Mr  Pallas (Tarneit)  —  It gives  me pleasure  and somewhat  of a  degree of disappointment to have to stand to speak in opposition to this matter. You would have thought  that on a day when this government’s  support hangs  by a  thread, when support for this government hangs in the balance on the vote of the member for Frankston and when the jobs of 300 workers at Avalon Airport hang  in the balance  this government would have  had one skerrick of introspection about its performance. You  would  have thought that  the members of  this  government would have  considered that  perhaps it was time they lived up to their rhetoric and got on with the job  rather  than getting on with the bluff and  bluster and the university-style debating tactics that go on in this place.

For far too long members of this  government  have demonstrated that they really do not understand that you have to manage both  an economy and a community. They have  no heart for the community and no stomach for  real  economic  management, which is about growing the state. Let us not forget that in  the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee  report this government  admits  that its  own  election commitments have blown out by  36 per  cent. That is a pretty amazing indictment of its own inability to manage; in three short years the costs have blown out by 36 per cent. That is hopeless. Talk about not being able to manage money!

Government members have no  vision and no capacity  to  get on with the  job  of delivering infrastructure and jobs for this state.

You have to wonder who told the Treasurer it would be a good idea to come in and pat  himself on the back on a day like this — on a day when  the government and the  unelected  Premier of this state  hang  by a thread  on  the support of the rorting member for Frankston — —

  The DEPUTY SPEAKER — Order! I ask the member to withdraw the word he has just used.

  Mr Pallas — I withdraw.  Here we are, in a situation where the Treasurer  was told it was a good idea to come into this place and pat himself on the back.

It is about revisiting  his university-style days  to bleat semicoherently about the  government’s capacity to manage  money and for  sound financial management, but there  is no demonstration of it in the figures that  surround this state at the moment. It is little wonder, really. You would have thought that the man who so  obsequiously sat at the knee of Peter Costello as  his  second-best  adviser would have looked at the facts before he let his ego and his self-congratulatory skills get out of hand. Perhaps it went without saying. Perhaps the  glasses and the schoolboy haircut made him seem like was a whiz-kid. I think that is why the Premier chose him and  promoted him — a decision  he would no doubt regret now. At least the Minister for  Police   and  Emergency  Services  knew  not  to draw attention to himself while he was flailing around incompetently  in the Treasury portfolio.

The current Treasurer seeks an audience for his failure, and he  has one, but it is not in this chamber; it is in Victoria.

It is in the people who  are looking for a job and vision from  this government, and all they hear  from  government members is how good they are.  It  is not so good. I fear that the Victorian economy and indeed the Victorian people will not be  able to  withstand much more of the  vandalism inflicted  upon them  by this government. It is not really a  laughing matter. This is a government that likes to bleat from the back bench that it is getting on with the job. The only job it is getting  on with  is on the Victorian people, who voted  for something  other than this. In fact the Victorian people  got goods  not fit for purpose, because this is a  government  not fit for  purpose.  It  does not even  match  its  own rhetoric.

Let us look at unemployment. This government has added 31 900 more Victorians to the rank  of the unemployed. You did not hear much from the Treasurer about that today. The unemployment  rate in  our state  now sits  at 5.7  per cent,  almost one-third higher than when the previous government was in power.

The current government allowed our workforce  participation rate to fall to 64.9 per cent, meaning that  30 000 Victorians have given up looking for a  job. That is how  hopeless  this  government  is  when  it  comes to managing the economy. Perhaps more  alarming is that the government has watched insecure and part-time employment form an even greater part of our economy. This  government has turned its  back  on  security of employment, turned its back on participation  in  the workforce  and  turned  its  back  on  the  fact that  it has  presided over  an unemployment rate that is one-third higher than it was. Government members think it is something to be proud of; that is the sad thing.

Of the few jobs  the Napthine government has created,  over 86 per cent of  them are part  time. Government members  have  ignored the jobs  crisis  in Victoria, standing by blithely while workers have been laid off right across the state. On a  day when  300 workers  see  their  jobs  at  risk,  this government  wants to congratulate itself on its economic management.

An economy is where people live and work.  The fact that the blind  arrogance of this government  is  so consuming of itself  that it cannot even look  to get on with the job of actually governing properly, responsibly and in the interests of Victoria  demonstrates exactly how much bluff, bluster and incompetence pervades the Treasury benches.

While in opposition the Minister for Police and Emergency Services condemned the Labor government. He said:

  Victoria’s budget is being kept afloat by the taxes, fees and charges that are  imposed on hardworking Victorians and by ever-higher levels of debt.

However, since  coming to government the coalition has increased the duty on new car purchases from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent. It has increased and expanded the congestion  levy on car parks by  37 per  cent, taking  another $183  million in revenue. It also increased disability accommodation fees by 50 per cent but very quickly had  to backflip  on that one. It increased the value  of penalty  units under  the Monetary  Units Act  2004 by  21 per  cent, bringing in  another $296 million in fine revenue.

This is a government  that said  it was  against introducing  new taxes and then introduced the  freight  infrastructure  charge. It  is  a government  that  has introduced a fire  services property levy which  has quite obnoxious  and unfair implications for many small business multiple property owners in this state.

In this financial year this government will collect  a  record  $48.3 billion in revenue.  Today  the state government takes an average of $753 more  in  revenue from every Victorian taxpayer than  it did  in 2010. Let us remember that figure because we  will be talking about  it  long and loud. This  is from a government that  said  it  was going to reduce the tax  burden  — in fact it has massively increased it.

The government has  slashed  $695 million  from  the  education budget.  It  has stripped $12 million in a year from the funding  for  Victorian  certificate  of applied learning coordinators. It has scrapped  the $300 School Start bonus from 100 000 families in this state who desperately needed it. It  has abandoned  the Victorian Schools Plan,  which would have  seen every Victorian school  rebuilt, renovated  or  extended by 2016-17.  It has scrapped  200  teaching and learning coaches, 45 literacy experts and 15 specialists for Koori students.

It  has backflipped on its  commitments to make  Victorian  teachers the highest paid in  the nation. However, why  should Victorians have believed the coalition in the  first place? It has scrapped the Young Readers program. It has taken $10 million  from the  School  Improvement  Fund, which  was  promised prior to  the election, and put it on the never-never list.

The coalition  government  has  scrapped  the apprentice completion bonus, which supports  employers  of 14  000  young  apprentices.  This  is  outrageous,  yet government members have  the audacity to  come into this place  and congratulate themselves  on  their economic management. Economic management is about  people, which  is  what those opposite  seem to have  forgotten.  Economic management is about giving people  the  means and  opportunity  to better themselves.  To  hit apprentices in  such  a  cruel  and  uncaring  way  is  a  demonstration of this government’s sociopathic tendencies.

This  government has slashed  $1.2  billion in TAFE  funding, leading to  campus closures and a massive discontinuation of services. However, worse than that the discontinuation of courses means the discontinuation of young people’s hopes and aspirations for the future.

The coalition  government  has  cut $826  million  from health.  As  the  latest statistics will show, a crisis  is unfolding in health. There has been a failure to  meet targets  for elective surgery for category 2 patients. Only 61 per cent of patients are treated  within 90 days. There  has  been a failure to  meet the target for elective  surgery category 3 patients,  which was that these patients be  treated  within 365  days.  There  have also  been  blockages  in  emergency departments, with 40 per cent of  Victorian  hospitals  unable to meet or accept patients arriving by ambulance in the required time.

This is a sign of crisis from a government so  obsessed with itself, so consumed with its narcissistic  pursuit  of economic purity,  that it has undermined  the opportunities of the people of Victoria. In the 12 months to 31 March 2013, 2323 people waited longer than 24 hours and 3159 mental  health  patients  waited for more than 8 hours to be transferred from an emergency department to  a bed. This is a  government that thinks it is doing a good job, but I  can tell members the number of its victims is mounting because it is a government whose arrogance and ignorance are on display today in equal measure.

This government promised  Victorians to get Victoria moving again. It  said that all of the service improvements  would  be delivered without pushing up debt and without  increasing taxes. That  was  its election  promise.  State final demand growth, a key indicator of overall growth, has plummeted from an average  growth of 3.9 per cent under Labor to 1.35 per cent. Our retail sector has been brought to the brink of collapse by this government.

In the entire time the government has been in office, retail  turnover has grown 3.1 per  cent,  which  is  less  than  half  of  the  national  average. Private infrastructure  investment has fallen by almost $900 million, which is a 16  per cent drop. Government  supported apprenticeships have fallen by 12 100. Debt has increased from $8  billion in 2010 to $15.2 billion today — and  in the forward estimates it is planned to  reach $25.1 billion. That is this government’s sound financial management  — a debt-tripling  government. These are  the  people who think they can manage money. They could not manage a chook raffle!

The Treasurer  claimed in  March  this  year  that  we  have a  record level  of infrastructure investment this year. In fact, between  2010 and 2012  capital  investment by Victorian  state  and local governments  fell by $1 billion — a 9 per  cent decrease. Almost 70 per cent of government capital  investment since 2011-12  has  been money  allocated  by the previous government. It is called a capital long tail. Between December 2010 and June 2013 we have seen private capital  investment  in  Victoria  fall  by  over almost  $900 million. Since  coming to office, this  government has slashed  new infrastructure  investment from  $3.9  billion  in 2009-10  to  $825 million  in 2013-14. This  is  even  when you  count  the government’s  ‘game-changing’  dud tunnel.

From  a peak of over $7 billion, or  2.2 per cent, of gross state product  under Labor, infrastructure investment is  now falling, or  should I say fading,  away under  this government. The vital  projects that were  initiated  under the last government are  gradually being completed, and this government is being seen for what it is: threadbare, visionless and vacuous.

But  government  members  remain  very self-congratulatory. Perhaps this is  not really  surprising.  I do not know of anyone who took the  government  seriously when it  boasted about its ‘record  investment in infrastructure’.  That  is why those opposite decided to waste $8 billion  on  a dud tunnel. Business certainly did not take them seriously.  When he  was in  opposition the Minister for Roads did not take this  seriously, and he has been  shown for the fraud that he is — the man who  promised he would not build  the tunnel but did. This is  a sign of missed opportunities.

See Tim’s speech in Hansard here.