Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): I am delighted to be speaking on this take-note motion on Labor’s state budget, a budget that is truly one with a heart. At its core it is about creating jobs and caring for Victorians, and it is about making sure that every dollar of investment we make as a government is going towards not just our economic recovery but our social recovery as well. Because the truth is that we have been through, and in some ways we are still going through, one of the most difficult periods of our lives, and some of us have had a tougher time than others and some are having a tougher recovery than others. Many of us are still processing what we went through last year, and as the world and our country continue to grapple with this pandemic we know we are not wholly through it either.
But amid all the heartache, what has shone through brighter than anything else is how Victorians care for each other. We rally around our frontline workers. We check in on people we have never met before. We get behind our local businesses. We put spoons in our gardens and teddies in our windows to bring joy to local kids. This is the social fabric that binds us as Victorians. It is the most valuable thing that we have and something to be nurtured and protected, but every now and then in politics we are presented with this false dichotomy, a choice between a fairer and more caring society and a stronger economy. Here in Victoria we know that dichotomy is a fallacy. Time and again our Labor government has put forward an agenda that puts the wellbeing of Victorian people at the core of a strong, sustainable economy. Empathy and compassion are not weaknesses. They are exactly what has driven and will continue to drive our response to and our recovery from the pandemic.
Every budget handed down by the Andrews Labor government has made the conscious choice to support and invest in the people of Victoria, and it has paid off. Job figures are bouncing back to prepandemic levels or above, including for women and young people hit hard during the height of the pandemic. Business confidence is up and our economic growth has surged, and now with this budget we have been driving ahead with building a fairer, stronger and safer state for Victorians by investing in the infrastructure, services and supports that people need to recover, all while creating thousands of jobs along the way.
Budgets might look like numbers, but they are about priorities. What we choose to invest in says a lot about who we are and what we value. Labor believes in lifting people up, creating opportunity, embedding fairness and building a better future for Victorians. We are investing in new and upgraded schools, improving our hospital and health networks, upgrading roads and improving public transport. We are delivering more support for grassroots sports, multicultural organisations and social services and delivering lasting change through investment in truth, healing and justice for Aboriginal Victorians. But perhaps most stunningly, this budget takes the brave step of addressing an issue that has never before been taken so seriously, which has never before been made the focal point of a state budget, and that is mental health. It is a monumental challenge to reform a system that for too long has been broken but a challenge we will not shy away from.
All of us have experienced poor mental health, or we know someone who has. Anguish is a truly unique human experience born of our ability for self-reflection and our ability to imagine alternate possibilities for our lives. That existential freedom is both our gift and our curse. It has the power to rattle us to our core, to fracture our sense of who we are and what we are here for. The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System revealed a system unable to wrap its arms around Victorians in moments like this. We need to change that. We committed to implementing every one of its recommendations, and with this budget we are making good on that promise by funding the first stages of a historic transformational change. We are delivering a massive $3.8 billion to change the way we deliver support, with a focus on community-based care so people can access the care they need close to home. It means Northcote locals will be able to access treatment and care regardless of the level of distress they are experiencing. They will no longer be told their condition is too severe or not severe enough. It means dedicated streams of care for adults and older adults as well as ones specifically designed to meet the unique needs of infants, children and young people. For our diverse communities and Aboriginal Victorians it means culturally appropriate services designed and delivered by people with lived experience.
Reforming our entire mental health system is not something that will take place overnight. It will require investment and a long-term commitment to change. Ideally it would involve bipartisan support, but clearly that is something that is too much to hope for. It is not enough to call for more mental health support, as those opposite have done, and then lambast the fair and measured decisions required to actually deliver it. We are not about that. We are about acting now and making the changes needed to deliver a brighter future for every Victorian who struggles with their mental health.
There are so many things to talk about in this budget, but something very close to my heart is education, because our young people are our future, and as a government and as a society we have a responsibility to give them opportunity, aspiration and inspiration as well as the skills to reach their potential and become strong, compassionate agents in the world. In the immortal words of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, ‘We are all diminished when any of us are denied a proper education’. Understanding and valuing the transformational power of education is a fundamental part of what it means to be Labor. This commitment to our kids, to our future and to our communities is in our DNA. It is why education has been central to every single budget brought forward by this government. It is why this budget embeds over $400 million in funding to deliver the nation-leading three-year-old kinder rollout, an absolutely groundbreaking and generational reform that will give every Victorian child access to two years of play-based learning before school. I cannot overstate how important this reform is, which not only will mean huge investments in building and upgrading our early learning centres and training and employing educators and the workforce but fundamentally will set children up to succeed throughout their lives, and the evidence is clear on that.
Our budget truly gets on with delivering the Education State, and for my community it has been really, really transformative. It has meant new schools for our growing suburbs, like the incredible new Preston High School. It has meant new learning spaces, like those recently completed or underway at Bell Primary, at Northcote Primary, at Wales Street Primary, at Fairfield Primary, at Alphington Primary and at Preston South Primary. It has meant students having the facilities they need to be inspired and prepared for the jobs of the future, like the brand new state-of-the-art STEAM centre being built right now at Thornbury High School. It has meant more inclusive, welcoming environments for students with disabilities and additional needs, with more support for students with autism and inclusive play spaces like those we are building Croxton special school and Westgarth and Thornbury primary schools. For our parents it means even greater confidence that our kids are getting the best start in life, with genuine pathways into employment.
This budget builds on this extraordinary legacy with another $3.5 billion invested in education, and in incredible news for the residents of Northcote it includes $8 million to deliver a much-needed upgrade to Northcote High School, including a brand new state-of-the-art STEM centre. Northcote High is one of the largest government schools in Victoria and a cherished part of our community. It has been facing significant challenges with booming enrolments and ageing infrastructure on a very tight little footprint. Together the school community and I have worked closely for over two years to put forward our vision for the future of the school, and we have been supported by an incredibly positive campaign from the local parents and the students. On budget day it was quite remarkable. I was able to make that emotional phone call to now former principal Harrap to say, ‘We did it. All our work paid off’. This funding will deliver a brand new three-storey vertical building with a new STEM centre and modern learning spaces that will allow generations of Northcote High students to explore and expand their interests.
From the moment I became the member for Northcote I have worked closely with all our local schools on their varying needs, and these latest investments mean the total funding for schools across the Northcote electorate over the last couple of years is now over $78 million. Only Labor has a commitment to education built into its bones. Only Labor will deliver for our local schools. This includes caring for our students’ mental health and wellbeing. Last year was particularly tough for our kids and our young people, and we know that schools can play and have played a vital role in caring for students’ wellbeing. This budget rolls out a $277 million program of student supports, including expanding our mental health in primary schools program and setting up the new School Mental Health Fund so schools themselves can choose from a range of evidence-based programs that meet the specific needs of their students. What that means is that a student at Northcote High, Thornbury High or Preston High who may be feeling at their lowest has someone qualified and compassionate that they can reach out to when they are in crisis, it means our beloved primary teachers will have the tools and the supports they need to help kids they care so deeply about and it means our parents know that when their child heads out the door to the school they are not alone.
We have not shied away from confronting some of the biggest challenges facing our state, including mental health, the prevention of family violence, climate action and homelessness. I will just refer briefly, because I do not have much time left, to the $5.3 billion we have invested in our Big Housing Build to address homelessness and housing affordability, delivering 12 000 new social housing dwellings across our state—enormous. I will mention briefly as well the $1.6 billion in clean energy initiatives, truly making Victoria a global leader when it comes to climate action, and I thank the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change for her strong advocacy in that.
This budget also includes $70 million to establish public IVF services, something that is incredibly important to so many families who are looking to have a child and share in the joy of having a child but need that extra support to get there. I was so pleased to see that in there. There is also some funding in the budget for planning for an emergency department at the Austin Hospital, the closest hospital to the Northcote electorate. Many of our constituents use it, and so that is very much welcomed.
Only Labor has the courage and the conviction to stand up and actually tackle these really important issues head-on, and it is doing it in a way which ensures that every dollar is creating more employment opportunities for everyday Victorians. We are doing it in a way that ensures that no-one is left behind. We are building a thriving economy and a caring community at the same time, because they are not mutually exclusive. They are in fact the only way forward.
In my last few moments I commend the Treasurer on this vitally important budget, the work that he has put into delivering it and the stewardship that he has demonstrated in leading our state not just out of this pandemic but to a brighter future.
