Mr Pallas (Tarneit)  — I grieve for  Victoria’s economic performance and  its management  by this bungling,  self-absorbed  government. I  grieve  for a state which  has  seen its citizens  being  hoodwinked and misled —  not  led — by a government unable to come up with  a  coherent  plan of economic development for this state. It has cast adrift every shred of  its  pre-election commitments. In effect  it has  cast them  aside simply  to cling  to power  by  whatever  means necessary.

This government’s  so-called record of  sound  financial management is  built on smoke and mirrors, bluff and bluster and juvenile arrogance and ignorance.

The  Napthine government would have us  believe it is ready to take the wheel of the Victorian economy  with  a  steady hand  —  to  manage  it in  a  way  that Victorians would  expect of a government with a clear focus on the future — but that  is  not  how  it has conducted  itself.  It  is  reckless,  heartless  and hypocritical. It is endangering the prosperity of all Victorians.

In December 2010 the coalition  government released its first  budget update. It promised to  implement  an economic reform  agenda  that would fix  the problems created by  10 years  of Labor  surpluses — between 2000 and  2010 the  average operating surplus  of  the Victorian Labor  government was over  $1  billion. It promised to fix the problems created  by record  low levels  of debt  — between 2000 and 2010 the average  net debt for the state  of Victoria was $2.7 billion. It promised to fix  the  problems  created  by  record  employment growth — the average sat at 2.4 per cent.

It promised to fix the problems created by an average gross state product growth of 6.1 per cent per annum over the 10 years Labor was in office, and this period included the global financial crisis (GFC), which Labor had to manage for longer than this government has existed. Government members should not tell us that the problems confronting this government  were caused by the GFC, when its onset and the worst of it was  managed by a Labor government — and managed with  capacity and flexibility to grow the Victorian economy.

In opposition the member for Scoresby, who  was  sacked  as  Treasurer for being asleep  at  the wheel, accused  the Labor government  of  lacking a ‘transparent repayment plan for debt associated with infrastructure projects and  programs’.  Now the government  refuses  to even  tell  Victorians exactly how much its signature, game-changing, world-beating, intergalactic road tunnel  between the Eastern Freeway  and the Tullamarine  Freeway will cost, let alone how much  debt — that is, additional debt  — it is going to  take on for the tunnel or how it intends to pay it back.

What  we  do know  is  that  every piece of  advice  it  has received  from  its bureaucracy that has found its way into the  public domain  has said  in effect, ‘Do not  do this’. We know that  VicRoads has advised the Minister for Roads and said in effect, ‘Do not build this because it will not fix congestion at the top end of  the Eastern Freeway onto Hoddle Street’. In addition to  that there  was advice from the Linking Melbourne Authority, which said in effect, ‘Do not build this section of road as a priority;  there are  bigger, more important things to do’.

But  $6 billion  to $8 billion will be thrown into  this game  of infrastructure roulette that  could  well consign this  state’s economic opportunities  to pure folly. This is a march of folly by a government that does not know the direction in which it should go.  It is  absolutely visionless.  In effect  it intends  to accept the lion’s  share of the risk associated with this mega-project on behalf of the Victorian taxpayer. You could not think of anything more foolhardy in the current environment.

Why is  it such a bad idea? If  you look at the settlement  reached in regard to the  desalination plant  yesterday,  you  will understand  why.  In effect  $700 million of exposure of the Victorian taxpayer  will not be borne by the taxpayer as a consequence of the risk allocations in that desal agreement. In addition to that,  a  refinancing arrangement  was  only able to  be  negotiated because the previous  government  put  the  refinancing  arrangements  in  and ensured  that Victorians got the benefit of them.

But this  government  is so  self-absorbed  and self-obsessed that  it  does not acknowledge that the risks it is taking are both reckless and indifferent to the economic realities that confront the state.

In  opposition, members of  this  government were  harsh  critics of Labor’s  10 budget surpluses and the way it delivered them. We were accused of all manner of economic   transgressions.  The  member  for  Scoresby   derided  the  so-called congestion tax as being something that those on his side of the chamber opposed. I will tell  the house  why those  opposite opposed  it: because  they wanted to increase  it by 50 per cent,  apply it  to short-term  parking and  increase the footprint of  the  congestion  tax  beyond the  area of  the CBD  grid that  the previous government had put in place.

What do those opposite actually stand for?

They  went around telling Victorians that they were  against the congestion tax, but what they were against  was that it was not gaining enough revenue from  the Victorian people. The member for Scoresby even seems to suggest that Labor’s six cuts  to  WorkCover  premiums  were somehow  a  result  of profiteering  by  the authorities. The  Premier accused us  of bleeding the water  authorities dry and plundering dividends — imagine that! The  Treasurer accused us of finding extra revenue in the budget papers to prop up our rapidly fading bottom line.

When the first  iteration of this government  was elected, it  parroted  Labor’s commitment to  maintaining a minimum  $100 million operating  surplus. Since the Baillieu  government was  elected  —  and  more  recently  since  the  Napthine government  was  not elected —  government members have  done  nothing but make short-sighted  and  duplicitous decisions  in  the  name  of  propping  up their government’s surpluses. Let us take a look at some of those.

Members of this  government have increased and  extended the congestion  tax  to which  they  were  diametrically  opposed  so  that  it is  no longer  a tax  on congestion but a  cash  grab which discourages people from shopping in the city. In the process of doing  this,  government  members have got themselves an extra $50 million a year.

Members of  this government have also  ripped almost $2.5  billion  in dividends from publicly  owned corporations. In Labor’s last year in  government dividends totalled $243.3 million,  and in 2012-13  dividends totalled $1.168 billion. Let me put it  another way: that is  a  500 per cent increase  in dividend pilfering that is  going on at the cost of Victorian taxpayers. Make  no mistake about it! This pilfering  includes taking $340 million in dividends from  WorkCover. Under Labor taking a dividend  from WorkCover would  have  been unthinkable, but  even though we did not  do so, we managed  to reduce WorkCover premiums not  once but six times.

In opposition the current Treasurer accused Labor  of fiddling the books, but on Monday he  managed to  keep a  straight  face when  he fronted  the cameras  and claimed funding of  $20  million  for  improvements to bus shelters as a revenue stream.

In 2010 the government promised it would ensure total public sector net debt did not exceed the level forecast in its budget  update —  that was its commitment. Forecasts since then  show that Victoria reached its peak debt at the end of the last financial year, at $15.8 billion. According to the 2012-13 annual financial reports, released with much  fanfare on Monday — once again by the Treasurer — Victoria’s net debt was at $19.8 billion  at the end of the last financial year. The 2013-14 budget suggests that debt will reach $25.1 billion in 2014-15.  This is from the people  who  promised  to  bring debt down. Members of this government said they were going to bring debt down and not increase taxes or put new taxes  in place. What a joke! What a bunch of financial frauds populate the government benches in this place, and what a sham it is that members of the government, including  the Premier who nobody elected, in effect are sitting there telling  Victorians that they will not even  have an opportunity to look at the greatest debt burden with which Victorians have ever been encumbered.

This is happening despite the fact that government members fronted the people of Victoria and said that not only were they  not going to toll the  east-west link but they  were  not going to build  it. Before the election they  said that such investments were all  about  public  transport.  Of course the stock in trade of those opposite is basically to mislead the people of Victoria. Every budget this government has handed down has effectively pushed  the  peak debt levels of this state up higher and higher into the future.

Of course let us not forget about jobs,  because this  government has. Who could forget the  pontificating from the  sacked sleepy former Treasurer  of Victoria, the man who could not be found, having gone missing for two years? He is the man who said  to  the Committee for  Economic  Development of  Australia  that every government would be judged upon its performance in terms of job creation. He was so concerned about job creation that when his  government brought down its first budget he could not bring  himself to utter the word ‘jobs’. Jobs became a thing of the past.

There are now about 32 000 more unemployed  Victorians than  there were when the member for  Hawthorn  was elected  Premier.  Of course he  was  elected Premier, unlike the person the member for Frankston elected as Premier. We also know that once upon a time in this place the member for South-West Coast equated unelected premiers with Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe, so we know what he thinks of unelected premiers.

In  effect  some 3600  people  have  become  unemployed  since  the  member  for South-West Coast became the  Premier,  and  of  course  it  was  the  member for Frankston who conspired with him to knife the elected Premier of Victoria.

More than 80 per cent of the jobs created by this government are part-time jobs, because  this  government wants  to  encourage employment insecurity.  This is a government which will lose no opportunity to talk down the economy  in order  to reduce opportunities for young people in our  community.  With  80  per  cent of newly  created jobs being part time, the average hours worked by Victorians  are falling much  faster  than  those  of  the  country  overall,  so  we are seeing increasingly insecure  employment and increasingly  less work for those  who are employed, which speaks loudly about an economy that is coming to a grinding halt and rapidly becoming a dead weight on the Australian economy.

In December  2010 Victoria’s unemployment rate was 4.8 per cent, when the member for South-West Coast  and the member for Frankston knifed the elected Premier it was  5.7  per cent and now it has increased  to  5.8 per cent. Just yesterday we heard the sad announcement of another 100 jobs being lost from Toyota in Altona. Predictably the Premier does not seem to want to do anything about that. That is the story of this government. It is a story that is both shameful and shameless. Members of this government went to the  people of  Victoria saying  one thing — ‘We  will  bring  down debt’ —  yet  debt has grown from  $8  billion under the previous government  to $25 billion  going forward. Members  of  this government said they would reduce taxation and not introduce new taxes, but as a percentage of gross state  product  this government is  the  highest taxing  government  in Victoria’s history. This government  is awash with revenue — in fact $2 billion extra in revenue since it came to office —