Parliament of Victoria | Legislative Council | Second Reading Debate
2 June 2026
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan Region):
I rise to make a contribution on the Appropriation (2026–2027) Bill 2026. There is a phrase often misattributed to ancient Chinese curses but actually penned by Terry Pratchett: ‘May you live in interesting times.’ As the Treasurer alluded to in her budget speech, we are indeed living in interesting times:
“… global pressures that once felt distant have started landing right in people’s everyday lives. War in Ukraine. Tariffs and instability in the global economy. War in the Middle East.”
At time like this government should not stand back. She conceded:
“Government can’t solve everything – we know that.”
And it is true: government cannot solve everything, and it is no secret that this one is operating within very, very fiscally restrained environments, but again, as the Treasurer said, it can make life just a little bit easier.
No doubt the community, legal, disability and alcohol and other drug sectors and others that work at the pointy end of disadvantage are relieved that their programs will be funded for another year or so, but in real terms much of this funding amounts to a decrease in investment, as it does not factor in CPI increases. Across the board the structural investment needed to sustain current demand for vital services, let alone to meet ever-growing demand, is simply not there.
Maybe government cannot do everything, but with a projected $2 billion surplus over the course of forward estimates it could be doing more. There is also the small matter of nearly $5 billion buried in the budget, sequestered for projects yet to be announced, no doubt to go on big-ticket items in marginal seats once they are in full election campaign mode.
One of the realities for all governments is that the demand for services always exceeds the funds available. They are forced to ration services, be they elective surgery, infrastructure projects or the number of police and ambos. Budgets are about what governments choose to do with their given bucket of money, about the priorities and the values that are prime to a government. For every investment there is an opportunity cost – that which you spend on one thing cannot be spent elsewhere.
So what does this budget say about what the government values and the corresponding opportunity costs? It certainly values big infrastructure projects. This government has I think a chronic addiction to big things and being seen to get big things done. Under the Andrews government throwing buckets of money at infrastructure projects was a highly successful electoral strategy, largely applauded and electorally rewarding. The Level Crossing Removal Project is an obvious example.
But in these interesting and uncertain times, when Victoria is mired in debt and taxpayers are forking out $24 million a day to cover interest payments alone, how many big infrastructure projects can we really afford, particularly given the obvious supply constraints that exist within the economy?
Take the Suburban Rail Loop. That seemingly bottomless money pit is looking less like a smart investment in the future of the state and more like a giant albatross around the government’s neck. Early estimates put it at around $35 billion for the east section alone, but that figure has certainly blown out significantly, as the government is relying on 2020 figures.
This is frankly astonishing. No government would ever accept a tender with a five-year-old cost plan attached. It might be a perfectly good piece of infrastructure linking multiple electorally marginal seats, but with benefits that are debatable and unlikely to materialise for some decades, it should simply no longer be a top priority for this government, particularly not when you weigh up those opportunity costs.
Consider public transport – something very pertinent to my constituents in the west. During the 2014 election campaign, Labor promised to electrify the Melton line. Thirteen years later, not much has happened. We have trains coming from Ballarat that are already full by the time they reach Melton, and when I say ‘full’, I mean no standing room; I mean people literally forced to stand in the toilet cubicles at peak hour. Thanks to Jeroen Weimar, we now know that construction on that project will not even begin until after the Sunbury transport hub is completed around 2030.
What about buses? Remember that comprehensive bus reform proposed by the Department of Transport and Planning back in 2023? The fast, frequent and connected grid of buses would have been transformational for so many communities in the west, but this was rejected by cabinet on a cost basis and in favour of tipping more money into Big Build projects.
I have spoken many times in this place of the excruciating state of the western bus network. In place of a properly functioning bus network we get a few additions to the timetable or the odd route modifications. This piecemeal approach is like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. It is a source of bitter hilarity among my increasingly cynical constituents that for each piecemeal change there is a photo-op for whoever the local member is. The record currently stands at three MP photo-ops for one bus route amendment, but odds are that it will rise to five seats before election time.
While commuters fight to get on a train or find a bus, the government has awarded billions of dollars to the operational consortium for the Suburban Rail Loop, which will not even open before 2035. It is basically a poison pill for future governments and exactly the sort of action we all condemned Jeff Kennett for with the east–west tunnel, only on steroids.
Then there is the public housing tower redevelopment project. As I said before, level crossing removals were a great idea, but demolishing 10,000 housing units, most of which are entirely habitable, in the middle of a housing crisis is simply insane – doubly so now that we are seeing Homes Victoria compete against first home buyers and renters to buy private dwellings to house public housing tenants evicted from the towers. I mean, in what world does that make sense?
Seriously, did the department not have an alternate accommodation plan or option? We have 65,000 people on the ever-growing public housing waitlist, with 100,000 Victorians accessing homelessness services each year. These are people. These are families. They are sleeping in cars, in tents, in refuges or on the street. People can wait for up to eight years for housing. It is a disgrace, and it is the product of decades-long neglect by governments of both persuasions.
In this context is the government’s repeated refusal to produce even the most modest documents to justify the demolition of the towers – business cases, decanting schedules, building conditions, reports. The process has been shrouded in secrecy, and it is not good enough. This is not an isolated case. There are many areas where this government simply refuses to release information to public exposure and public scrutiny. It is little wonder people have lost faith in it. It is equally clear that the government has no faith in the common sense of Victorians.
Labor regularly frames itself as the party of working people. As Premier Allan boldly declared at this year’s ALP state conference, ‘We are not just a government, we are a movement powered by workers.’ It is an incredible statement when we have all witnessed the shameful spectacle of Victoria’s frontline workers – its health workers, its teachers, its ambos and its police – needing to take industrial action to get a wage increase that barely covers inflation from this Labor government. Sector responses to the budget have a depressingly similar theme – it is enough to keep the lights on, but that is about it. To quote Uniting Vic.Tas CEO Carol Jeffs:
“Sadly, these measures are a drop in the ocean and do little to move the dial to reduce poverty and disadvantage in the community. … families and individuals doing it tough continue to fall behind.”
Investment in the alcohol and other drugs sector is a record $415 million, a 4.244 per cent increase on previous funding. It sounds like a lot, but it is not enough to keep up with inflation, let alone the growing community demand for treatment. Median wait times for treatment remain at around 40 days. On any given day some 4500 people wait to access AOD treatment. This budget does little to address the strain on resources and frontline workers and means that many Victorians will be unable to access the services they so desperately need.
The disability sector welcomed investment in inclusive education and some funding for Thriving Kids, but at the same time the government has reduced its spending on disability programs and services by $68 million. This is at a time when federal funding for the NDIS is being rolled back. It is also tragic to see the closure of over 90 supported living disability homes, with a further 450 at risk of closure.
This government simply says it is a federal problem. Minister, stand with some of the 70-year-old, 80-year-old parents whose kids, who are 50 or 60, are being thrown out onto the streets, as they weep and ask ‘What do I do?’ and tell me that that is a compassionate Labor government.
Equally disturbing is this government’s lack of actions to address our mental health crisis. Mental Health Victoria wonders if the royal commission reforms have been benched. I quote:
“At the midpoint of Victoria’s Royal Commission implementation, the 2026-27 State Budget outcome for mental health limped across the line aided by a handful of hard fought and worthy investments but weighed down by a heavy burden gifted to our future selves.”
The Centre for Multicultural Youth notes:
Targeted youth mental health support, a recognised national emergency, has not received the increased investment the Royal Commission promised, and that families and young people urgently need.
It is a far, far cry from Victoria’s youth strategy, released in 2022, which promised young Victorians:
… inclusive and accessible support to achieve their goals and feel optimistic, motivated and inspired about their future.
It was one of those whole-of-government strategies full of worthy aspirations and bold actions that the government has basically walked away from. I suspect young people would find little inspiration in this budget.
By the way, are we still the Education State? I know it is a tagline on our number plates, but with the state’s record of inadequate and inequitable public education funding, and with Victoria lagging behind every other state in terms of funding its Gonski commitments, surely that slogan is not merely redundant, it is an embarrassment.
We cannot afford to fund education, public transport, health services or housing, but at least there is no shortage of change to fund the government’s much-vaunted tough-on-crime policies. While frontline services struggle to stay afloat, the budget has hundreds of millions of dollars for prisons and policing and for responses that have proven over and over to be useless in preventing and reducing crime. This includes $720 million to increase the number of prison beds. While these regressive laws create further need for legal services, the budget fails to fund these services. The Federation of Community Legal Centres noted the lack of new investment in community legal centres and Aboriginal legal services to meet the growing needs in Victoria:
For every client a community legal centre takes on, two are turned away, illustrating the chasm that exists between need for the holistic legal and community support … and the limited resourcing these centres have to meet it.
Of course Aboriginal people in particular bear the brunt of the government’s punitive new laws, which will drastically increase the number of adults and young Aboriginals incarcerated. Yet the combined funding received by the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and Djirra is less than 1 per cent of the $734 million allocated to community safety measures and Victoria Police. The hypocrisy of a government who pledged that the Statewide Treaty would make real, practical changes to achieve better outcomes for First Peoples in Victoria and close the gap introducing laws that disproportionately impact First Peoples was not lost on Nerita Waight, CEO of VALS. She said:
Signing a Treaty doesn’t mean you’ve signed away problems you’ve created … The government can no longer claim that the harm caused by their policies and investments is ‘unintended consequences’, when it is clear the outcome will be the mass incarceration of our people.
The investment in the violence reduction unit and modest investments in early intervention show that this government knows that funding directed at addressing the root causes of crime, poverty and disadvantage does work. But they have placed it all on being tough on crime, which is a sad joke when you consider that Victoria Police is 1500 officers down, morale is at rock bottom and so many senior and experienced officers are on the verge of retirement.
These policies lead to greater and unsustainable costs, with the ever-increasing cost of jailing people, of refurbishing old jails and building new ones, of keeping people on remand. Based on current trends, we will shortly see nearly 50 per cent of our prison population simply in remand, neither tried nor found guilty of any offence but incarcerated nonetheless, often for extended periods. The government knows all this, but these are the choices that have been made. These are the priorities that have been accorded.
In this election year they have hedged their bets on punitive laws and big announcements and $5 billion worth of projects yet to be announced, while Victorians across the state are wrestling with cost of living, housing and a chronic lack of services. Time will tell if this budget is enough to convince that exhausted and increasingly disillusioned electorate to give this government another shot.
[Bill passed without dissent]
