Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:43): There is a Neil Sedaka song that goes, ‘Oh! Carol, I am but a fool.’ Let me change it to ‘Oh! Carroll, Victoria you are making of fools.’ It goes on, and I am not going to wax lyrical because clearly I have thought about this for a long time, but it is just repeating in my head. There is another line that says, ‘You treat me cruel.’ I think what this government has done to the Victorian population for the last decade is absolutely cruel.
I want to start off with some commentary about my electorate, my dear electorate, the one that I love and live in. That is a novel thought for some on the other side of the chamber. When I first came in the government was hell-bent on closing down a coal-fired power station, the Hazelwood power station. There were recommendations to do a slow close, but the government came in and trebled the coal royalties and shut that power station down. Lo and behold, what happened at that time was they decided to sprinkle some money around and they started up the Latrobe Valley Authority. That was a huge and utter waste of time other than the initial funding for transferring some workers into Loy Yang A and B and Yallourn. I say this because at the time, 30 October 2018, the then Minister for Industry and Employment Mr Carroll and the Premier stood side by side in Morwell flagging the solution, flagging a great white hope down there in terms of an electric vehicle manufacturing plant.
They came down and they stood with hand on heart, ‘We care about the valley’ apparently. It was going to be a massive electric vehicle manufacturing plant in the Latrobe Valley, promising 500 local jobs and up to around 2000 electric vehicles annually; that is the bill we were sold. It was on the eve of the election, and Minister Carroll at the time promised us 5000 jobs. With the closure of Hazelwood power station, we had just lost straight, direct, full-time jobs, around 750 to 1000, and then you have to look at all those other complementary services. We lost those. He stood down there with hand on heart telling the people of the Latrobe Valley, ‘We’re going to create another 500 jobs.’ Let me find some quotes for you. This was in the Age, and there were other ones that were in the Latrobe Valley Express, our local paper. He said:
The auto sector is going to change more in the next five years than it has in the past 50, and this investment in 500 jobs building these SEA Electric vehicles, proven and tested already in Dandenong, are now going to be distributed and built right here in the Valley is wonderful news for the Valley.
He went on to say the Latrobe Valley and the state were:
… on the path to being the national leader in electrical vehicles.
On and on it goes. Well, guess what happened to electric vehicles in the Latrobe Valley, something that Mr Carroll had promised our region. Zip, nada, nothing – no jobs.
Let me go on. Steelvision was another one that he announced down in the valley, again as a placating measure and as hope during the closure for our wonderful power workers that we saw over many years. He promised Steelvision 55 new jobs, diversifying, and this left a trail of debt right across not only the valley for small businesses that had connected with Steelvision, potentially under this tag, under this investment potentially from the government under Mr Carroll. So when I hear in my head, ‘Oh! Carol, I have been but a fool’ – that is the commentary – well, Mr Carroll has been very cruel to the people in the Latrobe Valley by pushing that barrow and selling us a bill of goods that never came to fruition.
I wanted to put that on record because it seems there is such a lot of discussion about members of Parliament et cetera. But what this government has done in the last decade is not only impacting Victorians now, in this era, but will impact our children and our children’s children. Mr Carroll has been part of the architecture, part of the inner circle and part of the inner wheel that has seen a debt of $200 billion in the next forward estimates.
Bev McArthur interjected.
Melina BATH: It is eye-watering and difficult to get your head around. Well, let us see what it could have built in our region. It could have built the Wonthaggi Hospital. The Liberals and Nationals have promised stage 2 of the Wonthaggi Hospital. I was very much aware in the last election, in 2022, that we heard the good news from Labor that they were going to produce stages 2 and 3. Then what is there? They are so adept at it: ‘Oh, there’s planning.’ Then there is, ‘Oh, we’re looking into the dirt, the grass’ or whatever it is. And then there is just this elongated trail-off into the never-never land, the fantasy land of ‘We’re not getting it done.’ Then there is the West Gippsland Hospital. We promised in 2018, we promised in 2022 and we promised again only last week with Wayne Farnham, Jess Wilson and Danny O’Brien the West Gippsland Hospital. We have been sold a dud bill by this government. That is what some of the corrupt money on the Big Build project could have funded. Fifteen billion dollars – that is the one thing my Liberal colleagues and the Acting President, who is my National Party colleague, say when they go out into the regions, when they go out into their communities and into their local town halls. What do they say above everything? The number that is on everybody’s lips is the $15 billion that is gone and that was wasted on thugs, on criminals, on bikies and whatever else.
Richard Welch interjected.
Melina BATH: That was the one I missed: strippers. It was not an issue for the now Premier while he stood beside and behind the former Premier. Where was his punch? Where was his soul? Where was he saying he wants to actually fund these things in Gippsland or Eastern Victoria Region and he wants to do that work? No, he was just staying schtum because he was either controlled by the Premier or he did not have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and punch and say, ‘We need a royal commission.’ The Liberals and Nationals have called for that for months, and we would deliver that in November. Indeed it might be worth having a look at the terms of reference now that we see this potential royal commission to see if they are going to go soft in terms of the royal commission.
I just want to go to some other things that I think are important to put on record. It is no great sleight that, under the minister’s portfolio, he moved from not delivering jobs in the valley and into the education sphere. I spoke yesterday on this – to bungle VCE exams is abominable.
A member: Twice.
Melina BATH: To bungle it in consecutive years is shocking. There are families, children and schools who work so hard to do that, who work toward achieving their outcomes. But to bungle that – if you cannot get these sorts of things right. There are such a lot of people in the education sphere, so many of them are working hard. Why couldn’t he put processes in place? Whether it was lack of staff, whether it was pressure, whatever it was, it is the minister’s responsibility to get that right.
The other things he has not got right in my electorate, in Eastern Victoria Region: 19 of the state school buildings are rated as poor at last count, and there could be more because we are still yet to see the new condition report. Nineteen of them, and 26 are average. If you want to wonder where money from this $15 billion of corrupt money should go, then take a look at some of the schools in my electorate that could have their roofs fixed, their gutters cleaned and renewed and their carpets replaced. It does matter how you operate. It does matter the integrity. This Premier has been in the driver’s seat, in the car, in the bus for all that has existed in this state in the last decade, except in my electorate, where those electric vehicles did not exist and never will, because people promised things, like this Premier, and failed to deliver.