After months of lobbying I am very pleased that the government has now established a Prisoner Compensation Quarantine Fund Register, making it easier for victims to access information about about payments made to prisoners.
Forcing volunteer brigades to fundraise for their own firetrucks and equipment compromises the safety of our regions. This shows inequality between metro and regional areas, and it needs to be scrapped.
I have ongoing concerns about the resources available to Ambulance Victoria to meet the needs of our regional communities and I will continue to advocate for improvements to those resources.
Information regarding relief and recovery support for the Victorian Bushfires.
The Murray Basin Plan must take an urgent approach to making the changes required to deliver fair and equitable water flows. I hope this is a step to ensure our farmers receive the water they so desperately need. It is one thing to be paying astronomical amounts for water, it is another to actually ensure they receive it.
I called on the Victorian Government to publicly release crime data specific to child pornography offences and asked if any changes are being implemented to ensure adequate sentences for offenders.
The ‘Lost, not forgotten’ report of Victoria’s Commissioner for Children and Young People is a chilling read, and reveals continued failures across child protection and family services. The findings of this report are unacceptable, and we need to prioritise sustained funding to address the root cause that leaves vulnerable children exposed. We need to stop failing these children.
I MOVE – That this House requests that the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, the Hon Jacinta Allan MP, attend a public meeting, to provide information and answer questions about the Murray Basin Rail Project, at a time of day and at a place in Northern Victoria of her choosing, on or before 15 November 2019.”
I will resume my speech from 16 October by re-stating the basic purpose of this motion, from the perspective of Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party.
Primarily, it is intended to be an information-seeking exercise … one that gives Victorians more detail about the future of the Murray Basin Rail Project.
This is through requesting that the lead Minister, Jacinta Allan, attend a public meeting to provide information and answer questions in relation to the project.
As I said on 16 October, the Murray Basin Rail Project was meant (to paraphrase Minister Allan’s own words from 2015) to:
By the time last year that it was supposed to have been completed, it would also have delivered a host of other benefits, including creating faster travel times and increasing the loads that could be carried – thereby removing around 20,000 truck trips off Victoria’s roads.
Instead, it
is less than half finished and, disastrously, it is generally believed that the
track is in a worse state than when the $440 million project began.
To cut a long story short, the project centred on changes of gauge on the
Mildura, Manangatang and Sea Lake lines and upgrades to the track between
Ballarat and both Geelong and Maryborough.
However, before things came to a halt some time ago now, the only part
of the track that was standardised was the section between Ararat and Merbein –
and even that work was beset by many problems.
Many Victorians are now completely in the dark about the project’s future. This includes thousands of individuals whose
livelihoods are closely tied to its fate.
As well as private sector companies that made multi-million dollar
investments on the basis of clear commitments from the Government. They all need answers, urgently.
Most of my constituents and I just want information – and recognition of the fundamental democratic principle that politicians should always be answerable to the public. We should never forget in here the basic obligation in any democracy for government to be genuinely responsible, accountable and transparent – especially when something has gone terribly wrong.
I will happily acknowledge that Minister Allan has (as far as I’m aware) willingly continued over recent years to make her staff available to brief other MPs (including me) on the project.
However, that in itself highlights one of the key problems here. Which is that whilst we, as MPs, have the opportunity to receive behind-closed-doors briefings, the general public has received very little detail for a long time now.
Said with all due courtesy to the Minister’s advisers, the answers in her office’s briefing to me also offered no real advance on her statements to PAEC on 12 June that, I think, represent her last expansive public comments about the project.
The answers in that briefing were also largely at odds with the information and commentary that is continually coming from many key stakeholders.
By that, I
mean the observations on the public record of people like Dean Dalla Valle (the
CEO of Pacific National), who says “the cost of having this project not meet
its planned potential is a cost this country can ill afford”.
Similarly, VFF Grains Group President Ashley Fraser describes this as “a
critical piece of infrastructure … (and says the VFF urgently wants) a
commitment to the project and firm timelines”.
Likewise, the Rail Freight Alliance Chairman Glenn Milne observes (on behalf of 28 Councils throughout Victoria) that “industry has invested millions of dollars in new locomotives, rolling stock conversion to standard gauge and warehousing and the silence from the Victorian Government on the future of this project is deafening”.
If all of that isn’t enough in any case, perhaps another way of demonstrating
the need for a public appearance by Ms Allan (and therefore yet another reason
why this motion should be supported) is if I outline just some of the many
burning questions that need answers.
They include questions like the following:
I hope Government Members who speak in this debate today might themselves answer those questions. Albeit that it remains crucially important that people have a chance to hear the answers first-hand from the Minister herself.
Despite many peoples’ frustration, there remains enormous interest (as well as financial investment) in the Murray Basin Rail Project’s future … and I genuinely believe their respect for her would increase if she personally spoke with them and provided frank answers to their questions and concerns.
In closing, let me therefore reaffirm that Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party urges Ms Allan to attend a public meeting about this project. Because we believe that, if she does so, it will improve understanding on all sides – and it will give affected communities and stakeholders throughout the State (and beyond) at least some of the information that is critically needed.
Like many thousands of people, our Party hopes very strongly for a full resumption of the project as soon as possible. Whatever the future of it might be, though, the very worst thing right now for anyone with a stake in the project is to continue to be met by more silence.
And, on that note, I commend this motion to the House.
I am inspired by the strength shown each and every day by Denise and Bruce Morcombe. It was a privilege to be a part of “Day for Daniel’. The Daniel Morcombe Foundation does wonderful work, and on a day like today it reinforces our commitment to a public register for child sex offenders and continuing to do everything we can to keep children safe.
I have called for a public hearing in Wangaratta as part of the Victorian Parliament’s Inquiry into Homelessness.
The Inquiry is being conducted by the Legislative Council’s Legal and Social Issues Committee, of which I am a member, and is considering the state of homelessness in Victoria.
