Kat Theophanous: I am honoured to contribute to this matter of public importance, which asks that the house notes that the Allan Labor government is helping working families with the cost of living. Right now we know many people are feeling the pressure of rising costs. Whether it is paying the bills, getting the kids through school, meeting rent and mortgage payments or keeping up with the weekly shop, the rising cost of living is a challenge, and the very real stress and anxiety of this situation is being felt by families in Australia but also across the world. Our government recognises this, and it is why we are stepping up, delivering real, practical support where it is needed most. We are making big investments that make a real difference in people’s lives, particularly for working families, who we know bear the brunt of rising living cost challenges.

I want to begin with education, because as a Labor government we hold dear and fiercely protect the right of every child to access a great public education and the right to attend kinder and school and have that support and that launching pad into a life of learning and purpose. It is this Labor government that has introduced the generational and life-changing reform of free three- and four-year-old kinder and our aspiration for a full year of pre-prep, giving four-year-olds access to 30 hours of play-based learning, saving families up to $2500 per child per year, but critically also allowing more parents to be able to make the choice to go back to work after having a child.

Just last month the Premier and I had the opportunity to visit a brand new local kinder that is now co-located at Thornbury High. It is called Darebin Creek kinder, and it is allowing for 99 new kinder spots in the heart of my community. It is a spectacular new service for local families. Last week I also joined our Darebin mayor Kristine Olaris, a Labor mayor, and centre director Helen Evdokimou-Mina at Merri community kinder, where we celebrated an expansion of the three-year-old room. We gave kids a little sneak peek of their free kinder kits, filled with books and crafts to take home.

These are real-life investments in my own community that our Labor government is supporting. Families in my community have also directly saved now over $1.1 million since the start of the school term through the $400 school saving bonus. It is probably more now since that calculation was made. But that is kids going home with new school uniforms, with schoolbags, with textbooks. It is kids being able to participate in excursions and school activities like swimming and sport, and it is families with an extra bit of buffer to spend on their other priorities. We know that schools are these special settings that allow us to have meaningful interventions and supports for children and for families – supports that reflect our Labor government’s commitment to social equality. That is why our government has expanded free school breakfast clubs to every government school for the first time. It is why we deliver the Smile Squad free dental care, the free Glasses for Kids program, the Get Active Kids $200 sports vouchers and free period products in schools and in public places. I spent some time with students at the Northern College of the Arts and Technology last November talking about that fantastic initiative and how important it was to those students to have access to free pads and tampons ‍– items that are a necessity, not a luxury. The truth is that the Liberal Party would never in a million years prioritise these sorts of investments. It is just not in their wheelhouse. They have not committed to retaining these initiatives. They have not said they will keep free kinder, not once – a transformational economic reform, and they have not said that they will keep it. But as families in my community know, these are initiatives that materially assist people in meeting living costs.

So too are the many, many things our Labor government is doing in the health space. As Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health I have spoken to countless women and girls about the cost barrier to accessing health care. That is why our $153 million women’s health package is delivering a public health system that will be unmatched in Australia: 20 dedicated women’s health clinics, 20 sexual and reproductive health hubs, a virtual women’s health clinic, a mobile women’s health clinic and an Aboriginal women’s health clinic. These are life-changing investments and reforms designed to deliver free specialist care for Victorian women and girls, which has been needed for far too long, for conditions like endometriosis, PCOS, menopause and incontinence – conditions that can be very costly, I might add, to treat. It complements our investments into urgent care clinics, into public IVF, into the pharmacies pilot and into the virtual emergency department. What a fantastic initiative that is. What will the Liberal–National coalition do if we ever have the horror of witnessing them take the reins of government again? If the past is any indicator of the future, it will be cuts and closures and families left without services and supports. We have absolutely no guarantees that the Liberal–National coalition will continue any of the initiatives that our Labor government has put in place to help Victorians.

Last week I joined the Minister for Finance at the new social housing our Labor government has built in my community on Oakover Road in Preston. We were welcomed into the home of Tom, an 80-year-old resident who has been living there since May. Tom told us about his early life on sheep stations and showed us pictures of his late wife and the family. He told us about what it meant to him to have his apartment – an affordable, modern, secure home. It is cosy, clean and filled with his things – a place of comfort where he can listen to his radio, wander down to the Woolies, do his weekly shop and pop into the art gallery that we built as part of that development on the lower level. Tom’s apartment is one of 99 in the building and one of 12,000 social homes we are building as part of the Big Housing Build – homes that the Greens political party still oppose as recently as today, railing in this chamber against building more social homes. At a time when the cost of housing is one of the biggest issues facing Victorians, the Greens want to put the brakes on and keep people living in housing stress because that makes for a better slogan.

We know that demand is driving up the cost of housing, and that is why we are getting on with approving and building more homes than any other state and we are slashing off-the-plan stamp duty. Our government is making renting fairer too, something I am working on as the Parliamentary Secretary for Renters. It means banning no-fault evictions and all types of rental bidding and making sure that rentals meet the minimum standards before they are being advertised. It means a portable bond scheme to help alleviate the stress of outlaying two bonds at once. It is establishing Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria, a fast and free way to resolve rental disputes that will speed up processes and get things settled more quickly.

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting with Financial Counselling Victoria at Banyule Community Health to discuss what an impact free financial counselling can have when someone is feeling overwhelmed by their financial situation. I spoke to Cathy, who is a financial counsellor who speaks with people every day who are concerned about their bills, who might be falling behind and need that little bit of advocacy and advice to turn things around. That is why our government is also investing another $15 million over the next three years to expand financial counselling services.

In energy, Solar Homes and the Victorian energy upgrades program, what a difference they are making to my community and so many communities across Victoria for families that for the first time have the chance to upgrade their heating or hot water, have the chance to reduce the costs of their energy bills, to put solar on their roofs, to install a battery and to contribute to the climate action we need to leave a sustainable state to our kids. Those are real up-front rebates available to Victorians right now. It is our government doing it, driving down the cost of bills at scale, helping families to manage their household budgets.

There is the container deposit scheme. I could go on. We have not talked about that yet, but I do commend the member for Pascoe Vale on putting forward this important matter of public importance. I just finish on this: it is Labor governments that will help Victorians, the Liberals will not.