Tuesday, 21 February 2023

Address to Parliament

Governor’s speech

Address-in-reply

Debate resumed on motion of Martha Haylett:

That the following address, in reply to the speech of the Governor to both houses of Parliament, be agreed to by this house.

Governor:

We, the Legislative Assembly of Victoria assembled in Parliament, wish to express our loyalty to our Sovereign and to thank you for the speech which you have made to the Parliament.

Lily D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park – Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for the State Electricity Commission) (13:19): I am absolutely delighted to be able to speak on the address-in-reply. Certainly there has been a lot in terms of the commitments of this government, building on a really strong track record over the last eight years. Importantly, a third-term term Labor government has been delivered on the back of a growth in new ideas, fresh ideas, building on the commitments that have been delivered over the last eight years.

I do want to take the opportunity to thank the people of Victoria. This election was always about refocusing and delivering on the things that matter. That is no less so for the people of my electorate of Mill Park. I do want to thank them once again for entrusting in me another election to be able to continue to deliver for the community.

I want to thank the many people who helped with the election campaign. Many of those people have been volunteers for many, many years. John Fry, Ray Rosales, Lidia Argondizzo – each one of them gave many, many hours of volunteer time at all hours of the day and night and weekends to run a really good, solid campaign for the Labor Party. Many other volunteers were involved, representing local party members, members of the Electrical Trades Union of Australia, members of the AMWU and members of Young Labor. When I reflect on the members of Young Labor, it really shows and reminds me every day what a strong future the Labor Party has, knowing that there are many, many young people who value our contributions and what the Labor Party represents to the people of Victoria and who are very much in touch with what the needs of Victorians are. We are representative of their own aspirations for the future for themselves but also for the communities within which they work and live.

I continue to be very proud to represent a diverse and growing community in Melbourne’s north. The suburbs of Wollert, South Morang, Epping and Mill Park are all part of the Mill Park electorate. We know that as Melbourne’s north continues to grow and change we continue to deliver the services, the infrastructure and the support they need to have a good life – a good life with their families, a good life in work, a good life in education, a good life when the going gets tough and a much better life when they may be at the rough end of economic difficulties or other problems that may confront them from time to time.

Health, education and infrastructure funding and fighting for cost-of-living relief – I am very, very honoured to continue working for my constituents to deliver for our community. In the health space the re-elected Andrews Labor government is delivering an investment of $855 million to the Northern Hospital in Epping: a new emergency department with up to 70 extra treatment spaces, including dedicated waiting and treatment spaces for families, as well as a new tower for inpatients with more than 100 beds. I was really pleased just last week to join the Minister for Mental Health, the Premier and the member for Thomastown to inspect the new mental health facilities that have been invested in and delivered by this government. The new emergency department, through the investment I just touched on, will include an alcohol and other drugs hub, providing a dedicated treatment space and taking the number of treatment spaces for emergency patients to almost 200.

We have also committed to delivering a new PET scanner for better patient care at that hospital, and that is to ensure that patients have the care and compassion they deserve as close to where they live as can be provided. PET scans are imaging tests used to find and monitor the spread of cancers and diagnose heart disease, brain disorders and other conditions – a very crucial primary care service coming to Melbourne’s north. It comes after a number of delivered healthcare projects servicing Mill Park. As I said, we have already invested in the mental health facility, but we have also had $162.7 million to expand the Northern Hospital with three 32-bed wards accommodating 96 acute inpatient beds, a new ICU and three new operating theatres.

Women’s health was a big issue in my community. I spent a lot of time talking with many women across the community, and we listened. Our government spent a lot of time listening to communities about what was important to them, and I am really pleased to say that women’s health care was a big feature of the election campaign and the commitments that we made. Far too often women’s health issues are left undiagnosed and untreated and often are not treated with the sense of urgency or respect they deserve. That is why we have put women’s health at the forefront. We have committed to investing $71 million to create 20 new women’s health clinics at public hospitals, including one at the Northern Hospital in Epping. That will be a new statewide service, and there will be more sexual and reproductive health hubs across Victoria on top. We are also working with Aboriginal health organisations to deliver a dedicated Aboriginal-led women’s health clinic. These new clinics will completely change the way women’s health issues are treated in Victoria and will provide comprehensive care for Victorians experiencing conditions such as endometriosis, pelvic pain, polycystic ovary syndrome, perimenopause and menopause.

This is on top of our commitment to free IVF through a $70 million investment into public fertility care services, helping up to 4000 Victorians every year to start a family and saving them on average $10,000 each. These are the cost-of-living questions that confront Victorians every single day, that determine whether or not they actually do genuinely have a choice to have a family, or try to have a family, or not have a family, because cost of living is more than what some people purport it to mean; it affects every aspect of people’s lives. That is why this commitment goes very much to the heart of people’s aspirations for family by not allowing costs to be the barrier to them having that opportunity. We will also invest $5 million into medical research for women’s health to ensure better treatment and pain management for diseases that specifically impact women.

Mental health – I did mention of course the visit last week to the new mental health facility that we visited and opened last week formally. One of the key achievements in the last term of this government was, after the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, delivering that and accepting every recommendation of that. Our government will continue to deliver every single recommendation, and we are the only party that is interested in delivering them. We have also funded $141 million to double the capacity of Victoria’s youth prevention –

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, the minister is misleading Parliament. The Liberals and Nationals strongly support all recommendations of the mental health royal commission. I ask her to correct the record.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is a matter for debate. There is no point of order.

Lily D’AMBROSIO: Thank you very much. I started mentioning the $141 million to double the capacity of Victoria’s youth prevention and recovery care network, giving more young Victorians access to the mental health care and support that they need.

In terms of schools and education, the good news continues: we are investing $200 million for mental health practitioners in every single government and low-fee non-government primary school in Victoria. That is what we are doing right now. We have also ensured that all families in the Mill Park electorate have access to the best public education possible. We built the new Wollert Primary School, which services the Mill Park electorate – that opened last year – and the Wollert Secondary College, which opened just two weeks ago, again servicing the people of the Mill Park electorate, giving local families great education close to home. I was really pleased also just two weeks ago to go off and have a look at the new dedicated school bus service that will take people from the eastern part of Epping Road in Wollert to the Wollert Secondary College. That is going to mean a world of difference for a lot of people who live on the east side of Epping Road, to be able to get to school safely and on time without having to get into a car. We have committed to building a new primary school in Wollert – another one – to cater for the needs of a crucial growth corridor.

Further to this, we have invested $11.6 million for a performing arts centre to be built at Mill Park Secondary College. I visited that school yesterday with the principal and inspected their concept designs. I saw that a number of early works have already commenced with utilities. They are going to be turning the first sod in coming weeks to see that fantastic new performing arts centre built thanks to the support of our government.

I look forward to visiting the newly completed $3.45 million performing arts centre at Marymede Catholic College – again a college that we have supported. It is great to see such facilities able to be invested in and built to respond to and cater to a whole variety of needs and aspirations that young people have in terms of what they are wanting to get out of the education system. Glowrey Catholic Primary School received $3 million for a stage 3 expansion, Plenty Parklands Primary School received $5.4 million to build better facilities, and the Merriang Special Developmental School has received funds to do upgrades. We are also delivering $270 million for a package to extend outside-hours care to every single specialist school, giving kids the extra learning that they deserve. That is another hallmark of the last election campaign – listening to families, understanding, walking in their shoes almost literally, and then responding, as a government should, to really target investments in the things that matter most to them and will give the best outcomes for the children and for the families.

Education does not start in prep; we know that. Studies have shown that early education has the most profound impact on a child’s development and future learning capabilities. I am really pleased that at Meadowglen Primary School and Barrawang Primary School we now have co-located new kindergartens that have already opened up. Starting this year our program of free kinder for three- and four-year-olds will give our young children everything they need to get the best start possible, and it will be a game changer for all families with young children. It is not just about what happens for them and giving them the opportunities now or in the next five years, it helps to set them up on the best possible course that we can for their future well into adulthood. Not only will their children get an earlier education but families will also save $2500 per child per year. I was very pleased to have visited the Billy Button early childhood centre in South Morang just last week to see the impact and the benefits that this assistance is providing families in the electorate.

Community sport brings Mill Park people together, and our local sports clubs are at the heart of our community. That is why we have made some very important investments for community sport right across the state. For the Mill Park electorate, we have committed $500,000 towards the upgrade of the Hillsview pavilion that will provide girls with dedicated change rooms and really make a better environment for girls and boys all round. In addition to community sports projects that we have already delivered to the community, we have also committed a $1 million upgrade to the Mill Park tennis stadium, $500,000 to the redevelopment of the Bundoora United football pitch and so on and so on.

In the short time that left I do want to just touch on the fact that we have made significant investments in road upgrades. From the Plenty Road upgrade from Mckimmies Road to Bridge Inn Road in Mernda, we are now moving into the construction phase for the Epping Road upgrades – that is the next major one – which will see it duplicated between Memorial Avenue and Craigieburn Road East.

There is so much more – bringing back the SEC, our Victorian renewable energy targets, creating 59,000 jobs in construction and supply chain, renewable energy targets, emissions reduction targets, all of which would not happen without this government.

Members applauded.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (13:34): It is a privilege and a pleasure to stand and speak on the address-in-reply to the Governor’s speech as the member for Gippsland South. I say a privilege because it is indeed that, and every one of us should remember each and every day that we are in here that we have been given the trust of the 50,000-odd people that elected each of us in our respective electorates to stand up and be their voice. I intend to continue to do that.

I was very pleased to be re-elected, and I thank the people of Gippsland South for placing their trust in me. It was a slightly revised Gippsland South, with the addition of new communities – Yinnar, Boolarra, Boolarra South, Budgeree, Jumbuk, Jeeralang, Toongabbie and Cowwarr. I am thankful for their support as a new MP to them under the arrangements put in place by the Electoral Boundaries Commission, and I thank them for supporting me, as did the rest of the electorate. Indeed, whilst the margin came back down a little bit with the new boundaries, we managed to keep it at about 15 per cent, so we increased the notional margin for Gippsland South. Indeed the Nationals won every booth on primary vote and on two-party preferred, and that is a great endorsement of the work that we have been doing.

I do offer my congratulations to the Labor Party for its election victory and to the Premier for a third election victory, as difficult as it is to say that. They do indeed deserve the congratulations for winning the support of Victorians. But I note the Premier’s commitment to governing for all Victorians, and I make the comment that whilst the government was returned to government, it did suffer swings in many areas, not least of which were some of its traditional areas in the north and west of Melbourne but particularly in rural and regional Victoria, where the Nationals had an outstanding result. In saying that, the government needs to understand that, yes, it has a mandate, and we acknowledge mandates and respect them up to a point; it also needs to acknowledge that many people in Victoria supported other parties and parties such as the Nationals and the commitments and the policies that we took forward. I am not suggesting for a moment that the government is obliged to implement those commitments, but it does need to acknowledge that the people in those areas, including in Gippsland South, did back the commitments we made – for example, in my electorate, the commitment that the coalition made for a new Sale College, a new campus and a $10 million investment to get that underway, to ensure the purchase of an appropriate new greenfield site and to start on stage 1. That is something for which the government, to its credit, has provided $3 million for the master planning, and I would expect and hope that once the budget comes around there will be funding for the full school rebuild of Sale College. It is certainly needed in the Wellington shire and Sale in particular.

The Leongatha intersection of the South Gippsland Highway and the Strzelecki Highway, otherwise known as ‘kamikaze corner’ because it is dangerous and confusing – again, the government needs to act on that.

The Loch Sport foreshore erosion we have been dealing with now for at least five years and seeking action for from the former minister for environment, who has just spoken and has now left the chamber. I would hope that the new Minister for Environment will actually pay some attention to that issue, because the previous one has presided over reports and consultants and further consultation but not done anything to address it. So we need that addressed.

We committed to a new Sale train in the early morning. Despite years of disruptions through construction of the Gippsland line upgrade and many of the works in Melbourne – Gippslanders have been put through an enormous amount of disruption when it comes to train services – we still need a down payment on that. We need a commitment from the government that were will be additional services beyond Traralgon. We committed to a new early morning service from Sale, and we still need to see the government actually match that and go further.

We committed to completing the rebuild of Foster Primary School, a new netball court for Korumburra Bena football–netball club and a new roof for the Waratah Beach Surf Life Saving Club. I note both the Waratah Beach and Venus Bay surf clubs have been waiting for funding from this government for some time. There have been a significant number of announcements for those along the Bass Coast, but there has been nothing for those in the South Gippsland area, and the government needs to address that. Fixing our roads, implementing a new overtaking lane at Toora on the South Gippsland Highway – these are all things that we committed to.

I would like to extend my congratulations to my colleagues, particularly the Leader of the Nationals Peter Walsh, the member for Murray Plains, for the work that he did; to the member for Lowan, as our deputy; to our headquarters, led by state director Matt Harris; and in particular to the new members for Mildura, Euroa, Shepparton and Morwell and Gaelle Broad in the other place. It is an extraordinarily result – the Nationals’ best result since 1943. I think it is a 78 per cent increase in numbers for the Nationals, and it needs to be recognised by the government.

I really want to highlight the electorate of Morwell and the work of the new member for Morwell in winning that seat. This is a seat that was a 4.6 per cent Labor seat, on the new boundaries. The city of Moe going into the electorate of Morwell made it a notional Labor seat, and for the new member for Morwell to pull a swing of nearly 9 per cent really shows I guess – just like those northern and western suburbs where Labor had a huge margin and had it eroded by swings –and is a reflection of the Labor government’s failure to continue to represent what were once its traditional blue-collar supporters. We can see that through the recent announcements on Opal Australian Paper and indeed the SEC. I know the minister – prior to me – had a fair bit to say about the SEC policy. Well, the idea of bringing back the SEC might have worked in some parts, but the place that knew the SEC best – the Latrobe Valley – saw right through this. They saw that this policy is a failed bit of spin.

Some may have been suckered into what this policy was supposed to be. The Premier tried to sell it as the government bringing back the SEC and basically putting electricity back into public hands. It is not doing that. There is not going to be a single government retailer. There is not going to be a single government producer of electricity. There is not going to be a government entity that owns the poles and wires. That is not what this is about. That is what the Premier tried to make it about, tried to make it seem like. This was said to be ‘We are bringing back the SEC to bring your prices down.’ Well, it will be five, ten, 15 years before the government actually starts producing any of its own electricity, and we saw that from the questions asked of the minister a few weeks ago when she could not say when prices will come down thanks to the investment in the SEC.

With respect to offshore wind, I found it a bit bemusing that the Premier constantly referred to the privatised producers, these offshore companies, that are leaving, when the biggest single company that produces power in this state, which is leaving in 2035, is in fact AGL – an Australian-owned company, Premier. It is an Australian company.

Annabelle Cleeland: Thanks for the facts, Danny.

Danny O’BRIEN: Well, facts have been pretty light on from the government, but we need to put this on the record. He talked a lot about offshore wind as well, so we would be offshoring instead of offshoring profits. Well, I know in my electorate of Gippsland South, or off the shore of my electorate, there are at least five proposals on the table right now for new offshore wind. I say to the government, with those private companies – and some of them are Australian companies, some of them are some of the biggest renewable energy companies in the world – why do we need the taxpayer to risk our dollars when the private sector is already doing it?

There are so many questions to the government. Will you be co-investing with those companies? Will you be building your own offshore wind farms? Why would you do that when the private sector is prepared to do it? We have this opportunity happening already, but this is part of the spin that the government has put in.

I note that there is a great opportunity for us in Gippsland potentially with the offshore wind farm development, particularly as oil and gas in the area wind down. There are complementarities between that and the offshore wind sector, and there are great opportunities. But the government last year put out an offshore wind farm implementation statement, and it highlighted that its preferred construction port was the Port of Hastings. It went even to the point of a graphic in that document showing labour mobility and workers from offshore oil and gas and from the Yallourn and Loy Yang power stations – which we know are scheduled to close under this government, earlier than planned – all those people, not getting jobs in the Latrobe Valley or in my electorate around Sale but actually – having arrows – going to Hastings. So supposedly the benefits for Gippsland are not going to be in Gippsland; the benefits will be ‘Oh, you can all pack up and move to Hastings, where you will be able to work at the Port of Hastings.’

Obviously the private companies will make their own decisions about where the best place to develop their offshore plans is, but I will be strongly encouraging them to consider Barry Beach in Gippsland so that the benefits of the construction and ongoing operation and maintenance of these wind farms are in fact in Gippsland. We need to push that.

On the government’s rhetoric on the SEC – the rhetoric about privatisation – the government tried to say this was a referendum on privatisation. Well, I am sorry, but you are about 20 years late. I think we had that when Jeff Kennett lost in 1999. But Labor, when it comes to privatisation, is either wrong or hypocritical. For a start, it is constantly forgotten by the current government that it was Joan Kirner that started the privatisation of the SEC by selling half of Loy Yang B. That does not get mentioned. Joan gets mentioned a lot, but not when it comes to privatisation. We have got this government having privatised the lease on the Port of Melbourne, the land titles office and VicRoads – a modernisation program worth $7.9 billion.

I must say it genuinely saddens me that Labor has gone backwards on policy on this and gone back to this notion that government knows best. Since the Hawke and Keating reforms, supported by the then federal coalition, I thought we understood that government does not know best. Time and time again the evidence is otherwise: that the private sector can do things more efficiently and more effectively. If I am wrong, why has this government gone through all those privatisations that I have just mentioned? I just find it a difficult argument to deal with. Sometimes they say, ‘Essential services shouldn’t be privatised.’ As someone whose electorate is host to the oil and gas industry in this state, which provides still to this day 90 per cent of our gas supplies, it should be a big shock to those opposite that that has been run for 50 years by the private sector. Esso BHP and its partners have been running that for 50 years. It has been competitive, there have been good prices and it has all flowed. There have been great jobs in our region, and the government did not need to lift a finger. Heaven forbid – please do not anyone tell the Premier who owns the petrol stations in this country, because I am sure he will start saying that they need to be privatised too.

I just want to mention too that the Premier in his celebratory speech on the night of the election talked about hope over hate. I am not entirely sure what he was referring to when he mentioned hate. But I would like to challenge the government on truth versus lies, because we saw a lot of lies during the election campaign. We had the government telling us that the only way that we could get the gas that the coalition proposed would be to go fracking. You can go back onto the government’s own website and find the Attorney-General, the then Minister for Energy and Resources, in 2020 and 2021, with a press release, ‘Onshore conventional gas restart a green light for jobs’, 16 June 2020. The minister said:

Production of the estimated resources could generate as much as $310 million annually for regional economies …

Two years ago the government said, ‘Yes, there is onshore gas.’ Then through the election campaign the minister comes out and says it is not there.

Tim Richardson: It’s not fracking, mate. Are you opposed to fracking?

Danny O’BRIEN: I am opposed to fracking. That was the lie, member for Mordialloc. That was the lie.

The government stands condemned for bringing those things in. We had the candidate for Morwell saying that we were going to privatise Gippsland Water – that was never our policy – and that we were going to privatise Latrobe Regional Hospital. So do not stand there and point your finger at us on this side and talk about hope over hate when those lies come out.

I will briefly reprise what I said in the address-in-reply back then: we need to do better as politicians. Our behaviour needs to improve. The way we do politics is still turning people off. In 2018, 78 per cent of people voted for the major parties; in 2022, just 71.3 per cent. We need to do better. We need to do better for our democracy.

Members applauded.

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (13:49): Wasn’t that a positive rev-up? Goodness me – he got the pulse going, the member for Gippsland South. It was, ‘Toot-toot, look at the Nationals.’ They are the major party now, the major party coming through. He did talk about, the member for Gippsland South, moving away from the coalition agreement, but we wait with bated breath to see if anything happens on that front.

It is a real honour to stand up on behalf of your local community and to be elected, and to have the honour of being elected for a third term is truly extraordinary. I still think about the first time that my community gave me the honour of representing them some 3001 days ago, and every single day that you get to stand up on behalf of your community and advocate for them and their needs is a real honour and a privilege. In everything that we do in the Mordialloc team and the Mordialloc electorate office, the legends there that support our constituents each and every day, our mantra is to not waste an hour, not waste a moment, and we try to put everything we possibly can into representing and supporting our local communities. So to be endorsed and to be back again to make sure that we deliver on our election commitments and build on the legacy over a number of years of transforming the City of Kingston and Greater Dandenong into even better places than they were before and leaving our community better for tomorrow is a great honour.

There are a few things I want to reflect on from that campaign. It was an intense, divisive and at times brutal engagement. It is not how democracy should be reflected – in hateful speech and lowest common denominator politics. The main state parties – some of them revved up some really unsavoury elements in our local community. While the member for Gippsland South talked about the primary of major parties, we need to reflect on lifting the standards of that debate, and I welcome some of those comments and reflections from the Leader of the Opposition. We need to head towards that in the future, because our democracy in our state depends on it. We see the diminishing of attendance voting in our mandatory attendance system, and we need to think about how we are inspiring and engaging in our debates rather than being divisive and alienating communities. So we always try to not look at partisan politics locally. The opposition and other parties put forward their views, we put forward ours in our policies and we see who comes out on top. That has always been the mantra.

I want to acknowledge the work of those candidates in putting themselves forward in the Mordialloc electorate and their ideas that they shared in our community. I was able to see some of those and make assessments. We took a pretty bold and ambitious program through. We farewelled in the redistribution the communities of Mentone and Cheltenham, which I have had the great honour of serving. I still miss – even though they are in the City of Kingston and we have crossover in the region – those constituents, in their thousands, in Mentone and Cheltenham. It was great to represent them on a number of different platforms and policies: level crossing removals, school upgrades, health upgrades as well, upgrades to local kinders. It was a real honour.

We took in the Waterways and Keysborough South communities and had some pretty incredible commitments. The Keysborough Gardens Primary School – of course it was a Labor government under the former member for Keysborough Martin Pakula that delivered that outcome and will come back for the next stage in investment there. And then there were the planning works for the Keysborough CFA, a wonderful, inclusive, diverse volunteer fire brigade in our community. They have some of the hallmarks of our upgrades at Edithvale CFA, the support and the redevelopment we did there some 4½ years ago. Support for volunteer emergency services has been something we have heavily focused on, whether it is Chelsea SES unit getting an upgrade and redevelopment of their site or Edithvale Life Saving Club, Aspendale Life Saving Club and Mentone Life Saving Club all getting significant upgrades. To be welcomed and to be able to get into the Keysborough South and Waterways communities has been amazing as well.

We have been removing level crossings on the Frankston line since day dot. I remember standing out there with the then shadow public transport minister Jill Hennessy committing to removing the Edithvale Road level crossing. Many thought it would not be possible to have such a bold agenda – 50 level crossings. To think now we are up to 110 removals, and we are going to make the Frankston train line level crossing free by 2029. There has been a lot of conjecture and a lot of campaign and debate through the community on the methods and those outcomes – and we saw that during the election campaign – whether rail under road or elevated rail was the pathway forward. We committed to removing the Parkdale level crossings with an elevated rail, and that was endorsed by our local community. A majority of Parkdale residents endorsed the Andrews Labor government’s plan. Now we get on with the important work of design, building and outcomes, and that will then see that community transform with more open space, making it safer and accessible for the future. When we go down the road a bit, Mordialloc and Aspendale will be next on the list.

What we see with those level crossing removals is not just the safety outcomes, as important as those are with those 210 trains that run up and down the Frankston train line each and every day, but that we have increased the services and we have increased the frequency, and as the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel comes online in 2025 we will see a really different outcome for Frankston train line residents.

Of course just over on the Dandenong–Cranbourne line we will now see it level crossing free by 2025, which will be an extraordinary outcome for those Keysborough South residents that interact with that community. The transport outcome is one thing; it is the passion, the energy and the engagement that you get from a community that brings all that aspiration together. It is a one-in-100-year opportunity to transform those areas, whether it is in transport outcomes or landscape planning, and to think: what do we want tomorrow for our local communities? Whether it is precinct upgrades, station upgrades, town planning outcomes or urban design, we see a real transformation getting underway. We are seeing that as a hallmark on the Frankston train line as well.

I am really proud and passionate about our work in education. To have been the parliamentary secretary for education was an absolute true honour. The disability inclusion package and the inclusive education work that we have done are hallmarks of the Education State. Excellence in equity in everything that we do: that is the hallmark, that is the prism of what we want to see. I want to give a big shout-out to our educators, our teachers, our education support staff and our early childhood educators, who through significant challenges over the last few years and now staff shortages are going over and above to support our youngest Victorians on their journey in learning. It was a real privilege just to sit next to the Minister for Education on those occasions to see that reform and agenda and be a little bit of a part of that story. We take that aspiration further now, where we are seeing free kinder delivered for our three-year-olds. What a wonderful transformational policy that is. Those first thousand days in the brain’s development – we know how critical they are. You fund your values and you fund those priorities. We know that that will have a lasting change – be a generational change – for so many young Victorians, so we are really pumped in the Mordialloc electorate for the benefit that that is going to provide to our communities in the future.

When I turn to the parliamentary secretary role that I have now, in health infrastructure and in mental health and wellbeing and suicide prevention, there is a massive reform agenda here: $20 billion in health infrastructure investment, building on a legacy of upgrades and works right across our state and our local communities. In my local community Monash Medical Centre will have a substantial upgrade – a world-leading facility there – Dandenong Hospital will have a significant upgrade as well, and then we have just seen the recent milestone of the Victorian Heart Hospital opening up. What a truly extraordinary precinct that will be.

In mental health and wellbeing, we know that the impact of mental ill health on Victorians, particularly in recent times and in coverage, has been devastating. We have to look at not the haves and have-nots in mental health; it is about a shared community purpose in everything that we do. I am a really big advocate and fan of positive psychology. We all move across the spectrum – it might be from 10 to minus 10 – and we all have a shared collective interest in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of all Victorians. Any life lost to suicide is one too many. We have to look at every single person that we lose as a preventable outcome and death. I know the Minister for Mental Health is just so passionate in advocating in this space. The former minister, James Merlino, led the Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill 2022 and led the work on the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, and the Premier initiating that royal commission was truly extraordinary. We have that funding certainty and investment for the future – for the mental health and wellbeing levy and for the 74 recommendations, the nine interim ones and the other 65 and their subparts. We see the hope and the aspiration for a better tomorrow for Victorians who are suffering mental ill health – to know that if you confront that over a time in your life or you know someone you love and care about is impacted by mental health and wellbeing challenges, we will have the answers and know how they can get that support and care. So to be working through some of that work now is really important and critical for the future.

Turning my attention to some of the other works that we have been doing in our local community, I have to give a big shout-out for the work around the cost of living, with the SEC coming back. We heard from the member for Gippsland South. They are a bit in doubt about whether they support renewable energy. Have they got a renewable energy target? Some of them want to legislate it, some of them are opposed to the SEC. On this side we are absolutely committed to reforms in renewable energy.

A member interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: We just heard from the member for Gippsland South. He is opposed for any communities; that really might be Nationals policy being communicated. But we are about lowering the cost-of-living impacts on Victorians, making sure of that with the power saving bonus and with the upsurge in renewable energy. We know the cost benefit of investing in the future, and that partnership between the Victorian government and the private sector will be transformational into the future.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business. The member will have the call when we resume the government business program.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.