PARLIAMENT OF VICTORIA
PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES
(HANSARD)
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
FIFTY-NINTH PARLIAMENT
FIRST SESSION
TUESDAY, 18 JUNE 2019
Internet: www.parliament.vic.gov.au/downloadhansard
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 and Minister for Education ...... The Hon. JA Merlino, MP
Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Industrial Relations ...... The Hon. TH Pallas, MP
Minister for Transport Infrastructure ...... The Hon. JM Allan, MP
Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice and Minister for Victim Support ...... 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 Mental Health, Minister for Equality and Minister for Creative Industries ...... The Hon. MP Foley, MP
Attorney-General and Minister for Workplace Safety ...... The Hon. J Hennessy, MP
Minister for Public Transport and Minister for Ports and Freight ...... The Hon. MM Horne, MP
Special Minister of State, Minister for Priority Precincts and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs ...... The Hon. GW Jennings, MLC
Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, and Minister for Suburban Development ...... The Hon. M Kairouz, MP
Minister for Health and Minister for Ambulance Services ...... The Hon. J Mikakos, MLC
Minister for Water and Minister for Police and Emergency Services .... The Hon. LM Neville, MP
Minister for Jobs, Innovation and Trade, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, and Minister for Racing ...... The Hon. MP Pakula, MP
Minister for Roads, Minister for Road Safety and the TAC, and Minister for Fishing and Boating ...... The Hon. JL Pulford, MLC
Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Veterans ...... The Hon. RD Scott, MP
Minister for Local Government and Minister for Small Business The Hon. A Somyurek, MLC
Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Resources The Hon. J Symes, MLC
Minister for Training and Skills, and Minister for Higher Education .... The Hon. GA Tierney, MLC
Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women and Minister for Youth The Hon. G Williams, MP
Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs ...... The Hon. RW Wynne, MP
Cabinet Secretary ...... Ms M Thomas, MP
OFFICE-HOLDERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY FIFTY-NINTH PARLIAMENT—FIRST SESSION
Speaker The Hon. CW BROOKS Deputy Speaker Ms JM EDWARDS
Acting Speakers Ms Blandthorn, Mr J Bull, Mr Carbines, Ms Couzens, Mr Dimopoulos, Mr Edbrooke, Ms Kilkenny, Mr McGuire, Mr Richardson, Ms Spence, Ms Suleyman and Ms Ward
Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party and Premier The Hon. DM ANDREWS
Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party and Deputy Premier The Hon. JA MERLINO
Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition The Hon. MA O’BRIEN
Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party The Hon. LG McLEISH
Leader of The Nationals and Deputy Leader of the Opposition The Hon. PL WALSH Deputy Leader of The Nationals Ms SM RYAN
Leader of the House Ms JM ALLAN
Manager of Opposition Business Mr KA WELLS
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 ASSEMBLY FIFTY-NINTH PARLIAMENT—FIRST SESSION
Member District Party Member District Party Addison, Ms Juliana Wendouree ALP Maas, Mr Gary Narre Warren South ALP Allan, Ms Jacinta Marie Bendigo East ALP McCurdy, Mr Timothy Logan Ovens Valley Nats Andrews, Mr Daniel Michael Mulgrave ALP McGhie, Mr Stephen John Melton ALP Angus, Mr Neil Andrew Warwick Forest Hill LP McGuire, Mr Frank Broadmeadows ALP Battin, Mr Bradley William Gembrook LP McLeish, Ms Lucinda Gaye Eildon LP Blackwood, Mr Gary John Narracan LP Merlino, Mr James Anthony Monbulk ALP Blandthorn, Ms Elizabeth Anne Pascoe Vale ALP Morris, Mr David Charles Mornington LP Brayne, Mr Chris Nepean ALP Neville, Ms Lisa Mary Bellarine ALP Britnell, Ms Roma South-West Coast LP Newbury, Mr James Brighton LP Brooks, Mr Colin William Bundoora ALP Northe, Mr Russell John Morwell Ind Bull, Mr Joshua Michael Sunbury ALP O’Brien, Mr Daniel David Gippsland South Nats Bull, Mr Timothy Owen Gippsland East Nats O’Brien, Mr Michael Anthony Malvern LP Burgess, Mr Neale Ronald Hastings LP Pakula, Mr Martin Philip Keysborough ALP Carbines, Mr Anthony Richard Ivanhoe ALP Pallas, Mr Timothy Hugh Werribee ALP Carroll, Mr Benjamin Alan Niddrie ALP Pearson, Mr Daniel James Essendon ALP Cheeseman, Mr Darren Leicester South Barwon ALP Read, Dr Tim Brunswick Greens Connolly, Ms Sarah Tarneit ALP Richards, Ms Pauline Cranbourne ALP Couzens, Ms Christine Anne Geelong ALP Richardson, Mr Timothy Noel Mordialloc ALP Crugnale, Ms Jordan Alessandra Bass ALP Riordan, Mr Richard Vincent Polwarth LP Cupper, Ms Ali Mildura Ind Rowswell, Mr Brad Sandringham LP D’Ambrosio, Ms Liliana Mill Park ALP Ryan, Stephanie Maureen Euroa Nats Dimopoulos, Mr Stephen Oakleigh ALP Sandell, Ms Ellen Melbourne Greens Donnellan, Mr Luke Anthony Narre Warren North ALP Scott, Mr Robin David Preston ALP Edbrooke, Mr Paul Andrew Frankston ALP Settle, Ms Michaela Buninyong ALP Edwards, Ms Janice Maree Bendigo West ALP Sheed, Ms Suzanna Shepparton Ind Eren, Mr John Hamdi Lara ALP Smith, Mr Ryan Warrandyte LP Foley, Mr Martin Peter Albert Park ALP Smith, Mr Timothy Colin Kew LP Fowles, Mr Will Burwood ALP Southwick, Mr David James Caulfield LP Fregon, Mr Matt Mount Waverley ALP Spence, Ms Rosalind Louise Yuroke ALP Green, Ms Danielle Louise Yan Yean ALP Staikos, Mr Nicholas Bentleigh ALP Guy, Mr Matthew Jason Bulleen LP Staley, Ms Louise Eileen Ripon LP Halfpenny, Ms Bronwyn Thomastown ALP Suleyman, Ms Natalie St Albans ALP Hall, Ms Katie Footscray ALP Tak, Mr Meng Heang Clarinda ALP Halse, Mr Dustin Ringwood ALP Taylor, Mr Jackson Bayswater ALP Hamer, Mr Paul Box Hill ALP Theophanous, Ms Katerina Northcote ALP Hennessy, Ms Jill Altona ALP Thomas, Ms Mary-Anne Macedon ALP Hibbins, Mr Samuel Peter Prahran Greens Tilley, Mr William John Benambra LP Hodgett, Mr David John Croydon LP Vallence, Ms Bridget Evelyn LP Horne, Ms Melissa Margaret Williamstown ALP Wakeling, Mr Nicholas Ferntree Gully LP Hutchins, Ms Natalie Maree Sykes Sydenham ALP Walsh, Mr Peter Lindsay Murray Plains Nats Kairouz, Ms Marlene Kororoit ALP Ward, Ms Vicki Eltham ALP Kealy, Ms Emma Jayne Lowan Nats Wells, Mr Kimberley Arthur Rowville LP Kennedy, Mr John Ormond Hawthorn ALP Williams, Ms Gabrielle Dandenong ALP Kilkenny, Ms Sonya Carrum ALP Wynne, Mr Richard William Richmond ALP
PARTY ABBREVIATIONS ALP—Labor Party; Greens—The Greens; Ind—Independent; LP—Liberal Party; Nats—The Nationals.
Legislative Assembly committees
Economy and Infrastructure Standing Committee Ms Addison, Mr Blackwood, Ms Connolly, Mr Eren, Mr Rowswell, Ms Ryan and Ms Theophanous.
Environment and Planning Standing Committee Mr Cheeseman, Mr Fowles, Ms Green, Mr Hamer, Mr McCurdy, Mr Morris and Mr T Smith.
Legal and Social Issues Standing Committee Ms Couzens, Ms Kealy, Mr Newbury, Ms Settle, Ms Suleyman, Mr Tak and Mr Tilley.
Privileges Committee Ms Allan, Mr Guy, Ms Hennessy, Mr McGuire, Mr Morris, Ms Neville, Mr Pakula, Ms Ryan and Mr Wells.
Standing Orders Committee The Speaker, Ms Allan, Ms Edwards, Ms Halfpenny, Ms McLeish, Ms Sheed, Mr Staikos, Ms Staley and Mr Walsh.
Joint committees
Dispute Resolution Committee Assembly: Ms Allan, Ms Hennessy, Mr Merlino, Mr Pakula, Mr R Smith, Mr Walsh and Mr Wells. Council: Mr Bourman, Mr Davis, Mr Jennings, Ms Symes and Ms Wooldridge.
Electoral Matters Committee Assembly: Ms Blandthorn, Ms Hall, Dr Read and Ms Spence. Council: Mr Atkinson, Mrs McArthur, Mr Meddick, Mr Melhem, Ms Lovell and Mr Quilty.
House Committee Assembly: The Speaker (ex officio), Mr T Bull, Ms Crugnale, Ms Edwards, Mr Fregon, Ms Sandell and Ms Staley. Council: The President (ex officio), Mr Bourman, Mr Davis, Ms Lovell, Ms Pulford and Ms Stitt.
Integrity and Oversight Committee Assembly: Mr Halse, Mr McGhie, Mr Rowswell, Mr Taylor and Mr Wells. Council: Mr Grimley and Ms Shing.
Public Accounts and Estimates Committee Assembly: Ms Blandthorn, Mr Hibbins, Mr Maas, Mr D O’Brien, Ms Richards, Mr Richardson, Mr Riordan and Ms Vallence. Council: Ms Stitt.
Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee Assembly: Mr Burgess, Ms Connolly and Ms Kilkenny. Council: Mr Gepp, Mrs McArthur, Ms Patten and Ms Taylor.
CONTENTS
ANNOUNCEMENTS Acknowledgement of country ...... 2143 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS John Setka ...... 2143 Ministers statements: level crossing removals ...... 2144 Peter Marshall ...... 2144 Ministers statements: level crossing removals ...... 2146 Murray Basin rail project ...... 2147 Ministers statements: Solar Homes package ...... 2149 Coal power stations ...... 2149 Ministers statements: Victorian Pride Centre ...... 2150 Murray Basin rail project ...... 2151 Ministers statements: regional employment ...... 2153 CONSTITUENCY QUESTIONS Murray Plains electorate ...... 2154 Yan Yean electorate ...... 2154 Rowville electorate ...... 2154 Mount Waverley electorate ...... 2154 Ferntree Gully electorate ...... 2155 Nepean electorate ...... 2155 Brighton electorate ...... 2155 Tarneit electorate ...... 2155 Evelyn electorate ...... 2156 Narre Warren South electorate ...... 2156 RULINGS BY THE CHAIR Breach of privilege ...... 2156 BILLS Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 2157 Introduction and first reading ...... 2157 Flora and Fauna Guarantee Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 2157 Introduction and first reading ...... 2157 PETITIONS South Gippsland water ...... 2158 Toorak Road, Kooyong, level crossing ...... 2158 Ripon electorate state forests ...... 2159 COMMITTEES Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee ...... 2159 Alert Digest No. 8 ...... 2159 DOCUMENTS Documents ...... 2159 BILLS State Taxation Acts Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 2160 Council’s agreement ...... 2160 Appropriation (2019–2020) Bill 2019 ...... 2160 Appropriation (Parliament 2019–2020) Bill 2019 ...... 2160 Royal assent ...... 2160 State Taxation Acts Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 2160 Royal assent ...... 2160 Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 2160 Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 2160 Appropriation ...... 2160 MEMBERS Mr Dalidakis ...... 2160 Resignation ...... 2160 BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE Program ...... 2161 MEMBERS STATEMENTS Ella Ebery ...... 2167 Kenneth Jeffery ...... 2167 Ella Ebery ...... 2168 Asylum Seeker Resource Centre ...... 2168 Firefighters legislation ...... 2168
Dorothy Reading, OAM ...... 2169 Jayshree Ramachandran, OAM ...... 2169 Kristy McKellar, OAM ...... 2169 East–west link ...... 2169 Fairhills High School ...... 2170 Broadmeadows electorate revitalisation ...... 2170 Sandringham electorate graffiti ...... 2170 Mordialloc electorate transport infrastructure ...... 2171 Gippsland South electorate surf lifesaving clubs...... 2171 South Gippsland Water ...... 2171 Charlie Pavlou ...... 2171 Murray Basin rail project ...... 2172 Megan Taylor ...... 2172 Chloe Stewart ...... 2172 Macedon Youth Advisory Council ...... 2173 Forrest Soup Festival ...... 2173 Colac Sudanese community ...... 2173 Nepean electorate community engagement ...... 2173 Paul Tysoe ...... 2174 Arnolds Creek Primary School ...... 2174 Joy and Les Joyce ...... 2174 Ken and Judith Edwards ...... 2175 Rachael Davies ...... 2175 Sudan ...... 2175 BILLS Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 2175 Second reading ...... 2175 BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE Orders of the day ...... 2204 BILLS Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019 ...... 2204 Second reading ...... 2204 ADJOURNMENT Ice Meltdown Project ...... 2232 Early childhood education TAFE courses ...... 2233 East Beach, Port Fairy ...... 2233 Forster Road, Mount Waverley, shared-use path ...... 2233 Morwell electorate projects ...... 2234 Workplace manslaughter legislation...... 2234 Wire rope barriers funding ...... 2235 Family Drug Treatment Court, Broadmeadows ...... 2235 Western Highway duplication ...... 2236 The Grange P–12 College...... 2236 Responses ...... 2237
ANNOUNCEMENTS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2143
Tuesday, 18 June 2019
The SPEAKER (Hon. Colin Brooks) took the chair at 12.01 p.m. and read the prayer. Announcements ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY The SPEAKER (12:02): We acknowledge the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land on which we are meeting. We pay our respects to them, their culture, their elders past, present and future, and elders from other communities who may be here today. Questions without notice and ministers statements JOHN SETKA Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (12:02): My question is to the Premier. United Firefighters Union boss Peter Marshall has described calls for John Setka to step down as leader of the CFMMEU as just a witch-hunt. The Premier has previously stated there can be no excuses or second chances for perpetrators of family violence. Given the appalling conduct of John Setka and Peter Marshall’s support for that conduct, why won’t the Premier act to sever all Victorian government ties with these two union thugs? Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (12:03): Thank you very much, Speaker, and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. He has asked this question in different ways over the last few sitting weeks, and I have been very careful to adhere to the guidance that you have provided, Speaker, in relation to matters that are not yet finalised before the courts. In terms of comments that were made—shocking comments, appalling comments—in relation to Rosie Batty, someone that I know well, someone who has addressed this house, someone who humbled us by being in this house talking about her personal experience, I make no apology whatsoever for being fully supportive of the action that has been taken against Mr Setka in relation to his membership of the Australian Labor Party, no apology whatsoever. Comments were made on Friday, an apology was called for by me and widely reported on the Saturday and he was gone from the Labor Party on the Tuesday after that long weekend had finished. That is appropriate. To be drawn into a commentary on matters that are not yet finalised is inappropriate. Mr M O’Brien: Speaker, this is a point of order relating to relevance. The Premier has been asked will he make sure the Victorian government severs ties with two people who have behaved appallingly and disgracefully. Given the Premier’s own comments, I ask you to bring him back to the question: will he sever government ties with these two union thugs—yes or no? The SPEAKER: Order! I understand the point of order. The question was a lengthy one. The Premier is being relevant to the question asked. Mr ANDREWS: As I was saying, Speaker, my position on this matter is very clear, and in the wake of comments made that I think are appalling comments in relation to a wonderful, fantastic Victorian and Australian, Rosie Batty, I make no apology for that position at all. In terms of other matters, I think it is inappropriate for us to be drawn into commenting, let alone acting, on matters that are not yet finalised. That is the fact of it, and that is in full accordance with the guidance that you, Speaker, have provided to me and others. Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (12:05): The Premier belatedly— belatedly—described John Setka’s conduct as disgraceful and appalling. If the Premier’s words are to mean anything—anything at all—will he now direct his government to sever all ties with the CFMMEU so long as John Setka remains its secretary?
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 2144 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019
Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (12:05): The Leader of the Opposition talks about ties and relationships and partnerships and things. I think he is a bit confused when it comes those matters. In terms of this government’s credentials and the record that each and every member of this government— Mr M O’Brien interjected. The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition! Mr ANDREWS: Well, having established a royal commission, and to the best of my knowledge, leading the only party that remains committed to the full implementation of all 227 recommendations, might I say with the greatest of respect for the Leader of the Opposition, I will not be lectured to by him on these matters. MINISTERS STATEMENTS: LEVEL CROSSING REMOVALS Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (12:06): I am very pleased to rise to update the house on the tremendous progress the government is making in the removal of dangerous and congested level crossings. There are four such dangerous and congested level crossings in Melbourne’s north, set to be removed in full delivery of our commitment in the first instance to 50 gone by 2022 and our commitment to 75 gone by 2025. This is creating thousands of jobs and allowing us to run more trains more often. Where we get the opportunity to upgrade signalling or power or build new stations with better access for every Victorian, we are taking those opportunities, embedding skills and local content and all of those other things to make sure that we deliver on this agenda. I was so pleased to be out with the member for Pascoe Vale to celebrate important level crossing removals where big and important steps have been made towards that end: Reynard and Munro streets in Coburg, Bell Street as well and of course Moreland Road in Brunswick. These will be part of a more than 2-kilometre stretch of sky rail. That is the best engineering advice, that this is the best way to deliver the removal of these deathtraps that hold up something like 68 000 drivers a day. They are dangerous. They have to go. They are a part of that agenda, that broad agenda, of 50 and then 75. As I will remind all honourable members, 29 of these level crossings are already gone. Despite the opposition of some, they are already gone, with more on the way. I would say, particularly to those opposite, of the preferred engineering treatment in Noble Park, that if it is good enough for Noble Park and it is good enough for Coburg, then it ought to be good enough for Kooyong. We make no apology for getting rid of level crossings, something others talk about but only Labor delivers. PETER MARSHALL Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (12:08): Class hero—what a class hero you are. That is something— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! I would ask the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition not to converse across the table. The Leader of the Opposition has the opportunity to ask a question; otherwise he can pass that opportunity up. Mr M O’BRIEN: My question is to the Premier, and I refer the Premier to Professor Caroline Taylor, who reported on bullying, harassment and sexual assault at the CFA and later told the Age newspaper, and I quote: Many female staff, firefighters and non-fire fighting staff, relayed experiences to me … of reporting sexual assaults and receiving phone calls from people connected with the union, threatening them directly about things that would be done to them if they went any further with their report. These women were absolutely terrified.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2145
Now that the Premier has reluctantly agreed to have John Setka removed from his government board position, will he now also exclude United Firefighters Union boss Peter Marshall from any further involvement with the Victorian government or its agencies? Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (12:09): The prevalence of unacceptable attitudes and criminal conduct in any organisation—particularly organisations that have a sacred public trust to keep us safe, whether it be fighting fire or any of our emergency services—is of great concern I think to every member of this house. And it ought not be a matter of political contest that a different culture, different practices and therefore different outcomes for women and for all Victorians should be a priority; it should be a priority for all of us, not just in our fire services, both career and volunteer, but also in other emergency services. We, for instance, have seen Victoria Police on a very significant journey of cultural change. I have confidence that all of our emergency services—from board level to management and membership in a broad sense—are absolutely committed to driving that cultural change. Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, I think the Premier is now debating the question because I referred to findings of a very respected professor, Professor Caroline Taylor, referring to sexual assaults and threats made by union members in the CFA, and I asked the Premier: will he now exclude Peter Marshall, the man responsible for that union, from any further engagement with the Victorian government? The Premier is debating the question. He is not answering it. I ask you to bring him back to answering it. The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier had begun by responding in a relevant way to the question that was asked. It was a long question. The Premier. Mr ANDREWS: Thank you very much, Speaker. As I was alluding to, in the hope that this would not necessarily be a point of political argument—it seems I was wrong to assume that—matters of poor conduct, potentially illegal conduct, prejudice, appalling attitudes and attitudes that are simply unacceptable, that notion of cultural change and driving those attitudes out of our emergency services and all environments is a commitment that we have— Mr Walsh: On a point of order, Speaker, I reinforce the point of order by the Leader of the Opposition that the Premier is debating the question. It was a very explicit question, given the evidence that was talked about, that he exclude Peter Marshall from any further involvement with the Victorian government or its agencies. And the tone of what the Premier is talking about is set by the leadership of this state. He is the leader of this state and his actions will determine what happens in these agencies, and he needs to walk the talk rather than just talk the talk. The SPEAKER: Order! I do not uphold the point of order. As I said, it was a very long question and the Premier is being relevant to it. Mr ANDREWS: The Leader of the Opposition has asked me a question in relation to commentary made by a very well-respected Victorian—well, a report—where I do not think that an individual is named as having been responsible for that. He then takes those conclusions and asks me to take specific action against an individual. I am answering— Members interjecting. Mr ANDREWS: Well, and the notion that there is a long list of different appointments and roles and direct connectivity, if you like, between the government and any union— Members interjecting. Mr ANDREWS: The Leader of the Opposition is attempting to make a point, a political point, and I am not responding to that. I am responding to the fact that this government’s record and this government’s commitment to changing culture in all of our emergency services is well known, well understood and ought not be underestimated even by those as cynical and political as the Leader of the Opposition.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 2146 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019
Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (12:13): At the height of the CFA enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) negotiations, Peter Marshall threatened to put an axe through Jane Garrett’s head. What will it take for this Premier to call out the appalling behaviour of thugs like Peter Marshall? Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to reframe that question so that it pertains to government business. I give the Leader of the Opposition that opportunity. Mr M O’BRIEN: At the height of the CFA EBA negotiations, Peter Marshall reportedly threatened to put an axe through Jane Garrett’s head, Jane Garrett being the minister responsible at the time. In light of this clear intimidation of a government minister—a female government minister— what will it take for this Premier to call out the appalling behaviour of a thug like Peter Marshall? Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (12:14): Whilst I in no way trivialise the subject matter, the core issue that the Leader of the Opposition raises, he has not had a great day on calling out behaviour himself today, I do not think. But nonetheless, I would simply, in answer to the Leader of the Opposition, make the following points: we established a royal commission; we have committed to implement every one of its recommendations; we have provided record funding, more than the rest of the nation combined. What is more, I would direct the Leader of the Opposition—and directly relevant to the question asked—to the comments made by Ms Crozier in the other place, where she called dealing with those recommendations, faithfully implementing them, a financial impost and not one that she would sign up to. We will not be lectured to by the likes of him. Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, the Premier is completely debating the question. The question related to his action, or lack of action, against Peter Marshall, who threatened to put an axe through the head of one of his ministers. They are not related. It is not family violence. This is workplace bullying, and the Premier is being called to account. The SPEAKER: Order! I do ask the Premier to come back to answering the question. Mr ANDREWS: The royal commission into violence against women is very much about these sorts of issues. If the Leader of the Opposition needs me to explain that, well, it says a bit about him, I think. MINISTERS STATEMENTS: LEVEL CROSSING REMOVALS Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (12:16): I am very pleased to once again talk about the big benefits that come from getting rid of dangerous and congested level crossings across the suburbs of Melbourne. Not only are those communities safer, not only is there less congestion, not only are we creating jobs, we are also pleased to report on the travel time savings that Victorians are enjoying as a result of these level crossings being gone, and gone for good. We saw some media reports on the weekend in the Sunday Herald Sun that the removal of the nine level crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong has cut travel times in half during the morning peak at some of those locations—half—saving trip times of up to 15 minutes. So not only, as I said, has removing these level crossings made these communities safer, it has made them less congested and most importantly it has made a real difference to people’s lives. Now people can get to where they want to more quickly. They can have the confidence in knowing that they will not be held up by up to 15 minutes. And of course we remember a time—and, sadly, Speaker, that time continues for those opposite—of opposition to these level crossing removals, which continues from those opposite. They continue now, as the member for Oakleigh remembers well.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2147
Mr Dimopoulos: That’s right. Ms ALLAN: They continued to fight very hard to block the removal of these level crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong. They wanted people to stay stuck in traffic in those communities of Oakleigh, in Noble Park, along that corridor. Well, we had a different view. We wanted to save people travel time. We wanted to remove level crossings, and pleasingly that opposition to these level crossings has failed and people now have a quicker and smoother journey. Of course we want to bring those travel time savings to another community. The people of Hawthorn and Malvern will also get to enjoy similar travel time savings when we get rid of that dangerous and congested level crossing at Toorak Road. And guess who opposes this one? The Leader of the Opposition once again. MURRAY BASIN RAIL PROJECT Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (12:18): My question is to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. I refer to the minister’s admission that the Murray Basin rail project will run out of money once remedial track works are done, with stages 2 and 3 of this project still incomplete. Why is this project in country Victoria to be left unfinished because the minister has botched it, while Melbourne projects have billions of dollars thrown at them when they actually run over budget? Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (12:19): As I am sure you could appreciate, Speaker, I may have anticipated this question from the Leader of The Nationals, the member for Murray Plains, because of course this is yet another one of those projects—I am glad the member also asked about metropolitan projects—that those opposite talked about for years. They sat around thinking about what it could have looked like to get on and deliver this project, and then did absolutely nothing about it—nothing. Just like they promised Rowville rail, Avalon rail, Doncaster rail— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! I ask members on both sides of the house to cease shouting across the chamber; otherwise members will be removed from the chamber. Ms McLeish: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, the minister has been going for half her time and has not even got near the question— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party is entitled to make a point of order in silence. Ms McLeish: I did exaggerate a little bit. Members interjecting. Ms McLeish: The minister’s arrogance is absolutely on display at the moment, but this is an issue that is very important to regional Victoria. The nub of the question is about regional Victoria. She is doing everything that she can to direct this to metropolitan issues, and I ask you to bring her back and get her to stop debating the issue. Mr Merlino: On the point of order, Speaker, 43 seconds is not half of 3 minutes. The SPEAKER: Order! I do not uphold the point of order. Ms ALLAN: I am very pleased to continue answering this question because, as the member may have observed last week at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearing, this was a matter that was canvassed, and I am going to provide the same information to the member that was provided to that Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearing. As I explained to the committee last week, whilst this project had been talked about for some time by those opposite, it has taken a Labor government to get on with the delivery of this project. It took a Labor government to get the funding
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 2148 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 from Canberra to help deliver this project—half the funding for the Murray Basin project is coming from the federal government. Of course it took a Labor government in 2016 to get that money from Canberra—something those opposite failed to do. We have also got on and completed stage 1. Stage 2 is largely complete, which is providing more freight opportunities for that community. But what we have also discovered through the completion of the works on stage 2 is two things that have become apparent with the completion of this project. One is the issue with the quality and the condition of the Manangatang line. You could theorise that one of the challenges we have got with the delivery of the rail freight network upgrades in this part of the world is the fact that a former Liberal-Nationals government sold off our rail freight network. That was after a period of time of running it down, and then they sold it off. Ms Staley: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister is debating the question. I would ask you to bring her back to answering it. Ms ALLAN: On the point of order, Speaker, there is no debate that the former Liberal-Nationals government sold off our rail freight network, there is no debate that they closed country train lines and there is no debate that they also wanted to sell off V/Line. I am happy to have that debate with the member for Ripon on a question of fact. Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Ripon is warned. The Minister for Transport Infrastructure to come back to answering the question. Ms ALLAN: As I said, the condition of the Manangatang line has been of particular concern, and the government received some advice from V/Line recently that without an urgent injection of maintenance funding the Manangatang line would need to close before this coming grain season. Given that there is some optimism that this will be a good grain season, the view of the government has been to do that urgent maintenance work whilst at the same time going in and looking once again at what further work needs to be done to complete the Murray Basin rail freight upgrades; that is a conversation I have had and will continue to have with the federal government as Labor gets on and does projects in country Victoria you can only ever dream about. Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (12:25): The minister blamed inadequacies in the business case—a business case that she signed off on and actually boasted about—as the cause for this project not proceeding as announced. Why won’t the minister take personal responsibility for botching every single stage of this project? Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (12:25): I am delighted the member for Murray Plains has talked about the business case, because guess who also signed off on that business case? That would be the federal Liberal-National government and Infrastructure Australia. If the member for Ripon wants to debate facts, there is another fact for you. That is why— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Euroa is close to being removed from the chamber. Ms ALLAN: They were never this loud when they were in government and had the chance to do this. They were never this vocal. You were never this vocal on these projects. Mr Walsh: On a point of order, Speaker, on debating the answer, the question is very much about the minister taking personal responsibility for botching this project. The minister is the responsible minister and the project manager, and we ask her to take some responsibility for what was a great project that has absolutely been wrecked by this minister. The SPEAKER: Order! The minister was being relevant to the question asked.
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Ms ALLAN: The Premier and I were just reminiscing that we were standing in the electorate of Ripon with the then federal deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, to talk about the partnership we were delivering on this project. That is why we will continue to work with the federal government on how we can deliver this upgrade but also continue the work that the Andrews Labor government is doing in regional Victoria. MINISTERS STATEMENTS: SOLAR HOMES PACKAGE Ms D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park—Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Minister for Solar Homes) (12:27): I am absolutely pleased to update the house on the next phase of our landmark Solar Homes program. From 1 July the next phase of the rebates for solar panels, rebates for batteries and hot water systems and no-interest loans will kick off, and the Labor government is absolutely delighted—a $1.3 billion program that will see 770 000 Victorian households take advantage of solar power over the next decade, creating 5500 new jobs as we drive down energy bills and reduce carbon emissions. This morning I was absolutely delighted to have joined— Mr R Smith: On a point of order, Speaker, it is all very well to talk about new jobs created, but the minister needs to take some responsibility for the dozens of jobs that have been lost because of the surprise cut that was put on by this government— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. I warn the member for Warrandyte. Ms D’AMBROSIO: As I was saying, I was absolutely delighted to have joined the Premier this morning and the member for Northcote at EnviroGroup. This is a fantastic business—15 years going— Mr T Smith interjected. The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kew has been warned. Ms D’AMBROSIO: and it is absolutely delighted and ecstatic about the next phase of this program. And why is that? Because it will create new jobs and put on more apprentices as we develop this sector. Over the coming financial year this program will deliver an extra 40 000 rooftop solar rebates on owner-occupier homes and deliver for the first time, I think, in the country 2000 rebates on rental properties so that renters—tenants—can now enjoy the benefits of this program. It will fund 6000 households to get solar hot water systems and deliver solar battery rebates for 1000 homes, and of course with the no-interest loans available to them. We have actually also simplified the application process to give industry certainty with the release of rebates on a monthly basis and importantly delivered for Victorians a point of sale at the retailer end so that Victorians can get those rebates without actually having to apply. We promised to deliver this program— (Time expired) COAL POWER STATIONS Dr READ (Brunswick) (12:29): My question is to the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. Last week the Combet report was tabled in Parliament. The report provides the government with recommendations for setting targets for reducing Victoria’s climate pollution for 2025 and 2030. Under even the targets proposed in this report, at least one of Victoria’s coal power stations must close by 2030, yet the Premier and the minister for energy have repeatedly claimed in this place that Victoria’s coal power stations will operate until their licence end dates, the earliest of which is 2032. With the release of the Combet report, will the minister now plan for the closure of at least one of Victoria’s coal power stations before 2030? Ms D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park—Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Minister for Solar Homes) (12:30): I thank the member for the question. They are actually incorrect in terms of
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 2150 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 the recommendations that are made in that report that was tabled in Parliament and presented to government as recommendations to government. We make no apology for setting strong emissions reduction targets: net zero emissions by 2050. We have been also very clear that we need to have interim emissions reduction targets as we move to that end point, and certainly we will consider and reflect on the recommendations made and consult widely and deliberately with a whole range of stakeholders right across the state as we move towards finalising what our actual emissions reduction targets—the interim targets—will be by March next year. We have been very clear about this. For those opposite who might want to wish away, as they do, and not actually understand that you actually need to take communities with you when you talk about game-changing and economy- changing reform, which is what this government delivers, you actually need to have those conversations right across the state. Let us be clear about what our government’s agenda has been, and that is of course about promoting the new energy technologies that will sustain our future, our economy and communities right across our state over the coming years. We have actually delivered significantly on those commitments whilst at the same time reducing power bills, whilst at the same time reducing carbon emissions and growing those jobs of the future here today. Those opposite might want to wish for things to happen overnight. They can click their heels and wish that they were in Kansas perhaps, but the fact is this: you need a government that actually has the robust ambition and the dedication to take communities with it, and that is exactly what this government’s agenda has always been from the day that we won in 2014, and that will be the continuation of the way we conduct ourselves to ensure that we drive the emissions reductions that Victorians expect us to do, ensuring that no communities are left behind. That is the hallmark of our government, and we will not let communities down. Dr READ (Brunswick) (12:33): I am pleased to hear the minister say that we need to bring communities with us. Last Tuesday I visited Yallourn power station, and I thank the staff for their time and their frank discussion about the station’s future. I was heartened to see that, unlike the government, the power station management is already planning for the post-coal transition of its workforce. So I ask the minister: what are the government’s plans for the transition of this workforce and will it bring it forward ahead of 2030? Ms D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park—Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Minister for Solar Homes) (12:33): I thank the member for the supplementary question, and I think there is a contradiction in this question, because frankly he will have noticed that these assets were sold off many, many decades ago by those opposite here. We stand ready to have discussions with any organisation, with any community, about what the future looks like. But let us be in absolutely no doubt: there is only one party and only one government that ever works with communities and businesses to plan for the future, and that is this government, a Labor government, under this Premier. And that is exactly what we will do. We have got our plans in place to grow our renewable energy to ensure that we have got the energy supply of the future, putting downward pressure on carbon emissions and of course people’s power bills and creating the jobs that people will need. The people of the Latrobe Valley can be in no doubt, and they are in no doubt: it has only ever been a Labor government that has delivered for them in managing any transition, and that is what it means to take communities with us. MINISTERS STATEMENTS: VICTORIAN PRIDE CENTRE Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Equality, Minister for Creative Industries) (12:35): The journey to modernity takes many forms. Former US vice-president Joe Biden recently commented that one of the greatest human rights challenges of our time still to be resolved is the rights and freedoms of LGBTIQ people around the world to be who they are, and here in Victoria we take that issue very seriously. Our $15 million commitment to Victoria’s, and indeed
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Australia’s, first Pride Centre is but one reflection of that. It was with great pride yesterday that I joined with the board of the Victorian Pride Centre and IBM Global in fact to sign a commitment of support from IBM to that project and to support the foundation of Victoria’s first Pride Centre. That reflects IBM’s living of their values and as they put it ‘Making sure that everyone, regardless of who they are, has the opportunity to participate in our society’. So it comes with great surprise that perhaps not everybody supports the notion that inclusion and diversity should be part of our society. I am intrigued to hear the debate from those opposite when it comes to rights today because we have seen in public policy debates in recent times some terrible homophobic slurs on people trying to promote the issues of inclusion. There is a time in everyone’s political life when they have to stand up and take leadership. There is a time in every public policy issue whose time has come, as reflected in our Pride Centre, for leadership to be taken. And rather than pretend that issues are ‘fake news’ and that somehow or another these events did not happen at the Liberal Party state conference on the weekend—terrible homophobic slurs—perhaps instead it is time for leadership from those— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will resume his seat. Ms Ryan: On a point of order, Speaker, I did want to make the point that the minister I think has strayed into attacking those opposite. Of course we agree with his sentiments. Members interjecting. Ms Ryan: We absolutely agree with his sentiments. Speaker, I also just wanted to make the point that I had the pleasure of being a guest at the Victorian Liberal Party state conference on the weekend, where the Pride branch was honoured with— The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Euroa will resume her seat. Points of order are not an opportunity for members to make speeches. Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! I have already ruled on the point of order. There was no point of order. MURRAY BASIN RAIL PROJECT Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (12:38): My question is to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. Minister Pulford told the Parliament in February 2016: On Murray Basin rail, unlike the former government, we have finished the business case. We have provided the business case to the commonwealth government. … That is part of Labor’s legacy … Why is Labor’s legacy a project that is not even half built and what has been built will need to be fixed because of botched contract management by the minister? Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (12:38): I thank the Leader of the National Party for his question once again. It is an opportunity to once again make it very clear that this is a project that the Labor government is delivering. It is the Labor government that is delivering it— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! The minister is entitled to be able to answer the question. Ms ALLAN: not the Liberal-National government, who only talked about these sorts of projects; not the Liberal-National government, who when they had the gift of being in government shut train
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE AND MINISTERS STATEMENTS 2152 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 lines, sold off the rail freight network and cut funding for V/Line. Unlike that government, we get on and deliver projects, and we also understand that in delivering projects from time to time there will be challenges with those projects. And you know what? We do not turn our back— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! Ms ALLAN: There is no challenge with a train line that is closed. There is no challenge with a train line that has been sold off to a private operator. Those challenges from that period of time speak to some of the issues we are having with the Murray Basin project today, and that is why we have been very clear in talking about the completion with stage 2. It is not correct, as the member for Murray Plains has alleged—stages 1 and 2 of this project are largely completed. We have seen the upgrading of the trunk Mildura line. We have seen the reopening of the previously closed Maryborough to Ararat line. We have seen the axle tonne loading increased on those lines. We have seen speed limits lifted on those lines as well. Mr Walsh interjected. Ms ALLAN: I am glad the member has interjected on 15 to 20 kilometre speed limits, because those are some of the challenges we have got on the Manangatang line right now, where trains on those lines need to operate under extreme conditions, which means they run at significantly reduced speed. When given the challenge of having to make the choice between getting in there, keeping the Manangatang line open for the coming grain season—not leaving those grain growers stranded on the corridor—when given that advice and given the choice about either doing nothing or addressing that challenge, we grabbed that challenge and decided to get in there, invest the money that is needed now to do the Manangatang line works whilst at the same time going back and looking at the remaining stages of the project and looking at what is necessary to get the rest of this job done. I was very clear on this matter last week at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. I have been very clear on this matter since then about our determination to get this project completed. It does come with some challenges. They are not challenges we turn our back on, unlike those opposite who preferred to cut those country lines when they became too much of a challenge. Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (12:41): The Rail Freight Alliance describes the current state of the Murray Basin rail project as ‘A half done project, leaving freight paths compromised and the work that has been done to date has left the track in a worse state than before’. How can the minister in any conscience leave this project unfinished and botched, or is it simply that, as the Rail Freight Alliance said, ‘Once again rural Victoria has been hung out to dry’? Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! I warn the member for South-West Coast. Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (12:42): One of the activities we undertook last year was to consult and meet very carefully and closely with industry groups, including, might I say, the Rail Freight Alliance, about how to complete the remaining stages of the Murray Basin project as a result of some of the issues that arose during the completion of stage 2. We told industry at that time that part of what needed to be done was to go out and walk the remaining sections of the track to make sure that the advice we were getting was advice that the government could rely on to deliver the remainder of the project, and that is exactly what has been done. I appreciate— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of The Nationals!
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Ms ALLAN: I appreciate the politics that goes on in this space behind this issue. I appreciate that not everyone in this part of north-western Victoria is a rock-solid Labor voter, but that does not deter us from getting on and doing the right thing, which is to get this job done properly, as opposed to those opposite— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Ripon! Ms ALLAN: who when given the chance walked away from this project by closing rail lines. MINISTERS STATEMENTS: REGIONAL EMPLOYMENT Mr PALLAS (Werribee—Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (12:43): I rise to update the house about Victoria’s record low regional unemployment rate. There is of course only one path to economic vitality in regional Victoria, and that is together with an Andrews Labor government. When we were first elected in November 2014 Victoria’s regional unemployment rate was 6.6 per cent. Today it is just 4.2 per cent. That is the lowest in the nation, and that is the lowest on record. Let me emphasise that—ever, ever. That is the lowest level of unemployment in regional Victoria. We have got over 62 000 people who have found jobs under Labor since we were elected; 80 per cent of those jobs are full-time jobs. That is the equivalent of the combined populations of Warrnambool and Mildura. With more than $13 billion spent in our first term on these projects and programs that matter most to regional Victorians, the government is delivering for our regions. We are building regional infrastructure, like our $1.7 billion regional rail revival and upgrades to every regional passenger train line in the state. We are delivering jobs by basing services in our regions, like Regional Roads Victoria and the new Labour Hire Licensing Authority. And of course we are delivering jobs in our regions by giving regional businesses a competitive edge by reducing the payroll tax rate to the lowest rate in the country, at just over 1.2 per cent. And with even more investment in regional Victoria in the budget, we are only getting started. An Andrews Labor government has delivered real growth, infrastructure, services and jobs for our regions, and the only fake news today is that the coalition stands up for regional Victoria. Mr R Smith: On a point of order, Speaker, I raised a matter with you some weeks ago in relation to a constituency question that was supposed to be answered by the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. The matter related to the circumstances under which the minister apparently had supplied the answer to that question to her agency Parks Victoria, who subsequently passed it on to a member of my constituency. I seek still to understand how that happened—how an answer that was supposed to come to this Parliament, as a result of my question, instead went by that circuitous route and also how it possibly was the case that the answer that was supplied to my constituent that way was different to the one that was actually provided to this Parliament. So there are two issues there: one being why an answer was provided to her agency and subsequently to my constituent instead of to me and this Parliament, and secondly, why the two answers differed. It has been some weeks since I raised that with you, and I am wondering whether you could tell me why those two incidents occurred. The SPEAKER: I thank the member for raising that point of order. I was of the understanding and memory that I did respond to that point of order at a later stage, but I will check and let the member know. Mr Battin: On a point of order, Speaker, I have raised questions on notice that have not been answered by the government. They are questions 574, 573, 572, 571, 570, 569, 568, 567, 566, 565, 564, 563, 562, 561, 560, 558, 557, 556, 555, 554, 553, 618, 617, 616, 615, 614, 613, 612, 611, 610 ,609, 608, 607, 606, 605, 604, 603, 602, 601, 600, 599, 598.
CONSTITUENCY QUESTIONS 2154 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019
The SPEAKER: I would ask the member for Gembrook to supply those question numbers to the clerks as well. Mr Wakeling: Also on a point of order, Speaker, I wish to raise that questions 238, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482 and 483 remain unanswered. The SPEAKER: Questions on notice? Mr Wakeling: Questions on notice. The SPEAKER: I thank the member for Ferntree Gully. We will follow that matter up. Ms Staley: On a point of order, Speaker, questions 441 and 440 remain unanswered. They are questions on notice. The SPEAKER: I will follow those questions on notice up with the relevant ministers. Constituency questions MURRAY PLAINS ELECTORATE Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (12:48): (775) My constituency question is to the Attorney-General. When can the families from my electorate who have raised concerns with the Attorney-General about the delays in receiving birth and marriage certificates expect a resolution to their issue? These people have booked holidays and paid for holidays, and they need these birth certificates and/or marriage certificates so they can actually apply for a passport. This is putting enormous stress on these families, who do not have their birth and marriage certificates. They are worried they are not going to have them in time to actually get a passport. When can they expect an answer from the minister? YAN YEAN ELECTORATE Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (12:49): (776) My constituency question is to the Minister for Roads and Minister for Road Safety and the TAC in the other place. Can the minister advise how wildlife rescuers and Whittlesea council can increase the number of kangaroo warning signs on their roads, such as those successfully installed in Nillumbik? We have all experienced a larger number of kangaroos in the local area, posing road safety and animal welfare problems. I want to commend the rescuers, who are doing a great job, but seeing how we could get the signs would be an improvement. ROWVILLE ELECTORATE The SPEAKER: I call the father of the house. Mr WELLS (Rowville) (12:49): (777) I could ask the honourable member to withdraw that ‘offensive’ comment, but I would find myself in a very, very difficult situation if it is based on fact! My question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Minister, can you confirm that under Labor’s new fire services legislation, CFA volunteers in a Fire Rescue Victoria area will only be called upon to assist paid FRV staff on a call-out, and even this will be subject to ‘operational requirements’, words that have been agreed to by the United Firefighters Union? In areas such as Scoresby and Bayswater, local volunteer brigades were the first brigades called out. Now, under Labor’s new FRV bill, this responsibility will be removed and transferred to paid FRV firefighters. In my Rowville electorate, there is a huge concern amongst the highly trained and experienced volunteers at Scoresby, Rowville and Bayswater fire stations that they will be called out less and less often. Where they used to play an active role, paid FRV staff will dictate what they can do. ‘Operational requirements’ is just going to be used as an excuse to shut down volunteers. MOUNT WAVERLEY ELECTORATE Mr FREGON (Mount Waverley) (12:51): (778) My constituency question is to the Minister for Mental Health, and I ask: how is the Andrews government supporting people in my electorate who
CONSTITUENCY QUESTIONS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2155 live with acute mental illness? I have been contacted by a family in Mount Waverley who are very familiar with our local mental health system. A young woman from this family requires ongoing support and care from our acute mental health system, and this includes ongoing visits to Box Hill Hospital and Upton House. Over several months I have spoken to the grandmother and mother, and I know they will be very interested in the work this government is doing to support those in our community who require these services. I would also like to remind people that submissions to the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System are still open. I encourage all of my constituents and everyone here that has come into contact with our mental health system to please allow their stories to be heard. FERNTREE GULLY ELECTORATE Mr WAKELING (Ferntree Gully) (12:51): (779) My question is for the Minister for Public Transport. I have been approached by many residents throughout the Ferntree Gully electorate who have raised concerns regarding bus services that service the Knox community. Many residents have raised concerns about a lack of frequency of bus services, they have raised concerns regarding the number of services that are available and they have also raised concerns about the inadequacy of the connection between bus services and trains, particularly at Ferntree Gully railway station. So my question to the Minister for Public Transport is: what is the government doing to improve bus services for residents within the Ferntree Gully electorate? NEPEAN ELECTORATE Mr BRAYNE (Nepean) (12:52): (780) My constituency question is to the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. Could the minister please update me and my constituents on recent developments surrounding the master plan of Point Nepean National Park and on the work being done to preserve the national park for the long-term future of our Mornington Peninsula? During the last federal election, the federal member for Flinders continued to falsely allege that he had saved the national park from the wrath of the Howard government, who wanted to sell off 770 acres. In fact, it was Labor Premier Steve Bracks that saved it from being sold off, instead seeing it designated a national park in 2009. Minister D’Ambrosio launched the master plan a few years ago, starting the next phase of Labor support for the national park, and we look forward to this also being a legacy of the Andrews Labor government. BRIGHTON ELECTORATE Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:53): (781) My constituency question is to the Premier. I ask the Premier whether it is government policy to block members of Parliament from joining public tours of the medically supervised injecting room at the North Richmond Community Health centre. For some time I have suspected that the government may open a second injecting room on the edge of my electorate or in St Kilda. Such a centre would have an immediate and direct impact on my community. For that reason I recently sought to join a public tour of the North Richmond centre. Disappointingly, the centre advised me in writing that Minister Foley had instructed that the minister must personally approve any member of Parliament joining a public tour. I would appreciate the Premier informing me whether Minister Foley’s totalitarian approach of impeding members of Parliament from joining public tours is government policy. And, Speaker, I seek leave to table the written confirmation from North Richmond Community Health centre that Minister Foley has blocked MP access to the centre. The SPEAKER: The member can make that document available to the house. TARNEIT ELECTORATE Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (12:54): (782) My question is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. Minister, the Metro Tunnel project is the key to unlocking the full potential of our public transport network. Everything from additional train lines to extra services on existing lines is dependent on the construction of this tunnel. The immediate benefits that this tunnel will bring are
RULINGS BY THE CHAIR 2156 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 obvious, in that it will make traversing Melbourne’s CBD much easier, as well as providing a direct rail link between the Sunbury line in Melbourne’s west and the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines in the south-east. So my question is: what are the benefits that the Metro Tunnel will bring to commuters in the outer-west, in particular commuters on the Werribee line and the regional rail link? EVELYN ELECTORATE Ms VALLENCE (Evelyn) (12:55): (783) My constituency question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Minister, on behalf of the Coldstream community and the volunteer firefighters of the Coldstream fire brigade, can I ask whether funds from the 2019–20 CFA capital asset budget will be allocated to build the new fire station in Coldstream? If not, I ask on their behalf: when will it be built? Minister, the Coldstream volunteer fire brigade, is in urgent need of a new station so it can be best placed to protect the growing community in Coldstream, Yering and surrounds. For years now the brigade has been told by CFA management that a new station will be built on Crown land on Killara Road, which has been specifically set aside for the CFA for a new station. The captain of the Coldstream CFA has said:
We’ve had two or three false starts, but last year— being 2018— we were told plans would be drawn up by July this year— being 2019. From where I sit, I think they’re spending money on integrated or FRV or fully manned stations. NARRE WARREN SOUTH ELECTORATE Mr MAAS (Narre Warren South) (12:56): (784) My constituency question is for the Minister for Youth and concerns the scout hall in Narre Warren South. Minister, what are the government’s plans for the upgrading of scout halls across Victoria and especially in Narre Warren South? I have been contacted by constituents who are looking forward to the prospect of having a new hall to call their home, as announced in the Victorian budget 2019–20. The Narre Warren South Scout Group is growing substantially and currently has over 100 members who contribute to our community. The new hall will give the group more space to grow as they endeavour to provide young people with a place to have fun, develop resilience and learn new skills. I look forward to sharing the minister’s response with the Narre Warren South community. Rulings by the Chair BREACH OF PRIVILEGE The SPEAKER (12:56): Before moving to introduction of bills, I want to respond to a point of order that was raised by the member for Polwarth on 6 June, which was the last sitting day before this sitting week. Technically standing order 102 prevents the Chair from hearing points of order after the interruption of business for the guillotine. However, the matter was raised and so I will rule on it. The member’s point of order sought to draw my attention to an alleged breach of privilege. This provides me with an opportunity to remind members of the proper method for raising allegations of breach of privilege. Since 1978 the practice of the house has been that a member making a complaint of privilege does so by writing to the Speaker at the earliest opportunity setting out a prima facie case. The Speaker then considers that on a confidential basis, and if a prima facie case is made out, grants the member precedence on the next sitting day to move a motion referring the matter to the Privileges Committee. While standing order 104(4) allows members to speak on a matter of privilege that has suddenly arisen, in effect it remains only as an emergency procedure—for example, for a matter of privilege that suddenly arises during the course of debate. May, page 274, states that:
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When a contempt is committed in the actual view of either house, the house may proceed at once … For a matter to be raised under standing order 104(4) there would need to be a sudden occurrence, most probably within the precincts, of an apparent serious nature and likely to cause immediate disruption, molestation or other serious harm to the members or to the house itself. Since 1978 it does not seem that the Assembly has used this provision in its standing orders. I can see that the member for Polwarth might argue that he thought this matter fell into that category, but in my view it did not have to do with an immediate issue before the house. If a contempt or a breach of privilege is committed in the ‘actual view’ of the house, the house still might proceed at once. Standing order 104 permits a member to speak on a matter of privilege that has suddenly arisen. In effect, it remains only as an emergency procedure. Finally, this ruling does not in any way prevent the member for Polwarth from raising that matter with me in the normal way. Mr Wells: On a point of order, Speaker, we accept your ruling, but we do make the point that we still maintain that this was an emergency situation. We had the issue of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee sitting the very next day and there were no other options for the member for Polwarth to be able to raise the matter in the Parliament than the way he did. So whilst we accept your ruling on it, we still maintain that he had no other choice but to raise the matter in that context. The SPEAKER: I thank the member for those comments. I have issued a ruling. Bills BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES REGISTRATION AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Introduction and first reading Ms HENNESSY (Altona—Attorney-General, Minister for Workplace Safety) (12:59): I move:
That I have leave to bring in a bill for an act to amend the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996 to provide for a person to alter the record of a person’s sex in the person’s birth registration and to further provide for the issuing of a document acknowledging a person’s name and sex, to make consequential amendments to the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005, the Corrections Act 1986, the Serious Offenders Act 2018 and the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 and for other purposes. Mr WELLS (Rowville) (13:00): Could the Attorney-General give a brief explanation of the bill, please? Ms HENNESSY: I am more than happy to do so. This essentially is a bill that removes the legal requirements for there to be things like surgery for the purposes of a person changing their gender identity on a birth certificate. For those that sat here in the previous term of our Parliament, it is a bill that reflects what will be familiar to those who sat in the previous term as well. It makes a range of consequential amendments in respect of the impacts and various checks and balances in, as I said, the Children, Youth and Families Act, as well as the Corrections Act and the Serious Offenders Act 2018. Motion agreed to. Read first time. Ordered to be read a second time tomorrow. FLORA AND FAUNA GUARANTEE AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Introduction and first reading Ms D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park—Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Minister for Solar Homes) (13:01): I move:
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That I have leave to bring in a bill for an act to amend the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 to promote Victoria’s biodiversity by establishing objectives and principles of the act, imposing additional obligations to consider biodiversity in decision-making, improving transparency and accountability and making various other amendments to strengthen the act and to make consequential amendments to other acts and for other purposes. Mr WELLS (Rowville) (13:01): Could I ask the minister for a brief explanation of the bill, please? Ms D’AMBROSIO: The bill improves the management of threatened species by giving effect to a consistent national approach for the listing of threatened species, which is referred to as the common assessment method. Motion agreed to. Read first time. Ordered to be read a second time tomorrow. Petitions Following petitions presented to house by Clerk: SOUTH GIPPSLAND WATER To the Legislative Assembly of Victoria The Petition of residents in the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the House the concerns Of the Corner Inlet community regarding the proposal of South Gippsland Water to relocate it’s corporate Office from Foster. The petitioners are concerned at the economic impact this will cause to Foster and District and the impost of a greenfield office construction on all South Gippsland Water customers. The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Assembly urges the Andrews Labor Government to immediately stop any such relocation and ensure South Gippsland Water remains in Foster. By Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (1054 signatures). TOORAK ROAD, KOOYONG, LEVEL CROSSING To the Legislative Assembly of Victoria: The Petition of residents of Victoria draws to the attention of the House: 1. The Victorian State Government, through the Level Crossing Removal Authority (LXRA) has announced the removal of the rail crossing at Toorak Road and has proposed that a section of the Glen Waverley rail line is to be raised by way of a “sky rail” bridge. 2. The local community supports the removal of level crossings—provided that the development of the removal method is achieved with due diligence, follows fair and reasonable due process, and is not imposed upon the local community. 3. The local community has not been properly informed of the reasons for the government’s decision to construct a “sky rail” at Toorak Road, despite using “rail under road” at Burke Road (Glen Iris). The community believes it should be informed about the rationale behind this decision, and be provided with all information pertaining to cost, timeframes and construction methodologies. The petitioners therefore request the Legislative Assembly of Victoria to—as a matter of urgency— provide the local community with the following information: 1. A copy of the Environmental Effects Statement (EES) for the removal of the Toorak Road level crossing. If an EES has not been prepared, please provide the LXRA’s Assessment Against Environment Effects Statement Referral Criteria relevant to the Toorak Road project. 2. As determined advocates for a “rail under road” solution we request a copy of the Options Assessment Report for Toorak Road removal and the rationale for the decision to install a “sky rail”. 3. Future plans and rationale for the method of level crossing removal at Glenferrie and Tooronga Roads 4. Fully detailed cost analyses, time and engineering studies used to determine/compare the construction methods relevant to Toorak Road, Burke Road, Balcombe Road (Mentone) and Union Road (Surrey Hills). By Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern) (1058 signatures).
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RIPON ELECTORATE STATE FORESTS To the Legislative Assembly of Victoria The Petition of residents in Victoria calls on the Legislative Assembly to note that: VEAC is conducting an investigation into various State Forests in Ripon. The residents of Ripon are opposed to any land use changes in Ripon resulting from the Central West VEAC investigation. Ripon has a large outdoor enthusiast community that enjoys access to current State Forests, including bushwalkers, horse riders, prospectors, 4WD clubs, and other clubs and organisations. We, therefore, call on the Government to ensure that access to all current State Forests within Ripon is maintained for currently allowed activities. By Ms STALEY (Ripon) (112 signatures). Tabled. Ordered that petition lodged by member for Ripon be considered next day on motion of Ms STALEY (Ripon). Ordered that petition lodged by member for Gippsland South be considered next day on motion of Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South). Committees SCRUTINY OF ACTS AND REGULATIONS COMMITTEE Alert Digest No. 8 Ms KILKENNY (Carrum) (13:03): I have the honour to present to the house a report from the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, being Alert Digest No. 8 of 2019, on the following bills: Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment (Consent) Bill 2019 Disability (National Disability Insurance Scheme Transition) Amendment Bill 2019 Firefighters’ Presumptive Rights Compensation and Fire Services Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2019 Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Amendment Bill 2019 Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Amendment Bill 2019 Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 together with appendices. Ordered to be published. Documents DOCUMENTS Tabled by Clerk: Planning and Environment Act 1987—Notices of approval of amendments to the following Planning Schemes: Casey—C253 Knox—C175 Latrobe—C116 Moonee Valley—C179 Mornington Peninsula—C210 Stonnington—C221 Wyndham—C235 Statutory Rules under the following Acts:
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Building Act 1993—SRs 40, 41 Confiscation Act 1997—SR 43 Corrections Act 1986—SR 46 Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997—SR 44 Livestock Disease Control Act 1994—SR 42 Residential Tenancies Act 1997—SR 45 Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998—SR 39 Subordinate Legislation Act 1994—Documents under s 15 in relation to Statutory Rules 37, 39, 42, 43, 44 Victorian Environmental Assessment Council—Assessment of the Values of Victoria’s Marine Environment together with atlas and summary (three documents). The Clerk tabled the following proclamation fixing operative dates under Sessional Order 16:
Justice Legislation Amendment (Police and Other Matters) Act 2019—Parts 2 and 3, Division 1 of Part 9 and ss 39, 42, 44 and 46—5 June 2019; Part 5, the remaining provisions of Part 8, and Division 3 of Part 9—1 July 2019—(Gazette S215, 4 June 2019). Bills STATE TAXATION ACTS AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Council’s agreement The SPEAKER (13:05): I have received a message from the Legislative Council agreeing to the State Taxation Acts Amendment Bill 2019 without amendment. APPROPRIATION (2019–2020) BILL 2019 APPROPRIATION (PARLIAMENT 2019–2020) BILL 2019 Royal assent The SPEAKER (13:05): I inform the house that on 12 June 2019 I presented to the Governor the Appropriation (2019–2020) Bill 2019 and the Appropriation (Parliament 2019–2020) Bill 2019, to which the Governor gave the royal assent. STATE TAXATION ACTS AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Royal assent The SPEAKER (13:05): I also inform the house that today the Governor gave the royal assent to the State Taxation Acts Amendment Bill 2019, which was presented to her by the Clerk of the Parliaments. MINERAL RESOURCES (SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT) AMENDMENT BILL 2019 SUPERANNUATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Appropriation The SPEAKER (13:05): I have received messages from the Governor recommending appropriations for the purposes of the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Amendment Bill 2019 and the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. Members MR DALIDAKIS Resignation The SPEAKER (13:06): I have received the following letter from the Governor:
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I advise that on 17 June 2019, I received from the Hon Philip Dalidakis, his written resignation as a Member of the Victorian Legislative Council. I have today informed the President of the Legislative Council and the Premier of his resignation. Business of the house PROGRAM Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (01:06): I move: That, under standing order 94(2), the orders of the day, government business, relating to the following bills be considered and completed by 5.00 p.m. on Thursday, 20 June 2019: Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment (Consent) Bill 2019 Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019 Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019 Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. I have just a few short comments on the government business program that I have just moved, and I look for the enthusiastic and unanimous support of all in the chamber, because it is a government business program that contains four quality bills that are about continuing to push forward and pursue the government’s strong legislative agenda, which sits alongside our very strong agenda in policy reform and project delivery as well. That is why the four bills that are before you are a combination of implementing policy commitments and election commitments, and specifically I refer there to the Public Holidays Amendment Bill, and also making important reform based on advice through various processes, and I point there to the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment (Consent) Bill 2019. I would also like to draw the attention of colleagues to the take-note motion on the budget. That remains an opportunity again for members of the house who have not had the opportunity, to rise enthusiastically and talk positively and strongly about another great Labor budget. As the member for Macedon said, there is a lot to say, and she might want to reflect on that in her contribution shortly. There is still a lot more to be said about the budget of the Andrews Labor government—the first budget of our second term—that is again continuing that theme around delivering on each and every one of our election commitments and supporting communities right across the state. With those few observations and comments, as I said, I look forward to the enthusiastic response of the chamber to this government business program motion, as it is the final government business program motion for this session of Parliament, as we head off for a modest winter period before we come back refreshed and renewed to continue to implement policy, pass legislation and most importantly deliver election commitments. With that, I seek the endorsement of colleagues for the government business program that I have just moved. Mr WELLS (Rowville) (13:09): Unfortunately, despite the enthusiasm of the Leader of the House, we will be opposing the government business program. On the surface of it it looks reasonably straightforward. On Tuesday we have the ability to be able to debate the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019, we have the ability to debate the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019 and we also have the ability in between to debate the take-note motion on the budget papers, and then tomorrow we have the ability to debate the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 and the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment (Consent) Bill 2019, and those four bills are for the guillotine, with the budget papers and the take-note motion on that. But I point the house to a number of notices of motion that are incredibly important to the opposition, which we believe should be part of the government’s program to debate. I point to motion 60, which has been put on the notice paper by the member for South-West Coast, and I think it is so relevant and it is so necessary that we debate this particular motion. It states:
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That this House refers an inquiry to the Economy and Infrastructure Committee into the dramatic increase in regional road toll deaths in 2019 and for the committee to consider—(1) the 86 per cent— I am sure these numbers are not quite right at the moment, because this was given notice on 28 May— increase in the year to date regional road toll (43 deaths in 2018 to 80 deaths between 1 January–20 May 2019); (2) the effectiveness of the Toward Zero campaign … So I think that as part of the government business program it needs to include some of these motions, because the road toll is of great concern to every single member of Parliament in this Parliament, and we need to see something done. There was a summit the other day. We are still waiting for what outcomes have come about. The Leader of the Opposition at the state Liberal Party conference on the weekend made very clear policy announcements about increasing the drug testing to get these drug- affected drivers off the road. That is why we think that notice of motion 60 needs to be put on the government business program. In addition to that the Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Malvern, also put on motion 57 that we should, in regards to the government’s push to abolish the law reform, road and community safety joint investigatory committee, re-establish it as a law reform, sentencing and community safety joint committee, because, as we have seen, the attacks and the offences committed against women in this state are just totally and utterly unacceptable and we need strong parliamentary leadership. And we need to ensure that this Parliament addresses the issue that has been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Malvern: that we re-establish this committee to be able to get real reforms and to be able to look at the current sentencing laws and practices, especially in the matters of family violence homicide, which makes up part of that next motion, number 58. So it is for these reasons that we will be opposing the government business program—because we believe there are a number of important motions that really need to be addressed in this state. Mr PEARSON (Essendon) (13:13): I am delighted to join the debate and support the Leader of the House’s motion. There are four bills before the house that will be dealt with today, and these bills cover a wide range of issues. They in part go to fulfilling an election commitment in relation to Grand Final Friday, but it is also about responding to the work of the 58th Parliament in relation to the labour hire inquiry. It also speaks to the government getting on with the job of delivering good government to this state. So for me it is a great privilege and it is a great pleasure to be in a position to be on this side of the house, rising to support the motion that is before us. I listened to the member for Rowville’s contribution, and I appreciate the sincerity with which the member spoke about these issues. I think I would say in responding to some of those issues canvassed by the member for Rowville that the standing orders of this place have been in place for some period of time in relation to government business being debated as a priority in this place. So it really is the case that these matters, government business, do take priority in this place but there are other avenues that are available to members to explore the issues that the member canvassed. As I have indicated on many occasions I had the great privilege of being the chair of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee in the 58th Parliament, and I know that in recent times PAEC has just wrapped up and there were plenty of opportunities for these matters to be canvassed. You had that great opportunity for members to question ministers about their portfolio responsibilities. I am sure there were plenty of opportunities for these matters to be canvassed if that is what the member wanted to do. Indeed if I look at the other place, the other place is a house of review, and we have discussed in the past the principle of exclusive cognisance, of separate but equal chambers, and there are many opportunities when these matters could be canvassed and discussed by the other place and those members may wish to do that through the committee system in the other place. It is a very well-formed committee system in the other place. So there are those opportunities, and I think that, really, you are probably more likely to get a clearer idea or a clearer understanding about some of these aspects through that estimates process. I look forward with great interest to reading the report of the 2019–20
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2163 budget estimates when that is tabled later this year. I am sure there will be many, many great passages in there which will cause me a great deal of pleasure in reading. I do not hold up much hope that the member for Gippsland South will have had much to contribute in these matters, but you never know in this game. You never know, he might well surprise you. So it is an important business program that is before this house. I do note that this is the last opportunity for us to be speaking on this matter in the autumn session of 2019. It is interesting: I was talking to my colleague, the member from Macedon, and I do note that—and the member for Rowville would recall this because he was of course a member here—the program debate is actually a relatively new phenomenon. I believe it was instituted in the first term of the Kennett government, or it might have been the second term. Indeed Phil Gude, who was the member for Hawthorn and the Leader of the House at the time, would just simply put the motion and then sit down, and it was invariably the case of the opposition fielding five speakers or six speakers to make a contribution in relation to that program. So in the annals of parliamentary practice and procedure, this is a fairly new phenomenon. It is a new form of debate, but it does enable us to try and have a clear government business program that outlines the priorities and the objectives of the government and it does enable these matters to be dealt with in an efficient manner so that they can be guillotined at 5 o’clock. Look, it is an outstanding government business program. It truly is a great joy to be able to be on this side of the house and to be able to speak on a motion like this, and I commend it to the house. Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (13:16): I am pleased to rise on the government business program which, as the member for— Mr Wells: Rowville. Mr D O’BRIEN: Rowville—I still think Scoresby, sorry—has pointed out, we will be opposing, and the father of the house made some very good comments as to why we should be debating a number of other issues. I welcome the commentary from the member for Essendon, who for some reason I always seem to have to follow in any debate in this place. Ms Allan: It’s your destiny, Danny. Mr D O’BRIEN: It is my destiny to follow him, yes. But, member for Essendon, I say you were being wistful about your non-appearance at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee this year and I point out to the house that there is a vacancy for Chair, and if you would like to come back, I am sure you would be very much welcome on PAEC. The Chair who was the Chair until yesterday was very good. He had a few issues, but he has now moved on. But the issues that we want to debate this week include the motion of the member for South-West Coast, and some of these issues were in fact canvassed in PAEC over the last couple of weeks. In particular notice of motion 60, given by the member for South-West Coast, talks about at number (4) ‘the maintenance condition of country roads and their contribution to the road toll including the impact of cuts to regional road maintenance since 2015’. Now, as the member for Rowville said, the road toll is a serious concern, and that is why the member for South-West Coast put that motion on the business list. I note the comment from the member for Essendon that this place gives government business the priority—that is right—but that should not be to the exclusion of all other things that the government does not want to talk about, and this is certainly an issue. The member for Rowville listed some of the statistics in the motion, but in fact there is an update. The rural Victorian road fatality figure so far this year is 92 versus 51 last year—that is an 80 per cent increase. That is just a horrific figure, and it is an issue of real concern. As I said, the motion of the member for South-West Coast was about maintenance. We heard—to our surprise, I must say—in the PAEC hearings last week that the repair of roadside barriers, whether wire rope or otherwise, is actually also now being funded partly from the roads maintenance funding, not just by the Transport Accident Commission (TAC). Now, we are not opposed to wire rope barriers,
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE 2164 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 but we are concerned about the rollout of them, their placement and now of course the maintenance of them being funded in part from what should be fixing potholes and what should be fixing shoulders and bad parts of our country roads. That is a significant concern to my community, and I know that is something we would like to be debating this week. And in that context it is important to note the $2.9 billion that is being ripped out of the TAC under the government’s budget, which we will also be debating this week if we get time. That is a significant concern, and it is one that was raised consistently through PAEC last week. I briefly just turn to—it is not mentioned on the government business program, but I am expecting the government to make some decisions with respect to—the South Gippsland Shire Council. Certainly the performance of the shire over the last few years has been a significant concern to me and to many of those in my community. There has been dysfunction, there has been infighting, there have been accusations of bullying. That has resulted in the minister appointing a monitor and then most recently appointing a commission of inquiry. That commission of inquiry has now reported, and I believe the minister will be acting on it this week. Unfortunately I think it is time to accept that the council cannot continue in its current form. I believe the council should be dismissed for a period and administrators appointed until we can get a new council in that can provide some confidence to the community that they will deliver good local governance. So again that is an issue that I think will be coming up this week, but I support the father of the house in his position on this government business program. Ms THOMAS (Macedon) (13:22): I rise in support of the government business program, as outlined by the Leader of the House. In joining with my colleague the member for Essendon I too do not want to diminish the significance of our road toll, and as a government we are committed to doing all that we can. It was our government of course that established the Towards Zero target with the Transport Accident Commission and other road safety partners. But I did want to mention that it is also our government that is implementing the $100 million fixing country roads program, and indeed it is our government that is spending more on regional country roads than we have ever seen before. Now, this is an important and full program. We have a number of bills before the house. As the Leader of the House noted, these are in response to inquiries and election commitments. There are two that I want to draw your attention to. The Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment (Consent) Bill 2019 is a very important piece of legislation. It responds directly to an inquiry that was commissioned by the Andrews government some 12 months ago. Conducted by Michael Gorton, it was a review of the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008, and the interim report has been delivered. Any legislation in this house that seeks to advance the equality, freedom and safety of women is one that I will always be in support of and I am very proud of our record of achievement in this area. This will be an important debate and certainly one that I look forward to contributing to. Of course we also have the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. Now, that is another debate that I am looking forward to, because I know very clearly on this side of the house that we understand the importance and significance of ensuring that hardworking Victorians are rewarded for their work and are given time off to spend with family and friends. Certainly in my region we are real beneficiaries of the newly created Grand Final Friday. The streets of Daylesford and the streets of Kyneton are full on those days as people come to our region to enjoy all that we have to offer. Mr R Smith: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, you might be able to give some guidance. It appears that the member is using points of debate about a bill that is going up for debate in this house over the course of this week rather than sticking to the motion. I would ask for some guidance on whether that is the case. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do ask the member for Macedon to speak to the motion before the house without going into too much debate. Ms THOMAS: Certainly. Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker. Well, as I said, it is a debate that I am very much looking forward to, and I will be interested to observe the dance of those on the
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2165 other side of the house as we see their flip-flop on this issue—because are they for Grand Final Friday or are they against it? This will be an opportunity to really find out where those on the opposite side of this house stand. Of course, as the Leader of the House already noted, there is still an opportunity for members to get up on the take-note motion on the budget. I have already spoken on the budget. I used up my 15 minutes. I would have loved to have asked for the indulgence of my colleagues to give me another maybe half an hour, indeed such is the magnificence of the budget and all that there is to talk about. So I certainly encourage all members to get up and outline the many ways in which the 2019–20 Andrews Labor government budget is delivering for all Victorians right across the state—great investments, particularly in regional Victoria, something that we can all be very proud of. So I commend the government business program to the house. Mr TILLEY (Benambra) (13:26): With the house’s indulgence I will make a brief contribution to the government business program motion. Yes, we do have four bills to go to guillotine on Thursday; I do not need to go through and list those again. Importantly it has been a number of weeks since the Appropriation (2019–2020) Bill 2019 was brought into the place, and it has since gone off to the upper house. My observation is that on this side of the house we have about a dozen members, and I am aware of the Independent members from Shepparton and Morwell, who have yet to speak in relation to the budget papers take-note motion. I appreciate what the member for Macedon was saying just a little while ago about time and that government members would like to make contributions in relation to their respective districts about that budget. I do not know whether we will get to do so this week before we go into the winter recess—the first half of the first quarter of this Parliament—but hopefully with the house’s indulgence we can work together and give each and every member an opportunity to speak to the take-note motion on the budget papers before we go into the winter recess. As the Manager of Opposition Business rightfully articulated and detailed, there is a motion in relation to the significant spike in the road toll that we are experiencing in Victoria, particularly in country Victoria. I do not take the opportunity too often to mention the member for Macedon, but an area she would be particularly familiar with is Sandy Creek where we saw a tragic fatal accident. A hardworking young man, working on a Saturday morning, was on his way home to his wife and was tragically killed where the pavement drops down into a spoon drain. He crossed into that and into a tree—into a bloody widow maker—and to this day nothing has been done about that particular section of road. That is only one of the 150-odd— Ms Britnell: One hundred and fifty-one. Mr TILLEY: One hundred and fifty-one—thanks for that—tragic deaths on our Victorian roads just this year alone. Working with the Government Whip we have tried to ensure the smooth running of this place. One of my observations is we have pairing arrangements and those sorts of things to make sure that the government business program and the government’s bills see passage through this place, but the member for Burwood could not even grace the chamber during question time. There was no discussion about pairing arrangements or anything like that. A member interjected. Mr TILLEY: Well, he was not here. Mr T Bull interjected. Mr TILLEY: That is business between me and the Government Whip, and nothing has been said about it.
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The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Benambra, through the Chair. Mr TILLEY: Thanks, Acting Speaker—Deputy Speaker, my apologies. Certainly since the commencement of this Parliament I and the Government Whip have had those negotiations in good faith, and when even the media come out of their little hidey-hole at that one time of the day you would expect and anticipate that each and every member that has the privilege to serve their respective districts would turn up here, particularly during question time. On that note and without going into detail on the road toll, let us hope that in the future as part of the government business program and legislation and any legislative change we see those types of initiatives introduced into this Parliament. Importantly, in the interim, we should certainly be debating the motion from the member for South-West Coast in support of the coalition. On that note, let us get to work and let us see how we proceed through the rest of the week. Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (13:31): (By leave) I appreciate having the opportunity to speak on this matter. I will be supporting the government business program because I do not see that the issue of lack of opportunity to speak in this place actually creates a reason to oppose the government business program. There are four important bills that need to be discussed, but there is definitely an issue around the lack of opportunity for those who are Independent members. The National Party has six members and the Liberal Party is now a smaller group. It is difficult at times to get to your feet and say things. There was a time when in this Parliament there was general business and that generally took place on Wednesday mornings, sometimes I think for up to half a day. I know I have had discussions with the government at times about reintroducing general business so that those of us in the Parliament more broadly who want the opportunity to speak on matters could do so and so motions such as that put forward by the member for South-West Coast might also be debated more openly. There are many issues in our electorates that warrant much more airing than we get the opportunity to give them in this place, and while we need to debate the bills I think there are times when it is pretty clear that there is insufficient time to canvass other issues. The issue of water in my electorate and right across northern Victoria is a major issue that rarely gets any mention in this place. Often there are missed opportunities to advocate for our community in relation to the impact of the Murray Darling Basin plan and the very devastating effects of the removal of water in northern Victoria. When you couple that with the price of water, the lack of transparency in the water trade, the drought on the whole eastern seaboard and a combination of issues that are having devastating effects in regional areas this needs to be debated. There is absolutely a very sound argument for reintroducing general business into this house, as it used to be. I have found very little support for that on this side of the house in the past, but given the situation we find ourselves in now perhaps there might be more of an inclination to support working towards a situation where we do have some general business in this place. I would urge the government to raise this matter and perhaps refer it to the Standing Orders Committee as a genuine and valid issue to be debated before that committee with hopefully a recommendation to come back to this place. House divided on motion:
Ayes, 55 Addison, Ms Fregon, Mr Pallas, Mr Allan, Ms Green, Ms Pearson, Mr Andrews, Mr Halfpenny, Ms Read, Dr Blandthorn, Ms Hall, Ms Richards, Ms Brayne, Mr Halse, Mr Richardson, Mr Carbines, Mr Hamer, Mr Scott, Mr Carroll, Mr Hennessy, Ms Settle, Ms Cheeseman, Mr Horne, Ms Sheed, Ms Connolly, Ms Hutchins, Ms Spence, Ms Couzens, Ms Kairouz, Ms Staikos, Mr
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Crugnale, Ms Kennedy, Mr Suleyman, Ms Cupper, Ms Kilkenny, Ms Tak, Mr D’Ambrosio, Ms Maas, Mr Taylor, Mr Dimopoulos, Mr McGhie, Mr Theophanous, Ms Donnellan, Mr McGuire, Mr Thomas, Ms Edbrooke, Mr Merlino, Mr Ward, Ms Edwards, Ms Neville, Ms Williams, Ms Eren, Mr Pakula, Mr Wynne, Mr Foley, Mr Noes, 27 Angus, Mr McLeish, Ms Smith, Mr R Battin, Mr Morris, Mr Smith, Mr T Blackwood, Mr Newbury, Mr Southwick, Mr Britnell, Ms Northe, Mr Staley, Ms Bull, Mr T O’Brien, Mr D Tilley, Mr Guy, Mr O’Brien, Mr M Vallence, Ms Hodgett, Mr Riordan, Mr Wakeling, Mr Kealy, Ms Rowswell, Mr Walsh, Mr McCurdy, Mr Ryan, Ms Wells, Mr Motion agreed to. Members statements ELLA EBERY Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (13:40): I want to acknowledge the life of Ella Ebery, who passed away recently aged 103. Ella was born at Slaty Creek, just north of St Arnaud. She married Jack Ebery, a shearer, and they spent their early years travelling with their shearing team throughout outback New South Wales. At age 63 Ella began editing the North Central News in St Arnaud, something she continued for the next 34 years until the age of 97 when she was reluctantly made redundant, considering she had many more years left to do the job. I got to know Ella very well in my time representing St Arnaud in the old seat of Swan Hill. You would not find a more passionate advocate for her town or for regional Victoria. She used the power of the pen and the newspaper to advocate for a better deal on many things, including a new nursing home for St Arnaud and saving a nearby hospital. When the then minister, Rob Knowles, opened the new nursing home he said, ‘You would not have had this facility but for the persistence of Ella Ebery’. In 2000 Ella won the prestigious Victorian Country Press Association Shakespeare Family Award for excellence in editorial writing. At 101, Ella was reportedly the oldest driver in Victoria, something that she took on with pride in her little red car she drove around town, even though some people did try and take her licence off her. Ella Ebery was truly a formidable woman, who made a real difference for St Arnaud and for regional Victoria. KENNETH JEFFERY Ms D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park—Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Minister for Solar Homes) (13:41): I rise to mourn and pay tribute to Mr Kenneth Jeffery, who sadly passed away on 31 May 2019. Amongst Ken’s many achievements, I think the one that defined him was as the Epping CFA captain, having joined the CFA as a volunteer more than 60 years ago. Ken, through many roles during his years of dedication and commitment to the CFA, helped build the brigade into the formidable organisation it is today. As a trainer, he particularly loved seeing the success of young people he trained, and many current CFA volunteers are grateful for his influence on their work. I first met Ken 20 years ago in his role as the organiser of the ANZAC Day memorial march and dawn service on behalf of the Epping RSL. This was just another role that Ken took on and made his very own. His reciting of the ode was a very moving and heartfelt rendition and it was certainly the highlight
MEMBERS STATEMENTS 2168 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 of each dawn service. As an ex-serviceman himself, Ken just loved to serve his community and enjoyed the camaraderie of the other RSL members. He once said:
I’ve never been a person to make a big fuss about things; you do what you do for the community and you don’t go looking for awards. But the community did appreciate his work and Ken was awarded the City of Whittlesea Senior Citizen of the Year in 2014. I want to give my sincere condolences to Ken’s wife Glenda; their children, Kirsten and Trisha; sons- in-law, David and Ross; and their four grandchildren. Vale, Ken Jeffery, who will be dearly missed. Certainly his legacy will live on, but things will never be the same. ELLA EBERY Ms STALEY (Ripon) (13:43): Ella Ebery, 23 December 1915 to 16 May 2019, newspaper editor, local government councillor and mayor, wife, mother and community champion. Ella Robinson was born on a sheep farm outside Slaty Creek without power or running water. At 22 Ella married Jack Ebery, a shearer, and they travelled outback New South Wales where Ella cooked for the shearers in conditions we would not recognise today—a hard life. The Eberys went on to raise two children in St Arnaud. Ella reports she felt trapped with the unceasing housework and the limitations prescribing her life and that of other women of the time. It was at this time that the depression that plagued Ella throughout her life surfaced. Whenever Ella felt there was no purpose she battled this depression. Ella went on to find solace and inspiration in writing. In 1981, aged 67, she got the editor’s gig at North Central News, a job Ella retained until 2013 and one she did not retire from by choice. I first met Ella when I was a candidate. I vividly remember, having not made an appointment to see her, she hooned up in her car next to my mobile office and began her interrogation. I went on to visit her many times both at her home and later at Kara Court. She was a difficult woman—and I say that in admiration. Had she been born 40 years later, she would have been editor of the Age. She transformed her community for the better because of her life. Vale, Ella Ebery. ASYLUM SEEKER RESOURCE CENTRE Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Equality, Minister for Creative Industries) (13:44): Globally 70 million people are currently forcibly displaced from their homes. Some 52 per cent of this figure are children. These are the modern face of refugees in our world—a significant torrent of tragic humanity washing around the planet. In the Australian context we should see this not as a challenge but rather as an inspiration for public policy renewal. Since white settlement in Australia, and particularly over the last 100 years, the story of refugees in Australia and Victoria has been one of inspiration and opportunity, which is why yesterday I was honoured to join the member for Footscray and friends from across our Parliament at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre headquarters in Footscray to announce our government’s $3 million investment in support for so many of the 11 000 people currently awaiting their asylum seeker status in this state to be considered. Since the Morrison government’s harsh and deliberate cuts and the use of some 6000 of these people and their imminent destitution as a public policy tool, it has been up to the Victorian government to enter and fill this space. For a federal government to remove the grand total of $35 a day from the support of these people as well as make it illegal for them to get housing assistance and work assistance— (Time expired) FIREFIGHTERS LEGISLATION Mr WELLS (Rowville) (13:46): This statement condemns the Andrews government’s Firefighters’ Presumptive Rights Compensation and Fire Services Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2019 for causing division amongst our emergency services and undermining the role of our CFA volunteers in protecting their local communities. Victoria’s most recent fires in Bunyip and areas across Gippsland are a prime example of why our highly skilled and experienced CFA volunteers should not be reduced to assisting paid staff on call-outs. We know that a lack of volunteers is affecting
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Victoria’s ability to conduct controlled burns. In a letter from January this year the CFA cited a lack of volunteers able to assist with controlled burns, which is vital in preventing fires. Reports indicate that the scale of the recent Bunyip bushfire could have been avoided if backburning had been done. After the terrible fires in Bunyip, the Gippsland Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning figures reveal that Labor had overseen a 75 per cent reduction in controlled burning. In a heartless response, the Premier and his Labor MPs were not at all apologetic about this and even sought to discredit fire-affected residents who called for more controlled burning. While the coalition carried out controlled burns on more than 700 000 hectares of public land during their time in government, the Premier has thrown up his hands and made excuses. As a result, in 2017-18 only 64 978 hectares of planned burning was completed by the Andrews government. DOROTHY READING, OAM Mr WYNNE (Richmond—Minister for Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Planning) (13:47): It is with profound sorrow that I rise to inform the house of the passing of Dorothy Reading, OAM, our good friend and comrade, ALP stalwart and mentor to many. As honourable members may know, Dorothy was Peter Batchelor’s much-loved and loving partner. Peter was a longstanding member and minister in this place. Dorothy and Peter retired at the same time in 2010 and were inseparable, travelling together and spending time with their grandchildren. Dorothy and Peter were on a holiday in South Australia to see the splendour of Kati Thanda, otherwise known as Lake Eyre, in full bloom. Sadly Dorothy became ill on the trip and passed away in Royal Adelaide Hospital on Wednesday, 12 June. In this time of sadness and sorrow, it is important to celebrate Dorothy’s life and enormous achievement. She was generous with her time and her mentorship of many younger women, encouraging them and passing on advice and sharing her knowledge. Dorothy was awarded an OAM in 2017 through her work at Cancer Council Victoria and for her voluntary community work and active participation in the Australian Labor Party. Dorothy worked as a director for over 25 years at Cancer Council Victoria and was the key driving force in the establishment of the Quit, BreastScreen, PapScreen and SunSmart campaigns—life-saving programs. Dorothy shunned the limelight, not because she was uncomfortable with it but because she saw herself as a part of a team that got things done. Dorothy was a force to be reckoned with, and I extend my condolences to Peter, Lachlan and Ryan, and their families. JAYSHREE RAMACHANDRAN, OAM Mr WAKELING (Ferntree Gully) (13:49): Can I, firstly, congratulate Mrs Jayshree Ramachandran, who was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the performing arts through Indian music and dance. Jayshree has been awarded a number of awards including the Sir John Monash award for multicultural champion and also an award for excellence in promoting Indian arts. KRISTY MCKELLAR, OAM Mr WAKELING: I would like to congratulate Ms Kristy McKellar, who was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community through social welfare initiatives. Kristy has not only spoken in this house on the issues of family violence, but I have also had the pleasure of working with her for many years on issues that she was facing personally, and I congratulate her on her achievements. EAST–WEST LINK Mr WAKELING: Residents throughout Knox are gravely concerned at the outrageous response of the Premier in refusing to work with the federal government to construct the east–west link. It is a road that is vitally needed, and it is a road that is clearly supported by the Knox residents. I call on the government to put down their guns and work with the federal government to deliver this important project.
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FAIRHILLS HIGH SCHOOL Mr WAKELING: I was pleased last week to host the Leader of the Opposition in a visit to Knox to visit Fairhills High School, where we had the opportunity to speak to the principal and to identify the great work that is being done at that school, but also the urgent need that that school has for school upgrades. I call on the government to work with the school and provide funding that is urgently needed to upgrade this very important school at Knox. BROADMEADOWS ELECTORATE REVITALISATION Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (13:50): I am expecting good news soon for the revitalisation of Broadmeadows. A deal is imminent, I am informed, to pave the way for the redevelopment of the town centre and provide the opportunity for hundreds of car parks at the Broadmeadows railway station. This is part of the big picture strategy I have been pursuing long and hard to bring new industries and jobs to Broadmeadows. It has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars being reinvested in the Ford site and a commitment from the Australian government to a city deal for Melbourne’s north and west. The impasse that must be resolved now is between VicRoads and Hume City Council on a crucial blockage to revitalisation—the loop road at Camp Road. Freeing up this land is important for economic development, unlocking the value of the town centre, providing the opportunity council wants to provide hundreds of car parks and the future of the Broadmeadows railway station. Today I have been informed that the parties are close to ending five years of dispute and announcing a deal. Redevelopment of the Ford site is also critical to delivering new industries, businesses and jobs. I am delighted that the company proposing to spend $500 million on stage 1 of the redevelopment of Ford sites was inspired to invest after attending the conference I organised in Broadmeadows last year with the Business Council of Australia: ‘Leadership, particularly from Broadmeadows MP, Frank McGuire and the federal government, has helped secure the new investment and planning the region needs to thrive,’ Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott said … in a media release yesterday. I thank the business community for its support and will continue my strategy of collaboration between the three tiers of government, business and civil societies to deliver results where they are needed most. SANDRINGHAM ELECTORATE GRAFFITI Mr ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (13:52): More than three weeks prior to the beginning of the Sandringham line closure on 21 May I wrote to the Premier and six senior statutory office-holders. I sought assurances that this Labor government, its contractors and its agencies would use this rare opportunity to safely access the railway line and clean up graffiti along this train corridor. I received no substantive response. But far from being disappointed by the inaction of government, I instead convened a citizen army—local residents united with a common purpose—to clean up this blight of graffiti. Just over a week ago, this citizen army cleaned up to 30 metres of fence line destroyed by graffiti, and they did this without the assistance of the Andrews Labor government. And so, I wish to commend the community action of Richard Cadman, Yolanta Cadman, Terry Reynolds, Phil Lovell, Phil Badman, Geoff Bramsbury and Ken Beadle. Whilst I am disappointed that the government has let this great chance to beautify Sandringham’s entire rail corridor go begging, I am so very proud of these community members. The few who have mocked their efforts, such as those sitting on the opposite side of this chamber, have no idea of their persistence, their sense of altruism and the genuine humility with which these people go about their tasks. It is inspiring that they feel no need just to simply say, ‘We say what we do’; they just go about doing it.
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MORDIALLOC ELECTORATE TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (13:53): This Victorian budget has confirmed the important upgrades to level crossing removals and more funding for the Mordialloc Freeway. We are seeing at the moment the biggest transformation along the Frankston line since it was first built back in the late 1880s. Chelsea level crossings were confirmed in this budget as having the full funding for those level crossing removals. Tens of thousands of vehicles pass through the Chelsea area each and every day. It is a community that I live in, and I love this local area and it will see these level crossing removals. It goes in addition to Bonbeach, Edithvale, Mentone and Cheltenham. When we are trying to get people home safer and sooner to their families that project, the Mordialloc Freeway, is so vital to those efforts. The environment effects statement has come to a conclusion. That is before the minister at the moment. My community eagerly awaits the outcomes of that assessment and then the assessment of the federal government. This project has been talked about for decades and it will take tens of thousands of vehicles off local roads, getting people home safer and sooner to their families. But best of all and the most exciting element of this is the ability for people to be trained on these projects, people that are doing a TAFE qualification, who are trainee engineers, cadets or apprentices—10 per cent will be trainee engineers, cadets or apprentices—and that is people getting their go on one of these major projects. It could be local residents in my community who get those skills, get that learning and then go on to other major projects across Victoria. GIPPSLAND SOUTH ELECTORATE SURF LIFESAVING CLUBS Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (13:55): It was a pleasure to attend the presentation night for Seaspray Surf Lifesaving Club recently and pay tribute to the lifesavers who give up their time to keep us safe on the beaches. It was a privilege over summer to have my own children take part in the Nippers program at Seaspray, a program I can highly recommend for its training of children in beach safety, in friendly competition and most of all for encouraging kids to have fun. But what most impressed me, though, was the involvement of many of the teenage surf club members, who helped out every week as water safety officers and helpers, giving great encouragement and serving as excellent role models for our nippers. Congratulations to president Amanda Castle and all the club on another successful summer. Meanwhile, the state government should be doing more to support the Venus Bay Surf Life Saving Club as it seeks to expand to cater for growing demand. Venus Bay was named national surf club of the year in 2017, and its 540 members need new space. So far it has been overlooked for funding, and its time the Andrews Labor government stepped up and provided assistance for this great club. SOUTH GIPPSLAND WATER Mr D O’BRIEN: I am proud to have today tabled over 1000 signatures on petitions calling on the state government and South Gippsland Water to not proceed with their proposed relocation of the corporation headquarters at Foster. Such a move would be a big economic and social blow to Foster, and the Corner Inlet community has rallied against the proposal. I have already raised this matter with the Minister for Water, seeking her intervention, and believe that both she and the authority should take notice of the community’s views. We do not believe this move is justified; it will not only disadvantage Foster but will potentially add significantly to the water bills of all South Gippsland customers. CHARLIE PAVLOU Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (13:56): I rise to pay tribute to Charlie Pavlou, a Northcote local and lifelong Labor member, who passed away on 3 June at the age of 91. He is one of those postwar migrants who built our multicultural country. He arrived in 1952 from Cyprus and came from the same area as my grandfather. Charlie has been a friend to my family for almost 40 years, a mainstay
MEMBERS STATEMENTS 2172 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 at every event, and he passionately supported my campaign for Northcote. As a keen follower of politics in his native Cyprus, he joined the Labor Party in 1956. In 1972, when ethnic branches were allowed, Charlie transferred to the first Greek-speaking branch, and he earned his 40-year medallion in 2012. He loved the party and was ever-present. His second great love was his community. He was a founding member and gave the Cyprus community his time, effort and wisdom. When Cyprus was divided Charlie kept the hopes of Cypriots alive for reunification and continued to believe that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could live together in peace. Charlie was heavily involved in the media and worked for Neos Kosmos and Pyrsos since their beginnings. He became the go-to as a translator of Labor Party materials for Greek constituents and members, often refining their message. Charlie was a wordsmith, something he shared with his beloved wife, Katie, herself a published poet. People like Charlie show us why we must pursue and nurture multiculturalism .To Harilaos, as he is known in Greek, I say thank you and rest easy; and to Katie and his two children, Dimostenis and Elleni, my deepest condolences. MURRAY BASIN RAIL PROJECT Ms CUPPER (Mildura) (13:58): This week I was shocked and disappointed to hear that the funding allocated to the Murray Basin rail project had been exhausted, even though we are barely at the end of stage 2 of that project. The project is absolutely critical to primary industries, particularly grain, in my electorate. The Sea Lake and Manangatang lines must be standardised and upgraded so that grain growers on those lines, who are so critical to the Victorian economy, can get their product to port. We have heard the reasons why the funding has been exhausted. I am aware of the claims that the project was never properly scoped in the first place, that corners have been cut in the materials used so far, that the project has come up against unexpected issues and that funding has been wasted unnecessarily. We know that there will be finger-pointing and blame, but in the middle of the political fallout are the hardworking farmers from my electorate, who do not care about which side of politics is to blame. All they want is to be able to do their job and make their very honourable living. We all want that for them. I acknowledge Minister Allan’s commitment to use the remaining funds to make sure the Manangatang line is at least workable for the upcoming harvest season, but I want to make sure the government knows that not finishing the Murray Basin rail project is not an option. I would like to remind this house that the people of north-west Victoria will not be treated like second-class citizens. We are Victorians too, and the Murray Basin rail project must be finished in full as originally planned. MEGAN TAYLOR Ms THOMAS (Macedon) (13:59): Congratulations to budding fashion designer 22-year-old Megan Taylor of Gisborne on being named Kangan lnstitute’s Inspirational Student of the Year. Megan suffers from a debilitating condition known as hypermobility spectrum disorder, yet with her advanced diploma completed Megan is now studying towards a bachelor degree. Well done, Megan. CHLOE STEWART Ms THOMAS: Congratulations to Kyneton’s own Chloe Stewart, who at 23 has been named by Bowls Australia as the number-one ranked women’s lawn bowler in the nation. Well done, Chloe. Kyneton is very proud of you.
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MACEDON YOUTH ADVISORY COUNCIL Ms THOMAS: Congratulations to Maddi Condron, Miranda Johnson-Jones, Oliver Bagin, Molly Spencer-Stewart, Sean Doherty, Joel Blanch, William Morris, Shaylyn Blyth, Tara Kankindji, Kate McIntosh, Laura Crozier, Marlon Toner-McLachlan and Santino D’onghia on being selected as the inaugural members of my Macedon youth advisory council. Last year I promised that if re-elected I would create a youth advisory council to provide a platform for the perspectives and priorities of young people across Macedon and to empower young people in my community to take action, show leadership and learn about government and its processes. Aged 16 to 21, from eight different towns and as graduates or current students from every secondary school in the electorate, I am proud of the diversity of views and experiences on the council. I was so impressed with the depth of discussion at our first meeting, and I know that we will have a very productive time together over the next 12 months. FORREST SOUP FESTIVAL Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (14:01): I wish to give a huge shout-out to the Forrest Lions Club and the Forrest community, who have again staged a major festival in the Forrest Soup Festival. Small communities do well hosting food and wine, music and other regional festivals, but the real test of success is when they can develop a strong point of difference. And who does not want a bowl of hot homemade soup on a cold wintry Queen’s Birthday long weekend? The Forrest Soup Festival, headed up by president Emma Ashton and a committee of eight, has been guided by years of soup development by local organising matriarch Delwyn Seebeck, who has helped develop the festival over the past 14 years, during which I have judged on two occasions. The small township of Forrest normally hosts 200 people, but the population swelled to over 7000 this past weekend as people flocked to the region to sample soup and a great range of bespoke local produce, ranging from beer, chocolate, jams, spreads to all manner of other goods. COLAC SUDANESE COMMUNITY Mr RIORDAN: On the same weekend I was pleased to join the Colac Sudanese community and South Sudanese community leader Ring Mayar on Sunday, 9 June. The Sudanese community has had a presence in Colac for over 10 years, and the local community is very proud of its contribution to our area. It was an important gathering, discussing all manner of settlement and community issues. Thank you to Diversitat local coordinator Caz Gatti for bringing everyone together. Local Sudanese, led by community leader James Tut, were able to hear directly from local government, police and service providers. It was a great opportunity for locals and newcomers alike to learn about housing, health, education and work opportunities in the region. NEPEAN ELECTORATE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Mr BRAYNE (Nepean) (14:02): It has been six months since I was elected as the member for Nepean, and it genuinely has been such an incredible experience so far—getting to meet people who I would never have ordinarily met and traversing parts of the Mornington Peninsula where I have not spent as much time as I would have liked. I have lived there my entire life and yet there is always a new pathway to explore and always a new person to meet. I have tried to make myself as accessible as possible, which is why I started my Ask Me Anything tour, which saw me at Sorrento last week, Dromana the week before that and Rosebud prior to that. This has been such a success in offering people a genuine chance to grill me, meet with me and ask me to find more information for them on the multitude of issues they often raise with me. I have visited all 17 schools; opened a civic reserve; toured Point Nepean National Park twice; opened a men’s shed; had Greta from Rosebud Secondary College do a week-long work experience program; picked up rubbish at three beaches; done Q and As with Lions clubs, Sorrento Community Centre and U3A Southern Peninsula, in Dromana; and there are many, many more to come.
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I have also tried to accept every single invitation people have offered me, only declining when there have been clashes. I also occasionally try and answer the phones at the office myself because it always catches people by surprise. This happened the other day. ‘Chris Brayne’s office’. ‘Hi, yeah, is it possible to speak to Chris sometime over the next few months about an issue?’. ‘Well, this is Chris’. ‘The Chris?’. Has anyone else done this? Members interjecting. Mr BRAYNE: Yes? Anyway, thank you to the people of Nepean for giving me this opportunity. We are not wasting a single minute in this job. PAUL TYSOE Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (14:04): Like so many who admired the work of former Whittlesea police service area commander Inspector Paul Tysoe, I was shocked to learn of his sudden passing in early June at only 58 years old. A lateral thinker and an exceptionally good judge of character, Paul had integrity, compassion and determination. He played a major leadership role during and after Black Saturday as the Nillumbik police service area commander, which was when we first met. When he moved to Whittlesea, Paul was pivotal in establishing the now operational Mernda police station and he fought to acquire a larger block of land to allow for future expansion. A clever user of social media, Paul presented problems in community forums and pages and engaged locals to coming to their own solutions for a safer community. I know that his police staff loved him because he backed them and he encouraged their development. Paul was also a big supporter of Whittlesea Neighbourhood Watch, and he believed in young people. I am committed to having Paul’s contribution acknowledged through the naming of a facility in his honour, in consultation with his family. My deepest sympathy goes to his wife, Pauline; his sons, Scott, Josh and Luke; their wives; and his much loved grandchildren, whom he spoke of often. His siblings and parents have lost a much-loved brother and son. Vale, Paul Tysoe. ARNOLDS CREEK PRIMARY SCHOOL Mr McGHIE (Melton) (14:05): I rise to inform the house that on Wednesday, 27 February, I joined the member for Mordialloc and parliamentary secretary for schools, Tim Richardson, principal Frank Pawlowicz and student leaders from Arnolds Creek Primary School at the official opening of Arnolds Creek Primary School’s sensory garden. Apart from being fun, gardens like this one are designed to activate all senses. Learning does not just happen when you are in the classroom. We do not want anybody to miss out on that kind of learning. But we all have different abilities, and that is why spaces like the sensory garden are really special. The garden design draws on Aboriginal and Japanese cultures. The design shows how cultures can mix so successfully in our region—what we can achieve together. When we celebrate the things we have in common and respect each other’s differences, we will be able to do terrific things together, and I think that is a wonderful message to share with Arnolds Creek Primary School students. This project was funded through a $200 000 Inclusive Schools Fund grant. Everyone, regardless of their ability, can enjoy this space and learn new things. That is why the Andrews Labor government thinks it is really important that more schools can have great spaces like this. We created something called the Inclusive Schools Fund. This pays for things like the new sensory garden and other great projects in other schools all over Victoria. I congratulate Arnolds Creek students, the school community and principal Frank Pawlowicz. JOY AND LES JOYCE Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (14:07): Last week I was welcomed into the home of Joy and Les Joyce to congratulate them on their diamond wedding anniversary—60 years together, six children
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2175 later and still going strong. Well, I call that a pretty awesome love story. I arrived at the Joyce’s Tarneit homestead with a bouquet of flowers and a big smile and was warmly welcomed by Shane, their son, and his wife Debra, who had organised the entire visit. See, Les and Joy did not know I was coming or that Debra had arranged for commemorative congratulations to be sent and signed from the Premier, the Governor of Victoria, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and even the Queen. While reading through these special messages, the couple started to get teary. And I must confess my own eyes were not dry—Les cuddling into Joy’s neck and telling her with such heartfelt sincerity ‘I love you so much’ brought such warmth to my own heart, I was almost lost for words. We chatted and shared stories about love and life for over an hour: stories of how Joy first met Les through her father’s interest in Les’s convertible, and of how Les was in love from the very first moment he laid eyes on Joy, a love you can still see in his eyes today when he looks at her. Les and Joy have had a long life together, with ups and downs along the way, as all couples do, but with unwavering commitment and love, like high school sweethearts. I thank you, Les, Joy, Shane and Debra, for welcoming me into your home and for sharing such a beautiful experience. KEN AND JUDITH EDWARDS Mr PEARSON (Essendon) (14:08): In the coming days, Ken and Judith Edwards will be leaving Moonee Ponds to live in Williamstown. Ken and Judith have been members and strong supporters of the Labor Party in my community for decades. Ken and Judith have worked tirelessly for our party and our movement, attending street stalls and railway stations, letterboxing, doorknocking and providing guidance and advice for Labor members for Essendon, going right back to Barry Rowe. Ken and Judith embody everything that is good and decent about our party. They are kind and compassionate, they are strong and industrious and they have an intelligence and a wisdom that they have shared with Labor activists in my community. I have no doubt that the move to Williamstown will not see their commitment to our party diminish, but this move does present me with the opportunity to thank them both for everything that they have done. RACHAEL DAVIES Mr PEARSON: Soon Rachael Davies will be leaving Team Essendon, and I want to place on the record my thanks for her labours and endeavours over the past few years. Rachael is a woman who possesses great values and has a bright future in front of her. I am not sure whether she will go down the path of a career in Parliament, the public service or the community sector, but what I do know is that wherever she goes, she will make a wonderful contribution and I am so pleased and fortunate to have had the opportunity of working with her. SUDAN Mr PEARSON: Sudan is currently experiencing a crisis. There have been months of peaceful pro-democracy protests in Sudan, which have led to the President stepping down. In the last few weeks severe violence has erupted in Sudan. I stand with the members of our Sudanese community and my thoughts are with all community members and families impacted by the crisis in Sudan. The resilience and strength of the people of Sudan is nothing short of admirable. Bills OWNER DRIVERS AND FORESTRY CONTRACTORS AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Second reading Debate resumed on motion of Mr PALLAS: That this bill be now read a second time. Mr WAKELING (Ferntree Gully) (14:10): It gives me pleasure to rise to contribute to this important debate on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019. Can I just
BILLS 2176 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 start off by placing on record my thanks to the staff in the minister’s office and also to Industrial Relations Victoria for providing the opposition with their briefing and responding to questions as they have arisen through this discussion. I also wish to just place on record my thanks to the various community groups and sector organisations that have provided feedback to the opposition on the bill that is currently before the house. I wish to indicate from the outset that the opposition will be not opposing the bill that is currently before the house. However, there are some concerns about the bill, which I will seek to place on the record, and concerns we have regarding the way in which the government has developed the bill. But I think it is important to state from the outset that will be not opposing this bill. As you would be aware, this bill certainly has had a history in this house. Certainly it was dealt with in the previous Parliament, but like many bills it was not actually finalised. So we are pleased to see the bill now back before the house today. We are concerned at the government’s appetite for imposing red tape, and whilst it is important to ensure that legislation that deals with the operation of industry is reviewed and reflects the needs of the modern operation of industry and takes on board new technologies as they arise, and the bill does deal with that issue with respect to the economy, we are concerned about the way in which some of these matters are being dealt with. This bill amends the act which was originally introduced into this house back in 2005. Back in 2005 the then Minister for Industrial Relations, Rob Hulls, stated, and I quote:
… the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Bill 2005 will ensure these small businesses are better informed, better skilled small business operators, and have better protections from harsh practices and unconscionable conduct by hirers. Measures in the bill are carefully targeted at ensuring fairness, while providing for competitive and efficient markets. Support for collective negotiations and a fast, low-cost dispute resolution process will provide a fairer balance in the market power of these small businesses and their hirers. That was taken from the second-reading speech back in 2005. So that provides a framework in which this legislation has operated since then, and it has operated since then with the support of the sector. Just after the act was introduced, the federal government moved to protect independent contractors through the Independent Contractors Act 2006, and in 2009 the commonwealth introduced further protections for independent contractors against adverse actions and the like, with changes back in 2009 with the amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009. The current government is now claiming that it needs to amend the act to account for changes in the industry since 2005 but has not made any mention of these federal reforms. The amendment bill, amongst other things, seeks to change the definition of a ‘freight broker’ to cover new platforms such as Uber Freight, which is not operational but we understand is potentially going to come into the marketplace within the state. It will enable arbitration through the Small Business Commission, it will allow hirers to transmit information electronically, it will require hirers to pay invoices within 30 days unless the hirer and contractor agree otherwise and it will penalise hirers who fail to comply with mandatory provisions within the act. In terms of the legislative regulatory impact statement process, we have concerns with the way in which the government has managed this. We understand through the briefing that the government prepared a legislative impact assessment prior to the bill, but the government has failed to release this important documentation to the Parliament. Members of Parliament who are not familiar with the transport industry will therefore be unable to ascertain if the bill will have any impact on their community or the costs or benefits relative to these changes. I think it is important that the next speaker on the bill is able to place on record in detail how this bill will seek to impact on the community or certainly join with the opposition’s calls for this document to in fact be made public. I think it is important that this information is made available to the house.
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The Australian Logistics Council made this point in its submission when they said: Should the Government elect to extend regulation in this area itself, a full regulatory impact statement should be published for public comment prior to any final decision so the community can be assured that the standard public interest test used when considering legislation that may restrict competition has been satisfied, that is: (a) the benefits outweigh the cost of the restriction to the community as a whole; and (b) the objective can only be achieved by restricting competition to that extent is satisfied. And they went on to say: Finally, as should be the case with all regulation, there needs to be a clear ability for the regulations to be enforced by knowledgeable authorised officers in a consistent and sufficient manner, thereby ensuring a level playing field for all industry participants. So I think it is fair to say that the sector would like to call out that this information and the report need to be made available in terms of its impact. We also learned that through the genesis of this bill there was a review of the principal act back in November 2016. This was done around the same time—I think it is important to point this out—as the labour hire inquiry, which is now subject to legislation, was subject to a review that was instigated by Anthony Forsyth. As many of you know, the Forsyth inquiry was an inquiry which made a range of recommendations—mind you, the recommendations that Mr Forsyth had actually identified did not necessarily marry up with what we see in the labour hire act; let us put that issue to one side—but that document of the Forsyth review was a public document. Members of Parliament, members of the community, industry associations, employers, employees and unions had the capacity to access that information, and that is certainly not the case in regard to this. Again, it is important that this review is not kept under lock and key and it is imperative that the government makes this information available. In Western Australia, when the Owner-Drivers (Contracts and Disputes Act) 2007 was reviewed in 2014, that information was publicly released. The opposition has made submissions for a freedom of information request to try to get the Andrews government to release this information, but much of the information was blacked out or redacted. I mean, this is about ensuring that information that has led to legislative change is made publicly available, so it is important that the government is ensuring that it is open and transparent in the way in which it is conducting its reviews and that information is then made available to the public. Clearly if there is sensitive or confidential information and that information has been provided in good faith and cannot be made public, the community would generally accept that. But when there are general issues around conduct of the sector and ways in which the sector can be improved, the way in which the current act of Parliament can be improved, I think it is important for transparency that that information is made available. We have been aware that the Australian Logistics Council, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian government, the Australian small business ombudsman, the Transport Workers Union, NatRoad, the Australian Trucking Association, VicForests and even the CFMEU have made submissions, and I think given what has transpired over the last month we would all be very interested to see what the CFMEU under the leadership of Mr Setka had to say on this important issue. But again, I look forward to the next speaker providing an explanation to the house as to why that information was not made available and what actions the government will be taking to make sure that that information is made publicly available. It is unclear from the terms of reference if the government’s review accounted for the existence of federal legislation—namely, as I mentioned before, the Independent Contractors Act and the Fair Work Act of 2006 and 2009 respectively. These two pieces of federal legislation came into existence after the original 2005 bill, as I said, and each contains provisions mirroring those in the Victorian law to protect against unfair contracts and unconscionable conduct. The Victorian chamber stated that: Protections for independent contractors are also provided in other Commonwealth legislation including the Fair Work Act 2009 which provides protections against sham contracting, and the Independent Contractors
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Act 2006 which provides for a national unfair contracts scheme for independent contractors where they can ask a court to set aside a contract if it is found to be harsh or unfair. Now, as we know, there are a range of situations where there have been issues of commonwealth-state relations when it comes to industrial relations legislation. We had the commonwealth powers bill that recently went through this Parliament, and in fact again the issue of federal-state relations was raised, given that the federal government had written to the Victorian government indicating that they would not be providing referral legislation for that act to be enacted. There are clear issues for the operation of federal and state regulation when it comes to industrial relations. The Kennett government ceded industrial relations powers to the commonwealth, and that is a position that has stood the test of time. It is broadly supported by all sides of the house, so it is imperative that we have a full understanding of how any Victorian legislation which deals with industrial relations—with the regulation of employment and contractor relationships—operates in contrast with the federal system. Another area which is unclear in the bill is the operation of this bill in terms of the way in which it is regulating, effectively, contractor relationships. It is a matter of history more than anything—as I said, the principal act has been operational for 14 years. But this bill basically seeks to require purchasers of a service from an independent contractor to provide information to that contractor about the charge rates that will be applied which take into account all of the costs associated with the operation of the business. Clearly for operators in the sector it is supported, but again it raises a whole range of anomalies, if I may say, in the sense that similar provisions are not provided in other contracting arrangements. For example, for anyone that utilises the Jim’s Mowing franchise, the purchaser is not obliged to ensure that all of the costs of that contractor are incorporated in the bill that they provide. Again it is a matter of history, but it is something that has been raised with me by the broader community in terms of the operation of the principal act. There are elements of the bill that I think are certainly going to improve operations for drivers and forestry workers in this sector. One is the opportunity for the transmitting of information electronically, such as via email or website; another is changes to ensure owner-drivers are paid within 30 days of receiving an invoice. Receipt of moneys is the lifeblood of small businesses. There are numerous examples of small businesses and independent contractors whose businesses have fallen over by virtue of the fact that people did not pay their bills, so any action that can be taken to improve that to ensure that there is a greater opportunity for moneys to be transmitted within a month is certainly going to be beneficial for contractors. Equally, the provision of information electronically with a rate schedule is also eminently sensible, and it takes on board the operations of a modern economy. This move was obviously supported by the sectors, and I do wish to place on record comments such as those of the Victorian Transport Association, who welcomed this move to reduce financial pressure for drivers and said:
It is also in line with industry best-practice and the Business Council of Australia’s Supplier Payment Code. Clearly industry associations who work in this sector see this as being of benefit. The opposition does have concerns about the potential operations of the new penalties and enforcement regime. Again, because of the fact that the information in the review is not public, we are unaware as to whether or not there is widespread non-compliance with the act. So it is unclear for us to understand how widespread non-compliance is in terms of these new changes and therefore make a determination as to whether or not a new regulatory regime of greater inspections is going to be needed given evidence of high levels, or higher levels, of underpayment or unscrupulous activity by hirers of drivers. In any event, there are many ways the government could address issues with non-compliance. It could have improved information and education to industry. The government could have pushed for a national law reform or a code of practice, but it has not. Certainly we would be concerned that this is going to potentially lead to greater red tape with more penalties. As one politician once said:
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If it moves, tax it, if it keeps moving, regulate it, and if it stops moving, subsidise it. We need to ensure that we are introducing legislation that on the one hand is seeking to protect and support industry but on the other hand is not overly imposing a cost impact on industry where there is not an identified need. I do not know the level of non-compliance. I do not know the level of problems associated with this because that information was not available to the public. Nevertheless, under this bill, as we know, those who hire owner-drivers will be slapped with penalties of up to $4000 just for failing to give an owner-driver the right paperwork. I think what is important is to ensure there is education in place and that there is information made available to the sector. They are issues that I wish to place on record for the government, to ensure that this does not lead to higher levels of regulation and red tape and that we are not potentially going to see greater penalties meted out simply for failing to meet an obligation under an act of which some of the operators may in fact be unaware. As was indicated, the government is seeking to regulate future digital freight platforms such as Uber Freight, and they are doing this by defining them as freight brokers and making them subject to all of the paperwork requirements within the act. That in and of itself might be deemed to be eminently sensible, and I am not making any comment either way on whether or not Uber Freight should or should not be covered. It is interesting that the government is seeking to regulate it, given the fact that the government is currently conducting its own investigation or inquiry into future regulations of the gig economy. As we know, the gig economy is principally focused on the utilisation of app-based services such as Uber, Deliveroo and a whole range of other services. As we know, employment relations are governed at a national level, and Fair Work Australia—as its predecessors back to the Industrial Relations Commission have done—has made determinations on employment relationships and has made determinations across the journey that some relationships fall within an employer- employee relationship and others fall within an independent contractor relationship. We have seen this of late with decisions relating to both Deliveroo and Uber, where you have had differing definitions of those employment relationships, one looking at potentially employment relationships and the other talking about an independent contractor relationship. The only similarity between the two though is that they both are involved in a service that utilises an app-based facility. So whilst that is important, the government has effectively pre-empted its own inquiry. They have said, ‘We want to set up an inquiry where Victorians, where stakeholders, where users can put forward a submission to an independent inquiry of government and that independent inquiry will make a determination of what regulation they believe, if any, should happen in the gig economy’. That I presume would then be presented to government and the government would then take that information to determine any legislative changes it wishes to put in place. Despite that, the government has pre- empted that process by including Uber Freight in this act. That can only mean one of two things: either the government believes that Uber Freight does not technically fall within the gig economy and it actually believes it is excised from the whole gig economy process or it has predetermined its own position on what it is going to do with the gig economy, because you cannot have it both ways. You cannot say, ‘We’re going to sit back and wait for an inquiry to be handed down’—and we have heard the Minister for Industrial Relations on Tom Elliott talking about this issue, where issues were put to him about the gig economy and he said there was an inquiry in place and he wanted to let the inquiry do its work. So you take the minister at face value on that issue, but in the next breath we have legislation before the house which is actually regulating part of that sector. So I place that on the record to say that the government needs to explain— and it will be interesting to hear the clarification and explanation from the next government speaker on this important issue—why in fact the government has sought to do this: why it has sought to regulate the gig economy for the purposes of freight and transport operators using the gig economy but in the next breath is saying, ‘We’re actually not going to regulate for the gig economy because we are waiting for an inquiry to be handed down’. The other thing is that these changes may deter hirers from using small owner-drivers or deter new entrants to the Victorian transport industry, which could potentially mean fewer jobs and fewer
BILLS 2180 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 opportunities. The government has said this bill will be fantastic for the transport industry, but there have been other commentators, like NatRoad, for example, who have said:
We remain satisfied that the voluntary components of the current statutory scheme work well and the need to mandate penalties for failure to provide a written contract, for example, will adversely impact business. The bill— currently before the house—
would establish penalties for administrative matters, something that we want to move away from, particularly when it comes to the review of the Heavy Vehicle National Law. To introduce penalties for administrative matters at a state level doesn’t make sense. The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said obligations under the act: … impose costs on businesses that engage owner drivers, including: Costs associated with understanding their obligations. Administrative costs associated with establishing and maintain systems to provide an information booklet to owner drivers. Record keeping costs to demonstrate compliance with the requirements of the Act. As you can see, there are concerns that have been put. VicForests said:
The introduction of compliance and enforcement arrangements is unnecessary and any increase in the regulatory burden will distract contractors and owner operators from their critical business tasks. Having safe, stable and financially viable businesses must remain the focus of small business without the distraction of increased regulatory requirements. So as I said, it is imperative that the government is working with these sectors to ensure that the concerns I have just highlighted, which have been raised by associations that represent employees in that sector, are adequately dealt with. We have had the issue associated at a federal level, which is the issue of safe rates and the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. As we know, this was an action that was put in place at a federal level which was deeply opposed and was actually overturned at a federal level, but we were informed at the bill briefing that the bill would not mandate rates of pay for owner-drivers. It was effectively a requirement to provide information, not a mandating of rates. Whilst this is technically true under the act, when the government announced its review into owner-drivers back in November of 2016, it—unfortunately for the government—linked it to the now-defunct Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Indeed when we consulted groups on this amendment bill, the spectre of a return to that was of grave concern, and I think it is important that, whilst we have been briefed that it does not apply in terms of mandating rates, it was foolish that the government in fact made links back in 2016 to that. Having said that, in the context of the fact that it is not going to mandate rates, the government has, however, introduced a tip-truck policy through the Department of Treasury and Finance. Under that policy, the policy in fact does the complete opposite to what I have just said in terms of the mandating of rates, because what the tip-truck policy of the government mandates is that it will ensure minimum rates of pay for contractors on any Victorian government-funded construction project. So on the one hand the government has said that the act of Parliament before the house was not about mandating rates, it was about mandating the provision of information. So on the one hand we have been told, ‘The information in the bill is simply just about ensuring that information has to be provided, but we’re not going to be mandating actual rates’. On the other hand the government has put in place a policy that says any private sector operator, any private hirer, any private contractor who is seeking to do any work which involves a government-funded construction project, is in fact required to sign up to a minimum rate of pay, which is the complete opposite to what is operating under the provisions of the act. So I think the government needs to come clean on this issue and state that in fact, whilst on the one hand it is saying this bill is not about mandating rates, the government through its own policy is dictating to the private sector minimum rates of pay if they choose to have a government job, and that
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2181 clearly is an issue that the government needs to provide an explanation of as to how it can justify that when that provision is clearly at odds with what is stipulated within this act of Parliament. I note the former minister, the member for Sydenham, is in the house, and I would be interested to hear the former minister, who may well be speaking on this bill, and she may be able to provide some explanation on these issues that I have just outlined. In summing up, as I said, the opposition are not opposing the bill, but we do remain concerned about some of the processes that have been followed in terms of the bill that we see before the house. Yes, requirements regarding 30 days and the provision of information are eminently sensible, and they will be helpful for small business. But having said that, there are issues about the fact that information was not provided in terms of the review that was undertaken—unlike what has happened in states such as Western Australia—and there are concerns that have been raised as to why Uber has been incorporated when in fact it goes against exactly what is happening in terms of the government’s own review. So I think it is important that if this bill is to be implemented the government can clearly articulate to the sector how this is not going to impose greater regulation, not going to impose greater costs, because at the end of the day we are talking about small operators who are trying to make a buck, to do a job, and we are talking about many of the hirers who are hiring many drivers, and we want to ensure that we are working with industry and not against industry, because the more hirers that are willing to engage drivers the more beneficial it is not only for those that drive trucks but, more importantly, for the Victorian economy. With those comments, I place the opposition’s position on the record. Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham) (14:40): I rise to speak on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019, a bill that will change the freight industry in this state for the better. One thing that the opposition failed to mention in the 30-minute contribution that they just put on the record was that at the heart of all of these amendments and changes are our key concerns around safety and compliance. That is what every one of these amendments goes to the heart of. Why would you say that having regulation around payments and timing of payments has something to do with safety? There is a clear link between these. There have been many studies done around Australia to show that there is a direct link between the pressure drivers are under to earn a dollar, the uncertainty they face about what is going to be in their pay packet at the end of the day or about the hours that they are going to have to work, and the safety of not only themselves on the road but also those that share the road with them. The unfortunate fact is that the most unsafe workplace that remains all around Australia, not just here in Victoria, is in the cabin of a truck. That is where more people die in their place of work than anywhere else. Unfortunately when you put the radio on morning after morning you hear of the fatalities that have happened. There are too many lives lost, particularly on our country roads, with either logging trucks or long-distance drivers and even short-distance driving that has required those drivers to be on the road for many hours straight without a break. Some of the regulation that we are talking about today, some of the amendments that we are talking about, will help improve that situation, but there is still a long way for us to go. I commend the Treasurer, who is also the Minister for Industrial Relations, for his work and commitment on this bill and also for the investment he has made in assisting in the rollout of this bill, which was committed to in previous budgets going forward. What this bill does is introduce a position where we are providing more information to the industry, with time frames attached to that information, to give a better understanding of the cost structures around the contracting arrangements and also of the contracts and how they are enforceable. Having this information readily available to drivers before they enter a contract will assist them in assessing what acceptable rates are and also how the contract will apply, and of course it will allow for better informed negotiations. The principal act does not apply to drivers who are legally defined as employees but rather to those under contract arrangements, which cover many, many drivers in this state and beyond our state’s borders. Where it does apply is to all forestry contractors and to owner-drivers who operate up to three
BILLS 2182 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 vehicles, including bicycles, where the owner of the business drives one of those vehicles. The act provides basic protections. Two of the key information requirements are for hirers to provide owner-drivers and forestry contractors with a copy of the applicable rates and costs schedule for their vehicle class and an information booklet three days before entering into a contract. It also sets out a framework for effective dispute resolution to address the information imbalance and unequal bargaining power of many owner-drivers and forestry contractors with hirers. About two and half years ago now Industrial Relations Victoria undertook a review of the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Act 2005 to see how we could make complementary changes that were suited to the industry in going forward with the objective to identify whether changes were needed and to improve the position of owner-drivers and forestry contractors in this state, while ensuring there is still competitiveness and a fair operating environment for our small businesses here in Victoria. During that period 25 submissions were received and open consultations were held with employers, transport associations, unions and owner-drivers directly as well as members of the transport and forestry industry councils. Because these submissions were provided to the government in confidence—and that allowed individuals to make submissions openly expressing their views as well—these were not published on the government’s website. That mechanism was there to protect individuals. Certainly the amendments represent a very good balance of the submissions that came in to address the changes that have occurred in our freight industry since 2005 and seek to further improve the position of owner-drivers and forestry contractors by removing the barriers that restrain these small businesses from achieving a fair go in the workplace. In summary the bill amends the act to establish a compliance and enforcement framework, including the introduction of penalties for non-compliance with the mandatory requirements of the act, which also include the provision of a written contract and an information booklet. Really what that does is help to underpin that safety and compliance element. There are also amendments to promote best practice across the industry and to ensure that information goes out to all levels of business. The bill clarifies the definition of ‘freight broker’ to ensure that contractors employed through third-party contracting platforms like Uber Freight are covered. That was a big consideration during this, because quite frankly there was no inquiry into the gig economy at the time and all parties were informing government that there was a move for this sort of freight broker to be growing in business and size in Victoria. So in the void of not having a broader gig economy inquiry at the time it was considered that there needed to be a definition in the act around this. Now the act will be amended to require a hirer or freight broker to provide, again, the rates and costs schedules annually rather than each time the contractor is engaged. The bill amends the contracting arrangements and requirements of the act to ensure that invoices are paid within 30 days unless there is a dispute over the amount payable. This is a really important element of these changes because this supports many, many thousands of small businesses out there around giving them some certainty. As well there are amendments to the dispute resolution procedure to specify that the Small Business Commission can arrange arbitration where the parties to the dispute agree. The amendment will also introduce a fast, low-cost, confidential and binding dispute resolution process for the parties in the dispute. The only mechanism that has been available in this situation in the past has been VCAT, which can often be untimely and also not very low cost for those that are pursuing that. Amendments to the act also include a provision that will trigger the requirement for hirers to provide tip truck contractors in the building and construction industry with the information booklet and applicable rates. With the amount of work that is going on in this state it is so important that we address the issue around our tip truck drivers being supported, again, with safety and compliance and a bit of certainty as well.
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I have got to put on the record my absolute disappointment at the federal government’s move a number of years ago now to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal at a federal level. I think this was a very key element in cleaning up the transport industry when it comes to safety on our roads and fair rates of pay for thousands of people that depend on this industry for an income. Finally, can I just acknowledge the work that is done year in and year out by our Transport Industry Council here in Victoria and give a big shout-out to the current chair, Phil Lovel, not only for all of his work as chair of this committee but for all that he has given to the transport industry, and to some of our key representatives on there: Richard Scougall from Ai Group, Chris Fennell and Mike McNess from the Transport Workers Union, Eric Henderson from VicRoads, Steven Wojtkiw from the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Carina Garland and Luke Hilakari for Victorian Trades Hall Council, Peter Anderson and Glen Cameron from the Victorian Transport Association and of course our Industrial Relations Victoria secretariat Paul Coats and Marcelle West. Thank you for giving the time that you give to the industry and for also keeping a close eye on these amendments and giving feedback. I commend the bill to the house. Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (14:50): I rise to make a contribution on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019. I suppose no contribution from the other side of the house would be complete without some criticism of the federal government, and the member for Sydenham has not disappointed me here. There just always has to be a whack somehow at the coalition federal government—and in this case about an issue of road safety. What intrigues me is that it is the Labor Party that has actually got rid of the Road Safety Committee of this Parliament. If the other side was actually fair dinkum about road safety in this state they would still actually have a road safety committee in this Parliament that would actually be looking at road safety issues. So I think the words from the member for Sydenham are rather hollow when it comes to road safety given the Labor Party’s track record on the Road Safety Committee of this particular Parliament. We have tragically seen a significant increase in the fatalities on roads in Victoria so far in this 12- month period, and I think both sides of the house would love to see the numbers declining year on year rather than increasing, and one of the things that would actually help do that would be to have a road safety committee of this Parliament that could actually look at those road safety issues rather than just talk about and criticise the federal government on those particular things. The member for Sydenham and former minister also talked about the issue of the 2016 review into the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Act 2005 which supposedly these amendments are based on, but one of the things with that inquiry and with the submissions that were made to it is that no-one knows what was actually in those. As the former minister said, they are confidential to the government. If the government is actually serious about what the logic is behind these amendments, it should actually make those public. You can redact the name and the information of the people that put them forward. There is no issue about the confidentiality of the actual name of the person or the business that puts them forward, but I would have thought the content of those submissions would be useful for both sides of politics and would be useful for the industry in judging this legislation against what people actually said, because no one knows. As we know, knowledge is power. The Labor Party is great at making sure no-one else actually knows what is going on with the things that it does—in this case with this particular piece of legislation. We actually do not know that these legislative amendments that are before the house relate back to the submissions that were made, and I think it just shows the arrogance of this particular government and how they are actually going about things. I would urge the government to release that report and to release those submissions with the names of the people submitting or the businesses submitting redacted—I accept that—but at least let us have the information that is out there. I suppose particularly from the point of view of harvest and haul contractors there have been comments made around certainty in contracts and certainty in payments and also the stress that is on small business owner-drivers in making a dollar and what they have to do to survive. I think if you talk
BILLS 2184 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 particularly about the forestry contractors—the harvest and haul contractors in the forestry industry— the greatest thing that would give them certainty, the greatest thing that would take stress out of their lives and the greatest thing that would mean that they could actually be profitable in the future would be certainty around their work. We saw this government go for over 12 months without actually having a timber release plan or an allocation order, so there was no certainty of work for that particular segment of the owner-drivers and forest contractors in this particular state. I can remember visiting Traralgon with an upper house member for Eastern Victoria Region, Melina Bath, where we met with a group of harvest hauling contractors who had just signed a new five-year contract with VicForests. As part of that contract they had been required to go and buy new machinery to make sure they had the safest and the best machinery. One particular contractor there that we met with had spent over a million dollars on a new harvesting machine and had bought several new trucks, and a new truck and trailer are probably close to half a million dollars each as well. This particular businessman had invested $1.5 to $2 million into his business based on a five-year contract and he had been stood down by VicForests because there was no timber release to actually do that work. So again, if the former minister, the member for Sydenham, is serious about making sure that there is certainty in owner-drivers’ lives and there is certainty in contractors’ lives, it is incumbent on the government to actually make sure the timber is there, that these harvest and haul contractors can actually make a dollar and know they can invest with certainty, that they will have work for the full five years of their contract, rather than being stood down or told by DELWP, ‘Go and do some fire recovery work; we can’t give you timber at the moment to do this work, but go and do this work’. That lasted for a short period of time, but then there was this huge uncertainty for them again. No discussion about forestry harvest and haul contractors would be complete without paying some tribute to the former upper house member Philip Dalidakis, who resigned yesterday. Before Philip came into Parliament and before he had some other jobs with the Labor Party, he was actually the executive officer of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries and someone who was an absolute champion of the forest industries and the harvest and haul contractors there. I pay tribute to what Philip did on behalf of that sector. There are those of the view that Philip lost his cabinet spot in the changes after the 2018 election because he was actually a champion of the forest industry. The view that some people have put forward is that he did not get to stay in the cabinet because he actually stuck up for the forestry industry, whereas those from the green and the left side of the party actually wanted to make sure the forest industry closed down here in Victoria. So I pay tribute to Philip for what he did for the forestry industry, both when he worked for the Victorian Association of Forestry Industries and also, as I understand it, for how he was one of the very few voices, if not the lone voice, within the Labor Party and particularly in the cabinet who was actually standing up for the forest industry and the 22 000-something jobs right across Victoria—the forest industry, the harvest and haul, the timber mills, the processing, the furniture industry, the truss industry, the house-building industry—all those people that actually rely on the native timber industry here in Victoria. It was good to have a champion. I wish him well with his new job with Australia Post, but I would hope—I would desperately hope—that there are some voices on the other side of this house who will stand up for the timber industry rather than see it continually decline under this particular government, because there is a real risk of that. As our lead speaker spoke about on this particular piece of legislation, there are provisions in this legislation that allow an owner-driver contractor to be offered a contract on the terms negotiated by a negotiating agent, even though the owner-driver contractor did not appoint that particular agent. There are concerns from the industry that this may clear the path for the likes of Transport Workers Union organisers to actually bully hirers into taking TWU-approved terms. We do not want to see that sort of situation in the transport industry. We want to make sure that there are plenty of hirers and there are plenty of people wanting to be hired to make sure there is competition in the transport sector.
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The last thing I would like to finish off on is this requirement to pay invoices within 30 days unless there is a dispute or unless the parties have agreed otherwise. I think one of the challenges that small business have, both dealing with large business and particularly dealing with government, is that they do not get paid. I constantly get people coming into my office in Echuca, where they have dealt with large contractors from Melbourne who have come into the regions and won a contract and have beaten everyone else when it came to price. They employ subbies and then they do not pay them on time or they actually go broke and do not pay them at all. I think that is a real tragedy for a lot of small businesses, that they are put under severe pressure by big business and by those with government contracts who actually do not pay them on time or do not pay them at all. So I think that is a good change there, where you can make sure that contractors and subcontractors are actually paid on time. Our lead speaker also talked about the issue of electronic forms of information and the use of new technology. I think one of the exciting things that is being developed in the future is this whole concept of the blockchain system, where you have actually got full transparency from the start to the end of a supply chain or a production chain or whatever and you can actually guarantee payment through that particular system. As I said, one of the greatest challenges for small business, apart from the work they have to do, is actually making sure they get paid for that work because if they do not get paid, they obviously go broke very quickly, and big business and the government are notorious for not paying people on time or not paying at all. The opposition will not be opposing this particular piece of legislation. Mr DIMOPOULOS (Oakleigh) (15:00): It gives me pleasure to speak on this really important bill, the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019. I also want to commend the former minister and member for Sydenham both for being the lead speaker on the government side on this bill and effectively for bringing this to the attention of the government and the Parliament and for commissioning the review in 2016 and shepherding this through. The Treasurer has had the last leg of the relay, but really if it was not for the former minister, who is in the chamber, this would not be where it is today, and I commend her for that. She very eloquently described why this is so important. The impact of this bill, should it proceed through the Parliament and successfully be enacted, will be extraordinary. In fact in many respects we will not see some of the benefits of the bill because it will be accidents that have not happened and safety that has permeated the industry, which hopefully will come out in statistics. It is a very, very important bill not only for the drivers themselves but, by all accounts, for the public. As the former minister described, you turn on the radio and you hear the most devastating stories of fatal accidents involving owner-drivers. The bill has by all accounts come out of a strong process of consultation with key bodies, including obviously the unions—the Transport Workers Union has been integral in this process—employer groups and industry associations, including the Transport Industry Council and the Forest Industry Council. Just on that point, I would like to further address some of the criticisms, as I think the previous speakers have on our side. Firstly, I am glad the opposition is supporting the bill. But on their criticisms about the submissions not being made public, our primary resolve is to get good public policy outcomes. You get good public policy outcomes in this context when you provide people with the safety of anonymity, particularly on a very contested issue like this, where they can raise safely with government the issues that they have experienced and on occasion may name their hirers or people who they rely on—their business relationships. They should be able to do that safely without being outed. A whole range of repercussions could befall these brave owner-drivers who shared their stories with the government. I think that is a very good reason to keep their contributions in confidence, as they expected when they made them to the inquiry. I would also like to acknowledge my colleague and mentor in this capacity, the Treasurer, for his shepherding towards the end of the process of this bill, and Industrial Relations Victoria (IRV) for their outstanding work on this.
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This government is a government of reform. It is not just about level crossings and infrastructure investment, although that is a huge brand of this government. It is about reform across the board, whether it be in industrial relations, whether it be in social policy. In this area it is a reform that is so overdue and so warranted; reform to support public safety and owner-drivers’ safety, but also reform to support small business. We are the party of small business. The other side are the party of big business. I say that as a former small business owner, and there are many on this side. We are the proud party of small business. We do not just let owner-drivers battle it out with the goliaths of the world. This is an area of market failure, where this government has seen fit to address that market failure with the most light but appropriate intervention, which is transparency, market information and support, and obviously a scheme whereby issues and disagreements can be resolved in a far more expeditious process through the small business commissioner. This bill is very, very important to address that sort of market imbalance between owner-drivers and their hirers, and also one that will continually become relevant in an increasingly on-demand economy and world. The bill includes amendments to cover for those falling within the categories, as we have heard, of Uber Eats and Deliveroo drivers—anyone that basically carries goods, not people. We are amending through this bill the definition of ‘freight broker’ to clarify that it includes contractors employed through third-party platforms, and increasingly global third-party platforms. As the former minister said, it even includes bicycles. It is a bill that is for now but also for the future, and it is very, very much about safety, as the minister talked about. Owner-drivers and small businesses through this bill will gain accurate information around their operating costs and the commercial relationships with hirers. By having this information at the onset, before they accept the job, they will be able to ensure that they are able to make that job work for their business model and that the potential contract that they are about to sign onto will provide a sufficient rate to cover their operating costs so they are not then forced to make up lost ground, as it were, putting themselves and the public at risk of injury or fatality. This bill also goes further. It provides, as I think the previous speaker said, transparency according to a 30-day payment schedule or other payment schedules by agreement if they are fair and reasonable. These are all things that matter to an owner-driver from the perspective that they are usually run on a very light model. Usually the owner-driver themselves does the paperwork and bookwork. They may have a bit of a helping hand, but there is not a lot of fat in these businesses where they can spend hours and low human resources working out the cost model of their business or the benefit of a particular contract, whereas often our hirers do have that capacity—that is the difference. The bill will ensure that vehicles can be properly maintained. Therefore because of the life cycle costs of the operating model of that particular owner-driver it will ensure road safety. It will also improve, as I mentioned earlier, dispute resolution. Rather than having the laborious process of VCAT, we are going to empower the small business commissioner to arbitrate in these matters, and I think that is also very, very important. There is a clear link—and this is a big part of the impetus of this bill—between road safety, particularly given this cohort of drivers, the cost pressures they are under and the power imbalance between them and their hirers. This is exactly what this bill seeks to address, as I have said, in a way that provides transparency and empowers those owner-drivers to make good business decisions—decisions that are also for their own and the public’s safety. Now, just on that point, I wanted to just add my words to what others on our side have already said about the other criticism, despite the fact that the opposition is supporting this bill, which I think is wise—I do not think they can do anything other than support it because it was such a big public issue. But the lead speaker on their side talked about how somehow it is a strange concept that we on the one hand would put up this bill, which does not mandate a set of cost schedules or fees, but on the other
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2187 side as a government purchasing goods we set minimum standards for these owner-drivers in the context of procurement. I do not see any problem with that. We are legislators and policymakers in this context and we are also procurers of a service in the latter context. In that context we seek to pay fair compensation to people who do business with the state of Victoria. As a taxpayer and citizen, I think that is entirely important, but we do not also mandate that with the rest of industry. We hope through both our intervention as a procurer of services but also as a legislator in terms of this bill that we lift the standard of industry across the board and by doing so we lift the safety of the Victorian public. I commend the bill to the house, and I commend the work of the former minister, the current Treasurer, the IRV, the industry and the unions who engaged with us in this. Ms McLEISH (Eildon) (15:10): I am pleased to be able to join the debate on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019. There are couple of things I will say before I get into the content of the bill. But this bill, as we know, was introduced into Parliament, I think, in August last year. In the lower house it was debated, and it has been almost 10 months since that time. It got stuck in the upper house—the government were unable to pass it during the last Parliament. And we have seen it come back mid-year, so it cannot have been high on the list of priorities to bring this one back. The bill itself proposes to make quite a number of changes to the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Act 2005. I am going to spend most of my time talking about the forestry contractors, because that is an area that I am very familiar with and is certainly important to my electorate. But I do want to touch on a couple of the points that I think are fairly important that this bill is looking to address. First of all, the requirement to pay invoices within 30 days of receipt I think is important. We are understanding here that people working in this sector are essentially small businesses and, as such, cash flow is extremely important, so to have invoices paid in a timely manner is very critical. If some of those invoices are very large—and they can be—it is all the more important, because we are talking about small business operators who need to keep a roof over their heads and make sure that they can provide for themselves and their families. Certainly in the forestry contractors area this is really about the harvest and haulage sector. There are a number of issues that are facing this sector at the moment. They have particular concerns about their future, and I will touch on that shortly. The heart of this bill I think is that it aims to strengthen the act to support owner-operators. It is important to recognise, as I have mentioned, that owner-operators are basically responsible for their own income, and that is really important to them. Being responsible for your own income actually has a number of risks, and it is so important that people that are working in this space understand their rights and their risks and where their finances will be exposed. Being paid in a timely manner, whether that is from a large organisation, from people holding government contracts or from the government itself, is really important. It is equally important that people working in this space are able to make informed decisions in deciding whether or not to enter into those contracts, and actually what it does mean once they enter. I want to now just focus on the lack of transparency of the government. The previous speaker said that we are supporting this bill. Actually the coalition is not opposing this bill, and I think the member for Oakleigh may have realised that there is a difference. We do have a number of areas of concern, and one of the areas of concern is the lack of transparency around the review that was done of the act, which the government has claimed this bill is based on. That review of the act was done in 2016. That review has not been released, so the question is why has that not been released. Information in that review should provide a greater understanding of how this bill was put together and what are the important issues—I think obviously there is something to hide. We are told that the review found widespread non-compliance, but we have not seen the evidence to support that, so it is a little bit difficult to know. Apparently the government have also completed a legislative impact assessment into the costs and benefits, but that also has not been publicly released. That is one of the concerns.
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I want to just focus now on the forest contractors’ point of view, because I have a lot of people in my electorate who rely on harvest and haulage as their key business. They are extremely worried about the future of their businesses. There are a number of issues. We have had a failure by this government to act and provide certainty around timber allocations and around the forestry agreements, and that has really just not been good enough because we have people who have not known from year to year whether they will have the work the next year. Sometimes when they undertake the work they want to do it more efficiently and invest in new gear. That machinery, that gear, is extremely expensive. If you are going to be forking out $100 000 or several hundred thousand dollars, you want to know that you are going to get a return on your investment, and with the lack of certainty in this area people working in this field, the families, are extremely stressed. I talk very regularly to people who are extremely stressed. We have people who have had changes made to timber allocations. They may have had an allocation to deal with the ash and then they have got to change their milling operations to that of mixed species. This means they have to change a whole lot of procedures, the way they do things, and it is certainly not a cheap exercise. Not so long ago—in April actually—I attended a timber release plan briefing for the forestry industry at Powelltown, a very small town in my electorate that has historically been and is known as being a timber town. This briefing was conducted by Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning staff. I commend the DELWP staff who were there. There was quite a number of them and they did well to facilitate engagement and draw out the key issues affecting the timber industry. I was also impressed that the acting regional director for Port Phillip, Stephen Chapple, was in the audience, and he listened intently. I do hope the work that was undertaken at that session was actually fed back to government, because there was some very important information that I think the government has been overlooking. The attendees at that session were exceptionally passionate. I think the department may have been a little bit surprised about the degree of passion that was there and about how hurt and concerned these people are for their future. One of the questions that was put to DELWP employees at the end of the night was, ‘Look, this is our opportunity. When is it that environmental groups will have these sorts of workshops?’. They were given the response that they have an open door to the minister’s office. So you can imagine how concerned and upset these workers were. A lot of them were haulage guys, a lot of them were millers and some of them were the families of those workers. They were extremely worried. They think it is the green groups, the environmental groups, that are getting the ear of the minister and not the timber workers. So we have got, on the one hand, the government saying, ‘We’re reviewing this act because we want to make things better for owner-drivers and forestry contractors’, but on the other hand what they are showing is anything but that. They are really showing a lack of faith in this sector, and it is extremely distressing and disappointing that this has happened. On top of the uncertainty around the timber allocations and forestry agreements, we have also had a lot of green activists hold up work at the coupes and have had work suspended. What this means then is that if you do not do the work, you do not get paid. So we have a whole lot of people operating in this space, in the forestry contractors’ space, who cannot earn money. They are sitting there waiting because we have had activists running in front of the machinery, which is extremely dangerous to operations. It slows down and sometimes stops the harvesting, which is obviously what the activists want. But at other times they have tied themselves to the machinery or tied themselves to trees. I think these are extremely irresponsible acts, and I do not think the government have acted quickly enough to get on top of this. A lot of it is in the name of the Leadbeater’s possum. I think the numbers of Leadbeater’s possum are far greater than the green activists would have you believe. I know that at a minimum it is about 2500 to 10 000, but if you listen to government workers on the ground, they will say that those numbers could be as high as 20 000. It was not long ago, perhaps a year ago, that I was driving home one night along Melba Highway, just near the Kinglake National Park, and lo and behold out in front of me ran a little Leadbeater’s possum. A week later I went to download the image from my dash cam and found
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2189 out that my images only went back five days, so I was unable to use that. But the numbers are there. We have activists using this as an excuse to stop forestry at a time when the demand for timber has never been so high. We have unprecedented growth in Melbourne. People love the warmth of timber. They want timber stairs, timber floors, and they love timber furniture. This is not pine. People are not after pine furniture. They are not after the blue gums that are used for fibre; they want some fine grade timber to be harvested. That demand is there. The government really has to recognise this and make it easier for the industry. Mr PEARSON (Essendon) (15:20): I am delighted to join the debate on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019. At the outset I think it is important to acknowledge the outstanding contribution made by my friend and colleague the member for Sydenham. I have known the member for many years. She has been a quiet achiever of the labour movement. The member for Sydenham I remember played an integral role in the early 1990s when affirmative action targets were adopted by the Victorian branch of the Labor Party. I was at that conference at Monash University in about 1993 or 1994. The member for Sydenham is a very modest person. She is a very serious and considered person, and she has always conducted herself to the very highest standards. She has been a strong advocate for women in our party and in this place. She has been a strong advocate of the labour movement, both inside and outside of this place. It is no surprise to me or to those who know the member for Sydenham that she was an integral part of developing this legislation. She played a key role in the development of this legislative response, because it goes to her very core and essence. The member for Sydenham has always been a proud member of our party and of our movement, and she has been a passionate advocate for the rights of women and the rights of workers. I think the member is very thoughtful in the contributions that she makes. She is very sincere and quite a serious person, but she is not a showy and flashy person. I just think it is important to place this on the record because sometimes when you have got people like the member for Sydenham, because they are not flashy and because they are not showy and because they are not self-promoters, what they do is sometimes forgotten and it is sometimes not noticed or recognised or applauded. It should be, because she should be very proud of the contribution that she has made in this place, that she has made in advancing the cause of women in the labour movement and that she has made in advancing the cause of the labour movement more broadly. She has made an outstanding contribution, and I have no doubt that the member for Sydenham will continue to make an excellent contribution in this place in the years to come. The reason why we are bringing forward a bill like this is that on this side of the house we recognise that there is market failure evident and present in this sector. The reality is that our nation is in the economic doldrums. The most recent GDP data shows that the economy grew by 1.8 per cent. This is at a time when you have got significant company profits and you have got significant shareholder returns occurring. But the problem is that workers are struggling—workers are not being fairly paid— and you are looking at widespread and systemic wage stagnation that is occurring. When you have got a set of circumstances where workers are not being properly remunerated and where they do not feel that they have got a level of job security, this has a significant impact on the economy. If you think back to before the GFC, our economy was growing consistently at well over 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent. Year in, year out we were growing quite significantly. These figures, and these are national figures—they are not state figures—show that the Australian economy is struggling. I am pleased to indicate that if you look at the recent budget figures, both in terms of gross state product here in Victoria and state final demand, that is not the case. That is partly due to the strong economic injection that the state government is making in relation to its capital works agenda and its expansionary agenda. The long-term average of capital investment in Victoria from 2006 to 2014 by the public sector was $4.9 billion. Across the forward estimates it is well over $13 billion here in Victoria. If you look at the size of the public sector relative to the state economy, we are about 25 per cent, so I am not suggesting that by having this expansionary policy we have got a controlling impact on the economy. We are not a command and control economy. But what we are seeing is a very large
BILLS 2190 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 injection occurring, and that is providing a degree of confidence throughout the economy, and the economy as a result is growing quite significantly here in Victoria. But we need to make sure that where there is market failure like we are seeing—where you have got this level of uncertainty, where you have got owner-drivers who are being disadvantaged—the state takes action to address it. Preparing for this bill I was recalling a conversation I had at the Melbourne Business School when I was studying my MBA about 15 years ago. One of the Harvard case studies related to an air freight business in America, in Colorado. The workers were overwhelmingly women who would go out in the dead of night to pack and sort packages, and they were being paid the princely sum of something like $7 an hour. I remember raising it with the lecturer. I said, ‘I do have an issue with the hourly rate of pay’. The lecturer, who was a Canadian chap, said to me, ‘Do you think they’re being paid too much?’. I responded emphatically, ‘No. If you’re getting up at 2.00 a.m. to sort packages in Colorado, you should be getting paid penalty rates because that is what the appropriate thing to do is’. But it did strike me that people tend to sometimes look at these things through a different lens, and unfortunately what we are seeing at the moment is that the interests of working families—working people—and people who work in blue-collar industries are not being adequately represented and there is not a fairness that is being applied to the way in which workers are remunerated. That is why we need to act; it is as simple that. If you did not have market failure in this place, there would be no need to act and we would not be here having this conversation. The fact of the matter is that you have got owner-drivers who take on a significant amount of debt or tie up a significant amount of their capital in order to buy their property, plant and equipment to run a job, and as a consequence of that they need to have some level of security about the way in which they are remunerated. That is why we have brought a bill like this to this place—to ensure that that is in place. You need to make sure that there is an appropriate compliance and enforcement regime in place, which this bill addresses, because there is not much point looking at trying to have an appropriate regulatory regime in place without there being suitable penalties in place where there are incidents of non-compliance. I am pleased to see that the bill also empowers the Small Business Commission to look at resolving disputes. Again when I think of the Small Business Commission I think of my friend the former member for Footscray, the Honourable Marsha Thomson, who introduced that legislation in the first term of the Bracks government as a way of trying to provide an honest broker to resolve disputes between smaller business operators and larger corporations. So this is an important legislative measure. I am also pleased to note that the transport and forestry industry councils will play a key role in looking at the way in which this act is administered and the regulations that are developed. That is a fair and appropriate measure to ensure that you have got the ability to make sure that the regulatory regime is appropriate. This is an important piece of legislation. Bills like this are the reason why I joined the labour movement and why I believe in the power of parliamentary democracy. It is about making sure that workers are properly and fairly represented and remunerated and it is about making sure that where there is market failure there is a role for the state to step in. I am really pleased that we have brought this bill before the house, and I commend the member for Sydenham for her extensive commitment to our party and our movement. This bill does her justice. Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (15:30): I rise to make a contribution on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019. I would just take up a little bit of commentary that has occurred on the other side of the house. I noted when I was sitting in my office that the member for Oakleigh, who was speaking on the forestry contractors bill, commented, ‘We are the party of small business and great supporters of small business’. I would like to invite the member for Oakleigh down to have a yarn to Robbie Brunt, Richard Pelz and Andy Westaway, a couple of logging contractors— big burly boys—in my electorate who at the moment, because of lack of security of supply to their
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2191 industry, I do not think are thinking this government is the great friend of small business that the member for Oakleigh would make it out to be. The member for Essendon mentioned that these owner-operators borrow a lot of money to invest in plant and equipment and they need certainty around their remuneration. What he failed to mention was that in relation to the forestry industry they also need great certainty around their access to resource and some security around their supply contracts. So we come in here and we talk about some of the things that are fluffy and feel good for the mob on that side, but when we get down to the real stuff of what is impacting on these businesses in rural and regional areas, the Robbie Brunts, the Andy Westaways and the Richard Pelzes, who are important employers in their own town, are getting absolutely shafted by the lack of resources and the lack of supply and security. There are some changes in this bill that will be welcomed by the sector, such as the respecification of the purposes of the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Act 2005, which include promotion of transport industry best practice, education and training. There are some others that were covered off by the lead speaker on our side. That is the reason why we will not be opposing this bill. But I would like to talk in relation to this bill about some data around the timber industry in Victoria. I am very disappointed to see there are no Greens members in the chamber to talk about the forest industry and there are no Greens speakers listed to talk about this very important bill. That is very disappointing. But I want to put on the record again some data around the timber industry here in Victoria. Plantations are an important part of our resource. We hear this all the time and I do not think anyone would disagree with that, but they are not a replacement for our existing native timber industry. These two industries need to go hand in hand. Of the 7.8 million hectares of public native forest in Victoria, 94 per cent of that is unavailable or unsuitable for timber harvesting—94 per cent. This figure is not something that has been produced by the timber industry. This figure has been produced by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office. Only 6 per cent is available to the industry. That is proof that timber harvesting is permitted in only a very small area. It is around 0.04 per cent that is harvested per annum. Now when you think about that 6 per cent, compare it to countries like Finland which harvests 83 per cent, Sweden 78 per cent or Norway 68 per cent, and they harvest that timber sustainably. But that is the percentage of their forest area that is indeed open for harvesting, and America’s is well over 50 per cent as well. I want to get into why we need a native timber industry in Victoria in addition to growing our plantation timber. Now appearance-grade timber, the high-quality timber, cannot be grown in plantations viably. This is a high-quality timber that our marketplace demands. Supporting this, we had a gentleman, Professor Rod Keenan, from the University of Melbourne, who stated:
Victoria’s current plantation crop is generally not the right mix of species and has not been managed to produce products for construction, flooring or joinery. There is a reason why that mix is not being grown in our plantations: because, as the Poyry report pointed out, it cannot be grown viably. He also said: Moving to a plantation-only timber industry in Victoria has been suggested as a way to transition out of native forest harvesting. However, there are not enough plantations in Victoria to produce the volume of timber required to meet the community demand … The argument would have to be, ‘Well, let’s have more plantations’, and we agree with that— absolutely, let us have more plantations—but they are not going to grow the appearance-grade timber that our industry and our consumers demand. The point is also made that Victoria and Australia are net importers of timber—can you believe that in this country we are net importers of timber?—and a component of these products is obviously
BILLS 2192 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 imported from native forests in other countries. So when we refer to plantations being unable to provide appearance-grade timber, that clearly shows plantation timber cannot be a direct substitute. The Poyry report also found that if sawlogs were not available, appearance-grade timber would be replaced by imports. This of course would come from countries with less oversight and countries with less governance than we have here in Victoria. The report stated that hardwood plantation sawlogs, even if they are grown unviably, do not have the same wood qualities as native forest sawlogs and that Victoria’s hardwood plantation estate is based around blue gum, a species which is not grown for its appearance-grade quality. So if we remove the ability to harvest high-quality timber and it cannot come from plantations, it is going to be replaced by imports. Tim Johnston, the CEO of the Victorian Association of Forestry Industries, outlined this pretty well. He said that consumer demand for certain products made it impossible to transition to an entirely plantation-based timber industry, and he is right. He said that the plantation estate and the native forestry estate were two separate and distinct resources. He said it was not a case of either/or, we need both, and he is right. On top of the Poyry report, the Deloitte Access Economics report found that if native timber harvesting ceased, substitutes would be imported—reinforcing what was in the Poyry report. The reason given is that plantation timber is only suitable for paper and lower grade products and is not a substitute for native timber. When we have greater levels of imports from countries with less oversight because you have closed down the native timber industry here in Victoria, we will have people marching up and down on the front steps of Parliament House saying ‘You are threatening the habitat of the orangutan’. Now, we cannot have the best of both worlds. We have got a well-managed timber industry here in Victoria with high levels of oversight. If you want to close that down, we are going to import appearance-grade timber from countries that do not have that oversight. But these people who normally sit up here just behind me, that are not here now, live in this little dream world of butterflies and fairy floss and rainbows where everything is going to be fantastic. They are not in touch with the reality of life and how things are on the ground. I also want to mention another aspect of the Deloitte Access Economics report related to firefighting, particularly in the Central Highlands area, that showed that firefighting would be far more difficult without the native timber industry to call on. This is the industry that provides the machinery to the front line of our fires when they break out. We are also advised, funnily enough, that the biggest threat to the Leadbeater’s possum is fire, not the timber industry—the biggest threat is fire, and that is recognised. That is the advice we get; that advice is right. So here we are looking at closing down the industry that in the time of need in a fire will provide the greatest protections to the Leadbeater’s possum. It is another case where it does not have to be either/or. We can have a native timber industry and we can look after our native species in the other 94 per cent of our forests that the timber industry does not access. We can have a balanced approach like, as politicians and parliaments, we have to have balanced approaches in a whole range of sectors. With practices all over the world that are not environmentally friendly and that are causing destruction in areas that really should not be decimated, we should not be attacking an industry in a state and a country that does have high levels of oversight, that does have social conscience and utilises in this state in particular 6 per cent of the resource that is available to it. I mentioned earlier Finland, 83 per cent; Sweden, 78 per cent; Norway, 68 per cent—that is the area of forest in their country that is available to the timber industry. We need to support our contractors, and I call on the government to do so. Mr FREGON (Mount Waverley) (15:40): I am delighted to speak on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019. As some of you in this place may know, in my previous career I was a small business owner, also a member of the Labor party—go figure—and also an IT consultant. One of our clients which I assisted in serving for well over a decade was the Transport Workers Union. I was fortunate enough to see how hard the leaders and organisers of the TWU fight
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2193 for their members and for safety on our roads. When I first started working for the TWU the secretary was a man by the name of Bill Noonan, and I note that last August the previous member for Williamstown—his son, Wade Noonan—spoke passionately on this bill. I would have been assisting the TWU in my previous capacity when the original legislation came in in 2005 before the Parliament, and I am proud to add my voice to their cause today on this much-needed amendment. This bill at its core seeks to ensure that our Victorian roads are safer by ensuring thousands of owner- drivers, forestry contractors and on-demand workers are paid a living wage. This bill will ensure these workers will no longer be vulnerable to exploitation or forced into unsafe practices by economic pressures down supply chains. The bill also expands the act to cover third-party contracting platforms such as Uber Freight and Uber Eats, which are to be included in the definition of ‘freight broker’. So whether you are driving a B- double hauling timber or riding a bike running dumplings with soy sauce, this bill provides comfort for small business owner-drivers. The big ticket items here are the prevention of undercutting joint agreements and penalties for non- compliance; payments being made to owner-drivers within 30 days of invoice receipt; a new low-cost binding dispute resolution process at the Small Business Commission; and providing information for small business owner-drivers and forestry contractors to understand the revenue and costs of the business they are starting, with a framework for the regulation of contracts between owner-drivers, forestry contractors and their hirers. The purpose of this bill, as I said, is to make miscellaneous amendments to the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Act 2005, which was introduced by the Bracks Labor government, another delivering Labor government—we have had a few of those. Before this act was introduced workers were facing more and more increased demand on their work while simultaneously seeing less and less come home in their back pockets. This provided basic protections for owner-drivers by recognising the power imbalance between owner-drivers operating one to three vehicles versus big companies and big hirers, and aimed to improve the protections of small business drivers The amendments in this bill seek to address changes that have occurred in this industry since 2005. If owner-drivers and forestry contractors can cover their operational costs and maintain their vehicles, we will have greater safety for drivers and for our road users. It sounds fairly simple, but for anyone who has run their own small business, day to day is rarely simple. We do not want drivers being forced into situations where they need to work additional hours to cover operating costs. This bill seeks to remedy this problem which is occurring now. As the previous member for Williamstown mentioned 12 months ago, and it is still relevant today, long-haul driving means an exposure to multiple risks: long working hours, sedentary roles, poor access to nutritious food, social isolation, shift work, time pressures, low levels of job control and of course the biggest risk of all being fatigue. But if you are a small business owner-driver you can add running the books, negotiating contracts, chasing payments, managing cash flow and the list goes on. Just because you get home does not mean you stop working. Now, being paid fairly can be the difference between being able to put food on the table for your kids that week or not. And if you are not being paid fairly, it may force some to push that maintenance for their truck one week further out, and this is obviously something we cannot advocate for as a society. Improving the protections available to small businesses—namely, owner-drivers in the transport industry and haulage contractors in the forestry industry—means a lot for our drivers. Drivers do a dangerous job when they keep Australia moving, and it is important that the right protections and workers rights are in place for them. Especially important here is the amending of contracting requirements in the act to require the payment of invoices within 30 days. I know that members from both sides have mentioned this being a very good thing. Having worked as a small business owner, I understand that what you really want to do is actually do the work. When starting a small business you are most likely living month to month, and that gets
BILLS 2194 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 even harder when you do not know if the money is coming in 60 days, 90 days or even longer. Our owner-drivers want to drive and earn a living. Chasing a hirer for a payment 120 days overdue means you are not earning. Arguing over a contract means you are not driving and you are not earning. These are the problems that this bill seeks to remedy. Starting up businesses is hard, and this amendment bill will ensure that new drivers and forestry contractors have a better understanding of the costs of the new job they will be undertaking. Our owner-drivers need this bill and their families need this bill. This bill is not only about establishing a framework for compliance and enforcement but also ensuring this framework is used by introducing penalties for non-compliance with the mandatory requirements of the act. These amendments ensure owner-drivers and forestry contractors better understand cost structures, the importance of negotiating fair contracts and running successful small businesses. This amendment bill will clarify the definition of ‘freight broker’, ensuring contractors employed through third-party contracting platforms like Uber Freight are covered. The act will now require a hirer or a freight broker to provide the rates and costs schedule annually rather than each time the contractor is engaged. It also amends the act to clarify that contractors have the option of being covered by the same terms and conditions of an existing contract that has been jointly negotiated while at the same time retaining the ability to negotiate their own contractual arrangements. This is important to ensure consistency and in order for start-up drivers to be able to forecast their finances. This bill will also amend the functions of the Transport Industry Council and the Forestry Industry Council to specify that they can provide advice and make recommendations to the minister on promoting industry best practice, education and training. These councils are made up of members from industry, employee associations and government, and they are responsible for making recommendations to the minister on industrial relations and on commercial practices affecting owner- drivers and forestry contractors. As a previous small business owner, I understand the trials and tribulations of trying to settle a dispute over accounts. The last thing you need to do is end up in court or VCAT. It is costly, it is stressful, you do not want to be there. The process is not just costly; it also takes so much time and you are not earning. For owner-drivers who have disputes with hirers, this new amendment creates a dispute resolution procedure which specifies that the small business commission can arrange arbitration where the parties to the dispute agree. This means drivers can now have a faster low-cost, confidential, binding dispute resolution process for parties in dispute. This bill strengthens the initial act from 2005 to ensure that issues that inevitably affect the wellbeing of drivers are considered and addressed. It understands the owner-driver’s role is essentially that of a small business owner and seeks to implement basic rights to even out the playing field between owner- driver and hirers. I do not know if there is one person in this room who would be impressed to have to wait a random 30, 60 or 90 days to see their pay roll in. Enshrining basic protections around payment due dates is incredibly important. The owner-drivers and contract drivers industry needs education, enforcement and compliance, and this bill will deliver it. The people making recommendations to the minister need to be people who speak on behalf of these workers and who understand their roles. Amending the bill to specify that the Transport Industry Council and the Forestry Industry Council can provide advice and make recommendations to the minister on promoting industry best practice, education and training is also incredibly important, as I said. These reforms will hopefully see improvements for owner-drivers—I think they will. Drivers should be getting paid on time, drivers should be safe at work and drivers should be getting paid fairly. The Transport Workers Union have worked hard and advocated at every opportunity to drive safer outcomes for their members and the industry. I would like to congratulate John Berger, his staff,
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2195 organisers, delegates and members of the Victoria-Tasmania branch for their tireless efforts in making their members safer. But let us also note that every one of us that share the roads with our owner-driver mates are also safer because of this bill. Ensuring that contractors can cover their business costs and maintain vehicles will result in greater safety for all our road users as drivers will not need to work additional hours, potentially breaching fatigue laws or road laws to cover the cost of running their business. I commend this bill to the house. Mr BLACKWOOD (Narracan) (15:50): I am very pleased to be able to make a contribution on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019. At the outset, I would like to acknowledge that I certainly support all the comments made by my colleagues on this side of the house on this particular bill, and it is so pleasing to have such support from my colleagues, who understand very much how the transport and forestry industries do work in this state. This bill aims to amend the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Act 2005, which was originally a bill that was introduced by the Bracks government. That bill led to the establishment of a Transport Industry Council and a Forestry Industry Council. I was a founding member of the Forestry Industry Council in 2005 and 2006, representing the Victorian Forest Harvesting and Cartage Council and the chair at that time was Neil Pope, a former member of this house as member for Monbulk. The composition of that council consisted of representatives from VicForests, the Victorian Forest Harvesting and Cartage Council, the CFMEU forestry division and plantation companies. That council aimed to protect contractors by providing them with advice on appropriate rates. There was a schedule of rates that could be referred to during the preparation of a tender. It was not like an ambit claim from the union or a log of claims, and it was not mandatory, merely a guide. Some in this house may know that I spent over 30 years in the timber industry as a harvesting and haulage contractor and was a fourth-generation member of my family to be involved in the timber industry, so I feel I am qualified to give some background on the lead-up to and introduction of the original legislation in 2005. When I first started in the industry a typical logging crew would consist of a hand faller and a dozer operator. Once the faller had felled the tree, the dozer—usually a D6 Caterpillar or equivalent—would drag the logs to a landing, which consisted of a ramp constructed and located beside the road. The dozer would roll the logs up the ramp and onto the truck. It was a very simple operation with minimum outlay and minimum overheads, but trust me: it was very hard and dangerous physical work. Then around the mid-1970s contractors introduced wheel loaders for the task of loading trucks and then from about 1988 followed the lead of the Tasmanian industry and began to move away from wheel loaders to excavators for loading, debarking and stockpiling the logs at the landing, which were now increasingly being dragged by rubber-tyred skidders. The dozer was principally used for road and track construction and the establishment of mineral earth boundary trails around the area to be harvested. The industry was gradually becoming more sophisticated, production was increasing and, most importantly, safety was also improving. However, the biggest risks were still present—having our chainsaw operators and tree fallers still exposed to elements such as falling limbs and unforeseen incidents. The only answer was to get these employees into the safety of a machine. New technology had been developing fast, and for almost 20 years mechanical harvesting had been deployed very successfully in the smaller-diameter timber grown in plantations. The hardwood timber industry began a significant transition from about 1998, adopting new technology which enabled the industry to move away from traditional hand-falling and manual crosscutting to mechanical harvesting. This was a groundbreaking period for the hardwood industry in Victoria, and as contractors adopted the new equipment it increased productivity significantly but, more importantly, greatly enhanced the safety of the forest worker. But naturally, this new, modern, highly technical and industry-specific equipment was very costly. Harvesting contractors had moved from one machine to
BILLS 2196 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 multiple machines. A typical harvesting crew with a capital cost of around $150 000 many years ago was now costing more than $4 million to set up. Of course the same was happening in the haulage sector, as trucks became bigger and more powerful with increased capacity, and the introduction of B-doubles more recently has seen the capital cost increase enormously. My first new truck, purchased in 1974, cost $20 000. Today the outlay for the truck with the biggest legally allowable carrying capacity will be at least $500 000. As I have said, over this time productivity has increased but through the late-1990s and into the early- 2000s it was becoming increasingly difficult for forestry contractors to cover their capital outlay and get a reasonable rate of return. That is why the Bracks government in 2005 saw the need to assist by passing legislation that put in place a Forestry Industry Council that would provide advice to forestry contractors on rates specific to the machines they were using and the volumes they were contracted to harvest and haul. But of course there are plenty of other risks to a forestry contractor’s viability such as the radical Greens who influence government policy, and the ferals who break the law, trespass on logging coupes, compromise the safety of themselves and the forestry workers and prevent hardworking, law-abiding citizens from going about their lawful activities. We witnessed this type of illegal action just recently when a bunch of ferals invaded a logging coupe on Ballantynes Saddle about 20 kilometres east of Noojee. For 11 days the harvest and haulage contractors and their employees were denied their right to work and earn an income. The sloppy and recalcitrant attitude of the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Resources (DJPR) in this instance was an absolute disgrace. Normally authorised officers would be deployed to this protest within 24 hours. The protesters would be asked to leave, and as is normally the case the protesters would refuse, which then triggers a call to police to alert search and rescue that they are required to dismantle a tree sit and a machine lock-on. Within 48 hours this type of protest would be removed and the timber harvesting would be resumed after a thorough check of the machines for vandalism and the coupe for any devices that had deliberately been planted by the ferals to cause harm to forest workers. This latest protest took 264 hours to end. The lack of action of DJPR was blamed on a shortage of authorised officers, but this was obviously not the real reason for their recalcitrance because they were offered qualified authorised officers by Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and VicForests and declined those offers of assistance, showing a complete lack of regard for the forest workers and their families. While there are some concerns with this bill, such as the Uber blue transport and the compliance and enforcement elements of the bill, the majority of industry do support it. On that basis we will not be opposing the bill. I should also mention before I close that Philip Dalidakis, who has just announced his retirement from the Legislative Council, has been a long-time supporter of the industry. He was CEO of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries for some years and a great supporter of the industry, based on a great understanding of what the industry actually does do and what it does to ensure that Victorians have access to high-quality, high appearance-grade timber, and also understands the industry can survive on the area that it has to harvest without any compromise or threat to threatened species. It is sad to see him go. I know he has been a very proud and very strong supporter of the industry in cabinet while he has been a minister, and I want to thank him for the time that he put into speaking up for the industry. He will certainly be missed by this Parliament from that point of view and from this side of the house on that point of view. The Forestry Industry Council and the Transport Industry Council have an important role to play. They do have an opportunity to do their best to make sure that contractors who invest a lot of money in equipment in both of those sectors are not taken advantage of, they are not cut short in terms of the terms and conditions that they work under, and that they have the support of government because of
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2197 the information that those two groups actually pass through to the minister. So I think from that point of view it is a very important role. As I said, I was a member of the inaugural Forestry Industry Council for two years, and it was a time when the industry was transitioning and changing and it was a time where rates were really struggling to keep up with the investment and the capital outlay. But since that time it has improved, and I think the role of the Forestry Industry Council in particular has played a major part in that catch-up and I guess also in ensuring that contractors have the ability to create the safe places of work that it is incumbent on them to supply. So from a safety point of view it is extremely important. You cannot make a safe place of work if you cannot afford to buy good machinery, and you have to have good rates and be paid regularly to be able to afford good machinery with the latest technology, which does enhance safety and productivity. So thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. Mr CHEESEMAN (South Barwon) (15:59): It is with some pleasure that I rise tonight to speak on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019, and I do so having had, through my father, a connection with the forestry industry. We moved to Australia in the late 1980s, and my father commenced work shortly after that at the University of Melbourne school of forestry located out at Creswick. The University of Melbourne and its school of forestry was one of the primary places in which the forestry industry engaged the necessary research and training skills to ensure that that industry grew and developed and that the necessary reforms were put in place to make sure that the forestry industry remained sustainable. Through my father’s connections we of course got to know many of his colleagues and many timber workers and very much got to see firsthand the reform and the change that was taking place through that industry. As quite a number of the speakers have touched on, the practices of the logging industry of course have changed greatly over the last 20 to 30 years, particularly in terms of the introduction of mechanisation, which not only enables timber to be harvested, it enables it to be harvested in a safer way. We as road users also have I think a right, and that right is to be able to access our roads and to do so in the knowledge that contractors, that road users and that trucking companies are treating their workers in a fair way, that they are not being underpaid and exploited in terms of overtime and the like. We say that because we not only agree as an Andrews Labor government with the principle of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, we also want to see our roads being a safe place, or as safe as possible, and having fatigued drivers under great stress to work more hours than what is safe to be able to provide for their families is not only unfair for those in that industry but also very unfair and unsafe for the rest of us as road users. This bill very much goes to addressing some of the shortcomings of the 2005 act, which I think is a good act, but unfortunately the enforcement mechanisms do not exist within it, which means that the legislation in many ways prior to these reforms did not have the necessary regulatory teeth to deal with exploitation. These arrangements that we are proposing to be introduced have, as I understand it, been through a detailed consultation. Industry largely supports it. I note that the Transport Workers Union were involved in the consultation, and I think these arrangements will make it much fairer for those workers. As has been noted, Labor has been a champion of small business, and the nature of the logging industry, the nature of the construction industry, is that the majority of workers in those industries are employed as contractors and usually through small business. We want to make sure that there is an opportunity for small business to deal with large industries in a fair way so that the contracts that are on offer are fair, that those that are asked to sign contracts to provide a business service are compensated fairly and adequately for what they are doing and that those arrangements are put in place in a way in which those small businesses do not unnecessarily have to exploit workers or indeed have themselves as owners of small businesses to work dangerous hours. That of course creates enormous difficulties for all of us as road users.
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Labor has a very proud tradition of standing up for small business, standing up for people who work within small business and standing up for working families. These amendments build on our historic values that we have as not only a party but a movement. When we are provided that opportunity of government, we put in place legislation that drives fairness. We know that in the logging industry to establish a business is not a cheap thing to do. The equipment is expensive; it is complex. We want to ensure that those individuals that take that business risk, make that investment and create that opportunity do so in a way in which they can earn fair money for what they do and can pay people fairly for what they do and that provides all of us as road users with a safe set of circumstances where we do not see fatigued workers operating big, expensive equipment when it is not safe to do so. I am very proud to have made just a small contribution in terms of this. Labor, as I said, has that history of standing up for small business, standing up for workers and standing up for road users. This bill very much builds on Labor’s legacy. I hope this bill passes. It is pleasing to hear that certainly in this chamber there appears to be some level of bipartisan support. I would like to see more bipartisan support in terms of the concept of safe rates, not just in the trucking industry but in many other occupations. I will not hold my breath. But I do look forward to seeing this bill pass this place, pass the Council in due course and be implemented in a timely way. And I look forward to noting, hopefully, that our roads become safer, that wage injustice in this industry is turned around and that we see continued cooperation between small business, workers, government and the industry as a whole to ensure that this particular occupation is profitable going forward; that there is not small business exploitation, worker exploitation or unnecessary fatalities on our roads. I commend this bill to the house. Mr CARBINES (Ivanhoe) (16:09): I am pleased to contribute to the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019 and acknowledge that members opposite are not opposing the bill. I thought we might just start, before we get to some of the detail, by just touching on the workplace in general that we are referring to here, particularly for owner-drivers. If we look at the Transport Accident Commission website, 16 June 2019, we see at the moment our road toll—or lives lost, as we are inclined to talk about it today, is 150—150 lives lost here in Victoria, up 53 per cent from the same time last year. That is a salient point for a lot of reasons. It reflects the danger for owner-drivers, like many others who use our roads, but they do so as their workplace—it is a dangerous workplace, and that is something we should not forget. I also want to acknowledge that in some of the discussions we have as members of Parliament in relation to roads, as you would know, Speaker—Rosanna Road, for example—owner-drivers, particularly when it comes to haulage and freight, can sometimes be demonised when their task or their role is to get goods to and from shopping centres, supermarkets and other places that are right in the heart of suburban and metropolitan Melbourne and the electorates that many of us represent. They do so on the infrastructure that is available to them. Part of the investments and the work with regard to projects like North East Link or other projects in our community that the Andrews government is committed to is about providing better, safer, more appropriate transport links and networks for many in that industry and particularly for owner-drivers. What we need to be focused on, its message in part to our community, is that there is an expectation that government can provide an appropriate and safe workplace and that the Parliament does that. That means investment in rail and road transport infrastructure that is safer and more in tune with modern standards for what is required for owner-drivers and that reflects an understanding of what more we can do to deal with the lives lost on our roads, particularly when we have seen an 80 per cent increase in rural road fatalities this year alone, some 41 more deaths than this time last year, which is again a reflection on where a lot of the owner-driver haulage work happens—in regional communities, where they are taking, bringing and transporting natural resources, as we heard today. There have been contributions from many members—I have sat through this debate—particularly from Mount Waverley, from Sydenham, certainly of course from over in Narracan and from across
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2199 the chamber, members who have distinct engagements and experience. I am sure you will hear also from the member for Tarneit in relation to their engagement with the transport industry—with all sectors of it. We have got people involved in haulage—four generations of a family involved at the heart of that work, members who advocate themselves in their workplaces and whose families have advocated for the work of people who are owner-drivers and work more broadly in the transport sector. That reflects also I think on why we have been able to get to a point today where the bill is not opposed by those opposite. It picks up on the work our government has done in a broader nature around the labour hire industry in particular, and then we get to the nuts and bolts and how that applies for owner- drivers in the workplace. One of the key aspects of the bill that I wanted to reinforce in my broader contribution, in trying to come at it from some different angles, is that one of the key market failures the bill seeks to address is a lack of information for small business owner-drivers and forestry contractors to understand their operating costs in the commercial relationship. Why is that important? Because having that information before entering into contract negotiations ensures contractors are better placed to determine whether an offer will fully cover their operating costs, provide a return for their own labour and provide a return on their business investment. If you get that wrong, owner-drivers at that point are under huge pressure; they are suddenly under pressure to cut corners, under pressure to put themselves at risk through fatigue, through stress, through financial stress, and under pressure to meet deadlines and to meet contract arrangements that are impossible to meet. It is trying to unpick those pressures, unpick those difficulties that I think has been part of the success of the collaboration we have had from stakeholders and industry in relation to the bill. As was stated by the Minister for Industrial Relations: If owner drivers and forestry contractors can cover their operating costs and maintain their vehicles, this will result in greater safety for all road users. That reflects back on the lead speaker for the opposition. I just want to draw out his concerns in relation to some of the submissions that were made in particular proposals reflected in the bill based on the discussions and submissions made by key stakeholders through the review process set up by the Minister for Industrial Relations. Some of those were in confidence, and there has been some criticism from those opposite as to not making more of that information directly available to the house for discussion, but I think we have got to understand also the parliamentary committee system and the in- camera evidence that is given and the submissions that are given. And I think given that there is an acknowledgement from those opposite that there is wide industry support for this bill and for getting to the nub of these often commercially sensitive issues and the examples perhaps that have been used to draw out how we frame legislation that tries to address these issues, I think we do also have to be careful where there is not always a capacity to provide that level of detail. We have got to trust that if the intentions are clear about trying to drive better outcomes and better legislation and better drafting of that to really get to the nub of the pressure points in this industry for owner-drivers and forestry contractors—and if people are prepared to come to the table in confidence and provide that information to the owner-drivers and forestry contractors review process set up by the minister—then I think that is to be commended, and there is a mechanism to use that in the right instances. I think this is one of the right instances where we have been able to do that. I know at different times, as many of us would know when doorknocking around our electorates, particularly on a Sunday afternoon, across West Heidelberg it will be the owner-driver washing their vehicle—not because it is just a nice pastime and a bit of time out in the front yard; it is because they have got to get themselves sorted and organised, because they are back out there first thing Monday morning or later that Sunday night, and that has been a small part of their not-quite-time-out and they are gearing up for another heavy and busy week. It is about also acknowledging that for many of us here we are in a pretty safe workplace most of the time compared to what I have outlined and what people in some other industries have to endure to
BILLS 2200 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 make a living depending on where their workplace is. It is also about understanding that when we put on high-vis in different places in our electorates it is more to inspect the work of others than it is to get our hands dirty ourselves. We understand our advocacy and the role that we play, but I think it is also about understanding that there are many people that we meet in our communities who make a living through some very serious and challenging hard physical work and on top of that have to overlay the financial stress and pressure of running a business, not just for themselves as owner-drivers but often, as the legislation outlines, it does apply to drivers who operate up to three vehicles. Where the owner of the business drives one vehicle, they also have responsibility for other employees, in a small number of cases of course, and they also feel an obligation to their families. So I think what we have been able to do here is picking up again on the work of the former Deputy Premier and former member for Niddrie, Rob Hulls—work that came into this Parliament back in 2005—and the revision and the work in understanding which has often been touched on by the Transport Workers Union and their leadership, from John Berger and others, that it is a constantly evolving and changing industry. It is absolutely critical that this Parliament understands that and seeks to be as nimble as possible in reflecting that and advocating and advancing the interests not only of workers in the more general sense but of owner-operators in their workplace, understanding the contribution that they make and unpicking and hopefully defining in a much better way in our legislation how we can better provide the legislative support to unpick those contracts to provide greater understanding and information so people can make just decisions, operate in a just workplace and get just outcomes. That is what is driving this legislation. I commend all those that have been involved in it, and I absolutely commend the bill to the house. Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (16:19): I am so pleased to rise and speak in favour of the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019, a bill reflecting the changing nature of industry, commerce and workplace relations in the digital age. These changes will ensure the protection of hardworking Victorians operating their own small business as owner-drivers in the transport industry and those working as harvesting and haulage contractors in the forestry industry. I would like to acknowledge the dedicated members of the Transport Workers Union and their advocacy on behalf of their members that has helped make this bill possible. I have witnessed firsthand their tireless efforts and ongoing commitment to the Safe Rates campaign, where the TWU have continually highlighted the importance of reform and the need for action on issues this bill will address. We all have a collective responsibility in this place to ensure the people we represent are working under fair and safe conditions, free from exploitation. I also want to acknowledge the efforts undertaken by the honourable member for Sydenham, who oversaw as the Minister for Industrial Relations in the previous government the owner-drivers and forestry contractors review and the Victorian inquiry into labour hire and insecure work. This bill is a testament to the dedication and energy that both the honourable member and her team put into the future of Victorian workers regardless of the industry they work in. It would also be remiss of me not to mention the honourable member’s role in establishing Wage Inspectorate Victoria, which this bill grants compliance and enforcement oversight to with regard to sections of the transport industry. The Bracks government first brought in the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Act in 2005, and to many that may seem not a long time ago, but in reality much has changed in the past 14 years. We have seen the digital age take hold, completely transforming our communities, our industries and the way this economy works. More subtle within this transformation has been a change in the balance of power affecting working people, and let me say that when our laws and our regulations fail to keep up with the economic conditions of the time, our markets, our industries, our people and our economy risk falling behind, unable to reach the equilibrium of their full potential. We soon see market failures, and I cannot emphasise it enough when I say market failures are the only thing trickling down. We see this now with our owner-drivers working under subpar conditions—conditions that much of the time fail to take into account tangible operating costs and the intangible ripple on-costs of fatigue and overwork.
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This affects thousands and thousands of small businesses across Victoria, the owner-drivers operating these businesses and their families, who are just trying to make ends meet. That is without even mentioning the flow-on effects to other businesses caused by the shrinking of disposable incomes. Before the Andrews government first introduced this bill last year it was estimated that there was a huge amount of pay and productivity lost by small businesses, which is why this government is committed to ensuring that working conditions are improved, that owner-drivers and small business owners are profitable and productive and that the balance of power is shifted to where it is fair and equitable, so those operating a small business get a fair and reasonable return on their hard work and investment. As it stands, owner-drivers are responsible for the maintenance of their own vehicles and the running of their own businesses. A fair and reasonable expectation in the modern digital economy is that there is a demand for their service—a service they are willing to provide. In these circumstances, though, we are seeing an imbalance of power that has taken root due to a lack of information and understanding. Owner-drivers and forestry contractors are not trained in accounting or contract law or even really in how to operate a small business. This makes getting a full picture of the costs involved in running their businesses difficult to obtain, because operating costs do not just factor in the cost of fuel in getting from point A to B. Insurance and depreciation are just two examples of costs that are relevant for an owner-driver to determine how much they are really earning for a job. This bill will play a significant role in remedying this by ensuring that owner-drivers and forestry contractors are provided with the information they need to understand their legal rights, their obligations and the profitability a job could yield. By mandating that hirers provide owner-drivers and contractors with a copy of applicable rates, a cost schedule for their vehicle class and an information booklet at least three days before entering into a contract, individuals will have the knowledge to make informed decisions about what their time and their labour is worth. They will be equipped to assess the overhead costs of their business with a better view of what is and what is not profitable. The risks of business failure, financial hardship and insolvency are all too real for small business owners, which is why this bill legislates a 30-day period in which invoices must be paid. As I have already mentioned, there are a lot of costs that come with operating a small business with your own vehicle. There is maintenance, fuel, repairs, insurance, depreciation et cetera, so it is understandable that many owner-drivers enter into serviceable debts to keep their vehicles up and running. Serviceable debts are standard practice for small businesses in general, so why should it be any different for owner- drivers? Now, problems arise from this, as they do for any business, and that is when revenue and cash flow fail to keep up with debt repayments, because revenue can look really good on paper but if invoices are not paid on time it can throw cash flow and the balance sheet of a small business completely out of whack. This bill guarantees adequate breathing space so owner-drivers can finish a contract and get paid on time, so they can pay what they owe. What about road safety? Well, we talk about it all the time—about the Transport Accident Commission and being careful over long weekends—but many so often forget about the transport workers. Part of what brought this act into existence under the Bracks government was the coroner’s investigation into tragic incidents that had occurred within this industry. As I keep saying, there is an imbalance of power between owner-drivers and those contracting them for work, and when you factor in prime contractors and subcontractors, there is very little bargaining power left, which can result in very, very dangerous outcomes. Many drivers work some of the longest hours on our roads; they are usually up before dawn. We know for a fact that driving long hours increases fatigue significantly and subsequently results in a much higher risk of accidents. By giving people information that they need to assess the profitability of a contract, they can spend less time on the road working themselves simply to cover the operating costs of their business. Another important aspect of this bill is of course compliance, by establishing the proper framework and the introduction of penalties for those failing to comply with the mandatory requirements. Wage Inspectorate Victoria will be provided with funding of up to $5.5 million to accommodate new powers
BILLS 2202 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 for enforcement, and this will allow the inspectorate to monitor compliance with this act and with new regulatory requirements. New penalties will be introduced for the proposed criminal offences, ranging from 25 penalty units or around $4000 for a body corporate down to around $800 in any other case. Our workers and drivers deserve no less, as these protections help deter misconduct in the industry. The bill also provides for arbitration measures for contractor-driver disputes, allowing them, by consent, to seek binding resolutions from the Victorian Small Business Commission, relieving some of the pressure on VCAT and giving businesses and drivers an easier avenue for dispute resolution. I am also pleased that for the first time this bill will give the same protections to tip truck owner-drivers and give their owner-drivers the same benefits as other drivers covered by this act. I am proud to say that the Andrews government recognises the importance of tip truck workers and the hard work they contribute to the Victorian economy. That is why last year the government made it a priority to ensure that they received mandatory minimum pay rates and improved work standards. This bill continues that work and enforces further protections for tip truck owner-drivers in their dealings with contractors by placing them on an equal footing with owner-drivers and forestry contractors. The importance of truck drivers and the work that they do in Victoria’s economy cannot be overstated: 1 in 33 men are truck drivers nationwide, comprising 3 per cent of all male workers, and that is without even considering the growing number of women that have joined the transport industry. The 2005 Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Act did not foresee the modern economy; the likes of Uber Eats and Deliveroo did not exist. So for the modern protections these amendments offer to modern working Victorians, I commend the bill to the house. Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (16:29): I have great pleasure in joining the debate on the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Amendment Bill 2019 and particularly following my colleague seated behind me, the new member for Tarneit. I wholly endorse what she had to say on the bill, particularly in relation to the contribution and the work done during our last term by the member for Sydenham during her great tenure as the Minister for Industrial Relations that laid the preconditions for bringing this bill before the house. The member for Sydenham has a very long history of standing up for workers in all industries, particularly vulnerable workers. We first met working at Trades Hall longer ago than I care to remember, but I think it is a testament to her that it is all types of workers, including owner- drivers, that she is concerned about. I was very pleased to see that she drove the inquiry into insecure work in the last Parliament. This had a particular impact for residents in country Victoria, where unions and regulatory bodies do not necessarily have the same penetration to advise vulnerable employees. I was in this place when the Owner Drivers and Forestry Contractors Bill was introduced in 2005, and the member for Tarneit was correct that that was as a result of some coronial inquiries. She mentioned the huge hours that these workers can be required to work just to make ends meet and to fulfil contracts that they have entered into with much larger entities. The bargaining power is certainly very uneven. I take delicious pride in the fact that we are now treating these vulnerable contractors better and giving them access to the Small Business Commission. The Small Business Commission was another initiative of a Labor government, and it means that there is a body that can resolve business-to-business disputes. It beggars belief that the party of business had not thought to do that; it was the party of the labour movement that sought to do that to protect vulnerable people. For those of you who like to get out and travel in regional Victoria and who may have been affected by road trauma, have family members or friends working in this industry or have indeed been bereaved due to people being injured or losing their lives in this industry, the community of Alexandra hosts a beautiful, beautiful truck drivers memorial in the centre of that lovely town. Every year on the Queen’s Birthday weekend they have the truck and ute show and they actually have a commemorative service and add plaques for anyone from that industry who has had the misfortune of losing their lives in the preceding 12 months. I think for anyone impacted by road trauma in any way it can be particularly difficult, but when it has been in the course of someone’s work and maybe their family have lost their business it is particularly significant. So I want to again thank the community of Alexandra for their
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2203 great care and passion for this memorial, for this cause and for looking out for this community that is not often thought of. The member for Ivanhoe talked about when he is out doorknocking on a Sunday afternoon and invariably sees an owner-driver washing his truck ready for the next week of work. I know you, Speaker, are in the northern suburbs where we have many that work in this industry. With our proximity to freeways, especially the Hume Freeway, it is an appropriate place for people to work, and because I have people living on larger blocks, it can be a good place for owner-drivers to reside. I want to now turn to the modern, now digital, economy that has seen the rise of Deliveroo and Uber Eats. I must say I was disappointed with the recent decision—I think it was only about a week ago— that says that Uber drivers are contractors and not in fact employees. In my experience I have seen many vulnerable people who have been working as Uber drivers. It is quite concerning. There is one woman in particular who is well known to me. I actually did not know that in addition to her major job she had been working as an Uber driver as well. She had a shocking experience when picking up a young woman who was fleeing her drug-affected boyfriend, who was pursuing them on foot and then came after them and crashed into the rear of her vehicle. It was completely shocking and frightening. She was very uncertain about what her rights were when it came to having her vehicle fixed and whether or not this person might have found out where she lives. It was all round not a great situation. With this digital disruption many young people are seeing the lure of working in this environment, and this bill is actually a really good thing that puts an onus on those engaging people in these circumstances to actually provide a copy of the applicable rates and cost schedules for their vehicle class and an information booklet three days before entering into a contract. Many of these food delivery drivers could be very early in their driving careers. They may have only just purchased a vehicle. If they are under 25, they may find it very, very difficult to get insurance. I must say I have never actually taken an Uber myself; I do not even have the app installed. I just do not like the idea of exploiting someone’s labour. I also have not used any of those delivery platforms to deliver food to my home, although I must say I was pretty shocked when I discovered that my stepdaughter had gotten Uber Eats from McDonald’s one school holiday weekend when in fact we live two blocks from the McDonald’s, so we are not having any more of that at our place. I think that particularly because it is young people who may never have worked in a unionised workplace they could be really subject to exploitation. I know you are aware, Speaker, of that because we have La Trobe University and RMIT in our area and we have many overseas students who live in the northern suburbs. Because their visas allow them to work, but for only 19 hours a week, there have been many examples of unscrupulous employers who have employed people under contract conditions and exploited them and not paid them properly. We would all recall seeing the appalling situation of 7-Eleven, who still do not seem to have mended their ways and given proper redress to the many, many employees they exploited. The bill before the house, with the great work of the previous Minister for Industrial Relations in bringing this bill before the house, with the labour hire inquiry and ensuring that tip truck drivers are included in this, shows again how this government, as part of the labour movement, is really committed overall to safety but also to balancing out the playing field. We believe in the economy because it generates jobs and gives people income, but where there are people that have unequal power, whether it is a small business in a large shopping centre or a young Deliveroo or Uber Eats driver in Doreen, Mernda or Diamond Creek, wherever it is, we believe in supporting those people so that they can support themselves and so they can support their families. We do not want to go down the path of the US where you have a huge, huge working poor. I prefer an economy like ours and a Labor government like ours that brings forward progressive legislation to the house. I commend the bill to the house. Mr SCOTT (Preston—Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Veterans) (16:39): I move:
That the debate be now adjourned.
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Motion agreed to. Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day. Business of the house ORDERS OF THE DAY Mr SCOTT (Preston—Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Veterans) (16:39): I move:
That the consideration of order of the day, government business, 2, be postponed until later this day. Motion agreed to. Bills PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Second reading Debate resumed on motion of Mr PAKULA: That this bill be now read a second time. Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern—Leader of the Opposition) (16:40): I am pleased to rise on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019 and to do so in my capacity as the shadow Minister for Small Business in the coalition. One of the joys—some would say the few joys—of being opposition leader is being able to pick your own portfolios. One of my predecessors, Ted Baillieu, was very keen on the arts and was shadow minister for the arts. Another one of my predecessors, Denis Napthine, was very, very keen on racing, particularly around Warrnambool carnival time, and was the shadow minister and later the Minister for Racing. I was happy to pick up small business because small business is an area that I am very passionate about. It is the backbone of not just the state’s economy but also a lot of our communities. In many ways I think small businesses are the essence of what we should be striving for. They are people who get up every morning, they work hard and they take a risk so they can give opportunity to others. They give opportunity to others for employment. They provide services to their community, and they do that often at great risk to themselves economically, but they make a huge difference. So I think small business is an essential part of the state, and I am very proud to speak for those small businesspeople in my capacity as the shadow Minister for Small Business. Moving to this bill, the purpose of this bill it says is to make provision for certain public holidays in Victoria. The government is putting in legislation, rather than the past practice of gazetting a number of public holidays. Those public holidays include Easter Sunday; the Friday before the AFL Grand Final, otherwise known as grand final eve public holiday; and Christmas Day when it falls on a Saturday or Sunday. The government might have you think that they are the great friends of Christmas by securing Christmas Day as a public holiday, but that was not always the case. I refer to an article from the Age newspaper of 8 November 2016 under the heading ‘Premier rejects Christmas’ by Josh Gordon and Richard Willingham, and I quote: The Andrews government has come under fire over a ‘Grinch-like’ decision not to make Christmas Day— which falls on a Sunday this year—a public holiday, potentially depriving thousands of shift workers of extra penalty rates. Despite insisting that Easter Sunday should be a public holiday, the Victorian government has ruled that Christmas this year will not be given the same status. That means workers will get normal Sunday rates on December 25, rather than extra holiday pay. The article goes on:
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But after a review undertaken at the end of last year, the Government concluded that the existing arrangement will remain in place: where Christmas falls on a weekend, the public holiday will happen on the next available weekday—in this case on Tuesday. The move has provoked a furious reaction from unions, with Small Business Minister Philip Dalidakis accused of ‘sucking up’ to the business lobby after a backlash over the grand final eve public holiday, which has been estimated to cost the state economy more than $800 million. … ‘Mr Dalidakis is the Grinch of the Victorian state government,’ Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari said. ‘To be consistent with every state and territory we must have a public holiday. To not do so would be mean and Grinch-like’. It is great to see that that wonderful defender of John Setka, Luke Hilakari, thinks he can tell other people what is right and what is wrong. Mr Hilakari would not know the right thing to do if it bit him on the backside, because anyone who stands by John Setka is morally compromised, and Luke Hilakari is in that category, can I say. To go on, the article says:
Mr Dalidakis said he saw ‘no reason’ to change the existing arrangement. ‘We are a pluralistic society and … the Victorian public do receive an additional public holiday for Christmas Day, but when it falls on a weekend, the penalty rates that they receive on that weekend will be the rates of pay that they receive.’ So it was not all that long ago that the state government and the then Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade were saying, ‘No, we don’t believe that when Christmas Day falls on a weekend public holiday pay rates should apply’. Mr Angus interjected. Mr M O’BRIEN: You do wonder what Australia Post does, member for Forest Hill. Of course maybe this is part of the explanation for why Mr Dalidakis is not only no longer a minister but not even a member of Parliament. Clearly he dared to cross the comrades at Lygon Street. He dared to stand up, as he saw it, for the interests of small business and as a consequence of that, and I think a few other times when he crossed the Premier, he got kicked out of the cabinet at the first available opportunity and he has decided to pack up his swag and go and earn a lot of swag with Australia Post, according to the newspapers. Members interjecting. Mr M O’BRIEN: Well, that is right. His Christmases have come at once. He is getting a lot of penalty rates at Australia Post from the sound of it. So we do have a little bit of cynicism about this bill that is being brought forward. Before people want to accuse me of rewriting history, I note my press release as shadow Treasurer on 7 November 2016. I said:
Only Daniel Andrews would believe that the day before the AFL Grand Final is more of a ‘special day for family’ than is Christmas Day. We have been very concerned about the government’s double standards and hypocrisy on these issues for many, many years. Apart from Christmas Day when it falls on a Saturday or Sunday being legislated as a public holiday, this bill also, as I mentioned, enshrines Easter Sunday and the grand final eve public holiday. Now, the government did take those to the election in 2014, and that is acknowledged. As part of implementing those two public holidays the government commissioned through PwC a regulatory impact statement on proposed new public holidays in Victoria. That was commissioned by the former Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources. I quote from the executive summary of the PwC report. It says: The benefit of this additional leisure time equates to between $156 million and $312 million annually …
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So of course you give people a public holiday and a lot of people do not work on those days and they get extra leisure time. PwC assesses that to be between $156 million and $312 million annually. But it then goes on to say: The lost production (or economic cost) from the new public holidays is estimated to be between $717 million and $898 million annually. So what PwC has said, on the government’s own commissioned report, is that there is quite a significant net cost to Victoria’s economy as a result of these new public holidays. That is not necessarily an argument for them or against them, but it is certainly a cost that needs to be borne in mind. As shadow Minister for Small Business I would not be speaking for that constituency if I did not point out that much of that cost does fall on small businesses because they are less able to absorb those additional costs than are big businesses. Big businesses can usually look after themselves. They are big enough, they have got broad enough shoulders, they have got enough resources—they can manage things. It is the small businesses that really tend to feel the burden of any extra costs. The executive summary goes on and says:
The new public holidays would also result in increased wage payments of between $252 million and $286 million annually to those people who work on the public holidays. This amount represents a transfer from employers to employees, rather than a net impact on the Victorian economy. So clearly business will pay more; employees who work will get less. What the report does not seem to estimate though is how many people actually miss out on income because their businesses close on those days. There are businesses that simply cannot afford to pay additional public holiday pay rates, and casual employees do not get the benefits of a public holiday. They do not get paid to not turn up to work if they are casuals; they just miss out on a day’s pay altogether. Again that is not an argument necessarily for or against this bill, but it is a reality, and it is a cost that needs to be factored in because when we are assessing the costs and benefits of any changes to public holidays and we look at the impact on workers, there are some workers who do better out of a public holiday, because either they get a day off or they get increased penalty rates for working on that day, and there are other workers who just miss out. They miss out because their business is closed, they are a casual, they are not entitled to a paid day off and they just lose a day’s income. So I think we need to think of the impact on all workers of changes of this nature. The PwC report concludes: Overall, the estimated costs of the new public holidays outweigh the quantified benefits … The other factor which was not really focused on by PwC in its report is the cost to the public sector of these additional public holidays. Why does that matter? Well, that matters if the government does not fund public sector agencies for the additional costs and as a result the community misses out. The classic and most important example arguably is public hospitals. If public hospitals are required to pay significant additional wages for operating on a new public holiday but the government does not fund them to do that, then the gap means fewer services, the gap means fewer procedures, the gap means longer waiting lists than you would otherwise have. This government has failed to fund public hospitals adequately for the costs of these new public holidays, and that is appalling. People should not have to have a surgery delayed, and they should not have to wait longer on a waiting list because this government wants to produce new public holidays but then will not actually pay for them. You have to do it fairly; you have to do it at both ends of the equation. If you want to produce a new public holiday, that is fine, but then you have got an obligation as a government to make sure that public hospitals are not out-of-pocket and that their patients do not miss out as a consequence. So this is a big problem in terms of this government’s implementation of new public holidays. They have not done what they said they would do. When they went to the 2014 election they had a cursory— a derisory—amount they said the new public holiday would cost them in terms of additional funding for public sector agencies. That was nowhere near enough to actually cover the real cost of these additional public holidays.
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I would be very interested in the debate as we go through it: will the government make a commitment to increase the funding to public hospitals with the passage of this bill? I suspect the answer is no. I suspect we will get a whole lot of rhetoric from those opposite about, ‘Who doesn’t mind a day off? Why do you not like public holidays?’. No. You know what? We like public hospitals as well, and we like public hospital patients, and we think they deserve to be treated fairly and they do not deserve to have their procedures delayed because this government has underfunded its promises when it comes to public holidays. We are not opposing this bill. This bill does not actually impose new public holidays. It regularises existing practice. Existing practice is to gazette these particular public holidays, and implementing them through this bill is simply another way of observing them. The bill itself does not impose any additional burdens, but it does give me an opportunity to discuss the fact that there are always costs and benefits and they need to be weighed up fairly. But it also does allow me to canvass that this government has failed public hospitals, failed police and failed other public sector agencies who have not been properly budget funded for the additional staff costs that these additional public holidays provide. Members interjecting. Mr M O’BRIEN: Look, the members who have been here for 5 minutes might be better off listening and understanding the consequences of their actions, because when they vote for bills which impose additional costs on public hospitals without the funding to go with it, all they are doing is condemning public hospital patients to longer waiting lists. And if they think that is funny, then let them laugh about it. We will be the ones who will always manage the finances. That includes if we impose an obligation—we will pay for it. Members opposite have absolutely failed public hospitals in this regard. They have not provided the funding. What about the doctors and nurses? Everyone else gets penalty rates. Do they expect doctors and nurses to not get penalty rates for working on a public holiday? No, of course not—they say, ‘Get their penalty rates’. Well, where is the money coming from? Where is the money coming from, because it is not coming from your budget. And until this government is prepared to put its money where its mouth is, until this government is prepared to back public hospitals with proper funding of public holidays, this government is a sham, and its position on this bill is a sham. This is the same government that was happily saying, ‘We don’t want to see Christmas Day as a public holiday’ two years ago, until it necked the minister. They now turn around as though they are the great heroes of public holidays on Christmas Day. It is— Ms Kairouz interjected. Mr M O’BRIEN: You could argue the minister has been asleep for a while, but the minister has certainly been asleep during my contribution, because otherwise the Premier rejects Christmas— Ms Kairouz interjected. Mr M O’BRIEN: I can read it into the record again, Marlene, if you like—I would be very happy to do it. This government needs to put its money where its mouth is. We are not going to oppose this bill, but we will use the debate to point out the absolute hypocrisy of those members opposite. If you want a public holiday, that is fine, but do not make public hospital patients pay for it, because otherwise you are jibbing the people who are most vulnerable in our society. Ms HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (16:57): I also rise to speak on the public holidays legislation. Now, of course everybody is entitled to proper wages and conditions, something that we do not see any support for when it comes to those on the other side of this house. The problem I think is that this legislation is supportive of working people, supportive of people having a decent and fair standard of living.
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When we talk about, for example, public holidays that are at Easter, it is really important that we look at all of the holidays during Easter and that they are properly recognised—whether it is the Sunday public holiday, whether it is the Monday public holiday—and that no matter where you work or what industry you work in, you are also entitled to penalty rates. I know for some people the Easter holidays are a very, very sacred time of the year. It is a very religious time for many people who want to spend that time with their family and their friends and to engage with and practise their faith. If people are required to work during this time, this is something that there ought to be penalty rates for, in some ways to discourage a lot of places opening during this time but also in the event that people are required to work during that time, so that they will get some sort of penalty rates and compensation for working those very family-unfriendly hours. Also, the Andrews Labor government in its first term made a very, very strong commitment for an additional public holiday, which was to be the Grand Final Friday public holiday. We know that some people may talk about, ‘Why do we need it for the grand final?’, but I guess it is always important to have a reasonable number of public holidays for people, and in fact I think the grand final holiday has been something that has been demonstrated to be a great windfall for the state of Victoria. The state has been able to work in terms of tourism to try to get more people into the state to celebrate and to watch the grand final. I notice that the former minister for sport and tourism is in the chamber, and of course he did a great lot of work around promoting the grand final weekend and the public holiday to allow for a whole lot of extra festivities and events to draw people into the state or into Melbourne to celebrate the grand final. Having a long weekend also meant that there were a lot of Melburnians and people from across the state that would move into other areas for holidays for that great long weekend. There were many comments from restaurateurs and tourist operators who, whilst originally being a bit sceptical of the grand final long weekend, actually came out and basically made comments that they were overwhelmed and surprised at how successful this long weekend for the grand final has been. This legislation enshrines that Grand Final Friday in legislation rather than as a gazetted day. I know from way back in my trade union days the old situation where often companies would try to really dupe workers when it came to things like Christmas Day. For example, if Christmas Day or Boxing Day fell on a Saturday or Sunday, there was a situation where if you had to work on that Saturday or Sunday, you would not get penalty rates or recognition of the Christmas public holiday because they would say that there was a Monday in lieu of that public holiday. Therefore if you actually worked on the Christmas Day you received no penalties or compensation, yet if you worked on the Monday that was not Christmas Day but was in lieu of Christmas Day, you did, which of course was a ridiculous anomaly and a way that some employers were interpreting the legislation that really I do not think anybody for a moment would have thought was the correct situation. A lot of these problems that have been addressed within the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019 are the product of the Kennett Liberal-Nationals government way, way back then. As we know, they were cutting not just penalty rates but also various working conditions from people. It has taken some time to start looking at and seriously addressing those terrible, terrible, dark days of the Kennett Liberal government and make sure that we put a little bit more fairness back into the industrial relations scene where working people are given some of their rights and penalties back. This is of course in great contrast with what is going on federally, where we again have a federal Liberal government that is trying to attack working conditions and workers’ wages on a federal scale. Of course this is pretty well the modus operandi of the Liberal Party. They do not provide good conditions or believe that workers should get fair and reasonable conditions. And as we know, even the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia and many other very large financial institutions have already expressed concern over the way that wages have stagnated across the country. Of course this is seen as a bad thing because we need those wages going into the economy to stimulate demand, and from there to stimulate the production of goods and services which people pay for.
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So this Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019 is really important. It will help a number of working people in terms of providing the proper compensation or acting as a deterrent for certain activities to be held particularly on public holidays that are considered religious and for religious observance. Maybe I will leave it at that. That really is the main content of the legislation. Again it is another step that the Andrews Labor government is taking towards making a fairer Victoria and in this case fairer for those who must work on public holidays. Mr McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (17:05): I rise to make a contribution on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. As we know, Victoria is the public holiday capital of Australia, with 13 public holidays, as opposed to New South Wales, which has got 11, and down to Western Australia with only 10. We are winning that race, if that is the race that you want to win, and I am not sure small business, or all business, really wants to win that race. This legislation, although it will not increase current public holidays, will enshrine the public holidays that we currently have into legislation, moving from being gazetted to legislation. The days we are talking about are Easter Sunday, the grand final eve holiday and Christmas Day when it falls on a Saturday or Sunday—not, obviously, when Christmas Day falls on a weekday. This government has displayed consistently that it is happy to pass on the cost to small, medium and large businesses. As we know, small businesses feel it the most. Certainly I know that from a local perspective in a regional community. Labor have a history of increasing costs on small business, whether that is labour costs or whether it is energy costs or licensing costs—and the list goes on. But there is even the public service increase in costs that we are seeing through this bill. This is still a cost to the community. It is an opportunity cost, or an economic cost, as the Leader of the Opposition spoke about, and when we think about what we could do with that money that is being forgone, what it is costing us for bureaucrats and public servants and what we could do with that for new schools or new roads, we certainly know that new roads, or better roads, in regional Victoria might help to keep the road toll down. There are other ways that we could be investing that money, and public holidays come at enormous cost to all Victorians. I certainly know small businesses in the Ovens Valley continue to ask why this government is hell-bent on increasing costs to do business. I tell them that clearly it does not care about regional Victoria and it does not care about small business. If you are not happy with my comments, look at VCCI, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. They have slammed the amount of public holidays that we have in Victoria and said the cost is nearly $10 billion over 10 years. At $1 billion a year, again it is passing the buck, and businesses are really stuck between a rock and a hard place—whether they remain open and pay the higher penalty rates or they close the doors and they pay employees not to turn up. But as the shadow minister, the Leader of the Opposition, said, when you close the doors for the day the ones you are hurting the most are casual employees, and that is not a win for them either. There is a quote from VCCI that says:
At a time when the cost of doing business in Victoria is rising, this legislation puts jobs at risk. They are the jobs that I am talking about, for the casuals on public holidays but other employees as well, because of the cost of doing business, particularly in regional Victoria. It is not just VCCI that is talking about excessive costs; PwC have also estimated that public holidays cost up to $1.2 billion annually. We have another situation where there is a lack of consultation with small business and businesses about these public holidays as this government kowtow to their union masters and just push ahead, again increasing costs for business. Regional businesses large and small continue to tell me that doing business is unaffordable. For example, even the contract labour laws that are coming in in October will be another nail in the coffin for small to medium-sized businesses. Businesses in the Ovens Valley—and it does not matter whether you have got a clothing shop in Cobram, a fuel station in Yarrawonga, a coffee shop in Wangaratta or a pub or bakery in Myrtleford or Bright—all tell me that this cannot go on. We have got a government that are building infrastructure in Melbourne, and they are catering to Melbourne’s business needs and
BILLS 2210 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 spending most of the budget in Melbourne but ignoring our regional seats. That imposes further costs on regional communities, and it is simply unsustainable. I think the government need to consider this as they push ahead in some of these areas, because they might be supporting some of their mates here in Melbourne, but we were told, and we keep getting told, that this is a government that is going to govern for all Victorians. Well, clearly small businesses and businesses medium to large are still Victorians as well. I am not against workers getting and enjoying public holidays, but in today’s flexible working relationship with employers there has to be a limit. There must be a limit. When Labor continues to ignore those pleas for a fair and just framework, and where business employers and employees can negotiate better outcomes, I think it is important that we allow them to do that. As the Leader of the Opposition highlighted, small businesses are essential to Victoria’s economy. What I know is that when you extrapolate that into regional Victoria, they are even far more essential. They are the backbone of regional Victoria. So again we pass on extra costs, and it does not seem like much to somebody sitting in this place, but small businesses do it tough in regional Victoria. They make up a much larger part of the local economy, and we have to do what we can to assist them, not keep pushing costs on them. Again, the Leader of the Opposition highlighted that this legislation was not required. We heard a few years ago that the minister said that legislation was not required, and now we have seen a backflip. Again we can certainly see who leads this government. It is certainly led by the union masters. Hence this backflip has come, and it is at an economic cost to our communities and clearly it is unsustainable. This government needs to stop passing the buck to small and medium businesses. As I said, you said you would govern for all Victorians. You have got to understand that people in regional Victoria and small, medium and large businesses are Victorians as well, not just the people who you think are voting for you, because I think what you will find in some instances is that what you are pushing through is certainly hurting small businesses, and we are seeing that in regional Victoria. You need to come to regional Victoria to see and listen to some of the businesses that I listen to, and you will hear that it simply is unsustainable. I think this legislation fails them—small businesses that just cannot sustain extra costs all the time. I think you really need to get out of Melbourne, come to the regions and listen to the businesses before you make decisions like this, because clearly you are not governing for all Victorians. Mr PEARSON (Essendon) (17:12): I am delighted to make a contribution on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019, and I listened with great interest to the contribution made by the member for Ovens Valley. If I understand the member’s contention, he is effectively saying that we should not pay public holiday rates and that we should try and lower wages, because by lowering wages that is a good thing for business and so therefore we all benefit. I think that was the member’s contention. It flies in the face of what we know is happening in the economy at the moment, which is that we have got wage stagnation. The notion that you tackle wage stagnation by cutting people’s wages further is just nonsense. You just cannot be serious. When you have got people in a small community earning a decent wage, do you know what? They are likely to spend it locally. Right? This is nonsense from those opposite. There was a US car manufacturer—he might have been the CEO of General Motors—and he took the head of the auto workers union through the factories in the 1980s when robotics was first being introduced. He said to the union leader, ‘Well, you’re not going to have too many members when we start automating the processes here’. And the union leader said, ‘And who are going to buy your cars if there is no-one earning a wage?’. This is just rubbish from the National Party. Some of the poorest people in our community live in regional areas, and you have these snoozers doing the bidding of the vested interests of regional Victoria at the expense of regional workers. That is what they come here for. Some of the poorest communities in our state are in regional Victoria, and you have these people who purport to represent the country and all they are interested in doing is depriving working people
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2211 in regional Victoria of a decent wage. They want to try and push them into poverty. That is what you have come for. You try and say you are the friends of regional workers. You are not. You are just doing the bidding of the moneyed interests in regional Victoria. That is who you are, and you are not honest enough. You will talk a good game, no doubt, out in your community, about defending the rights of people in regional Victoria, and you come here and you sell them out. The first chance you get, the National Party, you always do it. You have done it for decades. You sell out regional workers. Mr Hodgett: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, it might be time to draw the member’s attention back to the bill. Mr PEARSON: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, this is about the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. I was subjected to—he could not even serve out his time in terms of selling out regional communities—8 minutes of drivel from the member for Ovens Valley about the importance of driving wages down, and I was taking up that debate in responding to those issues. The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Suleyman): Thank you, member for Essendon. It has been a wideranging debate. I would ask the member to continue with the amendment bill. Mr McCurdy: On the point of order, Acting Speaker— The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Suleyman): I have already ruled, so I will continue. The member for Essendon will continue on the amendment bill. Mr PEARSON: Thank you. So a bill like this that we bring to this place is vitally important because it enshrines the rights of workers. It does not matter whether they live in Ascot Vale or Flemington, it does not matter whether they are living up in Wangaratta, this is about making sure that workers get a decent wage for their labour, and that is why we have brought a bill like this before the house. We always know that whenever we—the Labor Party—bring forward legislation that protects the rights of workers it is consistently opposed by the National Party. Right? Always. They will always do the bidding of the Liberal Party in regional areas, and they will always come into this place and oppose what we are trying to do. Now the point I was trying to make earlier was that, and I am sure the member does not really read the financial press and does not really follow what is going on in the economy, but if he did he would know, the national economy grew by 1.8 per— Mr McCurdy: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, what the speaker is saying has got nothing to do with the bill here. He is just making criticisms of what we do on this side of the house, and now he is accusing me of not reading financial articles or anything to do with that. Now, he has accused me of— The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Suleyman): The member for Ovens Valley, just back to the point of order. Mr McCurdy: That he needs to get back to the bill. The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Suleyman): Thank you. I will remind the member for Essendon, it has been a wideranging debate, and I would ask him to continue on with the bill. Mr PEARSON: Thank you, Acting Speaker. So the Public Holidays Amendment Bill is vitally important, because it is about enshrining the rights of workers to get penalty rates paid to them when they offer their labour on Grand Final Friday. The reality is that unless you have these levels of legislated protection, what you will see is that wages will be driven down, because that is what those opposite want to have happen, and the problems in relation to wage stagnation will continue. Before I was interrupted, the point I was trying to make was that the national economy grew by 1.8 per cent in the 12 months to March of this year, and one of the single biggest reasons why we have got an economy in the doldrums is because of wage stagnation. The point is that a bill like this is vitally important, because it ensures that people who work on those public holidays can get paid fairly and
BILLS 2212 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 reasonably, and the reality is that if you are on a low wage, you spend the majority of your income. There are not too many people on 50 grand a year squirrelling away 50 per cent of their income. If you are on 50 grand a year, chances are you are spending 50 grand a year. Now, when you spend that money, that goes into the economy, and that creates that level of economic growth. What we are seeing at the moment—because we have got downward pressure on wages, which is clearly supported by the member for Ovens Valley—is a significant impact on the economy. So let us be clear about this: a bill like this is vitally important because it ensures that we live in a civilised society. I do not want to see our state or our nation going down the path of some other nations where workers are compelled to work for a pittance. Today in the United States of America, strip away men who are on very high incomes and look at working-class white Americans. The life expectancy of a working-class white male in America now is the same as a male in Pakistan. That is what you are looking at when you drive down wages, when you rip people off and you ensure that they are not able to earn a decent income. That is what you have happen. It is working people. It is people in my electorate who will be ripped off. It will be people in my electorate, my community, who will suffer. People in the member for Ovens Valley’s electorate will suffer when you deprive people of the right to earn a good wage. You bring forward a bill like this for one reason: because you want to protect wages for working people. One of the proudest moments in my life was when I was 14 and I got a union card. That was one of my proudest days because I felt like I was making a contribution to this great movement. This is what I believed in, and the reality is my father worked in small business. He ran a butcher shop for 25 years, and the only time we really got to spend with each other was on public holidays. If he had been working for wages and he was required to work on a public holiday, he should have been getting paid fairly, and that is what a bill like this is about. This is about making sure if you work on a public holiday, you get a fair reward for that. This is going to be on the statute books now. It is going to be up to a future government to determine whether it wants to support a bill like this or not. This is really vitally important because this is the hallmark of a civilised society. And when you have got people like those opposite talking about an impost on business, talking about trying to drive down wages, their vision of the future is what we are seeing in the Rust Belt of America. That is what they want to impose on this state. That is what they want us to become, and we will not become that, Acting Speaker, because we have got protections like this on the books. It will be a test for those opposite come 2022. What are they going to say? Are they going to say, ‘We’re going to rip up this legislation’? Are they going to turn around and amend the act and strip these public holidays out, or are they going to support it? Because that will be telling. We have been really clear. We took to the election last year that we would enshrine Grand Final Friday in legislation, and that is exactly what we are doing. We have been entirely consistent with this. This is about fairness. It is about doing the right thing. It is about supporting working communities and working people, something the National Party do not understand. Mr KENNEDY (Hawthorn) (17:22): Today I rise to speak proudly on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. The bill will enshrine in legislation Easter Sunday and Grand Final Friday as public holidays. It will also legislate for an additional public holiday when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday or Sunday. This helps right a wrong, as the Kennett government introduced the Public Holidays Act 1993, which had the practical impact of abolishing Easter Saturday, Easter Tuesday and Melbourne Show Day as public holidays. Here I call on the lines of William Shakespeare to describe those darker days of the Kennett government, and I am quoting from Richard III:
Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York; And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2213
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths— and so on. I have helped William and William has helped me over the years, and we have rewritten this slightly. This is how it now reads:
Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of Mulgrave; And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house— and so on and so forth. We have liberated that. Sorry, William! This bill will also ensure penalty rates for those days are preserved, guaranteeing workers are properly remunerated for working unsociable hours so that the rest of us can enjoy time with friends and family. This legislation was an election commitment. It will allow greater certainty for Victorians around their holiday plans for the forthcoming year and will make it harder for a subsequent coalition government to reverse these public holidays—no more winter of discontent. Following the election of the Andrews Labor government in 2014 we have seen strong growth in the labour market, with employment increasing by 15.1 per cent, or 442 300 workers. The majority of this job growth has been in full-time work, up 313 600 workers. We have the second lowest unemployment rate in Australia. Since these public holidays have occurred through gazettal Victorian small businesses have gone from strength to strength. Victorian small businesses are the most confident in the nation, with the number of small businesses growing at a yearly rate of 3.6 per cent, well above the national average. The creation of these public holidays also saw an enormous boost to regional tourism, with many families taking the opportunity to travel to regional Victoria and enjoy all that it has to offer. It will be interesting to see whether the opposition will finally support this important bill. Does the Leader of the Opposition, despite the many benefits afforded by these public holidays, stand by the view he expressed in 2014 that ‘Daniel Andrews is again sending the message that Victoria will be closed for business under Labor’? But the issues are much deeper and go to the core of our being as human beings and citizens of Victoria. Let me explain why I believe this is not just about business making a profit or sweeteners at election time and so on. Rebecca Huntley in the latest Quarterly Essay, titled ‘Australia Fair: Listening to the Nation’, quotes the Australian Election Study findings that the proportion of Australians who agree that ‘people in government can be trusted’, by which they mean politicians—us, I am afraid— and the public service, had declined from 51 per cent in 1969 to 26 per cent in 2016. Australians see corruption everywhere and believe that almost everyone has a self-serving agenda. They are always on the lookout for the lie, the rip-off, the hustle, whether it be from a telemarketer, a tradie, a minister of government or minister of religion. When you think about it, this bill from the Andrews government rises above all these perceptions. It is about what is good for people, not simply business and profit interests. Sigmund Freud was once asked what is the essential essence of a happy life. He replied that it was to have success in love and work. Let me speak of work. Last November I had been in my 10th year as a retired secondary school principal when the people of Hawthorn gave me this wonderful gift of their trust in my intentions and abilities. This has been a wonderful experience, notwithstanding that people ask if I am sorry not to have undertaken this political journey 40 years ago when I was 30. The answer is a resounding no! Whatever the undoubted value of this new role, I know how much I just loved that job of 30 years as a principal, even with its inevitable ups and downs. This is my point: how fortunate was I to be in work I adored. Rarely did I find myself clockwatching, eagerly looking forward to 5.00 p.m. or the weekend. So many Victorians are far from being in that situation for a variety of reasons and circumstances. What does this have to do with public holidays, you may ask? Everything, I suggest. They can be therapeutic, these public holidays, for those finding
BILLS 2214 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 little satisfaction in their toil. They are not only a wonderful source of diversion but they provide opportunities to sit still, smell the roses, reflect on one’s experience and think ahead to the future. Take that gift of the great Australian summer period from Christmas Day on 25 December to Australia Day on 26 January, when even the great ABC goes on holiday. For large numbers of us that is a fantastic chance to enjoy time in a different situation to the work scene, with family and friends, reflections and lessons on the past and our thoughts and dreams of the future—what a tonic. Think of all the extra casual employment, especially for younger people in service industries, often but sadly not always on penalty rates. It is such a great time of year, thanks partly at least to some well-placed public holidays. Public holidays are so important in our national and personal psyches. I have spoken about the wonderful Christmas Day to Australia Day period, with the personal opportunities for growth of various kinds. Then comes Labour Day, carrying a variety of connotations for workers and their rights, followed by Easter, enabling a four-day break for most, and Anzac Day, causing us to pause on those sad and proud moments in our history. The sovereign’s birthday in June for me is a reminder we must continue to examine what it means to be an independent nation as we move to becoming a republic and our own head of state. Then nearly four months later it is the AFL Grand Final and Melbourne Cup. I would not describe myself as mad keen about football or horseracing, but I know lots of people around me are. Indeed growing up in Sydney I remember public examinations halted for the running of the Melbourne Cup. For a while after migrating to Melbourne in my late 20s, Victorians thought of me as quite strange and eccentric. I just have time for one story. I remember once during the grand final of 1977, when I was a resident at St Mary’s College at Melbourne University, I was going into the common room to get some milk. I said, ‘Is there any milk?’, and people screamed and yelled at me, because it was the last moments of the dead heat between Collingwood and North Melbourne, if you remember, in the fourth quarter. People thought I was an absolute weirdo. I have had other experiences as well, when people said, ‘Only you would ring someone during the fourth quarter of an AFL Grand Final’. Well, I have learned; I have moved on from there. I have heard other tragic stories of people who could not go to the grand final parade because school was still being held—in 2000, I think some poor Essendon supporter told me. Football is such a part of the cultural fabric of Victoria, being that it originated here in the 1850s, attracts such huge crowds and is a weekly obsession for many people—not me. Also at the grassroots level the game plays an important role, with thousands of participants at suburban and country clubs. What is important are the values of family life that are greatly strengthened by these provisions in our working and social life. This is not just about obsessing about alleged losses to business and profits, nor is it just about acknowledging important events in our state and nation. It is about enjoying quality of life in a civilised part of the world. Ms COUZENS (Geelong) (17:32): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. As we have heard, this bill will enshrine in legislation Easter Sunday and Grand Final Friday as public holidays. It will also legislate for an additional public holiday when Christmas Day falls on Saturday or Sunday. The Andrews government has twice gone to an election on this issue and committed to enshrining these holidays in legislation, and that is exactly what we are doing in this place today. I am not as learned as the member for Hawthorn, but what I can say is, ‘We are Geelong, the greatest team of all’, because we are now looking at—and I do not want to mozz it—getting to the AFL Grand Final, and Geelong will be electric if that happens. I know my constituents of Geelong—Geelong being a footy town, as it is called—will be very much looking forward to the Grand Final Friday holiday. They may be spending time with their family, they may be going to the grand final parade or they might be going away for a weekend, but I think it is important that we let people enjoy that public holiday, and in particular if the Cats are playing in the grand final. It does provide certainty for people
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2215 not only in Geelong but right across Victoria. I know leading up to grand final day in our last term people were often asking the question, ‘Are we having Grand Final Friday this year?’. So there was some uncertainty each year, but obviously this will now enshrine that so it is part of legislation and becomes law. We know when Geelong plays a home game our economy booms. Everything is booked out, our cafes and restaurants are full, the sights around Geelong are full of people—until of course the footy starts— and it is an enormous boost to the Geelong economy. So we know how important it is. We also know that there are many businesses in Geelong that promoted themselves as being open on Grand Final Friday because they know how important the football is in my community, in the electorate of Geelong. As I said, it is a footy town, and people are very committed to their football. So to have the opportunity to have the day off, businesses know that people will come. Every grand final day that we have had since coming to power in this place, we have seen Geelong completely flooded with people. People come from all parts of Victoria to visit Geelong. I think the recent stats show that day trips have increased by 14 per cent and overnight trips by around 57 per cent. So we know what is happening when we have this fantastic public holiday. I want my constituents to be able to enjoy that day, to enjoy whatever they want to do with their families. On the argument about penalty rates, when I talk to small businesses in my community who have said, ‘We’re going to stay open. We’re going to provide a service to visitors to Geelong and locals that live in Geelong’, they charge a surcharge, just like they do on any other public holiday, and they promote themselves as being open so that people can go to their restaurant or cafe or whatever they have got on offer. So Geelong is booming on Grand Final Friday. We also last year through the work of the then Minister for Sport, the member for Lara, started the grand final footy festival down at Cardinia Park. It was the first time it was put on last year, so there was some uncertainty about how many people might be around, and it was promoted on radio and in the local paper. There were literally thousands of people there lined up. I was handing out free footies to kids on the day, and they were lined up continually for almost 2 hours to get those free footballs, and they were not just locals; they were people visiting from other parts of Victoria who were enjoying having the weekend in Geelong. So I think it is really important that we continue this and that we do enshrine it in legislation. We know that people are working longer hours these days; they are working harder. To give them the opportunity to have an extra public holiday that runs into a weekend gives them more time to spend with their families. It is really important that families have time together, and we know that. I know I hear from constituents about how difficult it is for them to make ends meet, how they have to work harder and how they have to work longer hours. We know some people work two or three jobs to make ends meet, so to have that extra day, whether they are having time with their family or going to the footy or whatever it may be, or whether they are working on the day getting penalty rates, it is a great opportunity for those people to earn some extra dollars but also to spend time with their families. I think this legislation is extremely important. I know how important it is for my community, and I know how outraged they would be if we did not enshrine it in legislation. It is very important. In saying that, I think the arguments that the opposition put forward are not strong arguments. If they went to Geelong and said that they did not support this legislation, I hate to think what the people of Geelong would do, because it is really important to them to enjoy that time away. Since these public holidays have occurred through the gazettal, Victorian small businesses have gone from strength to strength. We know that, and I hear that in my own community. I spoke to small businesses in Geelong and I spoke to the Geelong trades hall and their affiliated unions to get a picture of how they see it and how important it is to them. Yes, there will be those that are not happy about it, but I think the vast majority of businesses and I know 100 per cent of workers think it is a fantastic opportunity, and we should be doing as much as we can in Geelong to promote that weekend and have
BILLS 2216 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 these footy festivals and things like it that attract people to Geelong but also give the Geelong people the opportunity to enjoy that long weekend. We know that the Liberals do not value time off for workers across Victoria. They are saying they are not going to oppose the legislation, but leading up to the election there was not a lot that came from them about making a commitment to enshrining this legislation. We know it was the Liberals that took away public holidays in the past under the Kennett era. They did not hesitate to take our public holidays away, and that was to the detriment of workers. So I do think it is really important that we continue to support this legislation to have the people of Victoria able to, as I said, go to the Friday festivals and enjoy the display that we have here in Melbourne. Some people from Geelong do go to that and enjoy it; other people do different things. As I said, they can now go to the Geelong footy festival that we have. This is very important legislation. We have consulted key organisations on this. There has been a lot of support from right across Victoria and I am sure in other regional centres they feel the same—that this is a great opportunity to boost their economy and get people into their communities spending money, spending time at their restaurants and cafes and booking up their hotel accommodation—so that all regions have the opportunity to benefit from this important piece of legislation. I look forward to this year’s Grand Final Friday. I think we will be celebrating in Geelong—I would hope. I do not want to mozz it. Go Cats! I commend the bill to the house. Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (17:42): A dad joke in me says, ‘The cat is out of the bag’ and the member for Geelong will regret her words; she might have put the mozz on the Cats, but we will see how we go. This is an important bill, the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. If we are carrying on the theme of footy, when the opposition first put forward their opposition to this bill and this policy you could not have greater supporters of a hopeful Gold Coast Suns-Greater Western Sydney grand final, because that probably would have impacted on some of the tens of thousands that turned out for the grand final public holiday, but what we saw in the implementation of that policy was crowds and crowds out for when the Tigers obviously broke their premiership drought and—lo and behold—the Collingwood Football Club again fell short on grand final day. This is a policy that goes to the heart of the values that you put on the work of your labour and the recreational time that you spend with family and friends. I came in here today and I was optimistic. I thought maybe the opposition in their flip-flopping on this policy would finally come to redemption— they would come into this chamber and say, ‘Look, we got it wrong the first time. We got the policy wrong—the setting—we were a bit miserly’. Jeff Kennett, the former Premier, took away Show Day. How miserly was that? That was not a popular move. His former adviser then, the former Leader of the Opposition, maybe in the spirit of solidarity and comradeship backed in former Premier Jeff Kennett and said, ‘Don’t worry, I oppose the grand final public holiday’. Then come forward to the lead-up to the state election, when we had a ‘Well, it’s embedded’ kind of policy. Well, no. We have got no-one on that side willing to get up and talk about its importance or oppose it. We have got nothing. We have got no position from them on it. We have got the member for Croydon doing the chamber duty here as the shadow, but I reckon he would not be in here if he did not have to be in here; that is how far away they are running from this policy, because it is very popular out in communities. When you look at what was afforded and put forward in 2015, this was the end of Victoria as the jobs engine economy as we knew it. It was going to be, ‘The sky is falling in’. As soon as Grand Final Friday came forward the state of Victoria would be in a state of ruin. We would see job losses. We would see a mass exodus out of Victoria and there would be great problems in our economy. Well, right now the federal Treasurer is absolutely backing the Victorian economy because it is the only thing keeping them from recession in Canberra. So I reckon he would be saying, ‘Look, if you want to put a public holiday forward there, go for your life, mate, because we just want you to keep doing what you’re doing’. Because what doing what we are doing looks like is 450 000 jobs, a lot of them—hundreds of thousands of them—full-time jobs. It is opportunities that we have never seen before in Victoria. We are seeing an infrastructure boom in our
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2217 forward estimates that is greater than the commonwealth is delivering in a decade, we are seeing confidence in the business community and we are seeing people investing in Victoria. That is the story of Victoria, and all those that put forward an alternative view have been shown to be probably over- egging that issue. Also Victoria is really doing incredibly well as the engine room of our economy. But, look, we will see when we come forward to vote—we have still got until Thursday. We will see where the opposition land on this and whether they support working people. This is a bill and this is the introduction of legislation that delivers on an Andrews Labor government election commitment in two respective Parliaments and in two elections running up to them. It shows what value you put on time with family and friends and the value that you put on the work that people do. These particular public holidays and where they sequence in the calendar are really important. Obviously Show Day broke up the year before Melbourne Cup weekend. We see research after research talking about the benefits of getting a proper work-life balance, with recreational benefit, family time, time with friends. People are more productive if they are able to strike that balance and break up the year and spend that time to maybe get away with family and friends. That is what the Grand Final Friday public holiday does. It allows people to enjoy everything that is to offer in the great city of Melbourne, one of the most livable cities—and six or seven years running the most livable city in the world. It allows people to enjoy what we love about Melbourne: coming together in the tribes and spirit that we have of our football colours and all the flavours that come forward in Melbourne. But also it is an opportunity for families to get out on the road, to go and check out our regional and rural communities, and the member for Geelong summed up how important the Grand Final Friday public holiday is for people who are coming to visit her community in Geelong, and it is the same for any regional member. That is why if people from our rural and regional communities on all sides of the house were really being true to themselves they would be saying, ‘Well, we see those visitors come to our communities. We see the benefit realised. Those businesses get an extra day to really put forward their hard work and their toil in terms of people visiting those communities in regional communities’. I know that certainly my family has taken that opportunity to get that respite from a working week, and I know that so many of my community use the Grand Final Friday public holiday to break up the year and are looking forward to that opportunity now. The other really important thing I think to place on the record is that around Christmas time and around Easter time a lot of us have got some time off with family, but there are a lot of people in our community who are working very hard on behalf of others. I refer to our emergency services workers, who do an incredible job. Each and every year they are out there protecting and supporting others— people who have critical medical incidents or need to present to emergency departments. That does not stop on a public holiday. That does not stop on the weekend or public holidays. All the people who work shift work or work a number of jobs to make ends meet—that does not stop because it is a weekend or Easter comes around or Christmas comes around. They are doing all they can to either support and protect their community or make ends meet. I want to put on the record our great thanks and appreciation to them. In their work and effort we should recognise that they are making a sacrifice—a sacrifice that the majority of people do not have to make with their families and their communities. We put on the record our thanks and appreciation to those who work during those times to keep our state ticking along. Also I know that the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association have been very strong in their campaigns on this particular issue—that its members should be properly remunerated and supported in their work and in their efforts. I think that is really important in this bill. I know that they have campaigned for it. They approached me about that and briefed me on that important legislation as well, and I agree that they should be compensated and supported if Christmas falls on a weekend and that Easter Sunday should be a public holiday, and we should recognise that. That is the contrast in values on this side of the house. Meeting our election commitment to support working people is a chain of values that we put forward: it is public holidays to support working
BILLS 2218 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 people, it is fighting against cuts to penalty rates and it is fighting against the erosion of workers’ rights and conditions. That is what the state Labor government does in supporting and protecting communities and working people. So this bill enshrines Labor values. Despite those opposite and their suggestions at the time that they would abolish this public holiday in the gazetting of public holidays and the fact that they said that the state of Victoria would grind to a halt, that this would be a disaster and that we would see job losses and see our state go backwards—it would be nice to have an acknowledgment from those opposite that all those things have not come to fruition—we now see the engine room of our state, the Victorian economy, powering Australia. The engine room of jobs creation in our state, of business confidence, of investment attraction, has come to Victoria. That is our story that we tell. But in that as well we realise that working people should get a fair day’s rate of pay for a fair day’s work, that we should have 13 public holidays out of 365 days or 366 days in a leap year and that we should recognise that we should break up the year to make sure that people get that respite, get that recreational time and get all that critical, valuable time with family and friends or to get away into our regional communities. That is so very critical and important, and that is what leads to better productivity. When we support and we empower our workforce, we see more confidence and more business growth in Victoria—in spite of all that negative rhetoric from those opposite. This is a good bill. I wait with bated breath for Thursday. Goodness me, drum roll: do we think those opposite will finally get on board? Will the Leader of the Opposition finally come into the confessional and say, ‘I was wrong. My predecessor who I rolled was absolutely wrong’? Can he actually front up and say, ‘Nup, this is a good public holiday’? Let us see what the member for Malvern says. I will not hold my breath. This is a great bill, and I wish it a speedy passage through the Parliament. Mr TAYLOR (Bayswater) (17:52): I was doing some googling, as the kids say, when preparing to speak on this bill— Mr Hodgett interjected. Mr TAYLOR: A bit of googling, and I thought, considering some of the history of public holidays, it was important to take the DeLorean and go back in time to really understand this issue—to really take a deep dive. Not too far back, a significant day in history was 26 September, and it is relevant to this bill as well—a very important day in the historic calendar. It was 26 September when Francis Drake in 1580 completed the circumnavigation of the world, for those who might not have known, and in 1680 there was a tax revolt in Gorinchem due to a tax on cereal—can you believe it? And 26 September 2014, around the same time he was sharpening up his infamous side letter writing skills, was when the now opposition leader stated, ‘Daniel Andrews is again sending the message that Victoria will be closed for business under Labor’, in relation to the Grand Final Friday public holiday. How I am sure the now opposition leader wishes he too could jump back in the DeLorean with Marty McFly and Doc to rescue his comments on that ever-so-fateful day! Because history has told us many things—many, many things. In the context of this debate it is clear the opposition are no friends to small business, and they are also not a friend to the worker. But this has been known about those opposite for many, many years and I am sure will continue for many more. As my brother often says to me, though, ‘Tell me something I don’t know’. Let me tell you: the Victorian public sure do know it. Well, the poorly judged comments continued, because on 5 October 2015 the member for Bulleen stated, ‘I think it’s pretty clear that a coalition government would find it very difficult to keep it’, when speaking on the Grand Final Friday public holiday. How terribly those comments have aged, and also I think the member for Bulleen forgot which city he was living in—Melbourne, the proud home of AFL and the home of the grand final, though those Sydneysiders would like to take it, I am sure. However, we have locked that bad boy in for many, many years to come. It is the home of the grand final. For Melburnians it is a sacred tradition that is etched in stone. A public holiday on the Friday beforehand, as a result of this legislation, should it pass both houses, will be entrenched in legislation
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2219 to ensure all Victorians can enjoy a day of fun, rest and relaxation—#RandR—and get involved. And might I say: go the mighty Tigers. Mr Hodgett: Hear, hear! Mr TAYLOR: I am sure the member for Croydon can agree on that. Thank you, sir. Feels like a lifetime ago, 2017, but maybe not as long ago as 2015, as the member for Bulleen might now be feeling. Victorians work hard, and they deserve to get a break too. Whilst there have been many disparaging comments made by those opposite, there has also been the odd backflip at the eleventh hour. During last year’s election campaign—I am sure we all remember that one; it feels like yesterday—the then opposition leader and member for Bulleen stated:
We didn’t originally support it but we accept it’s now part of the calendar— 20 September 2018. That is fence-sitting at its finest, I dare say. And it turns out splinters abounded last November for the member, and voters did not leave the member for Bulleen wondering as to their support for the public holiday in question, nor any other part of the massive reform agenda put to the Victorian people. Whilst those opposite have dithered, fence-sat and everything else in between, this government has remained steadfast and committed to this legislation and to backing workers, as we have always done and always will. This legislation will enshrine Easter Sunday and Grand Final Friday as public holidays and will also legislate for an additional public holiday when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday or a Sunday. This will make sure that no future government can just arbitrarily take away from working people what they deserve: a fair go and time to enjoy with family on those really special days. This will keep us at 13 public holidays, which is comparable to other states, although not as good as ACT—we might get there one day. With increasing productivity and increasing employment, there is no doubt that Victorians deserve them. There have been many comments, once again made by those opposite, about how terrible this legislation is and how it will hurt the economy. That is just absolutely not true. But really, are we surprised that they are misleading the people once again about something like strong economic growth under our watch? There are countless benefits to the economy, and to regional tourism as well for those many who have taken the opportunity of time off to visit our beautiful regional centres and getaway destinations. A member interjected. Mr TAYLOR: Absolutely, like Daylesford, Ballarat and the like. The member for Wendouree can attest to the crowds flocking out her way. Mr Brayne interjected. Mr TAYLOR: Absolutely, and down to Nepean as well, the member states. For all the comments about the impact on jobs, well, I have heard nothing from those opposite about the record growth and employment right across the board, about 450 000 jobs. And I will tell the member for Ringwood: 450 000 jobs now created under this government. How good is that? Often you hear these numbers and you wonder, ‘What percentage of this is really full-time, secure work?’. The reality is that 70 per cent of those jobs are full-time, secure work, and that is next level. We also have the second-lowest unemployment rate in the country and record low regional unemployment rates. Victorian small businesses: though those opposite would like to pretend that we are not a friend of the small businesses, absolutely we are. At every step those opposite have tried to denigrate small businesses and have tried to confuse and muddy the waters. Victorian small businesses in fact are the most confident in the nation, and the average yearly growth of small businesses is at 3.6 per cent, well above the national average. Who would have thought that giving folks a day off to spend time with
BILLS 2220 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 families would result in such a generous boost to the economy as they get out into the economy and spend money? Those opposite would not have, and they still do not think it would. It is a bit sad that I have to spell this out so explicitly to those opposite: it turns out that giving workers a fair go, investing and not cutting, actually delivers for Victorians. And again when we look at history—I do like the odd history lesson here or there, as much as the member for Hawthorn, who departed from the chamber recently, after giving a rousing speech to this chamber— Members interjecting. Mr TAYLOR: No, departed from the chamber, not departed. Absolutely not—he is still with us. Absolutely. Thank you very much for pointing that out though. I did say the chamber. When we look at history again, as I have said, and I will say it again: the Liberal-Nationals are no friends of the worker. Let us jump back in the DeLorean, get to 88 miles per hour and head back to 1993. Let us get back there because the Kennett government introduced the Public Holidays Act 1993. A member interjected. Mr TAYLOR: I don’t have a skateboard—never will and never have. Back to 1993 and the Public Holidays Act had the practical impact of abolishing the three public holidays at the time. Like then, up until now, this approach by those opposite of not protecting public holidays and in turn everyday Victorians is an assault on working people and an assault on fairness. Without this legislation there is every chance that there will be a repeat of 1993, and we simply cannot let that happen. They closed down railway lines, they closed down schools, they closed vital infrastructure and they will take our public holidays away from us. For everyday workers—our retail workers, people who choose to work on the weekends and do the good work for us—they deserve a fair go, and we will always back in those workers and all workers. As well, because Christmas Day is sacred and getting time off with loved ones is so important over that period—as is Easter Sunday—we will make sure those people who choose to work over those times are looked after. I provided some small history on those comments from those opposite. There is a lot of fearmongering and a lot of dog whistling about how we are going to see all these ghost towns. Instead we have seen regional tourism at its finest. Through all the success of it, I will be interested to see where the current opposition leader sits on this, and the opposition in general. We have seen and heard their comments etched in the bylines of the Murdoch media and the backflips listed in Fairfax, so I will follow their vote on this very, very closely, because I can tell you that those people in my community of Bayswater have told me loud and clear, as across all electorates: ‘Don’t take my Grand Final Friday away from me. We work hard and we deserve to enjoy some time off’. On Grand Final Friday I have spoken to many locals who have ventured out to the Daylesfords and Ballarats of the world, into the city, our local cafes and shops, and even some people who have enjoyed a bit of quiet Netflix with the kids. Whatever it is, they absolutely deserve it. These public holidays are here to stay. This government will make sure of it, while those opposite continue to bicker and do nothing for workers and do nothing to reward the good work of the Victorian people. They are still in the DeLorean, heading back to the 1950s, where a lot of their values still exist, and still rejoicing in the glorious days of Kennett’s cuts—or so they would believe they were. They will never be a friend to the worker or small business, and they will never take workers rights seriously. Go the Tigers. Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (18:02): I rise today to speak in support of the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. This is an important bill for Victorians. It makes provision for certain public holidays, they being Easter Sunday, the Friday before the AFL Grand Final and Christmas Day when it falls on a Saturday or a Sunday. The Andrews Labor government committed at the 2014 and 2018 elections to enshrine in legislation the aforementioned public holidays. I am proud to be supporting this legislation, which delivers on those election commitments. I would really like to thank the Minister
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2221 for Local Government and Minister for Small Business for presenting this bill. I also thank the former minister in the 58th Parliament for his work on preparing the bill. The Public Holidays Amendment Bill is another example of how the Andrews Labor government is living its values and delivering on its commitments to Victorians. This legislation enshrines arrangements that are already in place, so in effect we are locking in the status quo. By enshrining the public holidays of Easter Sunday, Christmas Day and Grand Final Friday in law, we are also helping to protect the penalty rates of thousands of Victorian workers who are required to work on these days. I believe that days like Christmas Day are times to spend with family, friends and the people you love, but if you do have a job that requires you to work on that special day, your pay should recognise that sacrifice. It is only fair. I would really like to take this opportunity to recognise the many people in our community who do work on public holidays and who work unsociable hours to protect us, to keep us safe, to care for us and to provide emergency services. Your contribution is so important, and I thank you for your service. Without enshrining Christmas Day as a public holiday in law, under another government it could mean that when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday, which it will in a couple of years, Victorians like nurses, like firefighters and like police officers would not get paid penalty rates but their colleagues who would then work on the substitute Monday would, and that is not fair. Whilst there have been critics of these arrangements since they have been put in place, Victoria, as previous speakers have clearly explained, has become the fastest growing economy. So we have got our levers right in terms of workers’ rights, productivity and support for small business. We have got a really good mix, and that is why our economy is strong. This is a government that supports working Victorians. However, the public holidays we enjoy have only been enacted by gazettal; to date they are not law. This makes it easier to reverse them so that they impact on important family time and work-life balance and prevent many who do work on those days from being compensated for it. We know that these public holidays could be up for grabs; we have experienced it all before. The member for Bayswater was just talking about his DeLorean experience, back to 1993, but I am a bit older than the member for Bayswater. I was at uni in 1993 when Jeff Kennett was elected, and I remember Easter Saturday, Easter Tuesday and Melbourne Show Day being taken away from the Victorian community. It is also important to note that the Public Holidays Act 1993 does not interact with the Shop Trading Reform Act 1996. Therefore this bill is not going to impact Victorian shop trading hours, which are defined as ‘ordinary shop closing times’ in the Shop Trading Reform Act. As the daughter of a small business owner, we need to provide shop owners and small business operators with certainty, so let us be really clear. Victoria’s restricted trading days will continue to only be Christmas Day, Good Friday and Anzac Day until 1.00 p.m., but the other days are not impacted. As many of you know, I am a history teacher, so I really like to have a think about where these public holidays come from. Why do we have them? What do these public holidays represent? If you think about the 13 public holidays we celebrate in Victoria, it really does give some insights into our cultural values as a society as well as reflecting historical events that are significant to us as a state and as a nation. These are important days that should be enshrined in law, and this is what we are going to do. We start the year by welcoming in the new year on 1 January with a public holiday, and a few weeks later we enjoy another public holiday as we mark Australia Day, although this is now quite contentious. Labour Day falls on the second Monday in March in honour of the movement for better working conditions and the 1856 campaign by the stonemasons at the University of Melbourne for an 8-hour working day. On the anniversary of Gallipoli in 1915 we honour not only the service of the Anzacs in the Great War but all the Australian men and women who have served our nation in times of war and peace. We celebrate the Queen’s Birthday as a public holiday on the second Monday in June, in recognition of our sovereign’s birthday, although some republicans like me might prefer that we had a separate celebration for something else about us as a nation.
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In Melbourne and other parts of Victoria, on the first Tuesday in November there is a public holiday for the race that stops a nation—the Melbourne Cup. I note that in Ballarat we have previously enjoyed a public holiday for the Ballarat Cup, but in more recent years the City of Ballarat has nominated Ballarat show day in November for our public holiday. Reflecting the Christian traditions of many Australians, we mark the most significant Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter with public holidays. However, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday are not properly protected, and no matter what your faith, or if you have no religion at all, these are great days when you can celebrate with your family and spend time with your friends. The changes that we will introduce with this bill will allow Victorians from across the state the time to celebrate these important dates in our calendar with family and friends. These public holidays are a reflection of many of the traditional values and what contributes to who we are. Therefore what a great idea it is to also have a public holiday on the Friday before the AFL Grand Final, in the state that is the home of Aussie Rules. The Andrews Labor government is proud to support Grand Final Friday. But it is not just for footy fans; it is a chance for Victorians to spend time with family and friends, and a big boost for businesses and tourism operators across our state. For those Victorians who are required to work, we will look after you too. The legislation will protect it as a public holiday in law. I am certainly looking forward to Grand Final Friday this year. I will be attending this year’s grand final parade with Mike, Jo and Sophia to cheer on our Geelong Cats on the eve of this year’s grand final. I cannot think of a better way to spend the last Friday than watching all the Cats coming up Collins Street on the night before they win the flag. I am sure, as was suggested by the member for Bulleen, that Melbourne could be a ghost town on that day, but I am actually a bit more worried about Geelong being a ghost town, as tens of thousands of passionate supporters make their way up the highway to Melbourne to support the mighty Cats. Working families want certainty about their work rosters, to make holiday plans and manage their work-life balance. These amendments will assist those people by allowing greater certainty for Victorians around their work rosters and in planning their holidays for the forthcoming year. I have always enjoyed working and having a job, and I believe that public holidays are very important to working Victorians. This bill enshrines in law three public holidays: Easter Sunday, Grand Final Friday and Christmas Day. While I was at school and at university I particularly loved working in retail as a casual and as a part-timer when I was a member of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association. My retail work included working at Thomas Jewellers at Ballarat, as an Easter casual at Darrell Lea at Chadstone and as a long-term part-timer at Myer Melbourne for five years. My part-time contracted hours of work at Myer were across Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Easter Sunday was not a public holiday; therefore I was required to work as per my contract. So while my family in Ballarat celebrated Easter together, I was required to be at work in Melbourne. I believe that making Easter Sunday a public holiday is important to allow many Victorians to celebrate Easter with their families and friends. I think this is fair and reasonable. I am proud to support the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019, as this legislation will give working people certainty in the future as we enshrine Easter Sunday, the Friday before the AFL Grand Final and Christmas Day when it falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, making sure they are permanently protected. Hardworking Victorians do deserve these holidays. In 2014 and again in 2018 we promised to lock these public holidays in, so I am so pleased to be one of the 55 members of this government and to have the opportunity to deliver another election commitment to our community. I commend the bill to the house. Ms BLANDTHORN (Pascoe Vale) (18:12): I am very, very pleased to finally be able to stand here and speak on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. As our Premier so often says: we say what we will do, and we do what we say. The ALP issued a media release back on 22 April 2014
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2223 promising to make Easter Sunday a public holiday, and the ALP also made very clear before the election that it intended to make the Friday before the AFL Grand Final a public holiday as well. They were clear election commitments, and in those circumstances and in that context there is a very clear mandate for this bill. This government is delivering on its promise to enshrine Easter Sunday, Christmas Day when it falls on a Saturday or a Sunday and Grand Final Friday as public holidays in law. With this legislation we will make sure that people are permanently protected when they work on these days. Indeed some people may well be surprised that these days are not currently public holidays, but in fact it is a battle— albeit some years are easier than others—to routinely have these days gazetted by the government as public holidays year after year. This bill means that that will no longer be required. Indeed this is a great result for those who have long campaigned for this outcome. In particular it is a victory for the union movement and a victory for the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the SDA. The SDA consists of more than 50 000 members in Victoria, and the overwhelming number of those members work in retail and fast-food establishments. SDA members have an interest in the matter of Easter Sunday, Christmas Day and grand final day as public holidays, and as a former organiser and industrial officer of the SDA, I know firsthand how hard the union and particularly the delegates and the members have worked towards this outcome for the betterment of their fellow workers in shops, in petrol stations and in fast-food outlets across the state. Indeed my first role at the SDA was as a casual organiser—casual not in nature of employment but casual in that I worked the hours that most casual employees work: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays I would spend meeting with our members, meeting with our delegates— Ms Staley: Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house. Quorum formed. Ms BLANDTHORN: Perhaps that is an indication of why the member for the Institute of Public Affairs also does not like sharing her breakfast table with someone who speaks from the unions. I was going to talk about this later in my speech, but I will address it now, given that the member for the IPA has gotten to her feet and tried to cut down my time. I was talking about the time that I spent with the shop assistants union, working for those workers—usually workers who were on the lowest pay rates in our society, often vulnerable workers, often female workers. But one of the things that became apparent to me when we were pursuing penalty rates cases, and in particular public holiday cases, was that there would always be those employers whose argument against the penalty rate or public holiday was that they themselves did not want to work on a public holiday because the public holiday was a sacrosanct time for them to spend with their own families and that therefore they would have to pay somebody a penalty rate to work instead of them. So they were on one level acknowledging that the time was sacrosanct and time that they would like to spend at home with their families but on the other hand begrudging that they should pay the workers in their business more to work that time instead of them. Indeed I have spoken about this in the past, but Mark Kenny in the Sydney Morning Herald did a bit of a survey once. He looked at the various employer organisations and he rang them on a public holiday, the IPA included. He rang the IPA, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and even the small enterprise body the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, known as the COSBOA. And guess what? Nobody answered the phone. He continued that:
The avowedly free-market IPA is, of course, a muscular advocate of labour-market deregulation and would do away with centrally established pay rates entirely. But call on Sunday to speak to a person and you get a machine. Their weekends are also sacrosanct. So there is a bit of a double standard there.
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But returning to the bill and what the bill actually does, the amendment does not affect the existing public holiday on Christmas Day when it falls on a weekday, and the amendment also does not affect the existing public holidays on the Monday after Christmas Day if Christmas Day is on a Saturday or the Tuesday after Christmas Day if Christmas Day is on a Sunday. When penalty rates were first introduced Sundays were treated the same as public holidays, attracting the same rates and benefits for workers. But now, thanks to the wind back of penalty rates under successive Liberal governments, Victorians working on Christmas Day on a weekend miss out on increased rates of pay, and the current legislation only provides for public holiday rates on a substitute day during the week. That means that when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday Victorians do not get public holiday rates but their colleagues who work on the substitute Monday do. It is just unfair, and it is exactly why we are introducing these new laws. When we think about Easter Sunday most people are surprised to find that Easter Sunday is not currently legislated as a public holiday. Traditionally Easter Sunday was not a public holiday because Sundays were treated the same as public holidays, both in respect of shop trading hours and also in terms of award entitlements. There was as such no need to call out Easter Sunday explicitly as a public holiday. With the legalisation of shop trading on Sundays and the extension of the award spread of hours to include Easter Sunday, Easter Sunday is unfinished business, as said by the SDA. It is important to think about the reasons why we might make Easter Sunday a public holiday. First of all, as various people in this place have alluded to, both those who are of a religious mindset and those who are not see Easter Sunday as an important day for them to spend with their family. Easter Sunday is also recognised as a public holiday in many overseas countries—Norway, Poland, Iceland, San Marino, Greece, Romania, Lebanon, Egypt, there is a list of them that goes on—and given that my time has been cut I will not go through all of them. But right across the world Easter Sunday is seen as a public holiday. Indeed Easter Sunday is a public holiday in New South Wales, and the world has not fallen in there. Victorians are overwhelmingly in favour of Easter Sunday as a public holiday, as are the members of the SDA. As I said, more than 50 000 members in the relevant areas of employment were surveyed, and 96 per cent of SDA members wanted Easter Sunday as a public holiday. When we come to Grand Final Friday, this was also a commitment of the Andrews Labor ticket going to the election. It was well and truly put on the table that this was something that we would fight for in this place. It came into effect, and despite the warnings of those opposite, the world did not fall in. I think on the first one of those, at the cafes and the ice-cream shop in particular in my part of the world, the lines were out the door. Small businesses did very well, and as other members in this place in more regional parts of the state have attested to, they have also done well in their communities. This is a great Labor bill, as was the one before this, but I want to particularly pay tribute, as I have said, to those at the SDA who have fought very hard for a very long time for this to come into effect. Recently we lost a great legend of the trade union movement and the labour movement in Bob Hawke, but at the 100th anniversary of the SDA, Bob Hawke said this about the SDA, and I think it sums up where we have got to on this bill:
Basically what a trade union movement should be about, is first of all and fundamentally of course, acting to improve through time the wages and conditions of employment of its members. This is the fundamental. It goes beyond that. It involves concern with their wider welfare. He went on, but in the end he said: And if you look at all these elements, and the question also of international connection, this SDA meets all those requirements, passes ... every respect with 10/10. Mr MAAS (Narre Warren South) (18:22): It gives me great pleasure to rise and to speak in favour of the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019, and I do so right after the member for Pascoe Vale, who has been a fantastic union official in her previous life and has spoken about the importance of this bill in codifying these public holidays.
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The purpose of this bill is to try to deliver on the government’s election commitments at both the 2014 and 2018 state elections. The government has twice committed—as I said, in 2014 and 2018—to enshrine in legislation the public holidays that we now know as Grand Final Friday as well as Easter Sunday and Christmas Day. This legislation will deliver on those election commitments. In lay terms, the proposed bill will codify in legislation Easter Sunday and Grand Final Friday as public holidays. It will also legislate for an additional public holiday when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday or Sunday. This bill locks in what is already the status quo. Make no mistake, this is already current practice. These arrangements are in place. What the legislation will do, though, is allow for greater certainty for Victorians, especially around their holiday plans for the forthcoming year. It will also give those workers, many of whom are under an award or a collective agreement, the certainty required to a well-earned break or to negotiated higher rates of pay that working on a public holiday might bring. This bill will also help to provide certainty to employees and employers in informing the minimum conditions for employee entitlements in awards or as a basis standard in negotiating collective agreements. As a former National Union of Workers official I remember there used to be great uncertainty with gazetted public holidays about whether weekend rates would have to be paid and whether the public holiday loading would have to be paid. It would cause a lot of uncertainty not only for employees but for employers as they tried to staff a workforce in that tremendous confusion. At present, of course, the public holidays have been enacted by Government Gazette. Gazetted holidays make it far easier for a subsequent government to reverse those public holidays, and holiday time with family and friends is something important and something that this government wishes to recognise and now seeks to lock in. Victoria currently has 13 public holidays. This is comparable to other states. So the codification of these holidays into legislation makes sense. I think that it is also interesting to note that whilst these gazetted arrangements have been in place, Victoria has become Australia’s fastest growing economy. Since the Andrews government took office we have seen strong growth in the labour market, with employment increasing by 15.1 percent or, to quantify that in real terms, by 442 300 workers. The majority of this job growth has been in full-time work, which is up by over 313 000 workers. We have the second lowest unemployment rate in Australia. Since these public holidays have occurred through gazetted holidays, Victorian small businesses have in fact gone from strength to strength. Victorian small businesses are the most confident in the nation, with the number of small businesses growing at a yearly rate of 3.6 per cent. This is well above the national average. As I have said, the bill locks in the status quo by establishing in law those three public holidays, and we can see that the benefits of this bill will far outweigh any negatives or indeed any scaremongering that might have been put out there in the past by the opposition. We are the party that values time off for hardworking Victorian workers. We were not the ones that removed Show Day, Easter Saturday and Easter Tuesday as public holidays. We also were not the ones who peddled lies about what the effect would be of having these days as public holidays. The cries of Melbourne becoming a ghost town on these public holidays, particularly Grand Final Friday, were proven to be yet another empty scare campaign—a complete fallacy. The truth is the AFL Grand Final attracts many viewers, more than the race that stops the nation, the Melbourne Cup. It is significant therefore that we have a legislated public holiday that celebrates our national game, our national pastime, which is, of course, at home in Victoria. The creation of these public holidays in fact also saw an enormous boost to regional tourism, with many families taking the opportunity to travel to regional Victoria and enjoy all that it has to offer. The lived experience of these public holidays has shown that both the population as a whole and the business community benefited from the opportunity for greater leisure time. But you do not have to take it from me: PricewaterhouseCoopers undertook a regulatory impact statement in connection with our commitment for Grand Final Friday and Easter Sunday, and that was done back in 2015. A second regulatory impact statement was undertaken in 2017 in connection with the Christmas Day public
BILLS 2226 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 holiday announcement. They are both available through the Office of the Commissioner for Better Regulation. The 2015 regulatory impact statement found that the Grand Final Friday and Easter Sunday commitment would deliver leisure time to Victorians of an equivalent economic value of between $156 million and $312 million. It also found that tourism to regional Australia could see economic benefits of between $17 million and $51 million annually. While the regulatory impact statement found that the economic benefits of the new public holidays were outweighed by the costs, it also acknowledged that there is the potential for wider benefits to accrue to families from coordinated leisure time. These changes have allowed, and will allow, Victorians from across our state time to celebrate important dates in our calendar and enjoy some well-earned downtime with family and friends. Consultation for this bill has been undertaken with key stakeholder groups, including the Victorian Trades Hall Council, the Australian Industry Group and the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as already detailed through those two regulatory impact statements. This proposal has of course been taken to two state elections and we received an overwhelming mandate at both elections. Hardworking Victorians deserve the opportunity for greater coordination of leisure time through the legislating of three public holidays into law: Grand Final Friday, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day. These changes cement the status quo in law and ensure that no future conservative government can unilaterally reverse the public holidays that Victorians have recently embraced and have grown to rely upon. The bill is being introduced to remove the confusion and uncertainty, to include the currently gazetted public holidays and to provide some clarity for future incidents of Christmas Day falling on a weekend. It is important that we recognise and compensate Victorian workers fairly when they are required to work on these significant public holidays regardless of which day of the week they fall on. It is about certainty and clarity for employers and especially for employees. Most importantly, it is about achieving a work-life balance for all Victorians. For these reasons I commend the bill to the house. Ms RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (18:31): I am delighted to rise today to contribute to the debate on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. This will implement the government’s election commitment and enshrine in legislation Easter Sunday and the Friday before the AFL Grand Final as public holidays. It will also deliver an additional holiday when Christmas Day falls on a weekend. Of course everyone remembers the decision to make the Friday before the AFL Grand Final a public holiday. It was welcomed with so much enthusiasm by people who work hard for their money— people who work at the supermarket near me, those at the bank, the early childhood educators, the people who work at our local council and so many of my community who enjoy spending time with their families, because time with families is such a precious thing. As a community people are working longer hours than ever before. People in the area I serve often travel a long way to get to work. There are lots of young families in Cranbourne who toil hard from Monday to Friday, and the time they have with each other, especially the time with their young children, is especially valuable. This legislation recognises the importance of people who work hard. I remember standing at the side of the netball court—a place where I might be accused of leaving the political bubble—with my apolitical friends, in fact with many conservative friends, and I remember so clearly their horror at the criticism being directed towards this additional public holiday. So many people I knew took this criticism personally. Of course many people thought that this new holiday replaced the Show Day holiday that we had all grown up with—that amazing and sweet day for parents, the opportunity to enjoy spring and of course the opportunity to visit the Royal Melbourne Show. And like most people in this chamber—some of my colleagues are too young to remember being Jeffed but only need to read about him—I remember with clarity when Jeff Kennett took our public holidays off us, because of course it is in the Liberal Party’s DNA to deny people their rights at work. The idea of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work is anathema. And at that netball game just a
BILLS Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2227 few years ago the condemnation was universal. How could anyone think that they did not deserve a holiday to be with their family? On those days when the former Leader of the Opposition derided the principle of the public holiday even my most fervent conservative supporters asked, ‘What are those wowsers thinking of?’. Their anger was sealed when their teams were playing in the granny. That first year I found myself surrounded by enthusiastic Hawks fans using the grand final parade as a further chance to indoctrinate—I mean teach—their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews about their team with great fanfare. But of course it is the people with more control over their lives that most often get to choose to have that extra time off. It is inevitable that the people I represent who are employed in roles where there is less choice and more toil who most celebrate the additional time, because the opportunity to work for pay is a fundamental driver for the economy and government has a role to play in people’s lives—to legislate so that the community is paid fairly when they do take time away from their families to serve the community when they would otherwise be expected to be at home with their families. I remember that first time in 2015 when that public holiday was first available. The prophets of doom, the wowsers, said that it would not work. The city would be a ghost town, we were told. There would be nobody at the grand final parade because the city workers—those at the banks and the big financial institutions and the telecommunications companies and the public servants—would not be in town to line the streets. Well, we all know what happened: the people who normally work in the city, those who commute from Cranbourne Monday to Friday, work in their offices and return home, all reappeared in the city on that sunny Friday, but instead of wearing their suits and their leather shoes they wore jeans and comfortable shoes and footy gear. Most importantly, so many of them were with their families—with their partners, their children, their great-aunt who is a slightly crazy Hawthorn supporter—and they all enjoyed the day in the city. It was teeming with people. I remember that day vividly. I spent it with my children, I walked my dog and it was sweet. But this is about so much more than a day off; this is about people’s fundamental right to be compensated for their time away from their families. I would like to touch on the other public holidays that are being enshrined in this bill before us today. I would like to add my voice in commending this bill for recognising the people who work on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day. We should be aware of the work they do. This is a fundamental right that ought be recognised, because not every day is equal. If a person works at the local servo and allows the rest of us to purchase ice and petrol on Christmas Day, that person ought be compensated. And of course it is for the benefit of the economy. When people have time with their families, they often go away for weekends, spreading the benefit through the economy. We know that long weekends benefit our rural and regional cousins. Our coastal towns, our beautiful mountains and our food tourism benefit enormously. One grand final weekend I travelled to Daylesford with my family. We had lunch in that beautiful part of the world, at the Farmers Arms, and the town was buzzing. I am sure the member for Macedon, if she were here, would be aware that her community is much busier on those precious long weekends. It is absolutely true that football is not at the centre of everyone’s universe and neither is horseracing nor is the Queen, but that does not mean that we do not enjoy celebrations that capture the essence of our state—what makes us different, our very unique elements and the reason we are so much better than the wowsers north of the Murray. In Victoria there are no ridiculous lockout laws and the city is safe because it is buzzing with energy. There are people making the most of their time. On public holidays they spend their money at cafes in ways that benefit the business owners. In honour of my friend the member for Nepean I would also like to celebrate all the terrific things people do in Cranbourne when they are given a public holiday. Of course the number one place of interest is the Cranbourne gardens, the jewel in the crown of my community. The gardens feature something for everyone. Casey Fields is the centre of the universe for so many of us. It is not just the home of the Casey Demons and the Cranbourne Football Club but also a top-notch BMX track, and, who would
BILLS 2228 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 have thought, it is a place where people can undertake some recreational fishing occasionally. I see families from across the community enjoying amazing picnics at this perfect place. No discussion about the beauty of my community would be complete without mentioning the slice of heaven around Lynbrook at Banjo Paterson Park. Come and see for yourself on your next public holiday. Before finishing I would like to take the opportunity to thank those who do work on public holidays to keep us safe. I come from a family of nurses. My brother, sister, sister-in-law, aunt and beloved and recently departed mother-in-law, Sandra Bell, have over their lifetimes worked hard in public hospitals on days when we were all enjoying a meal with the family—most recently my beautiful niece Zara Jane has taken on this role. We all know it is a vocation. I would like to pay credit to them and to Zara, who missed Christmas Day last year with us, her family, to care for those who needed her in the busy metropolitan tertiary hospital where she works. I would like to pay credit to all who care while we enjoy our Christmas puddings, particularly in Cranbourne. I would like to acknowledge the local fireys, some of whom I met on Monday with the member for Frankston. They stand by ready to respond when we need them. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge our police—again with a recognition of those who serve Cranbourne. We know you would rather be with your families on important days, but you are looking after us. And of course there are our paramedics. I often find myself in conversation with a local paramedic and discuss how she would like to be with her children when they open their gifts on Christmas morning. These people deserve our thanks. They also deserve public holidays. I commend this bill to the house, and I wish it a speedy passage. Mr BRAYNE (Nepean) (18:40): I am here to speak on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. It is an opportunity to speak about what has really been a massive success and which ensures these holidays are enshrined in our law. The bill will enshrine Easter Sunday and Grand Final Friday as public holidays. It will also legislate for an additional public holiday when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday or Sunday. These were election promises back in the 2014 state election. On balance, making these days public holidays stacked up, but I am biased because the Mornington Peninsula is one of the biggest beneficiaries of public holidays. There are a huge number of businesses in Nepean, for whom, if they had it their way, every day would be a public holiday. Whenever there is a public holiday droves of cars line the freeway on a Thursday night trying to get down to some of the best attractions the country has to offer. Let us talk about them. The beaches are the biggest drawcard. When you have as much coastline as we do on the peninsula you often forget what a luxury it is to have it. I cannot imagine living in an area where the beach is more than 5 minutes away, but of course there are many, many people who do. It is these people who use their public holidays to experience that rare thrill of visiting the beach. Whether it is Gunnamatta Beach, the Sorrento back beach, Dromana beach, Rye beach, the Rosebud pier or my favourite beach in the world, Balnarring Beach, there is plenty on offer. You can even visit the beach where Prime Minister Harold Holt went missing all those years ago. It is a remarkable feeling being down there looking out at Cheviot Beach. It is such a landmark in our political history, and what better time to do that than on a beautiful public holiday, because many people never have the chance to absorb our political history in the weekday rush and weekend exhaustion. Cheviot Beach is of course part of the Point Nepean National Park, an icon of our great country and in my electorate. We have two national parks in Nepean. Point Nepean National Park is one and the Mornington Peninsula National Park is the other, or as it is more commonly known, Cape Schanck. I was last in Cape Schanck in February and ended up getting chased by a kangaroo which had been observing me from afar. Being in the national parks gives you an opportunity to escape noise and the busy work lifestyle and experience peace and quiet. What else could you ask for on a public holiday? And it is only 50 minutes out of Melbourne if you take Peninsula Link in non-peak time. Now, if nature is not your bag but you still want to experience relaxation, Peninsula Hot Springs is your next site. What better way to spend a long public holiday weekend than down at the hot springs?
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There are plenty of members here that I am sure are crying out for a good soak. I am yet to have a meeting with the owner— Members interjecting. Mr BRAYNE: He is loving it. The member for Ringwood is loving that one. We are off. I am yet to have a meeting with the owner of the hot springs, but he has advised me that when I do the meeting will need to be conducted in the hot springs. As someone who prefers to conduct meetings in a suit, this will be a new one for me. The Baths Sorrento is obviously a culinary icon, with a view that is standard for us on the peninsula but breathtaking for everyone else. There are of course hundreds of eateries on the Mornington Peninsula, but Sorrento baths is one of the first sights you see when you hop off the Searoad ferry for those of you coming from the Bellarine Peninsula. The owners, James and Helene, are committed locals who put money into the playground at Sorrento Primary School. When you spend money on the peninsula, that money so often gets placed back into the community. The number of breweries on the peninsula keeps growing, and because you have got a long weekend you can well and truly drink up. Just to list a few I have already visited, there is Bass & Flinders Distillery, which is a small-scale maker of spirits and liqueurs. It uses local ingredients where possible, utilises traditional production methods and has a great visitor experience with tours and tastings. JimmyRum is an up-and-comer producing a variety of craft styles of rum, all made with high-quality Australian ingredients at their distillery in Dromana—a shout-out to Jimmy from JimmyRum. There are honestly so many. I visited the St Andrews Beach Brewery a short while ago, which has the best atmosphere and apparently is located close to Andy Lee’s holiday home, so maybe you might catch Hamish and Andy there. You ought to stock up on plenty of fresh produce while you are spending your long weekend down there. We have some of the best farm gates in the state. A farm gate is of course a farm that sells its produce directly on site. I have visited a few of them. Torello Farm is a 28-acre farm in Dromana. They grow, using biodynamic methods, a wide variety of vegetables and tree-ripened fruits in their orchard of 100 trees. They sell everything they grow through the farm as well as preserves and take- home meals. Mossy Willow Farm is another one that operates on Saturdays. Mossy Willow uses organic sustainable farm practices to grow crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and eggplants—great produce to purchase on a long weekend. We also have some great general stores that sell local produce and give a great opportunity for tourists to meet Peninsula locals. Flinders General Store and Merricks General Wine Store are just two to note. Our southern peninsula is becoming steadily more known for breweries, but what everyone knows us for is wineries and, boy, have we got the best in the biz. Montalto produces award-winning Mornington Peninsula wine from six sites across the peninsula. It is also on a breathtaking site. Point Leo Estate is another amazing site, which also has an extensive sculpture park. These are just two of the many, many amazing wineries to visit. What about for the kids? Because what we have to remember is that when there is a public holiday that also means no school. What are the kids supposed to do? Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm—not to be confused with Sunnyside, which is a nude beach on the peninsula—is great in that not only can you purchase strawberries and multiple strawberry products but you can also wander around the farm and pick your own strawberries. Next time you have a public holiday bring the kids down and get to Sunny Ridge. The Eagle is another comparatively new addition to the hundreds of tourist opportunities down on the southern Mornington Peninsula. The Eagle is a gondola ride that carries passengers between the base station in Dromana to the summit of Arthurs Seat, passing high over the beautiful Arthurs Seat State
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Park. The enchanted maze is right next door, so catch the Eagle up and then explore the mazes, the tree surfing and the zip line. At the end of the day you could also visit the Dromana drive-in. As a former employee, I have been well documented in talking up the Dromana drive-in. It is one of the few drive-ins left in this country and indeed the world. It is also family owned, having been kept in the same family for the entirety of its lifespan. Is anyone else looking forward to Toy Story 4? Ms Addison: Me. Mr BRAYNE: Right. Staying overnight is no trouble either, because while you could come down for that one public holiday day, the best thing about a public holiday is that it creates a long weekend. Make it a peninsula weekend. We have accommodation for all different experiences. Obviously there is the RACV Cape Schanck Resort, which despite the controversy has been able to cater for the ever- increasing demand of people trying to come down to the Mornington Peninsula. Ace-Hi ranch is a Western-themed adventure park set on 200 acres and offers really unique overnight accommodation. You have to check it out—you have to. Also, a shout-out to Ron, who owns Ace-Hi. We also have some great caravan parks—Amberlee caravan park, Kanasta Caravan Park and many, many others. If you are coming down to the peninsula and do not want to eat out—though I do not know why you would not—even our Dromana Ritchies IGA is world-renowned. In fact Dromana Ritchies won the IGA International Retailer of the Year at the 2019 IGA global awards. When our local supermarket is award-winning globally, you know we get the basics right. Public holidays give families and couples an opportunity to spend valuable time together. The memories we will remember will often be the trips made with those we love. Public holidays show our values as a society. Yes, work is rewarding and can give us a sense of purpose, but we must rest and remind ourselves of the things that matter in life—time with the family and of course time on the Mornington Peninsula. Mr HALSE (Ringwood) (18:49): Acting Speaker, I do not particularly know how to follow that and some of the other fine contributions in this chamber over the last hour and a half, which included references to a DeLorean and a whole range of other things, and I look forward to being down with the member for Nepean at the Peninsula Hot Springs at some point soon on a public holiday. But I rise in support of the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019, and what a fantastic bill this one is. It is a great Labor bill. Not only does it enshrine in legislation Easter Sunday and Grand Final Friday as public holidays, as my colleagues have noted, it will also legislate for an additional public holiday to be given should Christmas Day fall on a Saturday or Sunday. This bill is just another example of the Andrews Labor government delivering on a promise we made to Victorian workers last November. I want to reference the words of the member for Essendon, who noted that we as a government take a worker’s rights seriously. It is the Labor Party and the labour movement that have stood up for workers for generations, and make no mistake: this is an important reform for Victorian workers. I note, and one of my other colleagues noted this earlier, that more than 150 years ago workers downed tools and marched to this site right here to demand 8 hours of work, 8 hours of play, 8 hours of sleep and 8 bob a day. They understood the importance of rest to rehabilitate both the mind and the body and to engage in family and recreational pursuits. I find it no coincidence that just weeks ago the World Health Organization included burnout as an occupational phenomenon in its most recent classification of diseases. Let us be very clear: workers should have the right to rest and recreation, and when that right is forgone then they deserve to be fairly compensated. Public holidays are a time to be spent resting or enjoying recreational activities with family and friends. They are an opportunity for people to get a hard-earned break and to do all the things that the member for Nepean mentioned just a moment ago, which sounded decidedly exciting.
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I know that those opposite might prefer that workers in this state actually have no rights, that every worker would be at the beck and call of the boss at any point. Indeed I want to take just a minute to reference the framework behind this. The neoliberal economic framework that underpins and has captured the opposition’s economic thinking is one that promotes contracting out and temporary employment, stripping workers of their rights using the guise of flexibility and freedom. This is an amoral approach to industrial relations and economic theory. It does not consider the place and status of the worker. It has no regard for their wellbeing. Thus the extension of this theory is one that creates poorer conditions for everyday workers. Those who adopt the economics of neoliberalism do not think that honest, hardworking Victorians deserve time off, because they do not see the need. We have seen this play out because the Liberals have a chequered history when it comes to public holidays and workers rights. As has been mentioned before by a number of my colleagues, we all know it was the Kennett government that led the charge when it introduced the ironically titled Public Holidays Act 1993, which abolished Easter Sunday, Easter Tuesday and Melbourne Show Day as public holidays. More recently, the positions of those on the opposition benches have been so numerous on this issue it is almost difficult to keep track. But I do not remember any of us sitting in this chamber over Easter or during Christmas. Indeed most of us likely were at home with our families or perhaps away for those periods, and there is absolutely no reason why every other Victorian should not enjoy that same privilege. I am proud to say that under the Andrews government the rights of workers and the opportunities to work in this state have been core business. We have a strong record of looking after and looking out for Victorian workers by helping to create the fiscal environment within which our economy can flourish. There was somewhat of a laughable cacophony of criticism and fear from the top end of town and their usual ambassadors with regard to the supposed detrimental impacts of these public holidays when they were first implemented. Indeed I recall people prophesying the creation of a ghost city. To those people clearly the insight of Nostradamus has not been passed down. Then we had just recently—just a few hours ago in this chamber—the opposition leader making a bizarre reference to this bill somehow compromising the public health system here in Victoria. I would have thought it was the Victorian Labor Party, with our massive infrastructure projects with respect to hospitals and the financing of specialist appointments across the state, that was the champion of public health. What we can accurately relay are the extraordinary statistics as they relate to growth in the labour market. You might think, ‘How extraordinary are these statistics?’. Under the Andrews Labor government employment has increased by 15.1 per cent, or more than 442 000 workers, since Labor took office in 2014—no mean feat. Yet as we know it is not just about the quantity of jobs created, it is also about their quality. On this note it is a delight to report that the majority of job growth in this state has been full-time work, up by more than an additional 313 000 workers. As a result of our commitment to employment and workers’ rights Victoria now has the second-lowest unemployment rate in Australia, and that is a very good thing. It is a good thing because we know that secure work is the foundation upon which a decent life can be built. By having a full-time job or a permanent job, fair wages and comprehensive entitlements—including the right to rest or to be fairly compensated when you work on rest days—Victorians are able to plan for their future. They can buy the things they need, they can save for a home deposit, they can plan for a family. While some would have us believe that public holidays and penalty rates destroy small business, the facts are clearly to the contrary. Indeed the reality is that Victorian small businesses, under this Labor government, are the most confident in the nation, with the number of small businesses growing at a yearly rate of 3.6 per cent, which is well above the national average—again Victoria leading the nation. Additionally, the Andrews Labor government has undertaken an extensive consultation period with input from key stakeholders including Trades Hall, the Australian Industry Group and the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as well as conducting two thorough regulatory impact statements. This proposal has been now taken to two elections, and twice we have received a
ADJOURNMENT 2232 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 resounding endorsement of our agenda. It has been resoundingly endorsed by the people of Victoria, who value their public holidays. This bill is good for workers, it is good for business, it is good for Victoria, and I commend the bill to the house. Mr McGHIE (Melton) (18:59): I rise to speak on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill 2019. This bill amends the Public Holidays Act 1993 to include the following days as public holidays in Victoria: Easter Sunday, the Friday before the Australian Football League Grand Final and Christmas Day when it falls on a Saturday or a Sunday. This amendment does not affect the existing public holiday on Christmas Day when it falls on a week day. The amendment also does not affect the existing public holiday on the Monday after Christmas Day when 25 December is a Saturday or the Tuesday after Christmas Day when 25 December is a Sunday. Business interrupted under sessional orders. Adjournment The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is: That the house now adjourns. ICE MELTDOWN PROJECT Mr BLACKWOOD (Narracan) (19:00): (785) I raise a matter for the Minister for Mental Health, and the action I seek is that he make funding available to the volunteer community support group the Ice Meltdown Project. This volunteer community support group, headed up by Janice Ablett and Megan Waddell, has saved hundreds of lives, but sadly it may be forced to close its doors if government funding is not made available so it can continue its addiction support program. Since the program’s inception it has been funded by community groups, service clubs, philanthropic trusts and individuals. Recently a local business donated office space, giving them a lifeline of hope that a permanent centre could be found to operate ongoing support programs for their clients. The Ice Meltdown Project is currently recognised as a referral agency by the court system, the Department of Health and Human Services, and Corrections Victoria. Janice and Megan are concerned that by 30 June there will not be enough funds to take on new clients and that the program will disappear once existing clients have finished their treatment. It is disappointing that while over the last four years the Andrews government has delivered $2.9 million into 74 ice and drug addiction programs not one cent has been received by the Ice Meltdown Project. It is also disappointing that stage 1 of the Ice Action Plan has not received ongoing funding in this year’s budget, which means the community ice action grants will cease. As Janice and Megan have explained, $106 000 per year would deliver the program to 50 participants, and I fully support Janice when she asks, ‘What price do you put on a life when $106 000 could save 50 lives per year?’. Janice Ablett was awarded an Order of Australia medal on Australia Day for her amazing work in our community, which has assisted so many people affected by addiction, including family members struggling to come to terms with the impact of that addiction. I have raised this issue in this house a number of times over recent years, but nothing has eventuated. I cannot thank Janice and Megan enough for their commitment and perseverance and for what they have achieved for those battling addiction. However, crunch time is now here, and the Andrews government has the option to save lives in our community or turn its back on a program that has been extremely successful. I call on the minister to seriously and urgently look at this program again and allocate funding so that it can continue to assist those in our community who are genuinely trying to beat their addiction and return to a normal life as productive members of our community.
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EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION TAFE COURSES Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (19:02): (786) My adjournment matter this evening is to the Minister for Training and Skills and Minister for Higher Education, and the action I seek is for the minister to update my residents in the Mordialloc electorate on the Andrews Labor government’s policy of providing two additional TAFE courses to the 50 free TAFE courses to support the rollout of universal three-year-old kinder. We know thousands of Victorians have benefited from the free TAFE policy that has literally changed lives. We have removed the cost barrier for a number of people to getting the skills they need for the job that they so desperately want. And who would have thought that we would see thousands and thousands of people take up this opportunity that has all been through that policy of the Andrews Labor government? We made another commitment to Victorians leading into the 2018 campaign, and that was to provide universal three-year-old kinder. This is a landmark social policy. It will be transformational to the future opportunities of the citizens of our state. There is nothing more important than making sure that your postcode and your circumstances are not a determinant for your opportunity. The estimates are that we will need 6000 teachers and educators to undertake this wonderful policy, and what could be more exciting and more fantastic than to educate kids in three-year-old and four-year-old kinder and set them up for the future? Victorians going through free TAFE could be at the very epicentre of this very important policy. I ask the ministers to update my community on how my residents can access free TAFE for early childhood education and the rollout of this important policy. EAST BEACH, PORT FAIRY Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (19:04): (787) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment, Energy and Climate Change, and the action I seek is substantial investment to stop the threat of rubbish from a disused landfill site spilling into the ocean at Port Fairy’s famous East Beach. Minister, this is one of the biggest environmental issues that is being faced in my electorate. The former Port Fairy landfill site in dunes west of the township was closed in 1994, but erosion has caused a continued problem of rubbish from those landfill sites ending up on the beach and in the ocean. A 120- metre rock wall was built in 2014 and is working somewhat, but the Moyne Shire Council says climate change, the rising sea level and increasingly severe sea storms will expose any weakness in the current management approach and could lead to waste spilling onto the beach and into the ocean. Last week the council voted to spend another $1.5 million on what it calls ‘short-term measures’ to further secure the site. Now, the problem is, Minister, millions of dollars are being spent on short-term measures and I and members of the community fear that short-term measures are not enough to stop rubbish spilling into the ocean. No-one knows what is buried in those dunes; it is a throwback to times when we did not take environmental concerns into consideration, as we do now. Everything was simply dumped into landfill. In 2015 the then Minister for Environment and Climate Change, the member for Bellarine, visited and said that no further action would be needed. That is clearly not the case, and there is a responsibility for the state government to step in and provide funding given that one of the areas is a state government site. Funding is needed to address this environmental disaster waiting to happen. The Moyne shire has a plan—one that was conveyed to me ahead of the state election, and I know it was conveyed to the minister or her representatives. The problem is the council does not have the financial capacity to carry out its plan. Minister, you have $500 million sitting in the Sustainability Fund. Rather than propping up your budget bottom line, shouldn’t you be spending this money on projects which improve environmental outcomes? In my mind, stopping unknown rubbish spilling into the ocean and spoiling one of Victoria’s best beaches is the perfect project to spend some of this money on. FORSTER ROAD, MOUNT WAVERLEY, SHARED-USE PATH Mr FREGON (Mount Waverley) (19:07): (788) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Minister for Road Safety and the TAC, and the action I seek is for the minister to visit my
ADJOURNMENT 2234 Legislative Assembly Tuesday, 18 June 2019 electorate of Mount Waverley to see the condition of our roads and view the progress of the Forster Road shared-use path. I was delighted to announce in April that works have started on the Andrews Labor government’s $2.6 million Forster Road project. We are delivering a brand-new shared-use path for pedestrians and cyclists along Forster Road as well as new pedestrian lights near Wilga Street to help boost road safety. My community, particularly those who are keen cyclists, will soon have a safer and easier way to travel through Mount Waverley. This is a key section of the Clayton to Syndal strategic cycling corridor, and I am proud to see our government deliver this project as part of our $100 million Safer Cyclists and Pedestrians Fund. There is always more to do in road safety, and I know my community would appreciate a visit from the Minister for Roads, so I ask the minister to visit Mount Waverley and the Forster Road project to discuss options to improve other important roads and intersections in my electorate, and I thank the minister for her support. MORWELL ELECTORATE PROJECTS Mr NORTHE (Morwell) (19:08): (789) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Jobs, Innovation and Trade. The action I seek is for the minister to meet with local business owners, investors and developers who have approved projects within the Morwell electorate and for the minister to hear firsthand of their ongoing frustrations and concerns given these same projects continue to be delayed. The minister would then become very acutely aware of the significant number of job opportunities that are being lost in my electorate. High unemployment in my electorate sits over here on one hand, yet on the other hand we have approved projects that sit idle, and it is very frustrating and disappointing. The Lake Narracan precinct plan is one such project. It was endorsed by council way back in December 2015. It would encompass more than 3000 housing lots, but it currently sits idle. Again, it is just very frustrating from not only the developer’s perspective but also from the community’s. We have the Morwell north-west development plan, which was actually endorsed by council way back in 2010 but is another example of land that sits idle due to offsite infrastructure barriers such as water, sewerage and roads. Of course many of those same services the government’s own departments and agencies are responsible for. I have raised this issue before, in question time in August of last year, and the former Minister for Industry and Employment responded at the time on this same issue, saying, ‘We will do everything we can to support the region’. Way back in 2016 the Premier stated that the government would ensure that projects in the Latrobe Valley were ‘fast-tracked’. Well, that is simply not the case; it is not occurring. We had a red tape commissioner’s report on the topic of reducing red tape and regulatory barriers to growth in the Latrobe Valley; we have had Mesh Planning do reports into infrastructure barriers. Despite all of this there has been absolutely no progress at all on these already approved projects. The Queensland government have an initiative called the Catalyst Infrastructure Program that invests in infrastructure which unlocks development, generates construction activity and creates long-term employment, but there is no such equivalent here in Victoria. I put out a policy suggestion prior to the election called the Latrobe essential services fund that would allow agencies and departments like VicRoads and Gippsland Water to attract funding to build this off-site infrastructure. I call upon the minister to meet with our local developers and business owners. WORKPLACE MANSLAUGHTER LEGISLATION Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (19:11): (790) I direct my adjournment matter to the Attorney- General, and the action I seek is for her to provide me with a detailed update on the progress of the development of the workplace manslaughter legislation and the work of the implementation task force, as it is an issue that I care deeply about. This is an issue of great significance to many members of my community following the workplace deaths of Charlie Howkins and Jack Brownlee in Delacombe on 21 March 2018 when they were crushed under tonnes of loose earth following a trench collapse. I note that the first meeting of the workplace manslaughter implementation task force occurred on 28 March 2019, chaired by the member for Sydenham and including representatives from business,
ADJOURNMENT Tuesday, 18 June 2019 Legislative Assembly 2235 unions, industry and victims’ families. I wish to recognise the contribution of and pay tribute to Dave and Janine Brownlee and Lana Cormie as victims’ families representatives on the implementation task force. To have Jack, a most precious son, and Charlie, a beloved husband and father, killed in such tragic circumstances and then do all that you can to prevent others from being killed at work is admirable—thank you. The workplace manslaughter laws that we promised to introduce will help make sure that every Victorian makes it home to their loved ones. I look forward to being updated by the Attorney-General on this most important matter. WIRE ROPE BARRIERS FUNDING Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (19:12): (791) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Minister for Road Safety and the TAC in the other place. The action I seek of the minister is that she urgently quarantine funding from VicRoads’s usual maintenance fund so that these funds are not used for ongoing maintenance and repair of the wire rope barriers that are being rolled out. In the Colac Herald of Thursday, 18 April, after many questions and public questioning the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) and VicRoads made it very clear to the public at the time that all barrier repairs and maintenance were covered for the life of the barrier from the contributions of the Towards Zero action plan. Last week in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) hearings we heard very clearly from the director of VicRoads that this in fact is not the case, that in fact VicRoads and the department had misled the community, who have had ongoing concerns about the much-published and much- vaunted 3500 hits last year to the wire rope barriers, which the government has used as a justification for this extravagant and excessive rollout of road safety measures when in fact everyone in country Victoria knows if the potholes are not fixed, if the edges are not safe, if the roadside maintenance is not kept up, then people are just not going to be safe on the road no matter how much you spend. The VicRoads director made it very clear that the repairs are not being funded by the TAC as was reported in the Colac Herald of Thursday, 18 April 2019, and has been continually repeated in ads and expensive marketing by VicRoads. In fact the director made it very clear that funding for potholes, road edges, roadside maintenance and clearing—general day-to-day safety measures—will have to be diverted to maintain the wire rope barriers. The wire rope barriers are unsafe when damaged. As I said in PAEC last week, travelling down the highway I have lost count of the amount of damaged and broken wire rope barriers that now litter— up to four rows of them per roadway—in east and west directions on the Princes Highway west, and that is just the road that I go on regularly, let alone the road to Ballarat, the Geelong freeway and other major roads around the state. This is a growing and out-of-control cost problem, and the minister and the government must assure country road users that their basic road maintenance and safety are not going to be adversely jeopardised and put at risk because of the government’s current obsession with this one particular technology. The facts speak for themselves: the road toll is sitting at 80 per cent higher than it has been for 14 years, and that is after nearly a billion dollars has been spent on this one particular technology at the expense of basic road maintenance— (Time expired) FAMILY DRUG TREATMENT COURT, BROADMEADOWS Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (19:15): (792) My request is to the Attorney-General. The action I seek is for the Attorney-General to join me to visit the Family Drug Treatment Court in Broadmeadows. The Andrews Labor government will invest $8.1 million in the Family Drug Treatment Court in Broadmeadows to help parents struggling with addiction to get their lives back on track and to return to their families. The Family Drug Treatment Court will help up to 30 parents a year address drug and alcohol dependence and keep their families together, supporting some of our most vulnerable people.
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This investment will be part of a bigger strategy that I am also working on as the Parliamentary Secretary for Crime Prevention to help address the causes of crime. I would like to acknowledge and commend the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, who is at the table, and the record investment the Andrews Labor government has made in fighting crime and increasing public safety and security, and I look forward to working collaboratively to help deliver more results to cut the crime rate in Victoria in the future. WESTERN HIGHWAY DUPLICATION Ms STALEY (Ripon) (19:16): (793) My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. The action I seek is that she deliver the full funding for the duplication of the Western Highway to Stawell over 2019–20. At the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings the Minister for Roads confirmed that the duplication project—and for this bit I am talking about between Ararat and Stawell—was not going to go ahead because it was not a priority of the Labor government. The minister said at PAEC that the state budget was about delivering on the Labor government’s election commitments and the Labor government’s priorities. However, the federal coalition Morrison government has delivered $360 million in federal funding to finish this road to Stawell, and the state contribution would be a further $90 million. In terms of road building, this is one of the cheapest roads that a government could build, yet this government is saying that it is not interested in the $360 million on the table from the federal government to complete the final section of this road. This is a project of national significance. The Western Highway is the road from Melbourne to Adelaide. It is a very dangerous road that carries a large amount of freight. The section from Ararat to Stawell is now in very poor condition. The reason it is in poor condition is that there has been an expectation that this road would be funded, so essential maintenance work has not been done on this road. It has been added to by the fact that the Buangor to Ararat section has been stalled for four years through protests and the failure of the government to renew its planning permit. However, that is not the section I am referring to in this adjournment matter. I am referring specifically to the section where the federal government, under the advocacy and leadership of Dan Tehan, the federal member for Wannon, has delivered $360 million to get this road finished to Stawell. This is a road on which even this year we have had fatalities. This has contributed to the significant increase in the road toll in Victorian country areas this year. This is a road that needs to be fixed, and it is absolutely beyond belief that this government is saying it will not accept the $360 million on offer from the federal government to complete the road to Stawell just because it is not their project. That is disgraceful, and I call on the minister to reverse that position and get on with delivering this road. THE GRANGE P–12 COLLEGE Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (19:19): (794) My adjournment matter is directed towards the Deputy Premier as the Minister for Education. The action I seek is that the minister join me in my electorate to visit The Grange P–12 College in Hoppers Crossing. As part of this year’s budget The Grange has received a total of $9.5 million to refurbish older classrooms and upgrade the school’s science facilities, an investment that will make all the difference for many at this school. We know that when governments invest in upgrading school facilities it is the students and teachers who benefit from a better learning environment. The Grange is one of the older schools in the Tarneit electorate, and in an electorate where new schools are being built every year it is easy for these older schools to fall behind. That is why I am glad that this government is committed to not only building new schools but also investing in existing ones to ensure our kids have the first-class facilities they need and deserve. The Andrews Labor government has spent more on schools across Tarneit in a single year than those opposite did in their entire term. The Grange is but one school that has benefitted from this government’s commitment to ensuring that every student in Victoria receives a quality education, and
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I would welcome a visit by the minister to my electorate to see firsthand the teachers and students who will benefit from this much-needed investment. RESPONSES Ms NEVILLE (Bellarine—Minister for Water, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (19:20): A range of members have raised a number of issues for different ministers, and I will pass those issues on. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The house now stands adjourned until tomorrow. House adjourned 7.21 p.m.