Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (16:32): The Liberals and the Nationals will be supporting Mr Bourman’s motion 811 on the notice paper. Last night parliamentarians, at the kind offer of the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, went to the Shrine of Remembrance. It was opened in 1934, and we stood there as a solemn reminder of the lives lost in defence of democracy and in subsequent conflicts in defence of Australia. Indeed there is a very important element in this motion which relates to peace through insurance and peace through strength. We must have a defence system now, and that is largely the ambit of the federal government, but certainly continuing to have manufacturing in our state is a very important element of that strength.
Mr Bourman, I am not going to correct your homework, but I just want to provide a little bit of context here for some of your motion. Your motion goes to March 2023, and you paint a picture of the various parts of Gippsland in terms of unemployment. I would like to give you updated labour market figures that have come out from the ABS and others as of December 2024. There are over 14,000 working-age Gippslanders currently receiving JobSeeker payments, an increase of 7.5 per cent. Youth unemployment in Gippsland is 14.2 per cent, and the national average is 9 per cent. Workforce participation in Gippsland is 59.8 per cent, while the state average workforce participation is almost 70 per cent. The unemployment rate is about the same, but this is what we can see if we go to Gippsland’s local government areas; let us look at those. Unemployment in the Latrobe Valley is 7.4 per cent, a three-year high. In Gippsland it is 5.6 per cent, a four-year high; in Wellington, 4.8 per cent; in Bass, a three-year high of 3.9 per cent; and in Baw Baw, 3.2 per cent. South Gippsland is on par with Baw Baw. What we can also see is that – and there is no joy in giving you this, but I want to give a reality check for some of the comments I am about to make – over the past two years, under both federal and state Labor governments, Morwell has 16 per cent unemployment. It has jumped 5.8 per cent in the last year and is higher than the national average unemployment rate. Moe and Newborough have an 8.7 per cent unemployment rate – again, higher. Sale is 6.3 per cent higher. Bairnsdale is 7.2 per cent higher than the national average. Lakes Entrance is 6.6 per cent, and Omeo and Bruthen are 7.3 per cent. I raise that because of course not all is rosy in downtown Gippsland, in particular in Latrobe Valley.
We have heard from the government that TAFE is solving all of our problems. If that were so, I would be delighted. But indeed under this government over the last decade we have seen the closure of manufacturing. We have seen the closure of the native timber industry; the closure of all of the associated manufacturing that goes with that and the machinery; and the pressures on the Maryvale pulp mill, the paper mill that has employed people for over 85 years. That is diminishing in scale. Why? Because the government has closed the native timber industry and is putting pressure on not only that industry but the employees. Only a month ago my colleague Martin Cameron and my other colleague Danny O’Brien asked a question, and we had members of the CFMEU, certainly from the forestry division, in there wanting to push their point to the Premier. We also had the closure of Hazelwood a number of years ago, and it was a botched closure. It was a pushed closure. It could have been done on a better scale, but it was not. This government forced them over the edge. And what happened then? This government grew the LVA, the Latrobe Valley Authority, and it was about transition and moving those people into other employment where they could or retraining them.
I could go on for ages, and I do not have that time. But what we know is that there was $300 million spent on it and still today we have these sorts of figures in downtown Gippsland and in Latrobe Valley. That is not a glowing endorsement for what has happened with the Latrobe Valley Authority – lots of money to keep staff moving and employed, not a lot of job creation. There have been spot fires on job creation. We had some sugar hits, but nothing invested in industry to keep people working and engaging in new industry, and there is plenty there to be had. We also had the SEC hoax. That was going to be an enormous boom, and we have seen about three people employed in that so far. We also had SEA Electric, and I know Mr Bourman will remember that. That was when the Premier came down in 2018 to the valley, saying, ‘We’re going to grow electric vehicle manufacturing,’ spruiking it on the eve of an election – 500 jobs in the region. What happened? Nothing. It dissolved into thin air, like we have seen with all of the industry that we were going to have as a result of the Commonwealth con games that did not materialise and legacy projects that are going to now be in the never-never. These are some of the things that we have been sold a bill of during this government’s tenure, and we see, unfortunately, our unemployment rate is a result of that.
I will say it has always been a challenging and dynamic environment, particularly in the Latrobe Valley, but certainly there is room for improvement. Back in the day between 2010 and 2014 we had the Latrobe Valley Industry and Infrastructure Fund. It was a very modest fund – it was $15 million under the Liberals and Nationals – but it co-invested. It had public and private investments. There was a component there. It was not just a sugar hit for some of the LVA’s pet projects; it was actually a co-investment. It grew jobs, and there are figures to back those up. What we also know is – and I take up Mr Bourman’s commentary around Latrobe aerospace technology and indeed GippsAero and the opportunity in that Latrobe Regional Airport precinct – there is enormous scope to grow that. Indeed Martin Cameron and I recently went out with the Latrobe City Council, and I thank Bruce Connelly for his time out there talking about this very worthwhile investment. This is what the government should be discussing. This is where we should be value-adding into our regions and utilising the best technology, and some of that certainly can be in that defence personnel. Some of the organisations can move from out of Moorabbin and come where there is more space, more security, less cost and more long-term viability out in our region in Gippsland. I thank the Latrobe City Council for doing that work.
Of course there are other opportunities too. There is a thing called the HESC, the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain. The Japanese government is prepared to put $3 billion into a system that uses coal from the Latrobe Valley, carbon captures and stores it in safe deposits out to sea, then manufactures that and sends hydrogen back to Japan for their economy, for their zero-emission economy. What a great opportunity. What has this government been doing? Crickets on this. It is having this internal war with Lily D’Ambrosio and the former Treasurer Tim Pallas, who was supportive of that, and I know; I was down in the valley when he made those comments. These are the opportunities. We do have renewables. Whether they are coming or not, it is still conjecture. We have got the federal government saying no to Hastings where the development of the leverage port could be, but there are places in Gippsland like Port Anthony and our Barry Beach area that could really facilitate those ongoing skills and maintenance jobs. These are very much on the precipice and may or may not occur.
What we also know from this government over the last few years – and the PBO, the Parliamentary Budget Office, has presented these facts to the Parliament – is that across the regions we regional Victorians make up 25 per cent of the population. But what are we seeing in this government spend? Thirteen per cent, 12 per cent of the infrastructure. What are we seeing here? A city-centric government pouring money into black holes in metropolitan Melbourne when it should be investing in regional Victoria. It should be investing, as Mr Bourman has said, in some of that componentry. It should certainly be about strengthening our defence, putting back manufacturing as a priority, not just a by-line in a Latrobe Valley Authority philosophy – there was no plan in its last paper – and actually doing the work, enabling Regional Development Victoria and Regional Development Australia to facilitate good investment and co-investment with industries and give them the security and the knowledge that they are going to be open for business in Victoria, which we have not had under the Andrews–Allan government for the last 10 years.
