Tuesday, 2 August 2022

Opposition performance

Mr EDBROOKE (Frankston) (17:16): Deputy Speaker, congratulations on your elevation to the new role. It is fantastic to see you sitting there, and you have been doing a great job listening to all these riveting contributions.

I rise to grieve for the future of the treaty process in Victoria under a potential Liberal-National government in the future. We have heard some incredible stories of the preselection process so far for the Liberal-Nationals today, and I have got to say it runs a chill down your spine hearing some of the opinions and some of the thoughts made known publicly by these potential candidates and potential MPs. Often these are thoughts and I guess policy pitches to a potential government that might be hidden during the campaign. We would not like that to happen, so it is my job today to grieve about the potential bigotry, which of course has no place in this house.

This government has made a foundation where in this house and the other house we have no acceptance of bigotry, racism, homophobic comments or sexism. It is very alarming when you see some of these preselections that really shine a light on people’s backgrounds, what they have said in the past and what they believe right now as well, so we might talk about a few of them today. I was standing here not long ago, and I thought, ‘Well, we’ve actually got rid of some of the bigots’. We have actually got rid of some people that I would consider uneducated bigots, and one of them would be a former member who did not stand for Rosie Batty when history was made as she made a presentation to this house. I think it might have been the first time a member of the community that was not elected to this house spoke in this house.

A member: That was amazing.

Mr EDBROOKE: It was absolutely amazing. I looked across, and I saw one person who later could not explain why they would not stand to the media. I could not actually explain to anyone else why someone would not stand. Why would you not show someone the respect and maybe educate yourself a little bit later? Maybe it is because you are a misogynist. Maybe it is because you are a sexist. I think today we might start calling a bit of that out.

I also raised a glass when I thought there was some leadership finally being shown in the Liberal Party as a member in the other place, Mr Finn, was removed from the party. He got voted out of the party. Mr Finn’s decision to refuse to stand at the start of every day to acknowledge Indigenous Australians and what they have been through is the type of petty ridiculousness that his career will be known for, unfortunately. But I thought, ‘Yes, we’re moving on. The Liberal culture is even moving on, and they are maybe coming back to the centrist views a little bit’. But then we heard over the weekend and in the last couple weeks about some of these preselections. When you are in the Liberal caucus it must be like being in that show Outlander.

Mr M O’Brien: We don’t have caucuses. Get the terminology right at least, will you? Come on.

Mr EDBROOKE: Oh, my goodness. At least you will speak up now; when Bernie Finn was there you were very, very weak on him. It must be really, really like that show Outlander. You feel like you have gone back a hundred years at times, because on the weekend we had someone preselected for the Liberal Party who claimed that schools were actively trying to change children’s gender and sexual identity while encouraging gay and transgender students to be really narcissistic. I can see there would be people over there, reasonable people on the other side of the house, that would be rolling their eyes and looking at their shoes, thinking, ‘Oh dear, why are we doing this to ourselves again?’.

In interviews posted on YouTube this former Melton councillor and teacher, Moira Deeming, describes transgender laws as ‘My number one issue’. I would challenge anyone to go to their psychologist or counsellor and say ‘My number one issue is transgender people’. I reckon they would tell you the truth. I reckon they would tell you that maybe you were a bit perverse, maybe you have got a few issues yourself that you need to deal with. Maybe they would tell you that if you are going for a job, if you are up for election in a community who are going to vote for you and you want them to vote for you, you might have to ask what their number one issue is. I guarantee you, across Victoria there is not one electorate where the number one issue is transgender issues.

She also casts doubt on COVID-19 vaccines and claims LGBTIQ+ students get all the attention in schools. Well, I am a former teacher and I do not see it. I am not sure what she is on about. These people are the future of the state Liberal Party.

Mr Richardson: It’s all going well.

Mr EDBROOKE: Yes, it is going well. We saw on the weekend too that Renee Heath, who is a Gippsland chiropractor, won the Liberal Party ticket for Eastern Victoria Region. She got the number one spot. She has got a connection to a conservative City Builders Church which has been accused of encouraging members of its congregation to take part in the Living Waters program. It is a peculiar name for an externally run gay conversion therapy. We have heard several members talk about the gay conversion therapy argument within the Liberal Party.

We have also got Evan Mulholland, who is from that wonderful think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs. He is a staunch critic of climate—

Ms Hennessy: And we use the term ‘think’ lightly.

Mr EDBROOKE: We do use the term ‘think’ lightly. He is a staunch critic of climate targets and our efforts to boost renewable energy. It is fair to say Victoria is leading the nation in regard to these policies, but on Sunday this man was preselected to a totally winnable position in Victoria’s upper house. He has previously described federal Labor’s 45 per cent by 2030 emissions target as ‘a disaster’, while suggesting people arguing for ‘economy-destroying climate targets’ and ‘endless subsidisation of intermittent and unreliable renewable energy’ represent an elite who take mainstream Australians for fools.

I think the preselection that alarms me—indeed the writing is on the wall with this preselection—is the one of a former City of Boroondara mayor. This is really alarming. This person, Cynthia Watson, was preselected for the seat of Ringwood. Even Liberal Party elders are very, very concerned about this person’s values. Moderate Liberals believe that the former City of Boroondara mayor’s religious right-wing values could be a liability, and some members were surprised when she told Ringwood members at the preselection she would not even live in the electorate. A senior Liberal Party official, prohibited from speaking publicly under party rules, told the Age they believed her right-wing views made her unelectable and were antithetical to the Victorian branch’s attempts to modernise and appeal to a younger and ethnically diverse demographic. Apart from being a factional ally of disgraced factional leader Marcus Bastiaan and recruiting heavily from Mormon churches—and we have heard all of that story—Ms Watson was named repeatedly in a forensic audit into allegations of breaches of party rules that was prompted by an investigation by 60 Minutes. I think that was a factional operation led by Mr Bastiaan and also former minister Sukkar as well.

But I do not think that is even the most disturbing thing for me, that we are preselecting candidates that have this kind of history. It might be a bit of a concern for the Leader of the Opposition now he is in the limelight for a Hotmail account and some emails, but the thing that shakes me to the core after proudly seeing our First Nations people in the spirit of self-determination come into this Parliament and start the process for treaty is the fact that this candidate for Ringwood is a person who made a stand, no pun intended, to stay seated during a council meeting and continued to for every acknowledgement of country. This person refuses to stand during an acknowledgement of country. So we just basically saw the Liberal Party give someone the boot for doing that, and now we are bringing someone else in who does it. I do not understand personally how you would want to align yourself with Mr Finn or indeed Pauline Hanson, who last week was in the media for walking out on the acknowledgement of country. Can you imagine what you would be thinking if someone said, ‘Oh, Pauline Hanson’s got the same opinion as you’. I would be pretty scared, I would be looking at myself, I would be looking at what I said and I would be educating myself pretty damn quickly.

I am proud that Victoria is leading the nation in implementing treaty and truth. I am proud that we are incorporating elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and we are also leading the nation in setting ambitious targets in the implementation of the national agreement too. I remind members today that there are people that were in this chamber and who might even be listening at home who are generational survivors of a cruel colonial past. Australia is not the only nation to have to go through this; we have seen that is the nature of colonisation across the world. But there are family members who might be watching this but who were certainly watching our Parliament not long ago, whose family members had been killed off and whose culture was bred out of them.

Now, traditional voices have been traditionally silenced, and that true history of colonisation has been whitewashed as well. We know this. It is incorruptible evidence. It is in the history books. Why are we preselecting people in the 21st century who cannot see that history should not be covered up or denied or erased? We should not be electing people that want to keep things as they were in the 1800s. We are closer than ever as a nation to addressing unfinished business in this state. I grieve that there would be people who could possibly be elected to this place and the other place who would deny that. We have been told in no uncertain terms that the treaty bill is the only way that we can heal and the only way that we can all create a future of justice, equality and respect, and I really wonder why anyone would step in the way of that.

It is bizarre to me that these preselections occur, because these people clearly are not there to listen to their community. They are clearly not going to represent their community. Do not get me wrong—I love the fact that we are all different people here, that we can all make up our minds, but there comes a point when we need to be educated, we need to be respected, we need to ensure that bigotry is called out and we need to ensure that prejudice and racism are called out as well. This government is definitely representative of our Victorian community, more so than probably any government in the nation. We have a vision for the future, and we are building that vision—and that does not involve bringing racists into the fold.

It is one thing for the Leader of the Opposition to stand there and tell us he has control of his party, that he wants more equality and that he is acting on things, whether that be equality in the sense of gender or sexuality or racial equality, and it is another thing entirely for him to stand there with this going on behind him and say absolutely nothing. He is allowing his party once again to be taken over by bigots that appear to be living in the 1800s. It is quite bizarre and not reflective of our community at all. That is not leadership.

Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, as you would be aware, standing order 118 prevents imputations and personal reflections on members, and I believe that the honourable member for Frankston’s comments in attacking the Leader of the Opposition strayed into the territory. I would ask you to ask him to desist from doing so.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Malvern. The member for Frankston, to continue.

Mr EDBROOKE: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I will leave damaging his reputation to the Leader of the Opposition.

While we are focused on acknowledging past wrongs and building a treaty process with our proud First Nations people, across the aisle they are arguing about why they should do that. When we are focused on providing equality and LGBTIQ+ rights to people in our community, we have got the opposition preselecting people obsessed with transgender issues and not giving equality to people. Whilst we are leading the nation in renewables, we have got people over the other side of the chamber who do seem to believe that renewables are not required, that we can still burn coal and that global warming does not exist. We have also got a bunch of MPs across the aisle who seem to think that taking away Roe v. Wade and the rights that go with that is a good thing.

I would say we listen to our community. We believe in evidence. We believe that the whole community has an opinion. We are not obsessed with race, gender or sex, and we do not have unhealthy perversions with people’s bedrooms. I congratulate the Liberal candidates on their preselection. I think they will perform as expected. I hope they talk to everybody. I hope they find everyone in their community and they tell them their thoughts on these things, and I wish them luck.