Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): It is my great pleasure to rise and speak on the take-note motion for the budget, and I would like to begin my contribution by saying something which I hope will not be too controversial or unwittingly offend our wonderful Treasurer, who along with his team has done a tremendous amount of work to deliver this state budget. I would like to begin by saying that the 2020–21 Victorian state budget is unremarkable. It is unremarkable because fundamentally it is the continuation of five successive state Labor budgets which have been handed down with the same vision and the same determination, and that is to continue to build jobs and opportunities for Victorians and to reform our state to be stronger and fairer. This budget is no exception.
This budget, like those before it, invests in Victorians. It leverages the power of the Treasury benches to build the infrastructure, deliver the services and create the jobs Victorians need, and that is a continuation of our values as a Labor government and our program of prosperity aimed at making the economy work for Victorians, not at the cost of them. What is extraordinary is the scale of this budget, the scale of reform, because out of the heartache and destruction of the health pandemic we have been presented an opportunity. We have a moment in time, and this government has made the choice to grasp that opportunity and that responsibility with both hands. We have made the choice not to retreat from public spending to chase surpluses but to put Victorians first and indeed lift Victorians up and imagine an even greater future for our state. At the centre of those efforts is our jobs plan, a plan that will see 400 000 jobs created by 2025 to drive our economic recovery, a plan that will actively help people find a new job, particularly for Victorians hardest hit by this pandemic, including women, young people, retrenched workers and people who have been long-term unemployed. Because the truth is that this year has been like no other. Both employers and employees have suffered and so too have jobseekers.
I have seen this throughout my own community in Northcote, where people working in hospitality, creative industries, education, retail and so many more have lost income and been thrown into uncertainty. The lived reality of that is no small thing. These are people in my community who have been set back in their goals and in their dreams. Maybe they were saving to buy a home, maybe they were working to support their studies, maybe they were on the cusp of expanding their business. Maybe they were just making ends meet.
We cannot quantify the emotional toll either, but we do know how much a stable job means for giving people meaning, dignity and security. Victorians have been extraordinary in their resilience. Yet our praise for that should not surpass our recognition of their heartache, and inherent in that recognition must be action. In this budget we well and truly have action. Because I say this: the pandemic has revealed some deep fractures in our society and our economy. They have been there for a long time, but this year has brought them into relief. And it is with absolute pride that I can say that our response to these cracks has not been to shirk away from them but to confront them head-on and use the opportunity we have in this moment to make real, tangible reforms for our state.
There are so many initiatives in this budget which I could point to which demonstrate this: helping families to juggle it all by covering the cost of kinder next year and expanding before- and after-school care; the enormous $868 million to start fixing our mental health system and get more Victorians the support they need; the $1 billion investment in TAFE training that will mean 80 000 new training places over the next four years to give more people that leg-up that they need; our Big Build, which will see transformational projects like the Suburban Rail Loop and the link to the airport, which has only ever been spoken about but which we are delivering; a secure workers scheme, which for the first time will give insecure workers access to paid sick leave, a reform that I hope the federal government will take note of and follow our lead because it is too important not to; our $2 billion Breakthrough Victoria Fund, which will mean research and innovation through our institutes, our businesses and our inventors can stay right here in Victoria and set our state up as a hub of prosperity across medical research, clean energy, digital tech and agriculture; our incredible and unprecedented $1.6 billion to make Victoria a renewable energy powerhouse, including solid steps to reduce demand for household gas usage, something which I have been working on with the minister and am very proud to see progressing.
Each one of these announcements is newsworthy and groundbreaking, but I want to pause and speak in particular about our $6 billion Big Housing Build, because this is something which will mean so much to so many: 12 000 new social and affordable homes over the next four years; 10 000 construction jobs per year over the next four years. This is an unprecedented investment, the biggest investment in social housing our state has ever seen. It is not just bricks and mortar; this is transformative. It is about lifting people up, giving them opportunity, breaking the cycle of poverty. That is something which has generational impact—thousands of Victorian lives made better, families made safer, a chance for more Victorians to pursue their aspirations. It goes to the heart of our Labor values—values which we will always, always stand by. And importantly, unlike some who prefer slogans and marketing campaigns, we will get on with delivering these homes. We will not use this as a virtue-signalling opportunity and then put roadblocks in front of the implementation, a tactic I have seen all too often in my community by the Greens political party in relation to social housing projects. They will say they support more homes but when it comes to enabling it, when it comes to actually seeing these homes being built to give people opportunity and hope, it is all protest and obstruction. I am so proud of this government. Our government has used this opportunity and this moment in time to make these homes possible—to make safety and security possible.
This budget has delivered real impact for the Northcote electorate. From day one I have made securing school upgrades a priority, and I am thrilled to see that three more schools in our suburbs are receiving funding in this budget. The next stage of the Thornbury High School master plan will now commence, delivering a brand-new centre for science, technology, engineering, arts and maths, complementing the beautiful new gymnasium and performing arts centre that was completed earlier this year. Stage 2 of the Bell Primary masterplan will be delivered, giving the school and the local community a multipurpose hall and, more importantly, a place where for the first time the school will be able to come together under one roof. And Croxton School, a beautiful school that creates genuine pathways for young people with an intellectual disability, will continue its transformation with the next stage of its classroom upgrades. I have to thank all three principals, Michael Keenan, David Twite and Bev Fegan, and the school councillors who have worked with me to get these over the line.
But we know that schools are not just about facilities. They are about nurturing our young people to be confident, curious and self-determining individuals with the skills and opportunities they need to reach their potential. That is why I have been particularly proud to see in this budget such a substantive emphasis on supporting teachers and students. We are putting more than 4000 tutors in schools across Victoria to help those who need an extra hand. We are funding new jobs, skills and pathways coordinators in government secondary schools to give kids the expert advice and linkages they need to undertake training. We are completely transforming and expanding support for students with disabilities in schools, including those with autism and dyslexia.
As I said, this budget does not retreat. This budget is bold, it is big and it is what Victoria needs to recover from this pandemic and to build a stronger and fairer state, because ultimately budgets come down to choices—choices about where to invest, where to prioritise and where to create opportunity. We have seen what the federal Liberal Party has prioritised this year, and it is certainly not Victorians. This budget puts Victorian families and Victorian businesses first. It builds on our strengths and it puts us on a path to come out of this better than we were before, to restore our economy, to grow jobs, to reform and to invest in ways that fundamentally make Victorian lives better.
Now, I know that those opposite do not like to compare Victoria to other parts of the world—of course it does not suit them—but I cannot help but consider how things might have been different for us if a different approach were taken. I reflect on the statements made by the highly respected science writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Laurie Garrett, who recently said this about the situation in the US:
… I studied the status of public health all over the United States regarding pandemics and US response. The one thing we never role-played was the idea that the government itself would be the primary problem. We never anticipated a government that would have no clear messaging, no strategy, no actual primary intent to stop the microorganism.
There were those right here in Victoria who did not think it was possible for Victorians to achieve what we did in suppressing the virus. There were those right here who at every turn were undermining the public health advice, playing doomsday politics. The truth is that Victorians achieved what they did in spite of these voices. Together we stared down the doubt and conspiracy theories and stubbornly followed the health advice. And guess what? It turns out the health advice was right. Almost to the day we hit our targets to get to zero cases, just as the Premier and the chief health officer indicated.
The pandemic is not over and the economic impact of putting lives first is not over, but with this budget Victorians have every reason to be optimistic about the future, because this is a budget that recognises the substance of Victorians—our potential, our unwavering ability to dig deep, innovate, adapt and improve. Since 2014 our government has created over 500 000 jobs. We will use that expertise, that experience and that determination to again grow jobs and to set Victoria up for the future. This budget is just the beginning of that process. As I said at the start of this speech, it is a continuation of what we started when we came into government and a continuation of our Labor values and our program of prosperity for this state.
I want to commend and thank the Treasurer and the Premier on this budget which delivers so many benefits to my community. Whether that is jobs creation; school upgrades; road upgrades; more and better health care; training to give people opportunities; kinder upgrades, but also improvements to service delivery; tax breaks for businesses; or clean energy and real steps towards a renewables future, this budget will have tangible impacts on every Victorian, including those in my community. It has been a really tough year, and as we head towards Christmas I want to thank every person in my community who has pulled together and come through this year with resilience, strength, grace and integrity, because we could not have done it without every single one of them—the schoolteachers, the kinder teachers, the childcare workers, the workers in our supermarkets, the cleaners, the cooks, and every community organisation that pulled together to help those in need, including our neighbourhood houses. It has been extraordinary to see and a privilege to serve them this year, and this budget gives each and every one of them hope about the future and opportunities for the future. I am really, really looking forward to what it is going to mean going forward into next year. Not to put too much pressure on our Treasurer, but I am really looking forward to what the next budget will bring.
