Appropriation (2010/2011) BillTuesday, June 08, 2010 Second ReadingI am pleased to rise to speak on the Appropriation (2010/2011) Bill. Is it not a cynical election-year budget? It is a spendathon without substance, vision or ideas to back it up. It features the usual array of hollow, half-baked announcements we have come to expect from this government. It even has some sweeteners, which will be funded only for one year. How convenient it is that this also happens to be an election year!The budget contains promises deceptively announced but funded out of forward estimates beyond 2013-14. It has some good ideas, but it is a pity that none of those ideas originated in the offices of the government. Clearly Labor ministers are in a contest to see how many of the coalition's policies they can pilfer before the November election. Listening to the Treasurer hand down his cynical, pre-election budget and gazing at the smirks of Labor ministers and backbenchers occupying the seats of this Parliament, I had an overwhelming sense of dej vu. I had seen such self-gratifying spin before, and it suddenly dawned on me: this was reality mimicking television; this was a government using episodes of the Hollowmen as a template to govern this state. As members know, the Hollowmen is a comedy which inspires no confidence in our political system. It essentially outlines the daily operations of a political office in Australia. The humour is derived from watching advisers manipulate and spin policy to such an extent that they can no longer differentiate, even for themselves, political spin from reality -- and this is what Labor's budget represents. It represents a government whose policies and actions are removed from the actual impact that they have on families and communities across the state. The numerous hollow men in the Premier's office are more interested in scrambling to cover up the latest Labor Party scandal than they are in policies to improve the lives of Victorians. One particular line from an episode of the Hollowmen springs to mind. Tony, the Prime Minister's principal private secretary, is lamenting the dearth of a budget centrepiece and he says: So we've got the slogan, we've got the ad, we've got the report -- -- and Murph. says: $100 billion. to which Tony replies: We just need an idea. This is a government no longer able to come up with ideas. This is the government that thinks up the propaganda before it thinks up the policy. Even the clever scriptwriters from the ABC could not dream of such a fiasco as what we have witnessed with the Windsor Hotel development and the government's sham consultations. No amount of self-promoting government advertisements will fix the fact that our multi-billion-dollar public transport system does not work, nor will it ensure access to an ambulance when you need it. Budget cost blow-outs totalling almost $11 billion have marked Labor's time in government, yet our roads remain congested, our hospitals do not have enough beds and our water supply remains unreliable. I want to spend some time in this debate on my important shadow portfolios. I will start with environment and climate change; in respect of that area, this budget is a Hollowmen-style budget like no other. True to form, it was leaked almost comprehensively to the media before its presentation, and the government's announcement about free entry into national parks was exposed as a pre-election farce. In the PAEC (Public Accounts and Estimates Committee) budget estimates hearings early last month the Premier proudly touted that from 1 July entry to national parks would be free. He then backtracked to clarify that this so-called free entry to national parks would be funded for only one year. It will come as no surprise to members that this free entry would occur in an election year only. Even more outstanding was that despite a decade of drought, devastating bushfires and growing levels of waste and pollution, Labor has reduced spending in the last year on sustainable water supply, waste management, pollution and clean air. Not only are we spending less on such important measures but Labor's attempt to report on outcomes on key environmental targets, such as the government's greenhouse gas emissions, how the government is tracking on its renewable energy target and the protection of native species, is quite abysmal. Precious budget space is taken up by measures which record useless targets for bureaucratic output and deadlines. Remarkably this budget continues to ignore the urgent need for increased fuel reduction burns in Victoria. Despite advice from senior bureaucrats, legal representatives and communities, the Premier has not only failed to increase the current 130 000-hectare fuel reduction target but he has even refused to set a target in this year's budget. Without any action from the government, Victoria will be left dangerously unprepared and exposed to the threat of bushfires in the future. In April Australians saw an extraordinary display of political hypocrisy. It was one of what appears to be a bottomless pit of broken promises by Labor governments. Remember how the Prime Minister said climate change was the great economic and moral challenge of our generation? Now the federal government has well and truly deserted the climate change debate, and Victoria is placed in an interesting position. But this budget shows the Premier's willingness to follow in the footsteps of his Labor mates in Canberra and also to abandon leadership in this important area. Environment Victoria tarred the budget as a 'missed opportunity' and Friends of the Earth lamented that it was 'light on in terms of pivotal issues of climate change'. We have been expecting a climate change bill for almost four years, and the long-promised and overdue white paper is still missing. While we welcome the Jobs for the Future Economy report as a step in the right direction, we fear it will end up like so many government strategies motivated by media pressure and poorly implemented. We feel that regional Victoria has been disregarded; for instance, the Latrobe Valley, which will be significantly affected by state and federal decisions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is all but forgotten. There is no transition plan that promotes jobs and industries in that region. But forgetting local communities appears to be a recurring theme across all areas of government policy. In terms of community services and mental health, this is the budget of a government that is more interested in protecting and enhancing the careers of its members than in protecting and serving the community. This is the budget of a government that continues to stand by a minister regardless of their abilities and competence. In fact it appears there is no outcome bad enough or enough repeated poor outcomes to tip this government's scales away from job security for mates and towards good governance and responsible leadership. Also at the PAEC hearings the Minister for Community Services was asked time and again about the number of times her department complied with statutory requirements in completing best interest case plans, only to have her repeatedly avoid replying to the question. However, even before her PAEC hearing had finished she had called a press conference. It turned out that the minister did have the answer after all -- and what an answer it was! She revealed that best interest case plans were not being appropriately prepared for neglected and abused children. It was revealed that these plans were not being completed in not 10 per cent of cases, not even 50 per cent of cases but in 80 per cent of cases. That is 1100 children who have had their neglect and abuse proven by the court and who have not received a best interest case plan completed in an appropriate time frame. Non-government members of PAEC have requested the committee to recall the Minister for Community Services to explain her actions and her disrespect for the committee as well as to answer the question she refused to answer when she was before the committee. What about the budget specifically? The Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) said about it: Today's disappointing budget continues the Victorian government's approach to letting problems reach crisis point ... Take disability services as an example. In 2008 the Minister for Community Services, under pressure from the disability sector, undertook an independent pricing review of disability services. Because she did not like what it showed, the minister refused to release the PricewaterhouseCoopers report until she was forced to do so by a coalition motion in the upper house calling for the production of documents. It made for interesting reading. The report found that the gap between the cost of providing day services and the funding received from the government was $15 million per annum, and 13 out of 18 agencies reported weighted unit costs greater than the available funding. There were also significant gaps in supported accommodation and respite services. It was good to see in the budget some funding to address the gap in supported accommodation unit prices, but there was nothing to address the funding gaps in unit prices for day or respite services. National Disability Services said: ... this budget does not address the chronic underfunding of day services ... It makes no commitment to undertake further analysis of respite funding for disability services ... Carers Victoria said: ... there is very little for caring families to celebrate. It went on to say: ... this government has failed caring families yet again. While the minister trumpets what increase in funding there is for disability services, a recent update from the commonwealth shows that this year Victoria will receive an extra $38.7 million from the commonwealth government. More than half the increase in funding is from the commonwealth government, despite the state government trying to take credit for it all. For some time now this government has been claiming leadership on mental health. However, with some analysis it becomes clear that funding for mental health services has actually declined massively in this term of government as a proportion of overall health spending. At exactly the same time as the government appointed a dedicated Minister for Mental Health, the proportion of funding for mental health services declined under her leadership. This was only reinforced by the recent Council of Australian Governments meeting. Do members remember the COAG meeting? It was held just the week before the Premier announced that 'Victoria cannot and will not support the commonwealth deal', and that 'We are not going to be bullied into a position that is wrong for the states'. That was before he did agree and was bullied into a position that was wrong for this state. What did the Premier settle for? This government thought it was fine that just 2 per cent of all the additional funding for health services went to the mental health sector. Following the release of the Victorian budget an exasperated Pat McGorry, the current Australian of the Year, said:
He also said that 'people with a mental illness are being left even further behind's. In fact the VCOSS analysis shows a decline in effective mental health spending of 2.9 per cent from this year to next year. It says:
I would now like to comment on the new services that this budget will deliver for Doncaster residents. Perhaps Hansard can note the silence in the chamber, because it represents what this government has delivered in new promises for my electorate this year -- absolutely nothing. All we have is more recycling of previously announced promises accompanied by only partial funding. In previous times I have highlighted the lack of funding this government allocates to community services and youth services in Doncaster. Like people in the rest of our community, Doncaster residents had hoped the government would recognise and remedy this deficiency. We received no new funding for projects, just confirmation of oft announced but yet to be delivered services. Yet again we have been treated to spin over substance. Even where this government has promised to fulfil a election promise, the reality has fallen well short of the pledge. Take for instance the funding for the long-awaited upgrade of Box Hill Hospital. Despite promising a new hospital just before the last election in 2006, this government in December 2009 finally announced $407.5 million of funding. It was much less than the estimated $850 million it was said to cost to fully upgrade this ageing facility, and it was $250 million short of the government's initial promise made four years ago. The budget has revealed a $100 million-plus funding black hole. This project has been allocated only $20 million this year, and the budget papers show that $297 million will be rolled out by 2014, leaving a $110.2 million shortfall that has yet to be allocated. But in the fine print it states that that funding will be provided beyond 2013-14. Construction is meant to continue into 2015, but the present budget papers obviously do not look that far ahead. As a result, residents have been promised an upgraded facility, but the government is still looking for $100 million to deliver it. That is not good news for Manningham residents, who deserve better. Interestingly this was to be a brand-new Box Hill Hospital. In fact the government's own budget papers describe the Box Hill Hospital funding as a new emergency and surgery block -- quite a shift from the grandiose promises made. Doncaster residents fare little better when we come to public transport. Long-suffering commuters, who have access only to buses as public transport, have endured overcrowding and congested roads. Under the much-vaunted Doncaster area rapid transit system our services are being upgraded, but it has been a very slow process. The services that will ultimately be delivered come nowhere near the recommendations of Sir Rod Eddington to provide rail-equivalent bus services to Doncaster commuters. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, Victorians have a government so devoid of ideas that it is a little like life mimicking art, or at least episodes of the Hollowmen. Just like any episode of the Hollowmen this budget simply highlights the cynicism of members of the Brumby government and their desire for cheap political gain. Clearly they are part of a government that is not to be trusted, but we have come to expect this from a government more interested in glossy pictures and protecting incompetent ministers than in substance and impact on families and communities. There is murmuring about a series 3 of the Hollowmen. Let us hope for the sake of us all that this government is no longer in power when it goes to air.
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