a little bit too late for the debate this morning. I am going to talk about the effect of the five-day lockdown on Echuca-Moama and also on the wine industry. I received this information from Echuca Moama Tourism after the debate this morning. They took a straw poll of their businesses over the five-day circuit-breaker and the impact it had had on them. Fifty- seven operators responded to the survey by Tuesday. Of them, 52 per cent had lost between $5000 and $20 000 in revenue; 21 per cent between $1000 and $5000; 15 per cent between $20 000 and $50 000 over just those five days; and 5 per cent had lost in excess of $50 000. This has had an enormous impact on an area that had only been able to trade for around 14 weeks in 2020 and which had been looking forward to the three-day long weekend for New Year’s Eve and also the Valentine’s weekend to make up for some of those losses from last year. There were multiple weddings cancelled. There was a cycling tour cancelled. Caravan parks lost their bookings. Two family groups cancelled with one operator, which was $5600 worth of booking. A dinner show that was fully booked with Benny Walker, an Indigenous musician, had to be cancelled. There were golf events that were impacted. They had a VCE environment, geography and outdoor education field day study group that was supposed to come in for an ecotour, that had to be cancelled. Touring car clubs cancelled their bookings. A whole Probus club cancelled all of their accommodation. Canoeing and school groups cancelled, and they will not rebook because of the time of year. There was a shooting event cancelled. There were bus groups cancelled. A Valentine’s lunch for 34, golf and social functions were cancelled. A Valentine’s Day business event cancelled. And of course lost Valentine’s business for the hospitality sector has cost them an enormous amount of money. As I said, they were only able to trade for 14 weeks in 2020, and the New Year’s Eve border closure and now the five-day circuit-breaker in the space of six weeks have really been an interruption to their business operations. They are urging the government to consider a range of compensation packages so businesses can recover and begin to rebuild as quickly as possible. Some of the things that they include are the provision of a booking cancellation fund for tourism businesses to enable them to cover the cost of lost revenue as a result of border closures and lockdowns; a dedicated hospitality funding support scheme to compensate for the losses in hospitality; and access to government support to assist with cash flow issues by way of a dedicated business support fund for Murray businesses. The wine industry was also extremely impacted. There are 22 wine regions across Victoria, and many of them are in my electorate. I know that the Yarra Valley is 35 per cent down because of the five-day lockdown in the month of February. The Mornington Peninsula is down by 40 per cent for the month of February, which includes the five-day lockdown. In the Grampians one of their businesses lost in excess of $45 000, another business $39 000, another one $23 000 and another one $60 000. It is an enormous loss to these operators. The lack of international travellers has really impacted on the wineries as well, but when you compare this to what is happening in New South Wales it is even more devastating, because in New South Wales there is confidence because of their open for business policy. What they are seeing there, with comparisons of the 2019–20 and the 2020–21 years, is showing that business is increasing. In fact the Hunter Valley is up between 45 and 49 per cent, Mudgee is up between 160 and 170 per cent and Orange is up between 180 and 200 per cent. Considering the similar population structures of New STATEMENTS ON REPORTS, PAPERS AND PETITIONS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 513

South Wales and Victoria, we should expect similar results in Victoria if the confidence was there that people are going to be able to go and visit these regions, but because this government keeps locking down the state the confidence is low, and it needs to be restored. PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND ESTIMATES COMMITTEE Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (17:30): Today I was not sure if I wanted to speak about, because everything is on the agenda, the Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which is this, or the Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s COVID-19 Contact Tracing System and Testing Regime, which is this, or the COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry Final Report and Recommendations volume 1 or 2. It shows us that— The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Melhem): Dr Cumming, could I ask you— Dr CUMMING: Would you like me to pick which one that is already on there? The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Melhem): You have not heard what I am about to say. You need to nominate one report to speak on. Can you nominate which report you are speaking on and then go on with that, please. Dr CUMMING: Yes, okay. I will go into the interim report on the inquiry into the Victorian government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is what Mrs McArthur will be speaking about a bit later than me. I guess in rising to speak about many reports, but especially the report that is sitting on our notice paper today, I can say: when is the government going to take all the recommendations in this report and actually act upon them to make sure that hotel quarantine is to the best standard? Respectfully, what I can gather from the latest lockdown is that the government should be really confident in its contact-tracing system. Why I say this is that as soon as one of the hotel quarantine workers was infected, they locked down their close contacts. They put them into isolation, and when they found out where their close contacts were they made sure that they were all isolated. So, respectfully—and I know this is a little bit in hindsight—the government knew that they had it under control. They had all those close contacts, which was recommended, in isolation. So what they needed to do was just hold off, just trust their systems, trust that they had got this right, but we all know that it actually should not have come out of hotel quarantine, because if they actually took into consideration all the work that has been done, all that we have learned from all the mistakes that they have made in hotel quarantine, if they actually took hotel quarantine to the next level, making sure that infection control was not dissimilar to hospital-grade standard, then we would not actually be in this situation. It is as simple as that. Now, I am hoping that with the millions of dollars in reports that I have got here on my desk, as well as all the time and effort it has actually taken to write these reports and as well as all the recommendations that are laid out in these reports, the government actually implements them. If not, I hope that they go to an even greater standard by learning from their past mistakes, causing a lockdown when they did not need to do so, when they actually had everyone isolated that they needed to. So I thank the 3400 people who are isolating at the moment, and I wish all of the people who are unwell with COVID in our community well, because at the end of the day if we actually had hotel quarantine under control, there would not be these other people infected. If they had it under control, the community would not actually have to be isolating, because it would actually be contained in the quarantine hotel. But seeing that there is a break in infection control and we are allowing it out into the community, I would hope that the government trusts all the inquiries that have taken place so far, and their recommendations, and does the right thing and makes sure that it does not escape again. Do not blame the virus. It is not smarter. It is not going through at lightning speed. We can contain this. Hospitals do this all the time. Infection control— (Time expired) STATEMENTS ON REPORTS, PAPERS AND PETITIONS 514 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

AUDITOR-GENERAL Grants to the Migrant Workers Centre Mr O’DONOHUE (Eastern Victoria) (17:35): I wish to make a statement on the Victorian Auditor-General’s report Grants to the Migrant Workers Centre of February 2021 that was actually tabled in this place today and in the other place yesterday. I am alarmed but perhaps not surprised that this report has uncovered Labor’s recycling scheme: giving money to Trades Hall Council from the taxpayer and then that money being used for political purposes to campaign for Labor. Of course this is a shocking misuse of taxpayers money, but I am not surprised, because it comes on the back of the red shirts rorts affair where the Labor Party used $388 000 of taxpayers money to campaign for Labor Party political gain. We then had Steve Herbert, the then Minister for Corrections, using his chauffeur- driven, taxpayer-funded car to drive around his dogs. We had former Speaker Telmo Languiller and his deputy, Don Nardella, rorting their second home allowances. was forced to repay $60 000 in incorrectly claimed parliamentary allowances. Then of course there was the scandal associated not with him personally but with his office, Mr Eideh’s office, which was at the centre of the alleged rorting of printing allowances to fund Labor Party branch stacking. Of course Mr McGhie is a lucky man to be the member for Melton because Mr Mammarella was forced to resign for family reasons as the Labor candidate for Melton following the release of that report. Of course we have ongoing investigations into Labor Party rorts, branch stacking. There are even revelations in the Age today about high-level meetings in ministerial offices presumably with government staff during the day involving multiple ministers talking about the right faction taking over the left faction and the left faction taking over the right—we are going to stack out here and stack out there—rather than being focused on delivering services for the people of Victoria. This report from the Auditor-General—and I congratulate the Auditor-General for his preparedness to speak publicly about the need for more resources for his office to discharge the important function that he has—is just the latest example in a long line of examples of Labor misuse of taxpayers money, and it is simply not good enough. LEGAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES COMMITTEE Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s COVID‐19 Contact Tracing System and Testing Regime Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:38): I want to make a few comments on the inquiry that I was involved in, and that is the inquiry into the Victorian government’s COVID-19 contact- tracing system and testing regime that this house moved for and supported. We undertook that very important inquiry in around six weeks, a phenomenal job by all of those that were involved in it. We got such great evidence and submissions and heard from witnesses who really provided the committee with some extensive material and insights into the systems. What I want to draw the house’s attention to are some of the issues around the digitising of systems to speed up and expand capacity of contact tracing. As you all know, I have been speaking about the failures of contact tracing with the latest lockdown because an entire state was put into lockdown because they could not contact trace properly. If you know where the cases are, then you just deal with that; you do not lock an entire state down. The Victorian government provided quite a bit of information, and I will have more to say about it— I do not have enough time today. They did talk about the benefits of digital improvements to PHESS— PHESS is the public health event surveillance system—and the introduction of digital customer relationship management through Salesforce. Now of course Salesforce was the software that was offered to the government back in March which they failed to take up, and then it was put into place well into the second wave when we were all in lockdown for that extensive period, for months and months and months. It came into being on 28 August when the government finally took that particular platform up. STATEMENTS ON REPORTS, PAPERS AND PETITIONS Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 515

Now, I will just quote this:

The … Government told the Committee that acceleration of contact tracing can occur because the steps are automated: This acceleration is afforded by automation of almost all steps from the moment a positive case is notified, including case allocation, case alert, contact notification, isolation/quarantine messaging etc. The report goes on to say that the results—

… are automatically sent to Salesforce’s technology which automatically starts the contact tracing process … Close contacts are notified and given advice about testing and isolation. Well, that could not be further from the truth about what has happened over the last two weeks in relation to this latest outbreak. There are hundreds—hundreds and hundreds and hundreds—of examples of failures from the Department of Health on contact tracing. My office has been inundated and I know my colleagues’ offices have been inundated, and I know Mrs McArthur wants to have something to say on that. In reports? Mrs McArthur: Yes. Ms CROZIER: In reports, right. So I am going to make my contribution extremely short so she can have a say on this, because it is important. It is important we say this now, because the government is not listening. The thousands of reports of failures and wrong information coming out, just as I have explained before—wrong addresses, wrong telephone numbers, ringing the wrong people days after they have been in contact with the tennis quarantine case. That close contact was all mixed up with someone else. It was an absolute debacle. If it is such a wicked, virulent and highly transmissible virus— Mr Finn: So fast. Ms CROZIER: So fast—this spread would have gone a lot faster. That was quarantined relatively quickly, I am pleased to say, but there are so many issues. I am going to end it there because I know Mrs McArthur wants to say something very quickly on this issue too. The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Melhem): Mrs McArthur, under the interim standing orders you do have 5 minutes, because you are starting before the finish time. PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND ESTIMATES COMMITTEE Inquiry into the Victorian Government’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:42): Thank you, Acting President, and thank you, Ms Crozier, for your indulgence as well. I rise to speak to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee’s interim report on the inquiry into the Victorian government’s response to the COVID- 19 pandemic, and the excellent minority report attached to it by Legislative Assembly members Richard Riordan, Danny O’Brien and —and our own , who I want to wish happy birthday to today, by the way. As the report notes:

The Victorian Government’s contact tracing efforts were hampered by limited information technology capability and the use of paper-based systems at the outset of the second wave. Well, where I disagree is the next part, which claims:

These have improved following digital and automation upgrades and the establishment in mid-August 2020 of regional response testing teams. I find this hard to believe, given my own personal experience. I speak from personal experience because my son and daughter-in-law and their eight-month-old baby came out from England and experienced hotel quarantine in New South Wales, in Sydney. That was a seamless operation in New ADJOURNMENT 516 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

South Wales, no issues at all. Unfortunately they did leave the hotel and got caught up in the Northern Beaches issue. Eventually they came back to Victoria and were told by New South Wales Health that my daughter-in-law had been in a hotspot so they would need to isolate, so they did isolate in our house, because they were from England and did not have anywhere else to go. Now, the interesting thing is that the then Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) apparently found it impossible to deal with their isolated clients who have an international mobile number—I do not know how they possibly communicate with people in hotel quarantine if they cannot deal with an international mobile number—so they had to use my mobile number. But they were in isolation. We were in isolation with them, so that seemed extraordinary as well. Now, every day they were contacted. Every day they had incorrect information. They had the incorrect dates of testing, the incorrect addresses, incorrect names—they could not spell the names properly— nothing was right. Every day a different contact tracer would contact us and the information was always wrong. You just wonder how they could possibly say that there have been digital and automation upgrades. There was nothing digital or automated about the experience that my family endured, and it was an extremely stressful situation, especially if you have got an eight-month-old baby and you have already been in two weeks of hotel quarantine and you are in two weeks of isolation as well. To be in a situation where DHHS every day were suggesting something other than the accurate information was quite extraordinary, and it is no wonder that cases have got out of hotel quarantine. It is no wonder that they cannot manage them in the community, because clearly their contact-tracing system is just some sort of manual thing where a contact tracer is told to make a phone call, a different person every day, and nobody seems to enter the information in a database—if they have got such a thing. At one stage they rang to speak to George. Well, George happens to be an eight-month-old baby. I wondered how they would go about dealing with conversations with eight-month-old babies. I did suggest that that was farcical as well. So the minority report’s conclusion is most telling. This is what should happen: only a royal commission can unequivocally scrutinise the Victorian government’s response to COVID-19, learn the crucial lessons from the catastrophic failures, ensure the fatal flaws are never repeated and provide for Victorians the truth they truly deserve. Adjournment Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business) (17:47): I move:

That the house do now adjourn. KATUNGA CRICKET CLUB Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:47): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Community Sport and seeks a funding commitment to improve infrastructure at the Katunga Cricket Club. The action that I seek from the minister is to ensure a funding commitment of $150 000 is included in the state budget to fund the construction of a new practice cricket net for the Katunga Cricket Club at the Katunga Recreation Reserve. The Katunga Cricket Club is based at the Katunga Recreation Reserve and shares co-tenancy of the ground with the local football and tennis clubs. The reserve is the hub of the Katunga community and is also utilised by the local CFA, the CWA and students from the nearby Katunga Primary School. The cricket club competes in the Murray Valley Cricket Association, where it fields senior teams in B grade and C grade as well as two under-12 teams. Based in a small country town, the club is very family orientated and welcoming, and currently has in its playing ranks several players who suffer from autism and one with cerebral palsy. The facilities at the cricket club were built in the 1980s and have received no improvements or upgrades since construction. In particular the club wishes to upgrade their practice cricket nets area. Their current nets are in such poor condition that only two of the three wickets are able to be used. The terrible state of their training facilities has seen the cricket club lose players to other nearby clubs who ADJOURNMENT Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 517 boast better facilities. Three years ago the club fielded seven teams across six competitions, including a team in the female competition, but now fields teams in just three competitions. As well as losing players, Katunga Cricket Club struggles to recruit new players to the club, thus affecting the club’s ability to field competitive teams each week. The cricket club has tried for many years to obtain funding to upgrade their cricket nets, and the project is now included as a high priority item in the Moira Shire Council’s Katunga Recreation Reserve and Community Centre Strategic and Master Plan. The construction of these new practice cricket nets has been costed at $150 000, and I call on the minister to support this grassroots local sporting club and fund this upgrade. The action that I seek from the minister is to ensure a funding commitment of $150 000 is included in the state budget to fund the construction of new practice cricket nets for the Katunga Cricket Club at the Katunga Recreation Reserve. MURRAY BASIN RAIL PROJECT Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (17:50): My matter is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. It is about the Murray Basin rail project, a topic about which I often speak here given its importance especially to the agriculture and transport industries in Northern Victoria. On this occasion I raise it amid what is unfortunately white-hot anger among many key stakeholders and other interested constituents of mine. These people have been exasperated for a long time, particularly since the stalling of the project in 2019. There was some better news in recent months with the announcements that the federal government will contribute around another $200 million and the Victorian government around another $48 million in order to restart parts of the project. However, annoyance and anger have re-emerged again this week. That is because it has become apparent, particularly through an article by Stock & Land’s Andrew Miller, that the government has approved the use for most or all of the new work of non- gauge-convertible sleepers. There is also growing concern that no standardising will occur on the Sea Lake and Manangatang lines. Clearly any decision not to use gauge-convertible sleepers will generally compromise standardisation not just now but also in the future as well as this would necessitate a costly double handling exercise entailing the removal and replacement of all non-gauge-convertible sleepers. For many people with an interest in the Murray Basin rail project these developments are puzzling and demoralising. Worse still, for some of them this will potentially scuttle further involvement for them in this project or indeed other projects dependent upon it. Among these people are many very serious investors in agriculture and transport. They include the proponents of the critical Ouyen intermodal project, an initiative which would play a vital role in shifting to rail about half or two-thirds of approximately 80 per cent of the current volume of intermodal freight that is transported by road. This project would generate multiple economic and social benefits, including creating around 90 full-time jobs. In light of all this, the action I seek is clarification of why, as the already very troubled work on the Murray Basin rail project resumes, gauge-convertible sleepers are not being used. I seek that clarity, especially given that the decision will make the absolutely critical objective of track standardisation, including around Sea Lake and Manangatang, much more elusive not just in the immediate term but also well into the future of these projects. NORTHERN METROPOLITAN REGION SCHOOLS Ms WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (17:53): My adjournment matter is directed to the Honourable , Deputy Premier and Minister for Education. Earlier this year I had the honour of joining the Premier, the Minister for Education and my fellow member for Northern Metropolitan Region at the opening of the brand new Docklands Primary School. This new three- storey vertical school will cater for 525 students plus have an onsite early learning centre to allow local families to avoid the dreaded double drop-off, reducing the morning burden. It really is a wonderful place to learn, with brand new classrooms, a library, music and arts rooms, a competition-grade indoor ADJOURNMENT 518 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 court for basketball and netball, as well as plenty of outdoor learning terraces. This school is part of this Labor government’s school building boom, with record investments into schools to make Victoria the Education State, ensuring that every child has access to a great quality education as Victoria continues to grow. I would like to acknowledge the advocacy of the previous member for Melbourne, Jennifer Kanis, in making this school a reality and ensuring families in inner-city Melbourne can send their children to a school close to home. This school will provide so much for the local community in Docklands and in West Melbourne. The families of North Melbourne will soon be able to send their children to school at the North Melbourne Hill primary school, opening in 2023 after it receives $36 million in funding from the 2020–21 state budget. This school will provide fantastic new amenities for the local community, with construction to commence later this year. Only Labor governments can deliver this kind of investment for Melbourne’s inner suburbs. In addition, three more schools in my electorate welcomed students for the first time this year, and I would like to acknowledge those schools and thank them for their continued great works. This Labor government is making sure every child across Melbourne’s north has access to great schools close to home and a fantastic education, no matter their postcode. The action that I seek from the Minister for Education is for him to provide me with an update of how many new schools will be built and how many existing schools will receive major upgrades in 2021 within the Northern Metropolitan Region. BOX HILL TRANSIT INTERCHANGE Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (17:55): My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure in the other place. It is regarding the dreadful jobs crisis that is afflicting Victoria’s inner eastern suburbs. I have had so many conversations recently with constituents of mine across suburbs like Box Hill and Mont Albert and Surrey Hills and Canterbury and Mount Waverley and Glen Waverley, and oftentimes I hear back that whilst we know that—as a result of the excellent interventions of the federal Liberal-led government—the rest of the country is snapping back, if you like, when it comes to our economic performance across a whole range of indicators, on any economic indicator Victoria is lagging badly behind. We are in the midst of a jobs crisis, and one of the projects that I feel would be a good project to invest in now for this government—we have just heard about investment from Ms Watt—is the Box Hill interchange. Before the 2014 election the Labor Party said, ‘Only Labor will find a solution for the Box Hill interchange’. I would urge the Labor Party, seven years on, to seek to find that solution sometime soon. The Box Hill interchange is such an important point of connection across my whole electorate. People come from far and wide to the Box Hill interchange. It takes people to job centres like Doncaster Shoppingtown and Forest Hill Chase. However, it is in a dilapidated state. I do not need to convince those opposite about this, because they said this before the 2014 state election, which was— sadly—years and years ago. In some areas of public policy, as we just heard, the government has a strong record of investment. It is not all about investment. We were just hearing from Ms Watt about education, and it is strange that members of the government continue to spruik the Education State. Education, in my view as a schoolteacher, is overwhelmingly about one thing, and that is student learning. When it comes to student learning outcomes, we learned from the Productivity Commission this month that Victorian kids last year—before the months-long lockdown that had a devastating impact on student learning according to the World Health Organization, no lesser authority—received their worst ever learning outcomes after nearly 20 years of Labor Party mismanagement of our education system. So it is not all about investment. I get the talking points from Minister Merlino’s office on Labor investment, I understand that, but whatever the Labor Party is doing in education is not working. Our kids received their worst ever learning outcomes last year. In this case I would dearly like to see some Labor investment in our public transport infrastructure in my electorate. ADJOURNMENT Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 519

POLICE CONDUCT Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (17:58): My adjournment item is for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. At a human rights rally outside Parliament House on Cup Day last year in November, the police used a tactic called kettling. They did this by surrounding around 400 people, including me and a number of bystanders, linking arms and squashing us all together, shoulder to shoulder, in a number of tight groups that could be likened to mosh pits. We were forced to stand tightly together for between 3½ and 4 hours. After 2 to 3 hours police filled buckets with water, dipped cups in the water—using hands they had used for handling people—and handed cups out to the protesters. Could the minister please provide details about what consultation has occurred between the Department of Health and Human Services and Victoria Police about these matters before or since this event on 3 November? CRIME PREVENTION Ms VAGHELA (Western Metropolitan) (17:59): My adjournment matter is directed to the honourable , Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice and Minister for Victim Support. This adjournment matter relates to the portfolio responsibilities of crime prevention. Applications are now open for grants under the building safer communities program to support innovative approaches to address the causes of offending, crime and community safety. The grants aim to tackle the root causes of crime and will be available for communities to invest in innovative crime prevention projects. Western Metropolitan Region is one of the fastest growing regions in Victoria. Many not-for-profit community organisations and specialist organisations in the area are working towards delivering innovative community safety and crime prevention initiatives. These organisations will receive significant aid through this program. There are two streams available for the grants. Stream 1, creating safer places, is open for council urban design projects to apply an inclusive environmental design approach to deter crime, increase safety and activate public places. Stream 2, the Crime Prevention Innovation Fund, is open for councils and not-for-profit organisations to test new partnership approaches to address crime and community safety issues, build capability within the community and contribute to the crime prevention evidence base. The grants will close at 4.00 pm on 15 March 2021. I believe that this is a great opportunity to actualise innovative new programs and initiatives to address the root causes of crime in the community. The action I seek from the minister is that she provide me with an update about what the department is doing to promote this important initiative to the councils and community groups in the Western Metropolitan Region. VICTORIAN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT TRAINING CENTRE Mr ONDARCHIE (Northern Metropolitan) (18:01): My adjournment matter tonight is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and it concerns the Victorian Emergency Management Training Centre (VEMTC) in Craigieburn, a facility that was built to train particularly firefighters and others to deal with our emergencies across Victoria. I draw the minister’s attention to Hansard of 20 June 2019 during the committee stage of the Firefighters’ Presumptive Rights Compensation and Fire Services Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2019 when then minister Mr Jennings responded to Dr Cumming and me regarding the training centre in Craigieburn and certainly indicated through that debate that volunteer brigades would soon be able to use that training centre. Dr Cumming nods away in agreement with what was said. The matter I then have for the minister is that it has been such a long time now that the volunteer brigades have not been able to use the VEMTC as a training centre. So the action I seek, following Mr Jennings’s confirmation to us on 20 June 2019 that the volunteers would be allowed to use the VEMTC in Craigieburn, is that she advise me when the volunteer brigades will be able to start to use it as a training centre. ADJOURNMENT 520 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

GAMBLING HARM Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (18:02): My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation. The action I seek is that she support Brimbank’s call as part of their 19-point action plan for COVID response and recovery. Victoria has seen a jump in losses as pokie machines return to relative normality, with Brimbank recording a spike of almost double the entire Victorian increase—a leap of $2.7 million in losses compared to December 2019, equalling 23 per cent worse losses than in December 2020. The increases were hugely concerning and showed how important it is to reduce pokie machine operation hours. Communities like Brimbank cannot sustain these kinds of losses. This is a stressed community being exploited by the gaming industry at a time when local communities, families and businesses are trying to recover from months of lockdown. In November, when there were restrictions of pokie machine operating hours and other limits, we saw a reduction in daily losses. That was a real-time, real-life experiment showing that gaming harm is reduced when operating hours are shortened. Victoria has the worst pokie opening hours in Australia at 20 hours a day. It is nothing to be proud of. In September 2020, 13 councils wrote an open letter to the Premier, Daniel Andrews, requesting, if not begging, for pokie machines to be closed between— very reasonably—midnight and 10.00 am when restrictions eased. This is a sensible and relatively easy reform that would have a huge impact on gaming harm. November’s data shows us that reducing hours does work in lowering losses and reducing gambling harm. The amount lost in Brimbank—and that is just one example—says so much about how dangerous these machines are and how much damage they do to our communities: almost $15 million was lost in Brimbank in just one month alone. COVID-19 Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (18:05): I wish to raise a matter for the attention of the Minister for Health. It concerns an experience that I had last week, that I may have conveyed to the house a couple of times, about being stuck at home for six solid days after having been tested for the Wuhan virus and being promised that I would receive either a text or a phone call. But that of course did not arrive, and then I ended up ringing the coronavirus hotline some six days later, when they finally told me that I was negative. I was feeling particularly negative at that point, it has to be said. A letter from a constituent has brought back all those memories. She said to me:

I thought you would love to know about the ‘great work’ of our ‘gold class tracing system’ I received a call from DHHS (missed two of their calls and answered on the third) they then said they were calling to asses ‘how I’m feeling’ and to potentially ‘let me out of quarantine’ after being a close contact to someone who has tested positive…. I had never been told I was a close contact to anyone, never been contacted by DHHS and have not been quarantining.. When I told her all of this she put me on hold for 3 minutes and said she’s not sure how to deal with this and she will call me back to discuss further but in the mean time I need to stay home … that was 4.5 hours ago and I haven’t received a call back. My business was forced closed for the last 5 days and I have just rescheduled everything for tomorrow onwards. Great contact tracing system we have. Isn’t it just! That last line is dripping with sarcasm. This is a system that is quite frankly stuffed. As I said, I experienced it last week. I read this email that I received yesterday. I have received numerous emails. I have had numerous personal contacts from people, either on the phone or in person, who have told me about the horror experiences they have had with this contact-tracing system and indeed with the testing system, and it is really getting way beyond a joke. I mean, Melbourne Airport, as you know, is in my electorate, as indeed is Sunbury, and we have had breakouts in both of those places in relatively recent times. You would have thought that given what has happened in New South Wales, where they do have it under control, where they are doing a particularly good job—and I was in Sydney before Christmas and I saw firsthand just what a good job they were doing—this government would understand that ADJOURNMENT Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 521 they need to do the same thing. So what I am asking the minister to do is to pick up the phone to speak to Gladys Berejiklian to ask her exactly what he needs to do to fix this bloody mess. PRISON STAFF SAFETY Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (18:08): My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Corrections and concerns a number of assaults in Victorian prisons against staff, specifically at the maximum-security facility at Barwon Prison. You have no doubt heard me say repeatedly that assaults against emergency services workers need to be addressed and that they are the lowest of the low. Well, once the criminal is locked up, it seems that the assaults do not stop there. I have heard from a reliable source that there have been five assaults at the Banksia unit at Barwon Prison alone in the past six weeks. This is a disgraceful number. On one of these occasions the prison officer was taken to hospital. On other occasions prison officers have been left concussed, with black eyes. Many are unable to return to work for long periods of time. It makes me wonder what is being done to stop this from happening or discourage inmates from assaulting prison workers. While six assaults may sound like a small number, this is just at one unit. I am also aware of assaults happening outside this unit as well. Each of these numbers have families that expect them to come home safely, and when a partner of a prison worker says, ‘I’ve been waiting for this phone call from the prison for a while’, you know there is a systemic problem that needs to be fixed urgently. It should go without saying that every person who goes to work deserves a safe working environment. I have been told that one prisoner in particular has a significant history of assaulting at least six staff at different locations across Victoria over the past two years, yet this inmate was moved from a high- security management unit to a lower security unit out of convenience. Obviously this exposed staff to unnecessary risk. It has been reported to me that security procedures to mitigate these risks have degraded over the last few years. Separate to this and to demonstrate that this issue is widespread, I have also heard that just last week a female prison officer was knocked unconscious at Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre. Therefore the action that I seek is for the number of assaults on staff at Barwon Prison’s Banksia unit in the past 12 months to be made public and for the state government to detail how they plan to reduce the number of assaults at Barwon and other Victorian prisons. LATROBE SPECIAL DEVELOPMENTAL SCHOOL Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:10): My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Education, the Honourable James Merlino in the other place, and it is quite a serious matter. It relates to a Worklogic investigation of alleged incidents at the Latrobe Special Developmental School and a broader range of issues regarding accusations of unacceptable culture at the school. Now, I raised this in a previous adjournment, on 13 October last year, and it is because of this that the government agreed to—working with a group of parents who are called the Voices for Special Needs—undertake an independent review of alleged concerning practices over a period of time. Subsequently, in addition to the proposed Worklogic investigation, I am aware that there are other commissions and authorities reviewing evidence from Voices for Special Needs. Indeed the Commission for Children and Young People is making a separate investigation, and VFSN is providing a volume of case studies outlining alleged unacceptable practices at the school. Having met with and listened to parents and read pages of shocking testimony, I do not bring this lightly to this house. It is the duty of government to get to the bottom of these claims—some of which are about practices that are allegedly still occurring—put a stop to these practices and protect children with multiple and profound disabilities. My adjournment seeks the minister’s earnest assistance. Courageous whistleblowers who have important information to provide and bring forward are extremely afraid that through this Worklogic investigation they will lose their anonymity and be exposed or vilified or lose their employment. At the moment they feel that if they come forward and detail evidence that will in the long run lead to a change in practices and hence support the physical wellbeing and mental wellbeing of children with special needs, they face a significant backlash. ADJOURNMENT 522 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

Whilst parents are seeking a time frame for this current investigation and to understand when that will be finished and the report shared with the parents from Voices for Special Needs, the action I seek is for the minister to outline what protection he will provide so that staff who have important stories to reveal to Worklogic will retain their anonymity. To not provide these protections will not allow the full investigation to occur and the full outcome to be reached. I do this on behalf of the Voices for Special Needs. WESTERN PORT BAY Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (18:13): The matter I would like to raise in the adjournment debate tonight is addressed to the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. I would like to ask why there is not a strategic management plan for Western Port Bay. As it stands today, under the umbrella of Victoria’s Marine and Coastal Act 2018 we have the Western Port Ramsar Site Management Plan of 2017, the Marine and Coastal Policy of 2020 and Victoria’s Marine and Coastal Reforms: Final Transition Plan of 2017. In times gone by we could have probably kept muddling along with this collection of reports and plans administered by various government agencies, such as those listed, but the driver now is climate change. If we are to manage this situation, we need to develop a business plan, a holistic plan, that takes into account the environmental values and the social and economic needs of this region. The Western Port Ramsar management plan is a wonderful plan for part of Western Port Bay, but what about the rest of it? There is a model for this approach: the Port Phillip Bay Environmental Management Plan 2017–2027. This plan offers a vast array of social, economic and environmental values to visitors and those who live and work around the bay and its surrounding catchment. I ask that the government consider a similar strategic management plan for the entire Western Port Bay and not just the Ramsar wetland and consider the site in its entirety, not just one part of it. The respect for and protection of Western Port’s long-term environmental future need to be addressed, not only the impacts of climate change on water levels but protection of the seabeds and coastal areas. If the Victorian government believes, as stated, that there will be a 0.8-metre sea level rise by the year 2100, what impacts will this have on Western Port? We do not know, as there is no strategic plan on how to address these impending issues. I ask that the minister initiate a plan for the entire Western Port Bay site to take into account the wide range of uses in the region and long-term climate effects, which do and will continue to threaten the site. SURF COAST SHIRE COUNCIL CODE OF CONDUCT Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:16): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Local Government, and it concerns the Surf Coast Shire Council’s new councillor code of conduct adopted on Tuesday. The Local Government Act 2020 requires, at section 139, each council to develop a councillor code of conduct. We can all see why that might be a good idea. What concerns me, however, is that it might also become an instrument of control which unduly restricts councillors from discharging their duties as they see fit. Councillor codes of conduct will be developed by officers and voted on by a majority. It is hardly impossible to imagine therefore circumstances where those councillors in the majority and perhaps even the officers who depend on them for employment could use the codes to enforce conformity and suppress opposition. I am not saying this is inevitable, but it does concern me. I have looked through to the Surf Coast shire document and have found, for example, at pages 9 and 10 that being fit to conscientiously perform the role of a councillor will require councillors not to engage in behaviours including having a negative attitude, undermining the reputation of fellow councillors or the council or resisting and discouraging innovation and new ideas. What if they are ADJOURNMENT Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 523 bad ideas? Can they still not be resisted? Councillor Heather Wellington of Surf Coast shire clearly agrees. She is quoted today as saying:

I am most concerned that the code suggests we should never criticise the council organisation in public, we cannot speak to the media without notifying fellow councillors and the CEO—that is unworkable and oppressive … In an ideal world of course these restrictions would not be abused to gag anyone, but in an ideal world we would not need a code of conduct. The action I seek from the minister is for him to take the time to look again, with the real world and his own extensive experience of local councils and councillors and with their personalities and preoccupations in mind, and to produce some guidance which makes clear that councillors cannot have these codes of conduct used against them by self-interested majorities who simply want to suppress criticism from elected colleagues. MURRAY BASIN RAIL PROJECT Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (18:18): My adjournment matter is for the minister for transport. Murray Basin rail plan, here we are again. Let us recap. The western Victoria rail lines that are now only used for freight were to be upgraded and fully converted to standard gauge. This would lower freight costs, remove trucks from the roads, provide an economic boost to the north and the west of the state and reignite mineral sands and other mining industries, but due to mismanagement the government ran out of money with the project only part done—not even half done. You left many tracks in worse condition than when you began. This is an apt metaphor for your government, especially in regard to your government and the regions. After extracting another $200 million from the federal government to cover your cost blowouts, the Sea Lake and Manangatang lines were to be just repaired as old broad-gauge lines with the standardisation pushed into the future. That is the recap. News has just broken that on the Korong Vale to Sea Lake track you are replacing rotted-out red gum sleepers with fixed broad-gauge concrete sleepers. This either is closing the door to future standardisation or means that these sleepers will need to be replaced again if and when the line is standardised. At least 22 kilometres of track south of Sea Lake will be fully refurbished with broad- gauge concrete sleepers, as well as many more sleepers along the line. It would have been simple to use dual-gauge or timber sleepers that allow the tracks to be converted in the future—very sensible. One might describe it as a competent decision, but apparently competent decisions are not the kinds of decisions that your department makes. We do not know if this is a deliberate decision to strand the railway lines in order to justify future abandonment of them or if this is just sheer, unadulterated incompetence. Sadly this is the quality of decision-making regional Victoria has come to expect from this Melbourne Labor government. This looks like an attempt to ruin what is left of our rail system before we can get our Rexit in place, create our own state and take charge of our own future. The fix is easy. The installation of broad-gauge concrete sleepers should be stopped immediately, and they should be replaced with convertible or dual-gauge sleepers. The broad-gauge sleepers will not be wasted; you can use them on other tracks in the remaining broad-gauge network. The government went well over budget and wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money, asked for more cash and is currently pouring their bailout money down the hole. The people responsible for this monumental screw-up should be identified and fired immediately, and if the minister cannot see the way to fix this, she should resign. I call on the minister, I demand of the minister, that the installation of broad-gauge concrete sleepers on the Sea Lake line stop immediately, that the sleepers be replaced with dual-gauge concrete sleepers before the work continues and that the minister reports back to the Parliament at the earliest opportunity that the absolute failure of competence that allowed this situation to arise has been removed from the department, root and bough. ADJOURNMENT 524 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

COVID-19 VACCINATION Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:22): My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Health. I was very pleased, as I think every single Australian was, with the announcement this week of the Pfizer vaccine arriving in Australia. That is a huge— Mr Finn: Bring it on! Ms CROZIER: It is good news, Mr Finn. I know that you are a supporter of the vaccine and, like all of us, are looking forward to receiving your vaccine. This is important, and I know the federal government has been out talking about the Pfizer rollout in towns and aged-care facilities across the country. The hubs in Victoria are at Monash Medical Centre, Sunshine, Austin Health and University Hospital Geelong. That is all very good news for that vaccine. The AstraZeneca vaccine got TGA approval just a couple of days ago as well. So this is well on the way to becoming a huge arsenal in the efforts to combat this COVID virus and this pandemic, whilst we have had monumental failures in Victoria. As everyone says, it will not be the silver bullet, but it will certainly help prevent the severity of the disease from increasing and help prevent the deaths of people who contract the disease. So that is all very good, and we do not want to go through what we went through in Victoria again, may I say—never again. As has been highlighted by the federal government’s plans, they are talking about the vaccines starting to be given from next Monday, so that is just four days away. Quarantine and border workers are the first priority, followed by aged-care and disability-care workers. The first 142 000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, as I said, arrived in the country earlier this week. Now, they are not mandated—vaccines are not mandated in this country—but I for one am very supportive of the actions that governments of all persuasions are taking in relation to this rollout. The action I am seeking from the Victorian Minister for Health is to provide to the Victorian community as a matter of priority the framework and implementation process on how the Victorian community will be vaccinated, and in particular the program and time lines for public aged-care facilities and the residents within them. It is very important that we get that time line, the certainty around how the government plans to roll this out and the implementation program that the Victorian government has responsibility for. The federal government has responsibility for providing the vaccines to the states and territories, but it is the state government who is responsible for that implementation. I would really like to know that framework and that program, particularly around public aged-care facilities. MONTMORENCY TRAIN STATION Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (18:25): My matter for the adjournment tonight is for the attention of the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. It is another doozy—in the city this time, not in the country, and I agree wholeheartedly with the comments of Mr Quilty earlier: what a disaster the Murray Basin rail is and what a disaster it continues to be. But I am interested in Montmorency railway station and the changes that are proposed along that line, the essence of which we support. But having said that, the government has botched this again. I am going to quote from a document provided to me by Mr Karl Plunkett and others who I have met with and my colleagues have met with—Mr Atkinson and Dr Bach have been involved in communication with the groups along that corridor:

More than 1100 residents of Montmorency have signed a petition calling for genuine consultation on the Montmorency station. To achieve a Government 2018 election promise, 3km of track is to be duplicated in Montmorency. The flow on is that the existing station is to be demolished and relocated 100mts down the track towards Greensborough, No level crossings between Greensborough and Hurstbridge are to be removed. Another passing and holding loop is to be built further up the track. ADJOURNMENT Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 525

LXRP did not tell residents that the station is to be demolished in any of its “consultations”— this is another lie, another doozy; this is one of the most untrustworthy and sneaky bodies in the land—

prior to the May 2020 Consultation Report to the Minister for Planning or before October 2020. Before October 2020 the literature distributed by the LXRP referred to “an Upgrade— an upgrade—

of the Montmorency Station” LXRP has summarily dismissed any comment or submission from residents which do not agree with its engineering solution. They are of the opinion that the key stakeholders are other Government departments and service agencies. They are part of the construction process. The key stakeholders are the community who have their lives invested in the area and will live with the legacy. The community is seeking the best outcome for our village … says Mr Plunkett and his community group. They continue:

The public perception is that LXRP will railroad ahead with Government approval and that the Government is prepared to override common sense and common decency for the sake of expediency. Look, the truth of the matter is that these rail upgrades, level crossing removals, new stations—the whole works—are very significant matters. They apply very directly to transport infrastructure, obviously, but they have a huge effect on the surrounding planning and amenity of areas, and they need to be got right. These are once-in-100-year outings and they need to be got right through proper consultation. So what I ask the Minister for Transport Infrastructure to do is to consult with Mr Plunkett and his group—to meet with them and to consult properly, to override the Level Crossing Removal Project to get a better outcome. That is what everyone wants. RESPONSES Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business) (18:28): I have adjournment matters from 16 members to various ministers. Fourteen of them appear to be quite clearly in order. I think there is probably some question about Ms Crozier’s because she is asking about a federal government program, but we will let Minister Foley perhaps provide some information in his response to Ms Crozier about the federal government’s program and the role that the state is playing in support of that program. Mr Quilty, who had so much in the way of sharp criticism, did not manage to land his adjournment matter in the direction of the minister responsible for the project, so I would suggest Mr Quilty may wish to raise his adjournment matter for the attention of the Minister for Transport Infrastructure so that he perhaps gets a response. Mr Davis interjected. Ms PULFORD: Mr Quilty spent his full 3 minutes just trash-talking everyone, but he could not ask the right minister the question. I know it has been a bit of a theme of late, so I am just trying to be helpful. There are nine responses to adjournment matters as well. Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (18:29): President, I would just like to draw your attention to standing order 4.13. As you know, standing orders require adjournment matters to receive a response within 30 days. I also cite standing order 4.14, which requires the minister to explain why adjournment responses have not been supplied within that time frame. In that context I would like to refer you to each of the following adjournment matters of mine. I am afraid to say there around five of them. On 17 June last year I raised a matter for the Attorney-General about child protection. This is now around 245 days overdue. On 14 October 2020 I raised a matter for the Minister for Health regarding tobacco licensing. This is now 126 days overdue. On 28 October 2020 I raised a matter for the Minister for Health about mental health services. This adjournment matter is now around 112 days overdue. On 29 October 2020 I raised a matter for the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence concerning ADJOURNMENT 526 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021 matters pertaining to family violence. This adjournment matter is now around 111 days overdue. On 25 November 2020 I raised a matter for the Minister for Corrections about post-traumatic stress injury dogs, and this matter is around 84 days overdue. With all due respect, these are important matters that I have raised on behalf of my constituents and organisations. Not having the answers to these questions impedes our work within this Parliament. I therefore ask you, President, to please expedite these answers coming to my office. Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business) (18:30): I thank Mr Grimley for raising these matters. I can give you, I hope, some satisfaction on one of the five, because those that have just been provided as written responses do include your adjournment matter from 25 November. That is, I guess, a 20 per cent mark on your challenge. As for the other four, I recognise that some of them have been some time coming, and I will undertake to follow up on where they are up to you so that you can have a response at the earliest opportunity. The PRESIDENT: I would like to remind members that tomorrow’s starting time is 9.15. The house stands adjourned. House adjourned 6.31 pm. WRITTEN ADJOURNMENT RESPONSES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 527

Written adjournment responses Responses have been incorporated in the form supplied by the departments on behalf of the appropriate ministers. Thursday, 18 February 2021

HOUSING AFFORDABILITY In reply to Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (29 October 2020) Mr WYNNE (Richmond—Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing):

On 1 June 2018, the Planning and Environment Act 1987 was amended to include an objective to ‘facilitate the provision of affordable housing in Victoria’. A Governor in Council Order forms part of the definition of ‘affordable housing’ under the Act, which differentiates it from social housing. Currently, one of the mechanisms used to facilitate affordable housing is a voluntary agreement between a responsible authority, which is usually a council, and a landowner to include affordable housing as part of a new development. The responsible authority is able to take action to enforce the provisions of agreements entered into under section 173 of the Act. In September 2019, I appointed a Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on Planning Mechanisms for Affordable Housing to provide independent advice on how the Victorian Planning System could be used to facilitate the provision of affordable housing. The committee consulted with key stakeholders, which included the development and property industries, as well as local and state government departments, before delivering advice on the matter. The MAC proposed a reconsideration of the current voluntary framework for affordable housing and a move towards a more consistent and uniform approach to support affordable housing development. Recent events have necessitated that the government focus efforts on supporting Victoria’s recovery through the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In the meantime, I have requested that work continue to investigate planning options for a more universal and uniform approach to affordable housing that could be considered at an appropriate time. V/LINE In reply to Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (29 October 2020) Mr CARROLL (Niddrie—Minister for Public Transport, Minister for Roads and Road Safety):

The government is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and we rightly expect the same from our public transport operators. The evidence heard at IBAC was extremely concerning and that type of conduct will not be tolerated under any circumstances. I supported V/Line’s decision to terminate the contracts of both Mr Pinder and Transclean. It would be inappropriate to make any further comment regarding an ongoing investigation. SERIOUS SEX OFFENDERS In reply to Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (12 November 2020) Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support):

Thank you for your question, it is important to note that a contravention of a condition of a Supervision Order under the Serious Offenders Act 2018 is a criminal offence. A contravention offence is an indictable offence that can incur a maximum sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment. The contravention of Mr Empey’s order by removing his electronic monitoring device and leaving Victoria was prosecuted in the Supreme Court. On Monday 16 September 2019, the Honourable Justice Champion sentenced Mr Empey to: • four months’ imprisonment on the charge of tampering with, damaging and destroying the electronic monitoring bracelet; and WRITTEN ADJOURNMENT RESPONSES 528 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

• eight months’ imprisonment for the charge of leaving Victoria without the permission of the Post Sentence Authority. His Honour ordered that two months of the sentence on the first charge be served concurrently with the second charge, making a total effective sentence of 10 months’ imprisonment. Along with the above charges, Mr Empey was also charged with criminal damage which was listed in the Magistrates’ Court. Following pleas of guilty to the two charges of breaching his order in the Supreme Court on 5 April 2019, these charges of criminal damage were withdrawn subsequently on 8 April 2019. Noting the Supreme Court imposed a term of imprisonment, there was no appeal regarding the sentence imposed by the Court. POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS INJURY ASSISTANCE DOGS In reply to Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (25 November 2020) Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support):

The Victorian Government agrees that prisoner engagement in caring for and training dogs can have a rehabilitative effect. As outlined in response to your Constituency Question of 4 August 2020, the Victorian Government is currently considering further opportunities to enhance programs focused on rehabilitation and reducing recidivism through the use of canines. Corrections Victoria has met with the Defence Community Dogs organisation and identified a preferred program site. However, the restrictions related to the COVID-19 emergency have impacted the ability to progress site visits. Both parties have agreed that this work will continue when it is safe to do so, with visits in prisons recommencing soon. Corrections Victoria also continues to partner with Greyhound Racing Victoria through the Prison Pet Partnership, which involves ex-racing dogs being trained by selected prisoners so that they are suitable for adopt ion. The program currently operates at Dhurringile and Tarrengower prisons. The prisoners participating in this program are learning valuable skills, which helps in their rehabilitation and reduces the risk of reoffending after they complete their sentence. The program not only supports prisoners but also helps give back to the local community. Beechworth Correctional Centre also partners with a local animal rescue program which helps rehabilitate prisoners while re-homing abandoned dogs. I thank the member for his advocacy on programs to improve rehabilitation both through the use of canines and more broadly. SHEPPARTON BYPASS In reply to Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (8 December 2020) Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop):

I thank the Member for Northern Victoria Region for her question. The Shepparton Bypass Project business case was completed by Major Road Projects Victoria at the end of 2020, as promised. The Victorian Government will discuss this project with the Commonwealth Government in the coming weeks. The Victorian Liberal Opposition had the opportunity to take up this project while in Government but failed to deliver a business case in their four years–and failed to deliver any election commitments that were deemed too complex for them. This Government doesn’t back down from tackling complex projects, but we know they need to be done right. We don’t back down from delivering on our commitments, but we know they need to be planned properly. The Shepparton community has been waiting for decades for this road because the project is complex–and Shepparton deserves a solution that addresses the needs of the community. WRITTEN ADJOURNMENT RESPONSES Thursday, 18 February 2021 Legislative Council 529

DAME PHYLLIS FROST CENTRE In reply to Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (8 December 2020) Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support):

Thank you for your interest in and support for program to support women with acquired brain injuries and other disabilities while they are in prison. A Health and Wellbeing Precinct was established in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (DPFC} as part of the Needs Based Precinct Model in 2018. Within this Precinct, Rosewood is a 48-bed accommodation unit for women with disabilities and complex needs who require support and supervision. An Occupational Therapist supports these women and is overseeing a pilot of a best practice model for supporting women with disabilities and complex needs. The best practice model includes another Occupational Therapist and a Behaviour Support Therapist. A review of the pilot will be conducted in the first half of 2021 and will make recommendations about the service and any lessons for the broader prison system. Future funding decisions will be informed by the outcome of this review. I note that you have also referred to Tarrengower Prison. Women who are eligible for the pilot are accommodated at DPFC. However, the pilot will also consider improved assessments for women at Tarrengower Prison where cognitive disability is suspected but undiagnosed. BANYULE BIODIVERSITY In reply to Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (2 February 2021) Mr LEANE (Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development, Minister for Veterans):

I thank the Member for Eastern Metropolitan Region for her acknowledgement of Banyule City Council’s Biodiversity Monitoring Program. The program seeks to increase the council’s understanding of local biodiversity health and to monitor changes over time to inform management and policy decisions. This is an important role that all councils play in creating liveable environments Victorians are proud to call home. As the Member has highlighted, I am advised that as part of its program, Banyule City Council encourages residents to utilise a mobile application named iNaturalist to capture their ‘sightings’ of flora and fauna. These sightings enable council to build its understanding of local plant and animal communities and inform its biodiversity preservation response. The iNaturalist application has been developed by a US-based organisation and is in use in several countries. I also thank the Member for her suggestion to share Banyule’s initiative with other councils. My department will provide Banyule City Council with an opportunity to share its great practices with the local government sector through the department’s monthly newsletter, Thinking Local. ELECTRIC VEHICLES In reply to Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (2 February 2021) Mr PALLAS (Werribee—Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Industrial Relations):

I thank the Member for Eastern Metropolitan Region for his interest in climate change and the transition to electric vehicles. The transport sector currently accounts for more than one-fifth of the State’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Andrews Government acknowledges decarbonising the transport sector is critical to meeting the net zero emissions target by 2050 and will require government intervention to promote Victoria’s transition to a low- carbon future. The Government also wants to ensure that all motorists contribute their fair share to the cost of funding Victorian roads and road-related infrastructure. Under the distance-based road-user charge for zero and low emissions vehicles (ZLEVs) registered in Victoria, ZLEV owners will continue to pay less in road-related taxes and charges than other drivers—around 40 to 50 per cent less than an average driver pays in fuel excise—recognising the environmental and health benefits of these vehicles. ZLEVs subject to distance-based charges will also continue to receive the $100 registration concession on their annual Victorian registration. WRITTEN ADJOURNMENT RESPONSES 530 Legislative Council Thursday, 18 February 2021

To further encourage take-up of ZLEVs and support Victoria’s transition to a low emissions future, the 5Government is investing in accelerating adoption and addressing perceived barriers to the take-up of ZLEVs. In the recent 2020–21 Budget we announced over $45 million of support for ZLEVs—over 50% more than the anticipated revenue from the charge. This includes rolling out a fast-charging network for motorists across major highways and key tourist destinations in Victoria through targeted infrastructure grants and introducing electric vehicle-ready provisions in new buildings from 2022 to prepare for mainstream uptake of electric vehicles. The budget also provided funding to develop a business case for procuring ZLEVs for the Victorian Government fleet. The business case will establish a strategy to accelerate the take-up of ZLEVs in the Government’s fleet. About one-quarter of the Victorian Government’s fleet comprises electric, plug-in hybrid-electric and conventional hybrid vehicles. The Standard Motor Vehicle Policy’s approved vehicle list preferences low- emission vehicles and includes all electric, plug-in hybrid-electric and conventional hybrid vehicles offered by suppliers participating in the Motor Vehicle State Purchase Contract (SPC) that meet the Government’s safety requirements. As the Motor Vehicle SPC is an open panel arrangement, new electric vehicle suppliers can apply to join the panel at any time. WILD HORSE CONTROL In reply to Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (3 February 2021) Ms D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park—Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Minister for Solar Homes):

The Victorian Government, through Parks Victoria, is implementing the strategies of the Strategic Action Plan: Protection of floodplain marshes in Barmah National Park and Barmah Forest Ramsar site, released in February 2020. The dry summer-autumn period of 2020, followed by the large natural flooding event from May 2020, have allowed good moira grass growth and seeding within the small area where it still remains; however, that is only four per cent of its original extent. This regenerating moira grass is now being grazed by feral horses and can only spread in the small areas where it is protected from grazing by exclusion fences. Parks Victoria will soon commence feral horse trapping and re-homing in the park, as the first step in horse removal, a critical component of the strategic action plan. Horses will be re-homed to approved re-homing properties across Victoria. The first trapping operation is planned to commence in March 2021.