Friday, 28 August 2026

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (14:39): I rise to speak on the budget 2026–27, and this is another typical Labor government budget – another high-taxing, high-spending budget full of dodgy projects that are over time and over budget and secret taxes. Let us talk about this budget. This budget confirms Labor’s legacy as the most fiscally reckless government in Victoria’s history. It has once again ignored the needs of Victorian communities. Labor will charge Victorians higher taxes – secret taxes – while all the time increasing borrowing that will lead to record debt and higher interest payments. The tax revenue in this budget is forecast to grow to $50.2 billion by 2029–30, an increase of 16.2 per cent in the amount of tax that Labor annually takes from Victorians, yet Victorians will see very little in return for that money. At the same time, net debt will increase to $199.3 billion in 2029–30, and the interest payment on that debt will be $32 million every single day. That is more than a million dollars an hour.

Despite the bushfires that ravaged Victoria throughout the summer of 2026, our bushfire-affected communities will see little money from this budget, and the promised money that they did have in the budget for new CFA tankers and pumpers is spread out over a decade, meaning only $10 million is available per year for new firefighting vehicles, while the government will take $6.87 billion from Victorians through the emergency services tax over the next four years alone.

While we are talking about taxes, let us talk about the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office’s (VAGO) bombshell report that revealed Labor’s secret, mean and deceptive tax. This is the elephant in the room for this budget. I am the first person to get to speak on this, because when most other people gave their budget speeches they did not know about this tax, it was so secretive. Labor’s secret, mean, deceptive tax will be imposed on all public transport fares until 2062. That is almost 40 years of taxing. Although we will not find any mention of it in the budget; it is hidden in the value capture revenue of the Suburban Rail Loop – a tax that has been put on, as I said, every public transport fare, metro and regional.

Regional people were expected to pay this tax – until Ben Carroll suddenly had an epiphany and backflipped on it yesterday – on every train and bus that they caught to pay for a rail tunnel that they would never even use. It was revealed by VAGO that the government actually decided to do this in 2021, when Ben Carroll was the public transport minister, but they kept it secret. The fact that the tax was kept secret shows that integrity will always be optional under Labor governments. There is no integrity when it comes to Labor. This tax was expected to raise $8 billion by 2062. Sixty per cent of that tax, or $4.8 billion, was to go into the Suburban Rail Loop as part of the value capture contributions. This indicates that way back in 2021 Labor knew that their much-lauded value capture scheme was not going to cover the cost of that project. In fact, out of all of the value capture components of the project, this tax was the single largest contributor. Labor actually commenced charging this tax two years ago. Two years ago they began charging Victorians this tax in secret with no intention of ever telling them about the tax, and the tax was to be charged for nine full years before the project was even scheduled to begin.

VAGO identified that in January this year the government were aware that the Suburban Rail Loop was likely to go over budget and over time. But the then Premier Jacinta Allan, the then Treasurer Jaclyn Symes and the then Suburban Rail Loop minister Harriet Shing continued to mislead Victorians and the Parliament by claiming this project was on time and on budget. The current Premier Ben Carroll also knew about this. He was the Minister for Public Transport when the tax was approved in 2021. The tax was projected to cost frequent public transport users up to $60 per week, or more than $3000 a year, but Labor did not even tell them they were taxing it. It was expected to raise $8 billion by 2062, of which 60 per cent, or $4.8 billion, would go to the Suburban Rail Loop.

Even worse than misleading Victorians on whether the project was on time and on budget is the fact that the Labor government lied in March this year when they moved to slow the project down and said it would save $800 million by slowing it down. VAGO has exposed that the Labor government were advised that it would actually be more expensive if they slowed it down. They revealed that it actually added an extra $1.4 billion to the project, but Labor said, ‘No, we’re saving $800 million’ – rubbish. The report also revealed that this government did not have enough money to sign the contracts for the stations, so it delayed entering into those contracts, which will also increase the cost of the project even further. This is one of the biggest financial scandals ever in Victoria and confirms what Labor elder Stephen Conroy told the media this week: the Suburban Rail Loop is a dog of a project. The real scandal, however, is that every senior Labor member of cabinet over the past four years – Ben Carroll, Gabrielle Williams, Jacinta Allan, Daniel Andrews, Jaclyn Symes, Tim Pallas, Colin Brooks and Harriet Shing – knew about this secret tax, knew the Suburban Rail Loop was a dog of a project that was over budget and over time and were all prepared to lie to the Victorian public about all of this. What other secret taxes are Labor levying on Victorians without telling them? Labor should come clean and cough up about all their secret taxes.

Announcing that the tax would be scrapped yesterday is too little, too late. It does not erase the fact that the government has kept it secret from the Victorian people. It does not refund the tax already collected for the past two years. It does not erase any of the misleading comments made by Jacinta Allan, Jaclyn Symes and Harriet Shing. But the biggest impact for Labor is the enormous budget black hole that they now have in this year’s budget and in the Suburban Rail Loop project. Ben Carroll needs to come clean and tell Victorians how he plans to fill that hole and whether he plans to introduce yet another new tax to prop up Labor’s ailing budget bottom line.

I would now like to talk about a few of the things in my electorate that did not get funded. When we look to the Yan Yean electorate, there is no funding in this year’s budget for a new Beveridge train station or for the Wollert rail despite the Labor government announcing its intention to facilitate thousands of new homes in Beveridge and despite it promising to release its feasibility study for Wollert rail by the end of last year. There is also no funding for extra car parking space at Donnybrook train station to help commuters access train services to the city. The lucky ones who do find a park might not even find a seat on a train, as the chronic under-investment in trains means regular overcrowding.

The budget contains no funding to duplicate Donnybrook Road all the way through from the Hume Highway to Epping Road, which is the single most important upgrade for alleviating chronic traffic congestion in the area. There is also no funding to extend Cameron Street to Merriang Road to provide alternate entry and exit points to housing estates along Donnybrook Road. There is no funding for new bus services to new estates in the Whittlesea or Donnybrook areas. This is an area where residents are being forced to travel by car in congested traffic on Donnybrook Road. They were sold the Australian dream by this government of new houses in new estates, and they are living the Australian nightmare out there. There is no money for additional police to reopen their police stations, and the residents are seeing increased crime and not able to access a police officer when they want to. The residents want to be connected to retail and business centres in Mernda and Doreen, and they need additional public transport in order to do that, but of course, as I said, there is no money for additional buses.

In the seat of Macedon there was no money to upgrade the intersection at Urquhart Street and High Street in Woodend – a really dangerous intersection. There is no money for planning work for the Hanging Rock to Daylesford rail trail and no money for any redevelopment of the Daylesford hospital, and that is a hospital that desperately needs investment. In fact that hospital had to fund its own master plan because Labor would not even look at a master plan for it. The health minister was their local member, and she has absolutely ignored this hospital. The urgent care at that hospital desperately needs an upgrade, but there is no money for that.

There was no money for the Woodend Racecourse Reserve to upgrade the facilities there for young children playing soccer and for females playing sport. There was no money for the Macedon Cats to see their home ground have improved facilities, and no money for Lancefield Park for the recreation reserve redevelopment there or to expand the hours at the Kyneton police station.

But in Macedon the real story is around their schools. Of the 28 schools in the Macedon area, 50 per cent are deemed to be in poor condition, desperately needing maintenance but there is no money for maintenance of those schools. A further 36 per cent of the schools are in worn condition. That is 86 per cent of the schools in poor or worn condition. Only four schools have condition ratings of good, which is 14 per cent of the schools. In greater Shepparton we have 19 schools in worn condition and two in poor condition and no money for those schools. There are seven schools there that are considered to be good, and Greater Shepparton Secondary College is amongst those.

In Shepparton there was no money for the basketball stadium, the Shepparton sports and events centre; no money for stage 2 of the Goulburn Valley Health redevelopment, including the integrated cancer centre; no money for stage 2 of the Banmira Specialist School redevelopment, which has been left half-done and all boarded up and looks disgraceful; no money for the Shepparton bypass; no money for many other projects that are vitally important to that community.

The Labor government have ignored regional Victoria. We have seen a great deal of projects go unfunded because Labor is only concentrating on metropolitan seats and all of their money is going into the one project: the Suburban Rail Loop. This week the Auditor-General and Stephen Conroy have exposed this government on that project because it is an absolute dog of a project. There are many projects in regional Victoria that need to be funded. Regional Victorians are vitally important, and this government totally ignores them. Unlike Labor, the coalition government will guarantee a 25 per cent infrastructure share for regional Victoria to see money invested in infrastructure in regional Victoria that supports regional communities to live productive lives and for our children to have access to decent schools and decent sporting facilities.

Only the Liberal Party cares about regional Victoria. Only the Liberal Party will invest in regional Victoria, because only the Liberal Party will govern for all Victorians. Jess Wilson will be an amazing premier. She will govern for all Victorians, unlike Labor, who kind of govern for metropolitan regions but really govern for the vested interests of the Labor Party in this state and the benefits that they can pass on to their mates or they can get for themselves out of governing, and that is not good governance.

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:54): I rise to make a contribution on the budget take-note motion on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. This budget is a mixed bag for Victoria. While it did not include everything we had hoped for, I would like to begin by highlighting some of the positives. This year the government committed $415.5 million for alcohol and other drug (AOD) services across Victoria. It is a modest increase on previous years, but more needs to be done for this sector if we want to take a health-led approach.

Funding in the budget extended the integrated care pilot for First Step to provide mental health and addiction support services. First Step’s model of care is best practice. It helps to address the systemic barriers faced by people with complex mental health issues and addiction, and a whole-of-life approach helps Victorians to take control of their lives. Additional investments were made towards a low-dose methadone trial, Victorian pill-testing services and continued implementation of take-home naloxone. Access to these life-saving medications, including naloxone, will reduce overdose deaths in Victoria. Opioid overdoses remain the leading cause of drug-related death in Victoria. No family member should have to experience the tragedy of losing a loved one. The funding and commitment to implement a trial of 20 naloxone vending machines within emergency departments will save lives. However, further funding for drug-checking services that reduce the risks posed by the increasingly toxic drug supply, medication-assisted treatment for opioid dependence and community education efforts is falling short. Despite these investments, total funding for the AOD sector in Victoria only saw a small increase of 4.24 per cent from last year’s budget.

This comes at a time when the need is increasing exponentially. The Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, VAADA, 2025 sector demand survey found that there were 4550 Victorians on waitlists for various forms of funded alcohol and other drug treatments. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission’s 25th national wastewater drug-monitoring program report showed that consumption of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine has reached unprecedented levels. The Victorian Coroners Court found that 584 Victorians overdosed in 2024. That is the highest number on record. We need to do more.

Behind every overdose is a story. I often reflect on the ribbons tied on church fences, those that reflect the untold horrors of child sexual abuse. Many of those same victim-survivors end up in alcohol and drug treatment services, needing our help, not our judgement. Anyone who works in AOD will tell you that when someone is in the throes of addiction the aim is to keep them alive until they can be helped to get better. This means increasing the availability of naloxone and investment in more supervised injecting rooms. Victorians battling alcohol and other drug addictions need help, and they are waiting for far too long to get that help. The AOD strategy recognises that stigma is a part of the problem and that we must approach addiction as a health issue. However, the lack of available services and extensive wait times have serious consequences, contributing to rising homelessness and leaving many suffering with addiction issues untreated. Median wait times from assessment to treatment within the alcohol and drug sector are still 40 days, doubling the government’s own target. Sector data shows the alcohol and drug system is under serious pressure.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Excuse me, Ms Payne. Apologies for interrupting, but it has come to our attention that you may have already spoken on the budget take-note motion.

Rachel PAYNE: I will end it there, then.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): It was on 30 July, I have been informed by the table office. I am sorry: we will need to wrap that up.

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:58): I rise to speak on the budget take-note motion. I am doing it a little later than I would have liked given the budget was in May and it was a budget of the Allan Labor government. We have since got a different Premier, one who supposedly cares about fiscal discipline. Can you believe that? We have seen under the nearly 12 years of this government no regard for fiscal discipline.

They inherited from then Treasurer Michael O’Brien quite a good set of books, and they have blown the budget to $200 billion of debt, which means Victorians will be paying more each and every day. They are already paying over $1 million an hour in interest – not to pay down that huge pile of debt but just to service the interest on the debt. This is the legacy of this Labor government. This is the legacy that will be bequeathed to our children and grandchildren by this Labor government – this Andrews–Allan–Carroll government; they are all one and the same. They can say they are different, but as Ms Crozier said, it is the same snake, different heads under this Andrews–‍Allan–‍Carroll government, because they are the same government. It is the same government Mr Carroll served in as Deputy Premier for three years. It is the same government that Premier Carroll sat in as a senior minister for the better part of a decade. This is the legacy of this same government, this tired government that has run out of puff, that is corrupt and that has been accused multiple times of corruption by our integrity agencies. This is a gangster government. They cannot pretend they are in a new direction when Victorians just want change.

Give it a few announcements, and how can we go past Minister Erdogan’s today? I think if the government has learned one lesson out of today, it is never send Minister Erdogan out to the press, because he will always give away more than he should have. He talked about expenditure and stopping things like coffee machines and pot plants, and then he started talking about artworks. Who bought up artworks? No-one actually raised artworks. Naturally the press pack is quite interested in this. ‘How much did you spend? Was it thousands?’ ‘No, I think it’s more than that.’ ‘Was it tens of thousands?’ ‘Oh, no, it was more than that. They’re actually quite expensive.’ It sounds like the government has spent millions of dollars on artwork for public servants. What I want to know is how much they have actually spent. This is the extravagance of this government. I want to know if any of it was for ministerial offices, as I have heard.

When Labor came to office net debt was just $21.8 billion, less than 6 per cent of GSP. They inherited a good set of books from Premier Napthine and Treasurer O’Brien. Labor is now driving Victoria towards a $200 billion debt; net debt is growing by $1.2 million an hour. Victoria will spend more this year on interest repayments than on the operation of Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria and all kindergarten services combined, with still a billion dollars left over in change. How can any member of the government, including those opposite, sit there in this chamber and take pride in the economic vandalism they have inflicted on this state? I read in particular Tuesday’s editorial in the Australian Financial Review:

… the state’s government is on track to spend one in every 10 dollars it raises in taxes paying down debt interest, according to credit ratings agency Moody’s.

Victoria has the highest state debt in absolute terms at $215 billion – or 30.7 per cent of gross state product – despite its economy being about 25 per cent smaller than NSW’s.

This week we have seen absolutely shocking revelations from the Auditor-General’s report Delivering the Suburban Rail Loop that when Ben Carroll was Minister for Public Transport a new tax was put on in 2021 – a new tax on each and every Victorian, who have already been slugged for about $6 million since it has been operating. It is due to raise about $8 billion. It is a new tax that Minister Symes, and supposedly Gab Williams as well, who brought it to the budget and finance committee – or so her colleagues say in the corridors – knew about. The now Premier Carroll knew about it and did not tell Victorians.

Last year, when the government announced its value capture mechanisms, which included state-initiated development, land tax, existing revenues that are not actually value capture because you have got to take them from consolidated revenue, the car parking levy and all this other stuff, they failed to mention that the public transport tax was a big part of this. If you have an $8 billion black hole in the Suburban Rail Loop, it is clearly no longer funded, so what my colleagues and I want to know is: how are you going to fill that black hole in the Suburban Rail Loop? You cannot.

Premier Carroll said on Monday that he has made all these savings: he has made a billion dollars in savings, and he is going to make a billion dollars more. So the cost went from about $34 billion to $33 billion, even though people like former minister Shing have always said it is a range between $30 billion and $34 billion. Yet if we look at the close detail of the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report – I am not sure if Mr Erdogan has read it either – all of the announced savings they have made in the budget were not actually funded in the business case. They were not actually in the business case and were not actually funded commitments. I am not sure if those opposite understand, but you cannot cut things that were not actually funded in the first place. How do you take a billion dollars off the top of a project range – they obviously went to the top of the range – and save a billion dollars from that project when they were not actually funded? They had no intention of delivering car parks to Glen Waverley. They had no intention of doing these interchanges. They are going to make people get off at one station and walk out, exposed to the elements, across the Nepean Highway, through Box Hill. It is going to be absolute chaos.

The government says, ‘We’ve always had a positive cost–benefit ratio.’ If you ask them about that, they say – we all remember Ms Shing doing it – ‘You have to compare it with the northern section, because that’s when you get the cost–benefit analysis.’ These guys have said that value capture components are going to be extrapolated over 40 years – $11.5 billion paid up-front and then a loan taken out over 40 years. On anything over a 10-year loan the Treasury Corporation of Victoria yield is about 6.25 per cent. If you extrapolate that over 40 years, before it even pays off the $11.5 billion, the government is paying over $28 billion in interest. That is why you will never build SRL North, and that is why SRL East does not stack up.

I say to Mr Erdogan and I say to Premier Carroll: release the contracts. Be honest with Victorians for once. Be honest with Victorians that you cannot fund this project. The amount of times we hear from Ms Symes or Ms Shing that it is on track and on budget, over and over again – well, if you read this, it is neither on budget nor on time. That is unlikely. The Auditor-General has said what we have been saying for years: how can the North East Link, the West Gate Tunnel, the Metro Tunnel and level crossings all have a consistent 20 per cent inflationary cost blowout over the last few years but the SRL business case, which was done in 2020, be somehow immune since then to any cost blowouts? It does not make sense. Nothing about this government makes sense.

Now we find out they have been lying to Victorians over this secret tax. The Premier now says he apologises to Victorians. Well, he is not sorry for implementing this tax or for knowing about this tax; he is sorry he got caught. That is all he is sorry for. He says he is going to abolish the tax. Where is the $8 billion hole going to be plugged from? Schools, hospitals, police – even further cuts to police? Where is it going to be funded from? This government cares more about concrete than Victorian people. It cares more about a rail tunnel in the eastern suburbs than the state of our roads. It cares more about a rail tunnel in the eastern suburbs than delivering infrastructure that is desperately needed in the growth suburbs.

This government is an absolute disgrace. It has pitted Victorian against Victorian by picking winners, thinking that it can build this rail tunnel from Cheltenham to Box Hill that no-one asked for. Minister Erdogan today said that we can achieve independent advice through our independent departments. Deborah Glass and other integrity agencies have already said the public service has been politicised. Minister Erdogan comes out and announces today that Infrastructure Victoria is going to be abolished, a body that it created to take the politics out of infrastructure. Then it goes off to PwC and has them dream up a rail line, a Suburban Rail Loop, that no-one asked for, which Infrastructure Victoria was not consulted on and no-one senior in the Department of Transport and Planning was consulted on. I mean, give us a spell – taking the politics out of infrastructure. This was all about a vanity project of Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan, and Ben Carroll, when he was in cabinet, did not have the ticker to stand up to Daniel Andrews or Jacinta Allan on this project. Cabinet ministers like Ros Spence, Enver Erdogan and others never had the ticker to stand up for growth areas and for regional communities on the Suburban Rail Loop. I know in their heart of hearts they know this is a dog of a project. They probably agree with Stephen Conroy that this is an absolute dog of a project.

It does not benefit your electorate, Mr Erdogan, and we know the Broadmeadows section will not be built until 2053. All Broadmeadows has been asking for is an upgraded train station. Frank McGuire promised one, and it never happened. Hume City Council asked the government about their plans for Broadmeadows; of course they do not have any because they completely stopped work on planning SRL North – completely stopped. They do not even know where the stations are going to go. When they are asked about interference with the Heidelberg hospital precinct and Austin and Mercy and MRI machines, they cannot tell you anything about it. They are never actually planning on doing SRL North, which means the SRL East will never have a positive cost–benefit ratio, which means we are pouring tens of billions of dollars into a rail line to nowhere.

Even their own business case, which former Minister Shing touted, has the workforce returning to pre-COVID levels of working in the office and travel, when we know that is not the case. The government is even introducing – we think – work from home legislation that completely alters the business case of the Suburban Rail Loop and alters how it stacks up. This government has chosen a concrete tunnel over Victorians. It has chosen a concrete tunnel over the healthcare needs of Victorians, over Victorian roads and over keeping the community safe and actually funding our police. It is an absolute disgrace. And then it has the gall to hide a tax. Ben Carroll, this new Premier, is no different to Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews, because he knew about this secret tax. He did nothing about it. He only says he is going to scrap it because he got caught. He is not sorry about the tax; he is only sorry he got caught.

 Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:13): I move:

That debate be adjourned until the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until next day of meeting.