Matter of Public Importance - Government Performance

MATTER OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

‘GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE.’

Wednesday, 18 June 2025

The member for Brighton proposed the following Matter of Public Importance
for discussion:

That this house condemns the Allan Labor government for a decade of debt,
deficits, infrastructure blowouts and mismanagement that has driven Victoria
into a deepening cost-of-living crisis due to:

(1) delivering reckless and irresponsible budgets that leave families worse off,
underfund essential services, and push our state further into debt;
(2) running cash deficits and driving net debt to $194 billion by 2028–29, with
Victorians then paying $28.9 million in interest every single day;
(3) wasting more than $1.2 million every hour on interest payments, money
that should be going to important services like nurses, teachers and police;
(4) imposing or increasing more than 60 taxes since Labor came to office;
(5) overseeing a record high unemployment rate for 14 consecutive months;
and
(6) allowing electricity prices in Melbourne to rise by 16.2 per cent in just one
quarter, seven times the overall CPI increase.

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (16:02):

I rise to speak on the Matter of Public Importance that I have proposed, which is at its core about the Government’s budget and economic mismanagement over the last decade and the impact that is having on our State, on our economy and, at the end of the day, on every household in this State.

I will start by saying the Treasurer has just returned from New York, where she, at the taxpayer’s luxury, begged the credit rating agencies to not downgrade our state’s credit rating. And it matters, because our credit rating obviously impacts the costs we pay on this great big ticking debt bomb the Government has created but also it reflects what the global community thinks of our State’s economy. It is worth noting that we are the worst graded in this country. Is there any surprise, after a decade of mismanagement? Though the Treasurer would have you believe it was an important trip that was ‘positive’, as the Treasurer said, what did the credit rating agencies say about the trip? They said:

We view Victoria’s commitment to controlling operating costs, delivering promised savings, and slowing growth in debt as important for maintaining the – current – … credit rating …

hang on, hang on – and:

However, these goals have proven to be difficult to achieve in recent years.

What does the credit rating agencies’ assessment actually mean? ‘We don’t believe them. We think they have no hope of managing their budget or certainly controlling debt.’

I can start with quite an interesting little find. Most people would not remember when this new Treasurer took the reins and gave her first public interview and talked about her job.

Richard Riordan interjected.

James NEWBURY: No, we are going to get to that, Member for Polwarth. She talked about one of the important goals she saw in the job back in March. The Treasurer said:

Am I comfortable with our debt levels? No, that’s why I’m taking active steps to reduce it …

That was in March. You would listen to that promise, and you would think, in May, guess what we will get? We will get a Budget where debt is reduced. It is a promise: ‘I’m taking active steps to reduce it.’

Well, what happened with the budget? We have seen a debt level that is now making Tim Pallas blush. He is blushing. We are about to get to a record $200 billion in debt. If the Treasurer is actively reducing debt and getting it to $200 billion, I do not want her to stop trying. Imagine the level of debt if she stops trying to reduce it and gets it to $200 billion. Imagine what it is going to be if she stops trying – $200 billion while trying to reduce the debt. It is so bad. You can just imagine the ratings agencies scratching their heads in these meetings and thinking, ‘Are these people serious?’

But the Treasurer probably took some important people with her from the Department to provide advice. Well, it is funny that she should talk about that, and she did. She talked about how she took the ‘bonds people’ with her to her meeting. That is a direct quote. The Department of Treasury sent a funny little text message to the Opposition today that said, ‘We don’t have any bonds people.’ The Treasurer is boasting about taking the bonds people with her on the trip, and Treasury is briefing behind her back, because she does not know what she is talking about. I think it is important to pick up on that, because when you are managing the economy, you have got to be able to understand what you are doing. Unlike the first thing the Treasurer said when she took the job – she said the job was going to be fun – if you wreck the economy when you take the job, you should hardly use words like ‘fun’ to describe what you are doing.

Tim Richardson interjected.

James NEWBURY: That is right. ‘It’s only been six months,’ says the Member for Mordialloc. I do not know how she can bugger it up any worse. I do not know how much worse she can do in the four months that she has been in there. This is a Treasurer who promised to reduce debt while increasing it. You can just imagine what would happen if she promised to increase it. It is getting up to $200 billion – extraordinary. But the job is fun, she says. It is fun. Unbelievable. We know, and I am not having a go, that when the briefs come in now, they are a little bit simpler – no economic terms. I understand that the Treasurer made sure, as the Treasurer personally said, that the economic terms had to be taken out. Fair enough; I have no issue there.

I think probably the lowlight for the new Treasurer, and there have been a couple, was the most recent appearance at the economic meeting where she said to a big group of stakeholders, hundreds of stakeholders, ‘What’s your favourite tax?’ I mean, talk about throwing a dead cat on the table. What is your favourite tax? I am sure every single person in that room could think of numerous taxes they hate, because we are the most overtaxed State. As I often say, I do not like tax, but if people were being taxed and they were getting the best services in the country as a result, if they were getting incredible services, if the streets were paved with gold, if they called an ambulance and they did not die waiting for it, they would say to themselves that maybe some of this big-taxing Government’s tax is being spent wisely on Government services. But we have got the worst services.

How is it we have the biggest taxes and the worst services? Only this Labor Government could do it. When the Treasurer gets up and says to a room of smart people who the Government wants to continue to invest in this State, ‘What’s your favourite tax?’, is there any wonder why within moments the room was seething, wanting to send the message out to the broader community that this Treasurer just does not get it? I picked that particular lowlight over the previous gaffe of the Treasurer where she was asked about the great big new dog of a tax, the emergency services tax, a $3 billion tax, and said, ‘Well, Victorians can afford to pay more.’ So, we have now got a Treasurer who is not only joking around about the job being fun and joking around and asking people which of the overtaxing burden is their favourite tax but now believes that Victorians can afford to pay more. Well, they cannot, which is why the Opposition has already announced that we are going to cut five taxes.

You can see that the Labor Members have never even dreamed of getting rid of a tax. What does scrapping a tax look like? I can see the confused looks across the other side. They have never, ever seen a tax scrapped. They have never, ever seen a tax taken off the statute books. All they know is how to increase tax. That is all they know how to do. We know that is true.

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: To help the Members on the other side understand, we on this side are going to reduce the tax burden. We are going to take less money away from Victorians, because at the end of the day, this is the thing Labor never, ever, ever remember when they are in Government: the money that comes in
through tax is not their money; it was first earned by a Victorian, and they worked for that money. They worked and they sweated, and then that was taxed and that was brought into the Government coffers. It should be very carefully used, and that is unfortunately what this Government has forgotten.

So, we will get rid of five taxes. We have already committed to that. Five taxes already off the burden on Victorians’ backs – that is the type of structural change this state needs. It will also help get this State moving again, because we know this state has big problems economically. Despite what the Treasurer, whose job is fun, or the Premier try and convince people to believe, this State has serious problems, and because of that it is hurting Victorians and there is a cost burden on Victorians. I have just spoken about tax, but it is in other things too.

We have spoken a lot about the energy changes in this State. As a result of the mismanagement by the ideological Minister, the cost of energy is clearly one of the most crippling costs on every Victorian household – total mismanagement from this ideological Minister, who simply wants to ban gas purely because she does not like it. How could you get to a point as a Government where you ban a core resource purely because you ideologically do not like it?

The Treasurer, I do not think, has ever come up with the idea of reducing a tax, and before the budget she promised no new taxes on the same day as introducing a $3 billion tax through this Parliament. But there is another one in the Budget of course: the expanded congestion levy. What I understand is that the Government took the congestion levy measure out of the associated Budget Bill purely so that they could do it a few weeks later and claim there was no new tax. Very shortly we will see a new tax Bill in this Parliament which banks on a new congestion levy which is in the Budget papers. That new tax, the congestion levy, is in the Budget papers, so to claim there is no new tax is simply wrong, and people can now see it. Everyone knows the overburden of tax in this state. Everybody can see the economic mismanagement.

Emma Kealy interjected.

James NEWBURY: Member for Lowan, I think the Premier is very well aware of how hopeless she is. But what we can see from the last 10 years of their Budget management is the difference between what was budgeted and the outcome of spending blowing out by $129 billion. No responsible Government could Budget and then blow out their spending by $129 billion above, over 10 years, what they committed to spend, at an average of $14 billion a year. If you say the Budget is worth around $100 million, how could you possibly blow it out by an average of almost 15 per cent a year by accident? It is not an accident; it is totally duplicitous.

This Government has totally mismanaged the Budget and, as a result, it is tanking the economy. Taxpayers, in and of themselves, are not sitting there gagging for another tax: ‘Which is our favourite?’ They are not sitting there saying, Member for Mordialloc, ‘Oh, I don’t know which one is my favourite; I love paying these taxes.’ They are  saying, ‘We’re going to invest somewhere else.’ That is what they are all saying. The proof is clearly there. They are moving their money because they know that economically this state is going down the wrong path – as do the credit rating agencies, which they have made clear. This Treasurer needs to come clean and start managing the Budget in a responsible way, because taxpayers’ money should be spent more wisely. This Government should be condemned for their Budget mismanagement, for the economic vandalism that they are causing to this State and for the damage they are causing to every Victorian household.