Motion: Narre Warren North: No Confidence Motion

MOTION:

‘NARRE WARREN NORTH: NO CONFIDENCE MOTION.’

Thursday, 18 June 2026

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (11:08):

I am delighted, if not shocked, to rise to speak on this motion. Just for those who do not understand what is happening this morning, the Leader of the Opposition, on behalf of the Opposition, gave notice of a no-confidence motion in the Premier and her Government. What did the Leader of the House do? He allowed a debate – this is a Labor Leader of the House – on whether this House has confidence in the Premier. I understand he is from the right, and I will tell you what, I reckon he has been behind some of the shenanigans. But anyway, I will leave that on the side. He allowed a debate in this House on whether this House has confidence in the Premier. We have got two free debates on whether we have confidence in the Premier. We do not, and neither do Victorians. I say thank you to the Leader of the House, because what he has done is he has allowed Victorians’ views to be expressed through the Opposition in this House today.

Let me talk about some home truths, because a number of speakers on that side of the House have been talking about what has been happening in Victoria. I will start with where the Premier is at, because that is what a lot of this motion goes to. The Premier is about to be wiped out of her seat. She is currently polling third – third, as Premier – as the Member for Bendigo East. She is polling third.

Can you imagine being a leader of the State and polling third in your own seat? She is polling 60–40, by the way, for anyone who is tracking, 60–40 in Bendigo. She is being wiped out. She can walk up and down knocking on doors – and when she is knocking on doors, she is not getting much chop, you can see that. I would say to the Premier: stop doorknocking, because I do not think the knocking on doors is doing her any favours. I think when she is turning up, they are saying no. When you are on 60–40, I do not think any pork-barrelling in your seat is going to save you – and my God, is she pork-barrelling.

I mean, she is pork-barrelling as hard as anyone has ever done before, and it is not doing her any good. And the Labor polling – I do not know if anyone knows this yet – is showing them down to 25 seats. Legitimate Labor polling is showing them down to 25 seats. That is 30 seats down. So, all these cocky backbenchers – I would not even know their names. I do not mean to be rude, but I would not even know who they are. But neither do their electorates. They would not even know who they are. Who are these people? Who are these people?

Natalie Hutchins: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, could you direct the Opposition to the fact that there are microphones in here and we do not need that level of yelling.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): There is no point of order, but I will ask the Member for Brighton to continue.

James NEWBURY: As I was saying, I understand why the Member – I do not know her name –is touchy about what is happening with Labor polling.

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: I get it, I get it, I get it. When you see the briefing that came out from their own head office – it came out from their own head office – it showed that 22 of them are triple zeros. ‘Triple zeros’ – what does that mean? Triple zeros – no doors knocked, no calls, but no conversations. I do not understand how a member of Parliament can leave their house and not talk to someone. I have never left my house and not talked to someone in my community, whether you are buying a coffee, you are waiting in the line, and you have talked to 20 people. Whether you go to the shops, people –

David Southwick interjected.

James NEWBURY: As the Member for Caulfield just said to me, it is not possible for you to leave your house and not talk to someone unless your community does not know you. How can you not have a conversation when you are out in the community? I mean, there are only two answers to this. They either are not leaving their houses – that is possible – or no-one knows who they are, which I think is also true.

It is astonishing what is happening under this Government, the chaos that has allowed a debate of no confidence in the Premier. Victorians have no confidence in this Premier, and we cannot wait to vote. We cannot wait to vote in November. Every Victorian cannot wait to vote, and Labor can get as cocky as they want. They can laugh about it. The Premier can continue to put out weird videos. I mean, last night’s video, that was Captain Weird. Last night’s video was so weird. It was so weird. I mean, in my mind, I start to think to myself, ‘Could the Premier do anything more weird?’ Do you know what it showed? Terror, terror – absolute terror. Well, the only thing I can tell you about politics after watching it for decades is when leaders become desperate and full of terror, the result gets worse, because voters smell terror.

The reason why Victorians are going to vote hard against Labor and they are going to come out with their baseball bats, as the political expression goes, and they are going to come out in a way we have not seen before, is because corruption is now core business in this State. The Premier, of all the things she has done wrong – and she has done a lot of things wrong – she has allowed, enabled and covered it up. It is a disgrace. So not only are they going to vote against this Government, but they are going to vote in, hopefully, a Government that cleans it up, because we are going to have a Royal Commission.

I make a commitment: we are going to make sure we not only chase down every dollar, but we chase down every crook. We are going to go after these criminals. We are going to go after them. This will not stand. Victoria and Australia will have confidence in the integrity of this State again.

When the youth crime crisis started in Brighton, as Victoria Police have confirmed, people on that side of the Chamber laughed. Many senior ministers said it was not happening. They just talked against crime existing. It was an absolute disgrace, to the point that we now see open danger in our streets. There are few streets that have not had a burglary or an aggravated home invasion. In
my community every street has. Car theft is the norm. You do not feel safe in the city, you do not feel safe in your suburb.

What is this Government’s solution to that? Closing police stations, reducing police numbers and taking PSOs off train stations, partly because this Government is broke but also because this Government believes in putting criminals before victims. You look at what happened yesterday with the Anzac memorial and the two offenders in that. What an absolute disgrace. Two scumbags have been able to protect their names because they are embarrassed. What happened straight after those scumbags got that protection? They held up the same vile sentences immediately after that magistrate made that decision. It is wrong. There is something wrong in the courts and a system that allows that decision to be made. Those scumbags should have no safe harbour. They should have no capacity to cover up. I am deeply, with my portfolio hat on now, concerned about a system that allows that to happen.

This Government is in chaos. We have no confidence in this Premier and we have no confidence in this Government, but neither do Victorians. They are going to tell every single Labor Member about that in November, and I cannot wait to join them so that we can clean up this State again. We want a Jess Wilson Government. We want a clean State. We want a safe State. We want a safe place for our children. We want a safe place for our community. That is what you will get after a change of Government in November.