Emma KEALY (Lowan) (16:31): I speak in strong support today of the matter of public importance raised by the member for Evelyn. It is clear that there is an enormous disparity between facts and reality. I challenge the members opposite to get out into their communities and speak to real people on the ground, to speak to women who are struggling to pay for food at the supermarket and put food on their family’s table and to speak to the people that you hear from, the mums in tears who are having a sandwich in the pantry and telling the kids, ‘No, don’t worry about it, just eat without me. I’m busy doing something’ or ‘I had something earlier today’ because they could not afford to buy enough food to feed the entirety of the family at once. These are the people that Labor members are just dismissing outright in saying it is something that only the Liberals and Nationals are talking about. These are tears that are being shed by Victorians each and every day who cannot afford to live here anymore. They cannot afford their groceries. They cannot afford to keep up with their energy bills or with their gas bills that keep on getting higher and higher and higher. They cannot afford to pay their rent. They have written off their idea of a dream home because it is being taxed beyond their reach. They simply cannot afford to live in Victoria and live the life that they desire and the life that they deserve. Their hopes and aspirations are what I and my National and Liberal colleagues believe can be reinstated in the state of Victoria. We can rebuild so that it is again a place of hope, where we actually look at the outcomes of media releases and budgets rather than just putting out media releases on the day saying, ‘These are the numbers. These are the inputs. This is how much taxpayer money we are throwing at this, and yet we still have a situation which has got dire outcomes for Victorian families right across the state.’
It is not just me saying this. All of the data that you look at points to the incredible cost-of-living crisis that every single Victorian is facing. This is of course because – what have we had in Victoria for the last 10 years that is consistent? We have had a Labor government. And we know that Labor know how to spend, spend, spend taxpayer money. It is not their money; it is taxpayer money. It always is Victorians that pay the price. It is Victorians who are waiting longer for health care, for an ambulance, for their school to be upgraded and for that pothole to be fixed to make sure their road is safe so they can get to work, take their kids to school and go to footy and netball training, and it has never, ever, ever been delivered by Labor. In fact life is getting so much harder under Labor because they cannot manage money, they cannot manage projects, and it is Victorians that are paying the price. Demand for food banks is going through the roof, with 65,000 Victorians a year looking for support to feed their families. That is up 30 per cent in just one year. Grocery prices are up 30 per cent – it is costing a fortune to feed your family. In the last six years alone groceries have gone up 30 per cent. Food prices overall have gone up by 17 per cent since 2020, and this is set to increase even further with Labor’s new volunteers tax that specifically targets farmland, the people that are growing our food to put on the supermarket shelves. What do you think will happen to food prices if Labor is slugging them with a massive, massive new tax that will increase by 189 per cent for farmers alone?
A member: How much?
Emma KEALY: 189 per cent for farmers. These are farmers that are already living on the edge. These are the same farmers that have been dealing with an incredibly dry season this year. These are the same farmers that spent their time on either CFA trucks or private appliances fighting bushfires this entire summer bushfire season. These are the people that deliver the service, and they are going to be the ones that pay for it, and gee they are paying for it. They are paying for it big time and they are pushing back. It is Victorians that will pay the price, because it is not just the farmers, it is anybody who consumes food in this state, and you know what, that is every single Victorian. They will all pay the price for Labor’s great big new volunteer tax that just puts extra pressure on those volunteers who will turn out when we need them. I thank them so much for all that they have done over this summer because there has not been a lot of support from the government. We have still got businesses who cannot access the $5000 bush recovery support from the government, because while they announced it on 11 March, submissions are still closed. You can put an expression of interest in, but you cannot apply. That money has been locked down in a box and is not flowing to my community, and that is simply not good enough. This is a government that does not care about people at the end of the day. You have forgotten where you come from, Labor. Labor have completely forgotten where they come from. They have become used to the life of having ministerial drivers and lovely dinners and all of these free tickets – grand prix or Taylor Swift anybody? All of these high-end functions – what about the person who could not even think about taking their daughter to Taylor Swift because they would not be able to afford it? What about those families that could not even think about going to the grand prix because they cannot afford school uniforms to put on their children’s backs to make sure that they can turn up and not be embarrassed at school? These are everyday working families that Labor have turned their back on. These are the families that are paying the price for Labor’s mismanagement and incompetence and just taking the micky out of every Victorian. Power bills are up 22 per cent since 2021. The average household bill is up $1667. You think a $250 little grant every so often will fix that? It does not even touch the sides of Labor’s absolutely botched transition of energy. You cannot keep on cutting back the sources of energy and not expect there willbe a massive increase in prices because demand is outstripping supply. It is simple economics. I think I learned that in year 8, but somehow we have got highly paid ministers who are making decisions that are just making Victorians pay the price. It is simply unacceptable. Housing is becoming less and less affordable, with over 1 million Victorian households under mortgage or rental stress. There are 15,500 fewer rentals in Victoria in the past year alone, and this is government changes. This is changes to laws that mean that landlords are not interested anymore. They are pulling out of the market. You have made it harder to get a rental. Labor have pushed up the cost of rentals for all Victorians. There are more than 60,000 Victorians on the public housing waitlist, and Labor made a promise to Victorians before the last election that it was going to build 80,000 homes a year.
A member interjected.
Emma KEALY: They have desperately failed that. More than 25 per cent fewer homes have been delivered. In fact in Victoria we have the lowest house building rate in 30 years. People cannot save for a deposit. They cannot afford to save for a deposit because all of their money is going out the door to these increased cost-of-living pressures under Labor’s cost-of-living crisis. Regional housing is even harder, because the cost of regional homes has gone up 45 per cent in the past few years alone. On health care we are just left abandoned in regional Victoria, where we are seeing massive amalgamations of hospitals. We have worse health outcomes anyway in regional Victoria, but in my region of Lowan, where a lot of my bigger hospitals are being merged in under Ballarat, we are seeing fewer local jobs, with the laundry services being shut down. These are some of the lowest paid hospital workers, and they were told on Valentine’s Day they were going to lose their jobs. There are fewer jobs locally. There are fewer health services locally. It is not fair at all on those hardworking hospital staff who are doing their best that they cannot make a decision locally because all the money is being siphoned to Ballarat under Labor’s completely botched hospital services plan. It is the wrong way to go, and our Victorians are worse off out of it. This could be fixed. The government are good at putting a hand in your pocket when they run out of their own money. They have introduced 60 new taxes since they came in over 10 years ago, and what did Andrews promise before he came into government last election? No new taxes. Well, that is 60 reasons that you should never, ever vote for Labor again, because you cannot trust a thing they say before an election. What they will only deliver is more pain in the hip pocket for every single Victorian. You want to fix what is happening in Victoria? Never, ever vote Labor again – only put a number 1 in the box for a National Party member or a Liberal Party member.